News

• Survey reveals accessibility to stadiums is a barrier
• Respondents cite ‘attitude of others’ as a problem

Disabled football fans feel increasingly unwelcome at English grounds, according to a charity working for greater inclusion, which has warned supporters’ concerns are being ignored.

A third of respondents to an annual survey of disabled fans by Level Playing Field have said accessibility to stadiums is a barrier that prevents them from attending matches. More than a quarter cited the “attitude of others” as a problem, while 8.5% reported having received abuse because of their disability, a figure that has risen in each of the four years the survey has been commissioned.

• Forest want striker to alleviate pressure on Chris Wood
• Aston Villa confirm signing of Levante right-back García

Nottingham Forest have submitted a £22m bid for Yoane Wissa, which Brentford have resolved to reject. Thomas Frank has dismissed the notion Brentford could sell the striker, who has scored 11 goals in 19 Premier League matches this season, in this transfer window.

Forest want another striker to alleviate the pressure on the in-form Chris Wood. Only Mohamed Salah, Alexander Isak and Erling Haaland have outscored Wood, who has 14 goals in the Premier League this season.

Our cartoonist pays tribute to the Manchester United and Scotland legend, who has died aged 84

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• Spending on defenders reaches £63.4m in two days
• Reis has played for Brazil under-16s and under-17s

Manchester City have continued their rebuild by signing the defender Vitor Reis from Palmeiras for £29.6m. The 19-year-old is the second centre-half bought by the club in two days, after Abdukodir Khusanov, and takes their spending to £63.4m, with about another £50m poised to be spent on the forward Omar Marmoush.

The deal for Reis, who has played for Brazil’s under-16s and under-17s and can also operate as a full-back, does not include add-ons. He has come through the academy at Palmeiras and made 22 first-team appearances.

• Culture secretary says ‘hopes and dreams’ of fans at risk
• Bill could be derailed by Tory amendments in Lords

Lisa Nandy, the secretary of state for culture, media and sport, has attacked the Conservative frontbench in the House of Lords over what she called attempts to wreck plans for an independent football regulator.

She addressed MPs and football club executives at the Houses of Parliament on Monday night as concerns lingered over the possibility that the government’s Football Governance Bill could be derailed by Tory amendments that could add years to its passage through parliament.

All four French clubs in the competition have their sights set on the knockouts but PSG have a lot of work to do

By Raphaël Jucobin for Get French Football News

When the Champions League format was revamped, with four French teams included for the first time, few would have expected all four to be confident of reaching the next phase in late January. Even fewer would have expected Brest and Lille to be in the top eight, with PSG sitting just outside the playoff spots.

“We’re going to try to qualify but, if we don’t, the necessary measures will need to be taken,” Luis Enrique cryptically explained after PSG’s defeat to Atlético Madrid in November. His team had produced little from their 71% of possession and Ángel Correa’s last-minute winner left them with just four points from four matches. Since then, PSG’s chances of qualifying have only improved slightly. After a slender defeat by Bayern Munich and a convincing win at RB Salzburg, they are 25th in the 36-team table. Only the top 24 go through.

Today’s fluff will very simply put fluff first

Patrick Dorgu’s future could be settled today, with Manchester United’s interest in the 20-year-old full-back-or-winger-depending-on-which-paper-you-read due to solidify sometime on Tuesday afternoon, when the club will hold talks with Lecce’s director of football, Pantaleo Corvino, in Milan. The side sitting 17th in Serie A want €40m for the Dane but will accept €35m plus a few bonuses, according to Gazzetta dello Sport, for a left-footed player who could fill the wing-back role on either flank for Ruben Amorim’s troubled team.

The complication comes from Napoli, who have identified Dorgu as their first-choice fall-back option should their pursuit of United’s Alejandro Garnacho come to nought. Napoli have now submitted an offer, inclusive of all bonuses, of £50m for Garnacho but will pick up the phone to Corvino should they not hear something positive on Tuesday. United appear to have a healthy list of fall-back full-back targets of their own, in the shape of (deep breath) Paris Saint-Germain’s Nuno Mendes, Bournemouth’s Milos Kerkez, the Wolves left-back Rayan Aït-Nouri and Crystal Palace’s Tyrick Mitchell.

Mehmet Dalman says hopes that the player’s death in a plane crash would act as a catalyst to improve regulations have fallen short

On the sixth anniversary of Emiliano Sala’s death, Cardiff City’s chairman, Mehmet Dalman, hoped he would be able to speak about some good borne from tragedy: how the shocking loss of a player and the pilot of the plane that killed them had served as football’s wake-up call to ensure such a disaster would not happen again.

