Category Sports News

Although discussions about a potential future role continue, West Ham have confirmed Michail Antonio won’t be signing a new deal as a first-team player.

Following the horrific car crash in December that nearly cost him his life, the 35-year-old did not make another senior appearance for West Ham.

Antonio was unlikely to play for his team this season, according to Hammers manager Graham Potter, who spoke last week in Atlanta.

Antonio also appeared for West Ham Under-21s in a pre-season game at Boreham Wood last month, and he did so for Jamaica for three games this summer.

It is understood that West Ham’s academy could use its ongoing discussions with Antonio to train and mentor students.

A statement read, “Michail will always be a much-loved and respected member of the West Ham United family.”

The club will continue to support and assist him in his ongoing rehabilitation, giving him access to training, facilities, and medical care as needed, as has been the case since December.

Antonio, a £7 million signing from Nottingham Forest in 2015, has scored 68 goals in 268 top-flight games for West Ham, making it the club’s record Premier League scorer.

Aberdeen, Celtic and Partick Thistle have been disciplined by the Scottish Professional Football League for their fans ‘ pyrotechnic displays at the end of last season.

The two Premiership clubs will have to close 200 seats if there is a repeat of the “unacceptable conduct”, while Championship outfit Thistle would face the closure of a whole stand after their display was also followed by a pitch invasion.

“All three clubs have been found to have breached SPFL rules in failing to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, that their supporters did not engage in” unacceptable conduct “at those matches”, the league said in a statement.

“The clubs were also found to have failed to identify or take proportionate disciplinary measures against the supporters responsible for the pyrotechnic displays and, in Partick Thistle’s case, also against those who carried out the pitch invasion”.

The invasion led to a two-minute delay in the Premiership play-off quarter-final second leg at Somerset Park on 9 May, while a similar delay was caused by Thistle fans using pyrotechnics and throwing them on to the pitch.

The pyrotechnics display by Aberdeen fans during their 14 May match against Celtic led to Sky Sports “having to issue an apology for interruptions to the broadcast following the display, which caused significant smoke clouds to form within the stadium”.

Celtic supporters carried out pyrotechnic displays in the north-east corner of Celtic Park during and prior to the final league game of the season at home to St Mirren on 17 May.

“These incidents caused a health and safety risk to fellow supporters, players and those working at matches, as well as a significant inconvenience to thousands of supporters at the matches and fans watching these games at home”, the SPFL added.

Revealing that their sanction was for “the illegal and unsupervised ignition of at least 14 strobe-effect devices”, Aberdeen warned: “The is the first step on a potential sliding scale of punitive sanctions open to the SPFL, which could get more onerous, resulting in more fans being locked out at games, costing the club significant revenue in the shape of possible fines and/or missed ticketing revenue if there are further incidents of this nature”.

Tottenham midfielder James Maddison has suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury and is expected to miss the majority of the forthcoming season.

Sources have told BBC Sport that Maddison is set to have surgery and will become a long-term absentee as he starts his recovery programme.

The 28-year-old suffered the injury in the pre-season draw against Newcastle in South Korea last weekend.

Manager Thomas Frank confirmed after the match that Maddison had injured the same knee that ruled him out of the Europa League final victory against Manchester United in May.

Since returning from Asia on Monday, Maddison has undergone tests in recent days to ascertain the severity of the injury.

Initial fears were that Maddison had suffered a cruciate ligament injury and those concerns have now been realised.

Maddison, a 2023 signing from Leicester City, scored 12 goals in 45 appearances for Spurs last season.

Thomas Frank has had time to brace himself for Son Heung-min’s departure – but the long-term unavailability of Maddison is extremely unwelcome, to say the least.

Son’s farewell match in South Korea earlier this week was marred by the latest knee injury suffered by Maddison.

The anguished expression on his face said it all, and the sympathy lies with him.

But spare a thought for Frank, who in his first season in charge, faces losing two key attacking players.

You’d imagine that Spurs will give big consideration to entering the market for a new attacking midfielder.

Had their move for Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White ended successfully then the requirement to enter the market for offensive reinforcements would be significantly less pressing.

Such attacking quality is hard to come by. Expensive, too.

Mohammed Kudus, signed from West Ham this summer, has played centrally before and could provide an option.

Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca has refused to rule out the possibility of Nicolas Jackson leaving Stamford Bridge during the summer transfer window.

Newcastle are reportedly interested in the 24-year-old forward, after Manchester United hijacked the Magpies’ bid to sign striker Benjamin Sesko from RB Leipzig.

If they are to sell, Chelsea would be targeting a transfer fee of at least double the £32m they paid Villarreal for Jackson in 2023.

