Football

Two bottom-six matches after the Scottish Premiership split will be broadcast live from next season following changes agreed with the Scottish Professional Football League.

Sky Sports has the rights to show 60 live top-flight games per season in Scotland, with Premier Sports securing a deal to show 20 live matches for five years from last term.

That deal precluded Premier from showing any matches after game 33, when the league splits in half.

But the SPFL and both broadcasters have agreed to change the agreement to allow Premier to screen two live matches in the bottom half of the table.

Pepê's goal in the 89th minute gave Porto a 4-4 tie against Al Ahly in a back-and-forth match Monday night, before both teams were eliminated from the Club World Cup on goal differential.

Honestly, it was a bonkers match. Both teams couldn't defend at all

OH MY GOD I CANT BELIEVE IT.

Santi Cazorla you beautiful man. He came in to a second division club bc it was HIS club. Spent the past 2 years at the club, is turning 41!!! And brings the team to LaLiga.

Santi Cazorla (40) said he'd play for Real Oviedo for free if he could... he is currently on a minimum wage professional contract and he also donates 10% of his shirt sales.

After his goal to spark the comeback, Real Oviedo have been promoted to La Liga.

They are returning to the league after 24 years!!!

Funny thing, anytime they focus on Fernando Alonso, Oviedo score.

Another person I wanna mention, Veljko Paunovic: he was relegated as a player in 2001 and promoted now as a technical director.

Absolute fairytale story. This is why I love football

This is just a quick thought.

Over the past few years we saw a new kind of 10 as the dominant force, the athletic pressing physical player. Your Mason Mounts and Connor Gallaghers etc. Players who would regain possession, more valuable out of possession than the traditional 10 who would create chances and be a vital cog in possession.

Players like Isco became rare.

But now we've got anpther new wave of players. Athletic runners as the recent pressers were but more aggressive in the traditional way, making runs into the box during attacks instead of sitting outside the box waiting to pounce back on the change of possession. Think Jude at Madrid, McTominay at Napoli.

In bw these we also had players like Damsgaard which had the potential to define a generation but didn't.

I'm not saying one or the other is now meta, just that we've currently got more molds than before which can be plugged in different playatyles.

One of the funniest stories I've read.

Some football hard-men are all bluster, but not the Partick Thistle legend Chic Charnley, who holds the record for most red cards in Scottish football. In 1990 Partick were training at Ruchill Park in Glasgow, when a group of local youths abused them. Charnley responded with some verbals, and the youths ran off, only for two of them to return, one wielding a Samurai sword. Charnley charged them, chasing them through Maryhill, by some accounts brandishing a traffic cone.

His staff choices have been interesting. Pep Lijnders! The long-term assistant to Klopp. Also James French.

Meanwhile let go of Lilo, Vicens and inigo Dominguez.

Apparently asked for klopps blessing before hiring Lijnders too.

I wonder how much of this was pep himself making the decision. He tends to have a free hand at this stuff. Genuinely gonna be an interesting season for city

Nine of City's matches last season started or restarted late, with the longest delay coming before the second half of the Manchester derby in December 2024 which resumed two minutes and 24 seconds later than billed.

The Premier League said City had accepted and apologised for the breaches, external, with the fines totalling £1.08m. They have 14 days to pay.

Last season the club were fined £2.09m for delaying 22 matches, and manager Pep Guardiola said he would try and make his team talks shorter.