Instead, Dalman is still imploring football’s authorities to learn from Sala’s death and beef up regulation of the sport’s shady transfer industry. So far, Dalman says, nothing of significance has changed.

• Goalkeeper was at fault for Wolves’ goal in 3-1 win
• ‘How many times has he saved us? Robert is doing well’

Enzo Maresca defended Robert Sánchez after the goalkeeper added to his growing list of mistakes during Chelsea’s hard-fought win over Wolves.

Sanchez was to blame when Matt Doherty equalised for Wolves just before half-time and has now made four errors directly leading to opposition goals in the Premier League this season. Only Ipswich’s Arijanet Muric, who has been dropped by Kieran McKenna, has made more blunders than Chelsea’s No 1, but Maresca is standing by the former Brighton goalkeeper.

There were times when Enzo Maresca seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. The Italian mooched around his technical area, bemoaning Chelsea’s frantic play and calling for calm. Panic had set in after another lead was frittered away, shoddy handling from the erratic Robert Sánchez gifting a mediocre Wolves an equaliser at the end of an average first half, and the winless Premier League run was in danger of ticking up to six.

However, while Sánchez remains an accident waiting to happen in goal, at least Chelsea had a second half to correct matters against one of the leakiest defences in the Premier League. The nerves faded when Marc Cucurella restored the advantage after an hour. Authority returned and although this was far from Chelsea’s most stylish win of the season, it was enough to capitalise on Newcastle’s setback against Bournemouth and see Maresca’s side take fourth place off Manchester City before they visit the champions on Saturday.

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2 min: James hits the corner long and Jackson gets on the end of it at the far stick, albeit to little effect. Sa claims the ball. But Chelsea come back again, Madueke out-powering Ait-Nouri down the right and entering the box. He’s got the opportunity to shoot, but takes one touch too many and a glorious chance is gone.

1 min: Chelsea are immediately on the front foot. Neto crosses from the left, the Wolves old boy’s ball earning the first corner of the evening. James to send it in from the right.

Former Leicester midfielder has proved sceptics wrong with displays central to the transformation of Unai Emery’s side

Some things simply meet expectations, others catch us cold, take us by pleasant surprise. Aston Villa have made a habit of doing the latter over the past couple of years. Take the supporters who ended up slurping a pre‑match pint and talking double pivots with the Prince of Wales in the Wetherspoon’s at Birmingham New Street in the hours before they travelled to the win at Everton last week, after the royal Villa fan attended an inaugural critical‑care conference in the city.

Nobody envisaged Unai Emery transforming Villa in double-quick time, to the point where a victory in Monaco on Tuesday will put them on the verge of qualifying for the Champions League last 16 in their first season back on this stage for 41 years. There were plenty of sceptics when the Villa manager plucked Morgan Rogers out of the Championship 12 months ago but he has proved a revelation, one of the Premier League’s best performers this season, repeatedly leaving opponents in a tailspin. And few predicted Youri Tielemans would return to the peak of his powers after signing on a free 18 months ago.

• Aston Villa unhappy with timing of offer for striker
• £100m-valued Colombian signed new deal in October

Aston Villa have rejected a second bid from West Ham for Jhon Durán out of hand, with Villa adamant the striker, who they value at about £100m, is not for sale. Duran signed a new contract until 2030 in October last year.

Villa are thought to be livid at the timing of the offer from West Ham, who are not expected to return with another bid after Villa made their position clear on Durán.

Ruben Amorim thinks so, but other managers have faced similar struggles. Here is a trip down memory lane to some of the worst crises at Old Trafford …

If United’s current state feels like a lost decade, then the 1930s were its progenitor, much of it spent in the second tier, fans yearning for the early 1900s glory years under Ernest Mangnall, one of only three United managers – with Matt Busby and Alex Ferguson – to win the league title. United finished last in the First Division at the end of the 1930-31 season, winning seven games, losing their opening 12, conceding 115 goals, the manager Herbert Bamlett, better known as a referee, sacked with six fixtures to play. The previous owner, John Henry Davies, who had funded the Mangnall years, had died in 1927, stretching finances. According to the author Eamon Dunphy, the final game, with Middlesbrough, drew 3,900 to Old Trafford, an “uncanny atmosphere” with “the shouts of derision echoing through the empty grandstand”. United would spend the next couple of seasons fighting off relegation to the Third Division North.

