List of All Articles with Tag 'ports'

Perhaps it was almost as Todd Boehly envisaged: a Chelsea game in May, the new champions given a guard of honour after securing what may prove the first of a treble, cruising to victory over fallen rivals. Except Chelsea had to form the guard of honour – in perhaps the closest they came to a coherent formation for quite some time – and Manchester City were celebrating in the sunshine. The nouveaux riches were companion clubs for years but, since each came into extreme wealth, they have never been separated by a greater gulf. If money has talked, and one has spent largely well in recent seasons, the other spectacularly badly in the last 12 months, the consequence is that City’s fifth league title in six seasons was sealed the day before they condemned Chelsea to a first bottom-half finish since 1996. City have the luxury of having Julian Alvarez as a second-choice striker; the rested Erling Haaland’s deluxe deputy is a World Cup winner and he extended their winning run to 12 league games. But, in a season of ignominies for Chelsea, there were more. Pep Guardiola’s team felt suddenly altered on Saturday night, City’s coronation prompting him to rest nine of the starters against Real Madrid. But his second-string side are better than the club with a £600m makeover; indeed City have more than twice as many points as Chelsea. Chelsea had lost to a severely weakened City in the FA Cup and did so again in the Premier League. Over the season, Chelsea have met City four times, lost all four and failed to score in each. Alvarez has scored against them in three competitions, whereas Chelsea have only found the net against anyone in two. Of their quartet of defeats, this may have been the most respectable. Real Madrid had conceded four at the Etihad, like Liverpool and Arsenal before them. Chelsea only let in one as City chalked up a 16th consecutive home win in 2023; indeed, incongruously, the last team to stop them on their own turf was Frank Lampard’s Everton. But the context changed the minute Nottingham Forest beat Arsenal. This became an exhibition game for City, a chance for Guardiola to turn to nine substitutes and make them starters. Even Kalvin Phillips got a belated first start for City. Some 364 days after the previous time he figured in a Premier League starting 11, he headed against the base of the post, a first City goal eluding him. He was part of a makeshift midfield with Rico Lewis and Phil Foden; one is often a full-back of sorts, the other normally found in the front three. It was a reason why City were more open than usual, though it scarcely mattered. More damningly, gaps magically appeared in Chelsea’s five-man defence when City scored. Cole Palmer picked out Alvarez and the Argentinian was free to place a shot beyond Kepa Arrizabalaga. Palmer began in terrific style and the 21-year-old almost marked just his second Premier League start with a goal, Trevoh Chalobah clearing his shot off the line. Foden came close with an audacious lob while Alvarez had a second goal ruled out because of a handball by Riyad Mahrez, his supplier. Alvarez was terrific but if no one else has a second-choice striker of such stature, City can argue he is a £14m bargain. Chelsea, with as many league goals as Haaland has on his own, lack any kind of potent first-choice centre-forward, let alone a high-grade understudy. A side with a marked aversion to scoring had the opportunities to level after making a timid start. Stefan Ortega denied Raheem Sterling a goal on his return to the Etihad Stadium. Sterling was thwarted, too, by a brilliant goal-line clearance from his former teammate John Stones, even if he was then ruled offside. Sterling came off to a standing ovation, but from the home faithful; named Footballer of the Year and scorer of 31 goals in a season for City may have felt nostalgic for his old club. His season, like Chelsea’s, has been a harrowing affair. Chelsea’s other threat stemmed from two of their own. Conor Gallagher headed Lewis Hall’s cross against the post. Hall and Gallagher acquitted themselves well, two youth-team products faring better than many of the buys. Meanwhile, Noni Madueke was strangely demoted to the bench by Lampard; Trevoh Chalobah ended up at left wing-back, irrelevant experiments as Chelsea’s season peters out. Guardiola brought on some of the regulars, in Stones, Rodri, Haaland and Kevin de Bruyne, which meant they had to flee in the pitch invasion after the final whistle. At least, though, they had something to celebrate. Two years ago, Chelsea beat City three times in six weeks and defeated them in a Champions League final. But, as one closes in on a historic treble and the other has endured one of the worst campaigns a superclub has ever had, it feels far longer ago. Read More Man City vs Chelsea LIVE: Premier League trophy presentation delayed by pitch invasion Five titles in six years: Are Manchester City destroying the Premier League? Enzo Fernandez is Chelsea’s sole shining light to take into next season

Daniil Medvedev hadn’t won a single match in his three previous appearances at the Italian Open

