For almost everyone involved with Arsenal FC, Tuesday’s spectacular 3-3 draw with Bournemouth, after being 3-0 down in the 70th minute, must’ve felt like a victory. Everyone apart from Alexis Sanchez, that is.
Alexis Sánchez didn't seem too delighted with the result at full time. [@andremar655] pic.twitter.com/44misj4BEI
‘Member John Obi Mikel? The 29-year-old defensive midfielder has been on the books at Chelsea for 11 years now, but he’s yet to make an appearance in the 2016-17 season. In the previous three seasons, Mikel made a respectable 67 appearances for the Blues, but the length of those appearances averaged only 52 minutes.
Seeing Mikel appear next to the fourth official became the equivalent of popping a bottle of champagne for Chelsea supporters — if Mikel was coming on, victory was all but assured.
The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations begins on January 14 in Gabon. This will be the 31st edition of the 16-team tournament, with the Ivory Coast serving as the defending champions from the 2015 event.
The Ivory Coast are the early favorites to repeat, but the likes of Senegal, Algeria, Ghana and Egypt are also strong bets with talented squads. What makes the tournament so electrifying is its unpredictability — the 30 previous tournaments have seen 14 different nations crowned champions.
Being a professional referee in the Premier League is an extremely tough job. The old adage “Who would ever want to be a referee?” rings particularly true in the EPL. They get more abuse than we as fans care to admit, and every single one of us has been guilty of being on the wrong side of a decision before viewing the instant replay.
Liverpool will host Manchester City at home on the New Year’s Eve, as both sides chase Chelsea in the table.
This matchup promises to be the most exciting fixture yet in the current Premier League season, as the two most attacking sides go head-to-head with 84 league goals scored between them.
The two sides also share the weakness in the back, with both having the most goals conceded among the current top six, as they have given up a combined 41 goals. If stats are anything to go by, this fixture should provide plenty of goals with end-to-end excitement.
According to ESPN, Real Salt Lake and another team from the MLS Eastern Conference have entered discussions with Landon Donovan over the 34-year-old continuing his career in 2017.
Donovan made a shock return for the LA Galaxy in 2016, appearing in nine matches for a Los Angeles squad that had been left depleted in attack following a serious injury to Gyasi Zardes and the questionable fitness of Robbie Keane and Steven Gerrard.
On Tuesday, it was confirmed that Swansea City parted ways with Bob Bradley after just taking over the team in early August. It may come as a surprise to many, taking into consideration he's only been in charge for 11 games, but it's a decision that the Swansea board felt needed to be made with the team sitting in 19th position on only 12 points.
Probably no one in Europe knows how good a manager Ricardo "Tuca" Ferretti is.
Ferretti has led Tigres to the last two Liga MX titles. He has never managed outside of Mexico, with stints managing Chivas Guadalajara, Toluca, Morelia, Pumas and three different spells at Tigres. He has Mexican citizenship, despite being Brazilian by birth.
What was truly remarkable about Leicester City’s Premier League title run-in last year was how smoothly they managed it. After a 2-1 loss to Arsenal of February 14, Leicester finished the season on a 12-game unbeaten run, winning eight and drawing four.
In those eight victories, they hammered their opponents by a scoreline of 14-1. That solitary goal was scored by Everton after Leicester had already clinched the crown. Essentially, they never slipped up; they never made a mistake.
After Real Madrid’s 4-2 victory over Kashima Antlers in the FIFA Club World Cup Final, you would think everyone would be talking about Madrid’s amazing year that included three international titles. Nope. All the attention shifted to James Rodriguez’s post match comments saying that he couldn’t guarantee he would continue with Real Madrid and wanted to play more.