Key events
Tom Garry has filed his report from Borehamwood, where Arsenal’s dire FA Cup weekend continued with defeat for their women’s team at the hands of Brighton.
Arsenal made a surprise exit at the quarter-final stage of the Women’s FA Cup for the second successive season as Brighton stunned the record 14-time cup winners at Borehamwood.
The shock result extends Arsenal’s decade-long wait to lift the Women’s FA Cup, just four days after they knocked Chelsea out of the Champions League to reach a European semi-final. Dario Vidosic’s side stepped up and their former Chelsea forward Fran Kirby provided two assists to help Brighton secure a memorable 2-0 victory.
More here:
Team news from the London Stadium:
West Ham: Areola, Walker-Peters, Kilman, Disasi, Diouf, Magassa, Potts, Fernandes, Bowen, Castellanos, Traore. Subs: Herrick, Pablo Felipe, Lamadrid, Soucek, Scarles, Kante, Golambeckis, Mayers, Ajala.
Leeds: Lucas Perri, Rodon, Bijol, Struijk, Bogle, Ampadu, Stach, Justin, Tanaka, Okafor, Nmecha. Subs: Darlow, Byram, Bornauw, Longstaff, Gruev, Aaronson, Gnonto, Piroe, Calvert-Lewin.
Referee: Craig Pawson.
The first men’s FA Cup quarter-final of the day starts in an hour, and Rob Smyth is all over it:
PSV Eindhoven win the Eredivisie title!
It’s all over at Volendam, who have held Feyenoord to a 0-0 draw and as a result PSV have retained their league title!
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Liverpool gave somehow failed to take the lead against Charlton, O’Sullivan volleying over the bar from four yards! She was falling over at the time, so it wasn’t completely straightforward, but file that under harder-to-miss.
GOAL! Livingston 1-2 Hearts (Braga, 51 mins)
Hearts have taken the lead! “Shankland with an excellent header back across goal and he rises highest to head home from close range,” according to their account on X. “VAR checks for offside, but the goal is given!”
An email! It’s Jeremy Boyce, possibly suffering from a sugar rush after one Creme Egg too many. “Easter has often been a pivotal moment in the footie season, especially in a GeoPoliticsWorld Cup year, when everything needs to be done and dusted in good time for all the top (European) players to be totally exhausted from the hectic programme and unable to give of their best at the showcase event,” he writes. “There’s a collective football-shaped Easter egg hunt, some teams chasing glory, others salvation. Some running out of legs, others already on the beach. It’s not looking good for Jamie Vardy’s Cremonese, hovering near the drop zone, losing at home today, eating up their games but not finding any eggs, Serie B beckons. Up in bonnie Scotland it’s sadly looking as though Hearts might be running out of the physical and mental strength required to take their table-topping form into the final stages and break the Glasgow (mostly Celtic) hegemony. Erling Haaland found plenty of eggs yesterday. Arsenal have been hunting eggs everywhere, but have had them picked off one by one.
“Which brings us to this afternoon’s action at that hotbed of passion and positivity, The Lunnun Stadium, innit. We all know which eggs these teams are actually looking for, and it’s got little to do with Easter Sunday. A dilemma for both teams. A win would do wonders for confidence, until they get thrashed by City in the semi, or lose disappointingly to the Saints, in which case confidence shattered like a cheap chocolate flavoured ovoid object. A defeat would obviously dent confidence, but enable whichever to “concentrate on the League” (TM). The cheap chocolate egg of the Cup, or the Faberge diamond encrusted egg of Premier League survival. Which would you pick ? 3-2 Leeds after an extra time neither team wants, key players injured and out for the season, unwanted intervention of VAR. Should I get down the bookies’ now?” Er, might be best to swerve it.
Final score: Arsenal 0-2 Brighton
Arsenal, 14 times winners of the FA Cup and 17 times finalists, are out of this year’s competition! An excellent performance from Brighton, and deservedly rewarded. The second quarter-final between Charlton and Liverpool, is currently goalless in the 28th minute, with Chelsea playing Tottenham and Birmingham City facing Manchester City tomorrow.
Arsenal are pushing for something against Brighton, in the ninth of eight indicated minutes of stoppage time. Russo goes down in the penalty area, but nothing’s given.
GOAL! Livingston 1-1 Hearts (Shankland, 24 mins)
Apologies, it appears to have taken about quarter of an hour for news of this goal to filter through to me. A bullet header, I’m told. Hearts are, as it stands, top of the league!
GOAL! Arsenal 0-2 Brighton (Hayes, 63 mins)
Brighton double their lead! It’s a corner from the left, good movement from Caitlin Hayes to give herself space at the far post, and an excellent header into the top corner!
