• Premier League remain unconvinced by 777 Partners takeover
• Everton could confirm top-flight survival against Brentford

Sean Dyche has likened his job as Everton’s manager to “juggling sand” amid protracted uncertainty over the club’s ownership and financial future.

Dyche admits there will be no assurances over his summer transfer plans even in the event of securing the club’s Premier League status on Saturday. Everton can guarantee survival with victory against Brentford at Goodison Park providing Luton do not win at Wolves.

Continue reading...

Enzo Maresca’s side kept their heads to secure promotion but financial worries loom large as club prepare for the top flight

A campaign that began with Enzo Maresca insisting his Leicester City players sleep overnight at their sprawling, 185-acre Seagrave training base for the first week of pre-season in the name of team building has ended with their primary mission accomplished, promotion boxed off, the Championship crown likely to follow. Leicester’s most memorable and marvellous moment came when they confounded expectations; this time, it was a case of simply meeting them by getting back to the Premier League at the first attempt.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that surely the most expensively assembled squad in the division – their wage bill was the biggest outside the Premier League top six 12 months ago – has sealed that return after Leeds lost at QPR on Friday night but it turned into a slog after they ceded a 17-point lead. In the last couple of months, their 51-game season has flitted between a sense of collapse and catharsis. “It has been a very long season,” Maresca said with a wry smile this week.

Continue reading...

Across 90 raucous minutes in west London Leeds lost control of this crucial game and with it their future.

They hoped this would be another step on a sprint to promotion but instead they stumbled, and QPR’s emphatic and fully deserved victory not only secured their own place in the Championship it also promoted Leicester, who will travel to Preston on Monday in the knowledge that their return to the Premier League at the first attempt is certain.

Continue reading...

• Feyenoord to receive £7.7m after verbal agreement made
• Klopp says position is ‘best in the world at the best club’

Arne Slot is set to become Liverpool’s next manager after the terms of his move from Feyenoord were agreed in principle between the two clubs on Friday.

Liverpool and Feyenoord have been negotiating a compensation package since the Anfield club made an official move for the 45-year-old earlier this week. The two parties have now reached a verbal ­agreement over the deal, which will see ­Feyenoord receive €9m (£7.7m) plus €2m in add-ons for a coach who has two years remaining on his contract.

Continue reading...

Star striker talks achieving another promotion, potentially making scoring history and finding acceptance in his son’s autism

‘The desire to win will be the same as every other game,” Paul Mullin says as he anticipates a Hollywood-style finale for Wrexham on Saturday afternoon while their fans at home and around the world celebrate a second straight promotion . Wrexham’s last game in League Two is against the new champions, Stockport County, and Mullin is determined to end another tumultuous and successful season with a personal milestone.

If Mullin scores against Stockport he will become the first player since Alan Shearer to have racked up at least 25 goals in four consecutive seasons across the top five flights of English football. Mullin has spent the past hour thoughtfully discussing his role in the delirium surrounding Wrexham’s rise under the celebrity ownership of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney and a range of subjects from finding acceptance and even joy in his son’s autism to how this season began with a fleeting acknowledgment of his seemingly imminent death.

Continue reading...

Memories of 2004 still sting and in Sunday’s derby Tottenham have the chance to take a wrecking ball to Arsenal’s title hopes

It would not scan like the original Arsenal terrace chant. “We took a big step towards winning the league at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.” The prospect, though, is real. And before Sunday’s derby – the 195th edition of the fixture that determines the mood in north London – it is utterly sickening for Spurs supporters.

Spurs could not stop the Arsenal Invincibles in April 2004 and it is fair to say they have not heard the end of it since. Nor was that the first time their hated rivals had won the league at White Hart Lane. Arsenal did exactly that on the final day of the 1970-71 season when Ray Kennedy’s late header gave them a 1-0 victory.

Continue reading...

• Championship updates, 8pm BST kick-off at Loftus Road
• Live scoreboard | Read Football Daily | And you can mail Taha

So Leeds are without Patrick Bamford; in comes Joël Piroe to lead the line. QPR have the same XI that beat Preston.

Here’s how they’re looking tonight.

Continue reading...

Chelsea take a lead into the Champions League semi-final second leg, with the manager plotting a tactical masterclass

“It just feels like a longer half-time, that’s all it is,” said Emma Hayes matter-of-factly about the week-long wait between Chelsea’s 1-0 Champions League defeat of Barcelona and the second leg at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening.

“We’re at the midway stage of a game that’s a minimum of 180 minutes long. There may be adjustments for half-time and we’re ready for the second half, that’s how I present it to the players.”

Continue reading...

• Premier League CEO unhappy with lack of Fifa consultation
• Manchester City’s 115 charges to be resolved ‘in near future’

Richard Masters has criticised Fifa for failing to consult domestic leagues over its plans for an expanded Club World Cup, whose inaugural edition in the United States is set to occupy a month of the 2025 summer break.

As the chief executive of the Premier League reiterated that Manchester City’s 115 charges will be resolved in “the near future”, with hearings set to take place in the autumn, league officials from across Europe came together to issue a warning over an ever-expanding club calendar, with Fifa’s new competition the main target.

Continue reading...