Category sport-news

Premier League leaders Liverpool needed two Mohamed Salah penalties to beat bottom-of-the-table Southampton 3-1 on Saturday, while Nottingham Forest took a giant step towards the Champions League with a 1-0 win over Manchester City.

Liverpool stretched their lead at the top to a massive 16 points, despite a sloppy first 45 minutes.

Fresh from a smash-and-grab 1-0 Champions League victory over Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool boss Arne Slot made just three changes.

However, the Dutchman was forced into making three half-time alterations to kickstart the champions-elect.

Southampton have taken just nine points from 28 games all season, but stunned Anfield when Will Smallbone fired the visitors in front in first-half stoppage time.

Alisson Becker was Liverpool’s hero at the Parc des Princes on Wednesday but the Brazilian and Virgil van Dijk got in each other’s way to allow Smallbone to roll into an unguarded net.

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Slot turned to Harvey Elliott, Alexis MacAllister and Andy Robertson at the break, and the changes had the desired effect with two goals in three minutes before the hour mark.

Darwin Nunez levelled with a sharp near-post finish from Luis Diaz’s cross.

Nunez was then upended inside the area and Salah converted from the spot.

The Egyptian slotted home a second penalty two minutes from time to take his tally for the season to 32 goals.

Second-placed Arsenal have two games in hand on the leaders, the first of which comes away to Manchester United on Sunday.

But it appears a matter of when not if Liverpool will clinch just their second league title in 35 years.

– City felled at Forest –

Forest pulled four points clear of City in third thanks to Callum Hudson-Odoi’s late winner at the City Ground.

The former Chelsea winger fired past Ederson on 83 minutes from Morgan Gibbs-White’s pass to spark jubilant scenes of celebration as Forest beat the English champions for the first time since 1997.

Two-time European champions, Forest have not experienced the continent’s top competition since 1980.

But they are closing in on the Champions League with a top-five finish almost certain to be enough thanks to the strong performance of English teams in Europe this season.

“We are not here to joke”, Hudson-Odoi posted on social media. “Goal, MOTM (man-of-the-match), three points”!

City remain fourth and are looking over their shoulders after a ninth league defeat of the season.

Pep Guardiola’s men are likely to be overtaken by Chelsea, when they host struggling Leicester on Sunday.

Crystal Palace shrugged off the loss of top scorer Jean-Philippe Mateta to a serious ear injury to beat Ipswich 1-0 thanks to Ismaila Sarr’s winner.

The Eagles have won nine of their last 11 games in all competitions and climb to 11th.

Brighton boosted their own Champions League hopes courtesy of Joao Pedro’s 98th-minute penalty to beat Fulham 2-1.

Raul Jimenez’s spectacular strike opened the scoring for Fulham, but Jean Paul van Hecke levelled before half-time.

Pedro’s spot-kick lifts the Seagulls to sixth and within one point of City.

Aston Villa travel to Brentford and Wolves host Everton in Saturday’s later kick-offs.

French superstar Kylian Mbappe’s “ups and downs” are to be expected because of Real Madrid’s demanding season and the nature of players of his quality, said coach Carlo Ancelotti on Saturday.

The striker performed poorly against Atletico Madrid in the Champions League and previous La Liga match against Real Betis, just days after scoring a hat-trick against Manchester City.

Mbappe struggled in his first few months at Madrid after joining last summer from Paris Saint-Germain before bursting into form, but his last couple of appearances have caused concern among fans.

“What we saw is that against Atletico he did not do what he did against City,” Ancelotti told a news conference ahead of Rayo Vallecano’s visit in La Liga on Sunday.

“Against City he scored three and against Atletico he did not score.

“I think on a general level he is doing very well and we’re very happy with him, and we take into account — and he takes into account — that he is not always at his best level.

“The game against Atletico was not the best version of him. ”

Real Madrid beat their city rivals 2-1 in the first leg of the last 16 tie, with the return on Wednesday at the Metropolitano stadium.