The PSV Eindhoven captain Jerdy Schouten, who was a fixture in the Netherlands team before he sustained a hamstring injury towards the end of 2024 and returned to the international squad this season, starting their most recent game against Ecuador, has been ruled out of the World Cup after injuring a cruciate ligament against Utrecht yesterday. “When it happened, I actually felt immediately that something was wrong,” Schouten said. “You still have a glimmer of hope that it isn’t too bad, but unfortunately that turned out not to be the case. The blow is big right now, but I will move on quickly. Great things are about to happen for PSV again and I will do everything I can to be involved in everything.“
GOAL! Livingston 1-0 Hearts (May, 5 mins)
There’s been a goal in the Scottish Premiership, and it’s bad news for Hearts as they try to return to the top of the table. “Fati crosses & it gets cleared only to the edge of the box as a lay off comes to May who drills it low!” according to Livingston’s X account. If you check out that account you can enjoy a video of the scorer pretending a shoe is a telephone.
GOAL! Arsenal 0-1 Brighton (Haley, 48 mins)
A goal! And it’s an excellent first-time finish from Haley, who from a not hugely promising angle to the right of goal managed to wrap her foot around the ball and send it into the far corner!
Dresden police have launched a criminal investigation into disruption to yesterday’s German second-tier match between Dynamo Dresden and Hertha Berlin. This just in from Reuters:
Dresden police have launched criminal investigations following a German second-tier match between Dynamo Dresden and Hertha Berlin in which supporters from both clubs stormed the pitch.
The unrest began early in the match on Saturday with the repeated use of pyrotechnics in both home and away supporter sections, a police statement said.
Fans entered the field, prompting police to intervene, separate the groups, and secure the area. The match resumed after a 20-minute interruption.
“As part of the operation, the Dresden police initiated more than a dozen investigations for breach of the peace, dangerous bodily harm, property damage, insult and ticket fraud,” the statement said.
Dynamo Dresden expressed deep regret over the scenes at the Rudolf Harbig Stadion, with finance director Stephan Zimmermann apologising to uninvolved spectators.
“Our home games are known for their unique atmosphere. Images like those we saw tonight are unacceptable and massively damage not only our club, but football as a whole in Germany,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
Hertha Berlin won the match 1-0 after an 80th-minute goal by Marten Winkler, leaving the capital side in sixth place in the Bundesliga 2 standings while Dresden are 15th.
And it’s half-time in the Women’s FA Cup quarter-final between Arsenal and Brighton, which is resoundingly goalless.
The Dutch league title could be decided today: anything but a win for second-placed Feyenoord at Volendam would mean PSV, 18 points ahead at the top of the table, are champions. It’s currently 0-0, with 18 minutes played.
No goals yet in the Women’s FA Cup quarter-final between Arsenal and Brighton, though it took a phenomenal save from Brighton’s Chiamaka Nnadozie to stop Holmberg putting the Gunners ahead with a header.
More Sunday afternoon reading: Is the traditional No9 about to make a comeback? Sam Cunningham discusses. Emile Heskey thinks it’s “no longer a sexy position”. I do not concur.
Virgil van Dijk has spoken about Liverpool’s humbling defeat to Manchester City in yesterday’s FA Cup quarter-final:
I can only apologise to the fans for what we have shown, especially the second half. It’s difficult. Mentally it has been a very tough season overall. You come out of the dressing room with the right intentions to score and make it 2-1 and change the game, but the opposite happened and then to come back from 3-0 is obviously very difficult here. But also you shouldn’t give up, and that’s maybe what happened at a certain point. Our second half, the intensity we didn’t match, the challenges we didn’t win, it was tough.
Much more here:
If you’ve forgotten how the match went down, Jamie Jackson’s match report is here:
The Women’s FA Cup quarter-final between Arsenal and Brighton is just kicking off. Here are the teams:
Arsenal: Van Domselaar, Holmberg, Wubben-Moy, Codina, Hinds, Caldentey, Little, Mead, Maanum, Kelly, Blackstenius. Subs: Borbe, Foord, Fox, Harwood, McCabe, Pelova, Russo, Smith, Votikova.
Brighton and Hove Albion: Nnadozie, Minami, Hayes, Vanegas, Rule, Cankovic, Symonds, Olislagers, Seike, Kirby, Haley. Subs: Poulter, Baggaley, Camacho, McLauchlan, Mpome, Noordam, Rayner, Tsunoda, Tvedten.
So, how do we feel about referees getting in the way of footballers and what to do about it? Should giving them a healthy shove be an option? Gabriel Martinelli clearly thinks it should, given what he did to Samuel Barrott during Arsenal’s defeat to Southampton yesterday. He was booked in response: is the correct equation for shoving one arm = yellow, two hands = red?
