Football

Roman Abramovich has written to his players pledging to raise support for campaigns to root out prejudice following a spate of online harassment incidents over the past week. Reece James exchanged vile messages he had been sent. While Marcus Rashford, Anthony Martial and Axel Tuanzebe trio were all targeted by racial violence, along with Romaine Sawyers of West Brom. Abramovich, including James, is understood to have written to every member of the Chelsea men's squad. Message contains express how "appalled" he was by the violence and his renewed determination to tackle it. “I am appalled by the racist abuse targeted at Reece on social media,” the Russian said. “Racism has no place in our club nor in our society. Our club is committed to fighting racism, antisemitism and all form...

Mohamed Salah ended his six-game Premier League scoreless run on Sunday as Liverpool defeated West Ham 3-1 at the London Stadium. The first two were scored by Salah to put Liverpool in charge. On 84 minutes, Georginio Wijnaldum added a third before Craig Dawson snatched West Ham's consolation goal two minutes later. With both teams managing only one shot on goal each, the first half was far from encouraging. On 56 minutes, Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp replaced James Milner with Curtis Jones. And the 20-year-old used his first touch of the ball to set up the opening goal for Salah. Salah curled a left-footed shot around the players and into the top right corner. Just over 10 minutes later, after a West Ham corner, Liverpool broke through Trent Alexander-Arnold and Xherdan Sh...

Police in Greater Manchester have reported they are investigating racist remarks sent via social media to a number of Manchester United players. The intervention comes when a number of famous Premier League players have announced in the past seven days that they have faced racial harassment. In addition to Romaine Sawyers of West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea's Reece James, United's Marcus Rashford, Axel Tuanzebe and Anthony Martial have all been threatened. While Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford is the latest victim of the abuse. Rashford said he chose not to share screenshots of the messages he had been sent. He said “it would be irresponsible to do so… I have lovely kids of all colors following me and they don't have to read it”. The Manchester United player described ...

A moment of Jack Grealish's genius teed up Ross Barkley to score the game's only goal as Aston Villa won 1-0 away against Southampton. The visitors had to suffer an early attack from Southampton and when Matthew Cash appeared to handle the ball in the net. They however were fortunate not be given a penalty, as VAR analysis ruled the touch accidental. Barkley gave Villa the lead against the run of play in the 41st minute. He arrived into the box unmarked to head Grealish's brilliant first-time cross past Southampton keeper Alex McCarthy. Southampton struggled once again in attack after scoring two goals in their previous six league games. Thanks in no small part to a good defensive effort by Villa. They created plenty of chances but failed to get many of them on goal. When str...

Erling Braut Haaland is under contract until 2024 at Dortmund, but it is known that if they obtain an offer greater than his €75m (£66m) release clause, the Bundesliga club may be tempted to sell the striker. Chelsea is one of the few European football clubs that will have that kind of money available this summer to invest. However, Real Madrid are favourites to sign the 20-year-old Norway international. He has scored 37 goals in 37 appearances for Dortmund in all competitions, and are confident he will end up at the Bernabeu. In addition to Haaland, Chelsea are also said to be among a host of clubs interested in Bayern Munich defender David Alaba. The 28-year-old Austria international has turned down Bayern's offer of a new contract and will be a free agent at the end of the se...

With a commanding 3-1 victory at Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool's spluttering attack burst back to life to help the champions return to winning ways. Roberto Firmino, Trent Alexander-Arnold and Sadio Mane's goals capped a dominant display by Jurgen Klopp's side. This was Liverpool’s first league win since the 7-0 thrashing of Crystal Palace on Dec. 19 and restored their place in the top four. For Jose Mourinho's, the defeat became an even greater blow as he announced after the match that Spurs striker Harry Kane would be out "a few weeks" with both ankle injuries. When Mane was through on goal but steered his shot wide, Liverpool should have ended their drought in the opening minutes. That miss looked expensive a few minutes later as Son Heung-Min thought he had given Spurs the le...