In the play-off round against Premier League champions City, Mbappe netted four goals over the two legs as Madrid won 6-3 on aggregate.

The 26-year-old striker boasts 28 goals in 41 appearances across all competitions.

“In such a demanding season (inconsistency) is quite normal, above all in a player with such quality,” said Ancelotti.

“Players with quality have more ups and downs because it’s something genetic, the player that has great quality finds it harder to have consistency, and that’s what happened to him in that game.

“That said he’s doing very well, and if we’re in the Champions League last 16, it’s because he’s scored four goals in the (previous) tie. ”

Madrid are third in La Liga, three points behind leaders Barcelona, who face Osasuna on Saturday.

Los Blancos centre-back Antonio Rudiger may miss the Rayo clash through illness, Spanish media reported.

“We’re ready to fight in all games and in all competitions,” continued Ancelotti, who said the defeat by Betis a week ago came because the team had little time to prepare.

French prosecutors have requested that double Olympic swimming champion Yannick Agnel appear before a criminal court for alleged rape and sexual assault of a minor, judicial sources said Friday.

The public prosecutor’s office requested that the swimmer be brought before the departmental criminal court for rape of a minor under the age of 15 and sexual assault of a minor under the age of 15 in 2016, with both charges pertaining to the same victim, judicial sources said.

The investigating judge must issue their final order before the end of April, the same sources added.

The judge can either issue an order of dismissal — partial or total — or referral to the correctional court or to the criminal court.

The investigation began in the summer of 2021 following a complaint from a swimmer who trained with Agnel in Mulhouse between 2014 and 2016.

The swimmer is suspected of having had a relationship with the teenager while he was staying with her parents.

At the time, he was 24-years-old while she was only aged 13. The investigation led to the swimmer being indicted on December 11, 2021.

Agnel, now 32, has always insisted the relationship was consensual and loving.

The public prosecutor at the time, Edwige Roux-Morizot, considered that “the facts constitute rape and sexual assault due to the age difference, because the justice system considers that there is genuine moral duress”.

Last July, Agnel went to the office of the investigating judge in Mulhouse for a confrontation that he had requested with his accuser, now aged 21.

Agnel came to international prominence at the&nbsp, 2010 European championships when he won gold in the 400-metre freestyle setting a new French and championships record.

Two years later he starred at the London Olympics when he took gold in the 200m freestyle and the 4x100m freestyle as well as silver in the 4x200m freestyle.

He collected gold medals in the same two events in the 2013 world championships.

US President Donald Trump said Friday that trade tensions with Mexico and Canada would be a boost for the 2026 World Cup as he announced the creation of a White House task force to help organise the tournament.

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office alongside Gianni Infantino, the head of world football’s governing body FIFA, Trump brushed off suggestions that his administration’s ongoing spat with the USA’s 2026 World Cup co-hosts could impact the tournament.

“Oh, I think it’s going to make it more exciting”, Trump replied when asked how the tensions between the United States, Canada and Mexico might affect the event.

“Tension is a good thing … it makes it much more exciting”, Trump added after signing an executive order formally creating the 2026 World Cup task force that he will chair.

Trump said the task force would assist in planning for what his executive order described as the “largest sporting event in history”.

“We’re going to be establishing a task force, a very important task force — White House — and that’s on the FIFA World Cup of 2026 which, as you know, is a big event”, Trump said.

Infantino meanwhile said the 2026 World Cup — and this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup in the United States — would create 200, 000 jobs and have an economic impact of $40 billion.

“And more than that, we will give joy and happiness to the entire world, and this is priceless, definitely”, Infantino added.

“So thank you, Mr President, for setting up this task force, because it is important that everyone that comes to America feels safe, feels welcome, and that’s why it’s important that the government puts together this White House Task Force”.

Infantino meanwhile added that the scale of next year’s World Cup — which is being expanded to include 48 teams — was equivalent to staging three NFL Super Bowls a day for one month.