Simon Devlin 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

The FA really needs to consider moving Crystal Palace v Arsenal to Saturday. Arsenal already wrapped up the Premier League title, Palace are safe in mid-table, and both have massive European finals next week (Conference League for Palace, UCL for Arsenal). Zero competitive stakes on Sunday-give them the extra 24 hours recovery.

Sources: Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers now have reached agreement on a one-year deal. Rodgers officially is reuniting with the Steelers and their new head coach Mike McCarthy for the 2026 season.

Xabi Alonso had a plan when he was about to leave Real Sociedad B (Sanse). Go to a top European side with ambition. Bayer Leverkusen was chosen. If it didn’t work out, then go back to Real Sociedad as a first team manager. If it did, then he aim to go to Bayern Munich (which came off the list after Leverkusen won the league, it did not make sense for Xabi to aspire to join a rival of his biggest success), Real Madrid or Liverpool. Once he told me he would love to manage in Anfield but that the natural way of things would be for Steven Gerrard to go there first, and the return of the prodigal son seems far-fetched now.  We know the tension at Liverpool, but also that Arne Slot will remain beyond the summer. It is easy to say, “wait for that to go wrong or for it to finish naturally”. But football managers have to take decisions when offers arrive. And we know that in this game, two plus two is not always four. So the very real possibility of Xabi Alonso managing Chelsea comes in that context. Very rarely a manager chooses in football (Pep getting a national side at some point will happen, a dream of his, but Pep is Pep), football chooses for you, it is the game that imposes the timing.  We are hearing from sources very close to the Chelsea decision makers that they are going to tweak the system to give the manager more voice. That is Xabi’s first win and you are never stronger than when you are negotiating to land in a club.