When asked whether Jackson could leave Chelsea this summer, Maresca said: “When the transfer window is open, unfortunately or fortunately, anything can happen. This also involves Nico’s situation.

“At the moment we also had two strikers arrive, Joao [Pedro] and Liam [Delap]. So we will see what happens.”

Joao Pedro joined from Brighton during the Club World Cup for an initial £55m and scored three goals in three games, including a strike during the 3-0 win against Paris St-Germain in the final, while Delap joined in a £30m move from Ipswich and also featured in the United States.

Jackson’s Club World Cup campaign was affected by his dismissal in the group match win over Flamengo, but Chelsea’s valuation of over £65m is benchmarked against the Senegal international’s 10 goals and five assists in 30 league games last season, following 14 goals and five assists in 35 games during his maiden season at Stamford Bridge.

Maresca revealed England defender Levi Colwill, who started 35 of Chelsea’s 38 Premier League games last season, picked up an injury in training at the start of the week.

“It was in the first session on Monday, just in the last minutes of the session. He felt something and, as I said, we need to wait and then we see,” he added.

“We don’t know how long he is going to be out.

“I spoke with him yesterday and I told him that if we achieve what we achieved last year, it is also because of him – and he was a main player for us.”

Emma Raducanu says she is “excited” to be working with Rafael Nadal’s former coach Francis Roig as she prepares for this year’s US Open.

The 22-year-old had been working with British coach Mark Petchey on an informal basis since March and has now added Spaniard Roig to her team full-time.

Roig, 57, worked alongside Nadal’s uncle Toni from 2005 to 2022 and was part of all 22 of the Spaniard’s Grand Slam victories.

“He’s obviously got a bank of experience and I’m very excited to continue working with him and to have him on my side,” Raducanu told Sky Sports.

The British number one is playing in the Cincinnati Open for the first time since 2022 this week and will face either fellow Briton Katie Boulter or Serb Olga Danilovic in her opening match after receiving a first-round bye.

Roig has joined Raducanu for the WTA 1,000 event in Ohio, which is the last tournament before the final Grand Slam of the season begins in New York on 24 August.

Raducanu’s build-up to the US Open has included a run to the semi-finals at the Washington Open in July, where she was beaten 6-4 6-3 by Russian Anna Kalinskaya, followed by a disappointing defeat by Wimbledon finalist Amanda Anisimova at the Canadian Open last week.

She won just three games and only held serve twice as American world number seven Anisimova claimed a 6-2 6-1 victory in the third round.

Raducanu, who won the title at Flushing Meadows in 2021 as a qualifier, says she and Roig are pinpointing where she can boost her performance.

“I’m working on the quality of my shots to be better,” she said. “I think against the very top, that’s what it needs, it needs to improve.

Frequent changes to Raducanu’s coaching team have raised questions over her set-up.

She has not had a permanent coach since Nick Cavaday stepped aside for health reasons in January, although he rejoined her team for the grass-court season.

Raducanu has previously worked with a wide range of coaches including Nigel Sears, Andrew Richardson – who was in charge during her run to the US Open title – Torben Beltz, Dmitry Tursunov and Sebastian Sachs.

Earlier this year, Raducanu ended a trial with Vladimir Platenik after two weeks.

Three-time Olympic gold medal winning swimmer Adam Peaty believes next year’s Commonwealth Games in Glasgow will “be a great opportunity” to put himself back in the mix for another shot at Olympic glory.

Peaty took a break from the sport after winning a silver medal at last year’s Paris Olympics.

The 30-year-old Englishman is now eyeing the next one – in Los Angeles in 2028 – and says a good showing in Glasgow would be an important step on his journey towards Stateside success.

“I just want to see what happens on the day because there is that famous quote of you don’t win an Olympics every four years, you win it every single day up to that four years.

“It is exactly the same with Glasgow, but it would be a great opportunity to put my name back in the hat.”

Peaty did not compete this month at the World Championships in Singapore, where a youthful Great Britain team returned with just two medals in the swimming and only one gold in the men’s 4x200m freestyle.

But, speaking to BBC Scotland at a coaching clinic in Aberdeen, he said judgements should not be made on that apparently low medal return.

“They have got a lot of new people on the team and, like with any younger team, there is space to grow,” he added.

“In terms of medals alone, people will say ‘that is not enough’ for the investment, but it is a long process and you can’t expect to have a new, younger team and still win lots of medals, especially after Paris.

“Normally, two years out from an Olympics is where you can get an inkling of what is happening, but it’s all about making sure there is no complacency.