Hello! Very close now to the time of day when football starts to happen. Here’s what we’ve got ahead of us between now and 5ish:
12.30pm: There are four games in Turkey’s Super Lig today and first up is bottom of the table and apparently doomed Fatih Karagumruk hosting Rizespor. The big one is Fenerbahce v Besiktas at 6pm.
1pm: Arsenal take on Brighton in the Women’s FA Cup quarter-finals. Also Getafe play Athletic Club of Bilbao in the first of four games in La Liga. The highest-placed Spanish side in action today is Celta Vigo, who are seventh (but could end the day as high as sixth!), and visit Valencia at 3.15pm.
1.30pm: Hartberg v Red Bull Salzburg in the Austrian Bundesliga. All the best teams are in action today with the top two, Sturm Graz and Rapid Vienna, facing off at 4pm.
2pm: Livingston, bottom of the Scottish Premiership table, host second-placed Hearts. Also Cremonese v Bologna in Serie A. Not a classic day of Italian league action, but it’s Internazionale against Roma at 7.45pm this evening. Also kicking off is Angers v Lyon in Ligue 1. None of the top three playing today but Monaco v Marseille at 7.45pm.
2.30pm: Charlton play Liverpool in the women’s FA Cup quarter-finals. Also, Union Berlin v St Pauli in the Bundesliga. Eintracht Frankfurt v Koln follows at 4.30pm.
4.30pm: It’s West Ham v Leeds in the Men’s FA Cup quarter-finals, and Dundee v Celtic in the Scottish Premiership
Righto, my watch is over; here’s Simon Burnton, who’ll take you through the early games and so on. Peace out.
Godspeed.
Hearts, behind Rangers on goal difference, are away to Livingston this afternoon, kick-off 2pm, while Celtic, five off the pace, travel to Dundee for the 4.30 match.
I can’t say his career went as I hoped it would when he first joined Chelsea, but it sounds like he had a blast, so hold tight him.
Remember when titles, promotions and relegations were settled at Easter? Lincoln might just sort theirs tomorrow.
That said, it does feel like the end for Howe – the way Newcastle’s chief exec equivocated on his position made it sound like he’s toast because how can a decent run of seven games, almost nothing on the line, make a difference? They either believe in him or they don’t, and the signs overwhelmingly point to the latter.
Last summer’s signings were poor, but this one was a banger.
I can’t disagree that Howe is responsible for much of Newcastle’s grief this season. But who would they get in his stead? I guess Andoni Iraola might be someone they’d look at, whose style wouldn’t be a major departure from the one they’re playing now; the question is whether it’s one than can be scaled up to serve a team seeking to dominate. I’m not sure.
Oh man, the photo at the top of this piece.
Today’s second quarter features Charlton of WSL2 against Liverpool, who’ve improved a lot since sacking Matt Beard in February. The home side are pushing for promotion but struggling for form, while the visitors will scent opportunity.
Kicking-off at 1pm we’ve Arsenal v Brighton. Renée Slegers’ side might, again, be running into form at a decent time – though the title has gone, they’re into the last four of the Champions League, having won it last season, and will fancy themselves to beat Lyon. In the other semi, it’s Bayern v Barcelona and, though any team will be second favourites against the Catalans, in a one-off match, anything is possible – as we saw in last season’s final.
Spurs visit Chelsea in tomorrow’s lunchtime quarter-final, and not without hope. They’ve had a really good season and Sonia Bompastor’s side looked dicey at the back against Villa last weekend … problem being, they still had sufficient attacking firepower to get the win. I don’t suppose I’ll win any prophesy prizes for saying this, but I’d expect lauren James to be the difference in this one.
Can De Zerbi save Spurs? It’s a big call to stick a systems manager into this kind of mess, especially one so unwilling to compromise. My sense is they’ll do enough to get a point more than West Ham, but if they don’t, he’s then tarnished by relegation before he’s even properly started in the job. It’s a huge gamble because more than anything, the team need confidence and vibes, which it’s hard to inculcate while also upending the tactical system – all the more so if you just aren’t a confidence and vibes guy.
Still, a win against Bournemouth and a point at City would make them strong favourites for the title, so.
Indeed. However you slice it, Arteta has done a really good job at Arsenal, inheriting a mess and turning it into repeated title challengers. But, on the other hand, he’s been bought pretty much two full teams of players and, given the money spent, they ought to better than they are. His out-of-possession system is excellent, but the lack of imagination and joyfulness is a problem, not just aesthetically but practically.
Also going on:
It’s true that Arsenal have scored once more in the league than City have, but for that, they’ve been reliant on set-pieces, which doesn’t feel sustainable through an entire season. They must find a way of attacking with freedom, but more than that, they must find a way of playing with freedom; there’s no sense they’re enjoying the chase, and though Arteta is trying to take the pressure off this season – over the last few seasons, his intensity has looked from the outside to be a negative – the players know who he is, and it’s hard to pretend otherwise.
