Sporting CP host Arsenal on Tuesday, with Real Madrid facing Bayern München later that same evening, and the contrast between those two fixtures tells you almost everything about where the weight of expectation currently sits in this competition. Arsenal go into their first leg having just been knocked out of the FA Cup by a Championship club 48 hours earlier, carrying the specific psychological bruise of a side that keeps being told they are ready and keeps finding reasons...

Manchester City had a hat-trick hero, Arsenal had a humiliation, and English football had the kind of Saturday that reminds you why the FA Cup still matters. City beat Liverpool 4-0 at the Etihad, with Erling Haaland completing his hat-trick in 18 minutes, a penalty, a header and a finish off the crossbar, his 12th for the club since arriving in 2022, and his first of this season. Pep Guardiola watched from the stands serving a touchline ban, with assistant...

Nine points clear in the Premier League, a Champions League quarter-final on Tuesday, and a dressing room that keeps having to answer the same question, are Arsenal actually going to do it this time? Arsenal are Nine points clear, though City have a game in hand, and the mathematics of the title race still strongly favour Arteta's side, but mathematics are not the full picture, and the full picture is more complicated than the table suggests. In the space of...

Last season Tottenham Hotspur won the Europa League, let that breathe for a second. They lifted a European trophy in May 2025, confetti fell on their players, the fans celebrated, and the club issued a statement about pushing forward, about building, about ambition. Ten months later they are fighting to stay in the Premier League. I genuinely don't know where to start with this because the collapse has been so total, so swift, and so inexplicable that it almost doesn't feel...

Five goals, A red card, A goal of the season contender, A comeback, Ten men hanging on for dear life, A title race that refused to die. Yesterday's Madrid derby at the Bernabéu was the kind of football match that reminds you why you watch this sport, and at the centre of it as he so often is was Vinicius Junior. Let me take you through it because it deserves to be told properly. Real Madrid started the brighter side, Valverde hit...