List of All Articles with Tag 'son'

Marcus Rashford has boosted Manchester United’s top-four Premier League hopes by returning to training. England striker Rashford, who has scored 29 goals this season, missed Saturday’s 2-0 victory over Wolves with a leg injury. “There is good news regarding Marcus Rashford and Scott McTominay, who have both returned to training,” a United statement read after Erik ten Hag’s first-team squad trained at Carrington on Wednesday. “Our leading scorer took part in the session after missing the win over Wolves due to injury.” Scotland midfielder McTominay is also closing in on a return, having not played since scoring in a 2-0 win over Everton on April 8. France defender Raphael Varane, who Ten Hag said was replaced late on against Wolves as a precaution, also trained on Wednesday. Marcel Sabitzer this week joined Lisandro Martinez and Donny van de Beek on the sidelines for the rest of the season. Fourth-placed United continue their bid for Champions League football at Bournemouth on Saturday. After their trip to the south coast, United conclude their league campaign with home games against Chelsea and Fulham. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

It’s 22 years and counting since Coventry City last graced the Premier League, over two decades of ups and downs, necessary ups as a result of downs, a whole chapter and more of club history written outside of the game’s elite. Once, the Sky Blues were synonymous with top-flight football, iconic Nineties names – if not always quite among the elite – throughout the team. They lined up for the first Premier League campaign, in 1992/93, and stayed a part of that fledgling top flight for the first nine years, finishing in the bottom half each term but always there, always a tough opponent, always carrying players with a backstory, a big future, or both. But an entire generation of football fans have never seen Coventry among the top clubs. A sea change has happened at England’s highest level since they were on the scene; they departed in 2001, two years before Roman Abramovich bought Chelsea and could now return one year after he sold it. While billions were moved around in the transfer market and in broadcast deals in Coventry’s absence, they embarked on an altogether more painful journey; should they complete the comeback on 27 May and win the EFL Championship play-off final they will become the first team to go from the Premier League all the way down to the fourth tier... and come all the way back up again. Before they can dream of all that, though, they must overcome Middlesbrough in the second leg of a two-legged semi final. The first leg, on home soil, was a goalless draw. A generation back, that would have been Highfield Road. For those who haven’t followed the fortunes and failings of Coventry’s ownership since then, that memorable old ground – where they played for over a century – was demolished in 2005. They moved to the Ricoh Arena, but less than 10 years later there were leasing issues and disagreements, resulting in the team spending a season at Sixfields in Northampton, 33 miles away. A return to within the city limits lasted only another few years, with the 2019/20 and 20/21 campaigns spent playing home games at Birmingham City’s St Andrew’s stadium – this time 23 miles away, and in the opposite direction to Sixfields. Two seasons back at the renamed Ricoh (now the Coventry Building Society Arena) have followed, with a 10-year deal to play there seemingly securing the club’s future at the ground – but the stadium owners have since been bought out and Coventry now only have an agreement to stay at the stadium until the end of this campaign. Investment group Sisu Capital bought the Sky Blues in 2007 to stop them going out of business, but under Ray Ranson’s chairmanship the club floundered on and off the pitch. Liquidation and relegation to League Two painted a bleak picture; the EFL Trophy in 2017 and promotion back to League One in 2018 offered a glimpse of hope. Doug King, a local businessman, finally completed a full takeover just a few months ago and immediately insisted on a future of “transparency and clarity”, noting there was no debt on the club and no interest would be payable on loans provided to it. However, he was unable to secure the purchase of the stadium, leaving work to do there for next season. Yet even that question mark only becomes cause for excitement if Coventry can pull off the most improbable of finishes to this campaign. When King took sole ownership on 27 January – just four months to the day before the play-off final – Coventry sat 15th in the Championship. They had won nine games all season, and lost 10. They had a negative goal difference. Their first game of the new era took place the next day and they won – and they have done so, again and again, in nine of their last 19, losing only twice. Mark Robins has managed a minor miracle in that most mad-cap of leagues, while it’s worth noting that the final day of the regular season saw them play away at the team they now face twice more in the play-offs. A 1-1 draw at Boro didn’t give much away for either side, while Coventry won the early-season meeting on home soil. Robins, of course, is the former striker who – as myth, legend or partial truth tells it – saved Sir Alex Ferguson’s career at Manchester United in those pre-trophy early seasons, scoring a goal in a must-win FA Cup clash which might otherwise have seen the Scot sacked. Robins went on to play for Norwich and Leicester, before a nomadic final decade or so in the game. This spell with Coventry, his second with the club, is his sixth coaching job. He is just three games away from giving the fans their best occasion in decades. And they have had plenty of those memorable occasions before. This is the club of Dion Dublin, Noel Whelan, Darren Huckerby, Robbie Keane. And before that, of Steve Ogrizovic, Roland Nilsson, Roy Wegerle, Gary McAllister and Peter Ndlovu. They were genuinely exciting, talented, committed players who could certainly have played for the biggest sides – some indeed went on to do so – had that era been like this one, where top clubs swoop continuously on any of those below them who fare well. Now it is instead to Viktor Gyokeres, Gustavo Hamer and Callum Doyle the fans will look, in hope and in anguish, that a long and difficult road might be just weeks from the final corner. What lays around it is almost entirely unknown, yet it could also in many ways mark the most incredible full-circle journey the Premier League era has seen. Read More Michael Carrick on the brink of managerial success with Middlesbrough, unlike old England teammates Coventry’s Mark Robins feels pressure is on Middlesbrough in play-off second leg How to watch Championship play-offs Coventry and Middlesbrough fail to land early blow in Championship play-off semi-final Coventry and Middlesbrough fail to land blow in Championship play-off semi-final Kitman Chris Marsh overcomes illness to help support Coventry’s promotion push How to watch Championship play-offs

The leaders of South Korea and Canada have vowed to strengthen their security and economic cooperation to address challenges posed by North Korea and expand Canadian supplies of minerals crucial to South Korea’s technology industry as they held a summit in Seoul

By Luc Cohen and Brendan O'Brien NEW YORK A U.S. judge is set on Wednesday to formally mete

By Tim Reid and Nathan Layne Amid the headline-grabbing insults and name-calling, Donald Trump is pursuing a surprisingly

Youssef En-Nesyri could easily have walked away from Sevilla's grim situation in January, but the Moroccan international stayed and his goals have fired the Andalusians to the...

Nikola Jokić made even more history and recorded yet another triple-double to inspire the Denver Nuggets to a 132-126 victory against the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals Tuesday.

Katie Taylor had Olympic dreams long before she became one of the faces of women’s professional boxing

European leaders on Wednesday hailed a new "register of damage" for Ukraine they signed on to as "historic" and a first step to making...

British car factories will be forced to close with the loss of thousands of jobs if the government does not renegotiate its Brexit trade deal immediately, automaker Stellantis warned on Wednesday.

Indonesian authorities have arrested the information technology minister as part of an investigation into a million-dollar corruption scandal linked to the construction of mobile phone transmission towers in remote regions

Authorities say dozens of Serbian schools have received bomb threats amid security concerns following two mass shootings early this month, including one in an elementary school