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England winger Bukayo Saka has signed a new five-year contract with Arsenal until 2031.

Sources have told BBC Sport that the agreement will make Saka the club’s best-paid player on wages in excess of £300,000 a week.

Talks over a new deal have been ongoing for nearly a year, with Saka verbally agreeing to commit his future to the club in January.

Saka signed his previous deal, which was due to expire in 2027, in 2023 but his renewal means the 24-year-old has committed his peak years to the Gunners.

The news comes as a major boost for the Gunners, as they battle on four fronts to win silverware for the first time since 2020.

The agreement is the latest example of Arsenal tying down their key players to long-term contracts as they look to keep their title-chasing squad together.

William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Ethan Nwaneri and Myles Lewis-Skelly all signed new long-term contracts in the summer.

Saka has scored seven goals in 33 appearances for the Gunners this term.

Mikel Arteta’s side are four points clear at the top of the Premier League and they will face Manchester City in the EFL Cup final in March.

The agreement with Saka is more important than the £250m outlay Arsenal made to bring in eight new players in the summer.

Saka’s importance on the pitch alongside his bond with supporters and his journey from the academy make his position impossible to replicate.

His new deal will see him stay at the club into the peak years of his career and – after several seasons with numbers that match elite wingers across the game – Arsenal will benefit from the progression he could still achieve.

The second half of this season is crucial for Saka as he looks to help Arsenal lift a major trophy for the first time since the FA Cup in 2020.

Mikel Arteta can rely on him and he is one of the reasons why the majority of Arsenal’s attacking play goes down the right – the side Saka plays on.

The winger is also set for an important summer with Thomas Tuchel’s England at the World Cup.

“Pleasure to be here, back to the fight,” said Vitor Pereira with a smile.

Pereira was speaking to the media for the first time since signing an 18-month deal to become Nottingham Forest’s fourth manager of the season.

It is just 161 days since Nuno Espirito Santo was sacked, having fallen out with owner Evangelos Marinakis and global sporting director Edu.

Ange Postecoglou and Sean Dyche have since come and gone in a tempestuous season of struggle.

Now Forest, who are just one place above the relegation zone, have turned to former Wolves boss Pereira.

Pereira is back in management just over three months after being sacked by Wolves, who at that point had taken just two points after 10 games.

He regrets not stepping down before the start of the season – first frustrated by what he perceived as the club moving too slowly to secure signings, then unhappy with the players they did deliver.

He still signed off on all the deals – pushing, in particular, for winger Jhon Arias, who was sold to Palmeiras earlier this month – but felt he never got his first choices.

There are parellels with Nuno’s exit from Forest – both were disillusioned with transfer business – but there should be no surprises or secrets between Pereira and Marinakis.

Pereira worked under the Forest owner at Olympiakos in 2015. It was only a six-month relationship, but still delivered a domestic double.

He left Olympiakos for Fenerbahce, who Forest face visit in the Europa League on Thursday, in the summer of 2015 – but reflects on that being a mistake as he jumped around clubs in a desire to make it to the Premier League.

One of his key tasks at Forest is to manage upwards, and understand the owner.

“He is ambitious. He wants to win. Emotional… I know him very well,” he said.

“I remember the energy and the fire we created. In Greece, there is a fire inside – they like to see the energy. He asked me to be myself. He liked the way when we worked together we won the league and cup.

“It was in the middle of the season and we created a good relationship. He trusts my work, I trust his personality. I think we need passion too.”

Marinakis had hoped Dyche would bring stability, but he failed to win over Forest’s expensively assembled squad.

Despite averaging nearly 1.5 points per game during his tenure, players were concerned about his training methods and focus on physicality and running.

Players’ opinions were canvassed after the defeat by Leeds earlier this month, and a number were summoned to see Marinakis following the 0-0 draw against Wolves on Wednesday.

Pereira has already spoken to his squad about the need for togetherness.

“If you buy the idea, it’s a good step,” he said. “If you don’t buy the idea of the manager, it’s a big problem – and you must also buy the personality.

“If you buy the idea and the person, you have an open mind to receive information and to work hard together, it’s possible to achieve what we want.

“Football is much more than tactical things. It’s about connecting with people specially doing that – to fight for a target together with commitment.

“It’s about connecting the supporters, with the team, club and city, to create the energy for everybody to believe in themselves, to create a good environment to work, and tactical ideas of course.

Pereira will be on familiar ground for Thursday’s Europa League play-off, having managed the Turkish side for 86 games over two spells.

Forest need an instant impact, and despite leaving Wolves in November after not winning a Premier League game since April, he proved there he can make a difference at a struggling club.

At Molineux, he won 12 of his 25 matches – drawing four and losing nine – after taking over when they were five points from safety in December 2024.