Sébastien Haller has fired Borussia Dortmund to the top of the Bundesliga with one round remaining by scoring two goals in a 3-0 win at 10-man Augsburg

Manchester City celebrated its Premier League title in style with a 1-0 win against Chelsea

Cameron Smith and Adam Scott have taken early advantage of the ideal scoring conditions in the final round of the PGA Championship at Oak Hill

The end of the 2022/23 season cannot come quickly enough for Chelsea, more so than for any other Premier League club. A pair of transfer windows have yielded a huge turnover in the playing staff and more is to come this summer, while the eventual appointment of Mauricio Pochettino has to bring an end to months of farcical decision-making within the coaching structure. There’s so much to fix that even interim boss Frank Lampard cannot be held hugely accountable for their impending bottom-half finish - though what is now an 11 per cent win rate, following this 1-0 defeat to re-crowned champions Manchester City, certainly bears plenty of scrutiny in itself. All in all, it’s far worse than one which can be passed off as just a season to forget; lessons have to be learned, errors rectified, the few positives which do exist taken forward as cornerstones for next season and beyond. There aren’t too many of those, but Enzo Fernandez is one. As a £106 million midfielder perhaps declaring him a ‘positive’ is the absolute least Chelsea fans should expect, but since none of the £210m or so spent on Mykhailo Mudryk, Marc Cucurella, Benoit Badiashile, Noni Madueke and David Datro Fofana would even reach that level so far - nor the £10m loan fee for Joao Felix - then the World Cup-winning No.5 certainly qualifies as a notable exception. At the Etihad Stadium, the good and the bad around Fernandez’s game was on show. Not that the bad parts are his fault for the most part, mind; rather, they are the bad aspects of the team around him which are visibly and increasingly frustrating him in recent weeks. He was, indirectly, involved in Man City’s opener for example. Fernandez made a smart - if routine and expected - quick drop into space to receive possession off his central defenders. Sadly for the Blues, Wesley Fofana’s first-time pass to him was wayward, Cole Palmer rampaged towards the back line and Julian Alvarez did the rest. Similarly in the first half, Fernandez embarked on a defensive burst, stepping out of the midfield line to press one City player, then another. He turned, looking to Kai Havertz to follow him and step out for the next challenge - only to see him not bothering. Enzo berated his teammate, did it himself, dropped in, pressed again, turned around once more...and this time Conor Gallagher hadn’t closed in to his man either. The Argentine thrust his arm out, clearly disgusted, and gave up the ghost. Over and over across the course of this largely irrelevant occasion - the match reduced to serving as a central focus point for a title celebration after Arsenal’s latest choke - Fernandez was left irked by his teammates’ lack of effort, lack of movement, lack of quality. He, and few others in dark blue, interspersed the game with instances of technique: a lofted diagonal to set up Raheem Sterling in the first half, another clipped reverse ball in the final instances which almost brought a late equaliser for Cesar Azpilicueta. Fernandez has the capacity to take the ball on the half turn and execute the pass he has already seen; sadly, too many of those playing higher upfield than him either lack the willingness or the ability to make the necessary run on time. That will be one of Pochettino’s big jobs, once he is indeed confirmed as the new Stamford Bridge appointment. Chelsea lack the ideas and patterns of both how to build from deep and how to link up play in the middle and final thirds. Adding in the obvious issues of goalscoring they’ve suffered this term, Enzo Fernandez as the cog to build around makes most sense from both the perspective of a blank tactical canvas, and from trying to get most value out of their biggest investments. Lampard has made the Argentinian midfielder a key component in a failing side; it’ll be up to Pochettino to put him at the heart of a functioning one.

The weather has broken at Oak Hill ahead of the final round of the PGA Championship

French Open organizers say that three-time Grand Slam champion Andy Murray has withdrawn from the clay-court event

A stampede by fans at a quarterfinals soccer match in the Salvadoran league has left 12 people dead and injured dozens more

Italian Open organizers have promised to install a retractable roof over the tennis court by 2026

There's breaking world records, and then there's demolishing them -- which is what Maria Perez did at the European Race Walking Team Championships on Sunday.

After tearing his ACL during the 2020/21 season, Denver Nuggets guard Jamal Murray turned to his head coach with tears in his eyes and asked if he would be traded, Denver head coach Michael Malone recalled on Saturday after his team defeated the LA Lakers 119-108 and took a 3-0 lead in the Western Conference finals.