Women’s Championship club have become the first to trial alcohol in the stands, with views mixed among supporters

“If you can take a coke out there, why not a beer?” was the verdict of the Bristol City season‑ticket holder Andy Payne as he attended the game against London City Lionesses at Ashton Gate on Sunday. It was a historic day as the club, together with Southampton, became the first to pilot alcohol in the stands at a Women’s Championship game.

Drinking in view of the pitch is not allowed in the top five men’s leagues in England. That ban is backed by the Sporting Events Act of 1985 but it is understood women’s football is not included in the legislation. If the pilot is successful, the initiative could be rolled out across the top two tiers of women’s football in England. The pilot – which is being conducted at Birmingham and Newcastle too – is being carried out across the clubs’ remaining home league games of the season with some derby fixtures exempt.

• Centre-half was offered extension three months ago
• Salah, Van Dijk and Alexander-Arnold deals also in doubt

Ibrahima Konaté is the latest ­Liver­pool player to deliberate over his future after confirming that the club’s offer of a new contract remains unsigned.

The France international has 18 months on his deal and was offered an extension more than three months ago. Liverpool are in a precarious position with Mohamed Salah, Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander‑Arnold, all of whom are in the final six months of their contracts and free to sign a pre-contract agreement with a foreign club.

• Club also expected to add Frankfurt’s Omar Marmoush
• Crystal Palace step up pursuit of Slavia wing-back Diouf

Manchester City have confirmed the signing of Abdukodir Khusanov from Lens in a deal understood to be worth €40m (£33.8m) plus add‑ons.

The 20-year-old defender is the club’s first January signing and City also have a deal in principle to buy the forward Omar Marmoush from Eintracht Frankfurt.

The team were humiliated in the cup, the manager says it’s a ‘tragedy’, the fans are furious and the owner is picking fights

By Luke Entwistle for Get French Football News

As Celal Bozkurt stepped up to take his penalty against Lucas Perri, he would have been forgiven for feeling a sense of deja vu. Back in November, it was his effort that wrapped up a 3-1 win over Lyon II, Les Gones’ reserve side, in the National 3. On Wednesday, he repeated the feat against Lyon’s first team, scoring the first goal in the penalty shootout as fifth-tier side Bourgoin-Jallieu sent last year’s finalists crashing out of the Coupe de France.

It was Lyon fan and Groupama Stadium regular Mehdi Moujetzky’s brace that took the game to extra time and then Bozkurt’s calmly taken spot-kick that got the ball rolling in the shootout before misses from academy products Alexandre Lacazette and Corentin Tolisso saw the minnows advance. “We will have to face our shame, to those close to us, to those who love the club, to our managers, to everyone,” said Pierre Sage, who didn’t warm to the storyline. “The magic of the cup? For us, it is the tragedy of the cup,” added the Lyon manager.

Praise rarely comes striker’s way but after match-winning hat-trick at Betis, cult hero was showered with it

This could have only felt more right if you read about it on Teletext. On Saturday afternoon Kike García, the 6ft 1in, 12 stone, 35-year-old Deportivo Alavés centre-forward with a bit of the 80s about him, a player from the recent past who doesn’t always get a lot of goals but always gives every little thing he has got, scored the perfect hat-trick to defeat Real Betis 3-1. Right foot, left foot, header and the lovable lump from La Mancha who everyone assumes is Basque, all mud and guts, the man whose coach once called him a “hard-working oaf”, left the Benito Villamarín with the match ball under his arm, something for the cabinet at home. But that, he said, was not the best thing about it, not now, and he meant it too, which is the best thing about him.

“I’m not Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi; they’ll have 900 of these,” García said, exaggerating just a weensy bit, when another battle was over for another week and victory was secure at last, the bus waiting outside to head back to Vitoria, a few beers on board. Between them, those two have actually scored 80 in La Liga alone; as for García, in a 16-year career that has taken in tercera, segunda b, and segunda, that led him to the Championship with Middlesbrough, and didn’t reach primera until he was 27, until now he had only two: for Real Murcia against Mirandés a decade ago, and for Eibar against Alavés in 2021. That said, the second of those might just have been the best hat-trick La Liga has ever seen – you can insert your own apart from Messi asterisk here, and Rivaldo would certainly like a word – three goals that filled an empty ground, bringing a little hope where there was none. And this one wasn’t bad either.

• Striker believed still to be keen to give his best for club
• United manager had said forward had ruled himself out

Marcus Rashford is ready and available to play for Manchester United, the Guardian understands, after Ruben Amorim indicated the forward had ruled himself out of contention for the defeat by Brighton on Sunday.

Rashford has not played for United since 12 December and declared five days later that he was “ready for a new challenge” after being left out of the squad for the Manchester derby.