Wolves were 13 points behind Manchester United and 14 points adrift of Tottenham at that stage but finished level with the Red Devils and four points above Spurs – 17 clear of danger.

Champions Liverpool visit the City Ground on Sunday – and Forest’s three-point lead over West Ham in the final relegation spot could have disappeared by then as the Hammers face Bournemouth on Saturday.

Relegation was not in the thinking after a seventh-placed finish last season – and Pereira needs to start well.

He said: “I cannot change a lot in this moment of the season. It’s important the players feel they can help the team with their qualities. It’s important they express themselves.

“Passion is something which sleeps me with, wakes up with me. I came with intention to give everything for myself, my body and my soul to help the club. Together we can do it.”

If Forest survive, there will be celebrations – and while at Wolves Pereira coined the phrase ‘first the points, then the pints’, having drunk with fans after wins.

The Godfather, Apocalypse Now…A Shot at Glory.

Legendary Hollywood actor Robert Duvall will probably be remembered by most for his roles as mafia consigliere Tom Hagen in the first two editions of Francis Ford Coppola’s gangster trilogy or as Lieutenant Colonel William Kilgore in the same director’s 1979 Vietnam war epic.

However, among Scottish football circles, the veteran actor, who died on Monday aged 95, will also be remembered fondly for playing Gordon McLeod – a beleaguered Scottish football manager attempting to take lowly Kilnockie FC to Scottish Cup glory with the help of mercurial striker Jackie McQuillan, played by Rangers legend Ally McCoist.

While recording football drama A Shot at Glory in 1999 and 2000, which also starred Hollywood A-listers Michael Keaton and Brian Cox alongside Scottish football household names such as Owen Coyle, Didier Agathe and Derek Ferguson, Duvall immersed himself in the country’s football culture.

Indeed, the actor popped up at grounds across the country as he prepared for his role, as well as filming at a number of stadiums including former Dumbarton ground, Boghead Park, Kilmarnock’s Rugby Park, Queen of the South’s Palmerston Park and Hampden Park.

Duvall’s passing was announced on Monday and was met with tributes from the likes of Al Pacino and Robert De Niro – who both starred alongside him in The Godfather – Adam Sandler and Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis.

Alongside getting his flowers from the great and the good of Hollywood, A Shot at Glory co-star McCoist also spoke to TalkSport about his close relationship with Duvall.

“I was gutted,” said the former Rangers striker.

“The first thing you have got to say is what an innings. 95. But what a guy. What a man he was. When we did that film, A Shot at Glory, we filmed it all over Scotland and it was just so much fun.

“The lads that we did it with, a lot of them were pros, Airdrie and Raith Rovers a lot of the boys played with and he just became one of the boys.

“Whenever there was a break, he’d set up a heady tennis court and he’d just pull up a chair and he’d watch the boys playing heady tennis.

“He’d love the craic, he’d love all the patter. He used to take all the boys to dinner.”

In A Shot at Glory, McCoist – who is Rangers’ leading all-time goal scorer – plays an ageing and temperamental former Celtic striker, McQuillan, who is brought in by Duvall’s character McLeod to improve Kilnockie’s fortunes despite fears about his temperament on and off the field.

Against the backdrop of the club’s American owners threatening to relocate the team to Dublin, McLeod and McQuillan lead the minnows to a Scottish Cup final against Rangers.

Former Celtic midfielder Didier Agathe was cast as a Rangers player and Owen Coyle, who played for several Scottish clubs as a striker, appears in the Kilnockie FC squad.

And in 1999, while filming for the movie took place, Duvall appeared as a studio pundit alongside McCoist on BBC Scotland’s Sportscene for the Old Firm Scottish Cup Final. Giving his prediction, the Hollywood actor sat on the fence.

“I’m kind of neutral,” he told presenter, Dougie Donnelly.

“It would be wonderful if Rangers won the treble. I just have a feeling that Rangers better be ready because the Celtics are out for revenge.”

Rangers won the game 1-0 to deny their city neighbours a single title in what was a painful season for the Bhoys.

During the same appearance, he revealed that he had also been at Hampden Park the previous year to watch Hearts beat Rangers 2-1 in the Scottish Cup final.

In 2012, Duvall again showed split loyalties. Appearing at the Etihad Stadium for the Manchester derby alongside Jack Reacher co-star Tom Cruise, the Hollywood great revealed that he had named a dog after former Celtic forward, Jimmy Johnstone.

Johnstone, nicknamed ‘Jinky’ for his dribbling, was one of Celtic’s ‘Lisbon Lions’ team who famously won the European Cup in 1967.

“I can safely say the greatest character I ever met in my life, and I’ve met a lot, was ‘wee’ Jimmy Johnstone,” he told Sky Sports.

“I named a dog after him.”