Category: News Story

Paul Pogba will not make a final decision about his future until the end of the season, when his Manchester United contract expires

Sky Sports News reported last month the France international, who is thought to have played his final game for United as he is out with a calf injury, has not ruled out staying in the Premier League.

It is understood two clubs from England’s top flight have been in touch with Pogba’s camp.

Reports have emerged of interest from United’s rivals Manchester City and Sky Sports News has been told Pogba will look at every concrete offer presented to him.

Real Madrid, Juventus and PSG remain interested in signing him on a free transfer, six years after United signed Pogba from the Italian club for a then world record £93.25m.

Pogba is free to talk to clubs outside England, but cannot officially negotiate with English clubs until he is out of contract.

City were interested in Pogba in 2018, while he is a known admirer of Pep Guardiola.

United, who are set to miss out on Champions League qualification, have not offered fresh terms to Pogba since last summer.

Pogba is 29 and believes the next deal he signs will be the most important of his career.

Has Pogba played his last game for Man Utd?

Manchester United interim boss Ralf Rangnick revealed last month that Pogba would likely to miss the rest of the season

Pogba was forced off in the early stages of United’s 4-0 drubbing at the hands of Liverpool at Anfield on Tuesday, and Rangnick revealed the France midfielder faces at least four weeks on the sidelines.

United’s final game of the season is at Crystal Palace on May 22, meaning the midfielder faces ending his six-year spell at Old Trafford with a whimper.

Rangnick said: “Paul, as it seems after the scan we did, it’s very unlikely he will play until the end of the season.

“The doctor told me it will take four weeks minimum for him to recover. Since the last game is the end of May, I don’t think it is very likely he will be able to play again.”

Defeats do not come more difficult than the one that Manchester City suffered in Madrid on Wednesday evening. Two goals ahead going into the final minute but still somehow eliminated from the Champions League. What could Pep Guardiola say?

Very little, he admits. This is Friday afternoon. He has not watched the game back. “Of course, we can analyse,” he tells Sky Sports. “But in this type of game there are a lot of emotions involved and now I prefer to be focused on Newcastle.”

That is the next Premier League game on Sunday, live on Sky Sports Premier League. “The most important thing.” The first of City’s four remaining games. Such is Liverpool’s form, it is likely they will need to win all of them if they are to retain the Premier League title. This is the only trophy left now.

Sunday 8th May 4:00pm


Kick off 4:30pm

After travelling back from Madrid, the players have been given the day off. Not so for Guardiola. He is back at the training ground, addressing the media. There is no sense of a man in mourning, he even shares a joke or two. He is preparing for Newcastle.

There is a misconception about Guardiola. Those distant stares on the bench, the manic gestures on the touchline. A man who cares so deeply, invests so much, must surely be broken by defeat. It is not the way he sees it. It is the setbacks that forge him.

“What is life? Life is not always good moments,” he explains.

“In sport, especially, there are more bad moments than good moments.” And then comes a surprising admission. “I am so comfortable handling these type of situations. Sometimes I am more comfortable in that than when I am handling the success.”

There are those he leans on in such moments.

Manel Estiarte, Spain’s former Olympic water polo champion, is a constant. His presence on the technical staff has little to do with football and everything to do with psychology. He helps with player welfare but that is not the chief purpose of his role at City.

“Manel takes care of me, that is enough for him,” jokes Guardiola.

“He is a friend of mine for many, many years. For many, many. He was the best athlete in his sport. He has an incredible sense of what is happening in the team. Not about the tactics but what is happening in the team, what we need, what we are looking for.

“It helps me a lot, especially in the bad moments. We share our sadness. Our sorrow is always together. And, of course, in the good moments too. He has a role, an important role in the club. He is an incredible person for my family. For the club as well.”

Estiarte has had to earn his money this week. “Defeats are always full of feelings,” continues Guardiola. “With successes, you are mixed. Sometimes you could do better. The defeats, you feel it. And you have to feel it to make it better when the good moments come.”

He insists in the press conference that nothing was said to the players afterwards, something that he reaffirms here. “After the game, there are no words that can control or can handle the pain that you have with this result. You have to feel this pain.”

But speaking in a small room within City’s media suite, Guardiola acknowledges the noise that surrounded the result. Words were, in fact, spoken. “Today, everyone talks. That is why I said to the players, ‘Don’t read much, stay away from this and focus on yourselves.’

There has been criticism of Jack Grealish, the £100m signing who twice went close to confirming City’s place in the final before the chaos engulfed his team. Guardiola rejects that out of hand. “Jack was brilliant when he came in and was unlucky with the situations.”

There has been criticism of him too, of course. This latest defeat means by the time of next year’s Champions League final it will have been a dozen years since he last lifted European club football’s biggest prize. But he makes an impassioned defence of his record.

“The situations come the way they come. Respect it. What you have to do is just put on the table who we are and what we have done in these two games. What we have done in the Premier League, what we have done in the Champions League.

“Last season, we lost the Champions League. It was 13 games. We won 11, drew one and lost one. If we lost the Champions League, was it a bad Champions League season? Absolutely not. This season we were in the Champions League semi-final again.

“We want to win the Champions League, of course. But when they called me they did not tell me we had to win the Champions League. Not even the Premier League.

“They said they wanted to be competitors in all the competitions until the end, to be a team that for our fans is nice to watch and wins as many games as we can in all competitions. That is why they knocked on my door to come here. And we did it.

“There is no doubt, in all competitions, we did it. The people who play against us know, they are good. They run, they fight and they bring their opponent to the limit.

“This is when you become a solid club. A club you can rely on. For sponsors, fans, people who want to follow us when they switch on the TV and want to watch Man City. The honesty of these players and this team has been quite remarkable for many years.”

In what some will see as a trademark contrarian view, Guardiola describes the performance in Madrid as one of his proudest moments. “The way we compete, the way we behave.” But perhaps the biggest test will come this weekend and in the two that follow it.

Newcastle manager Eddie Howe says he does not know how City’s defeat will affect them psychologically. Guardiola cannot see the future either. But he knows his players. “I know we are going to play like who we are, we are going to move on,” he says.

“It is just two weeks until the end of the season and we have four games in front of us, three in a short space of time. We are going to face the most important week of the season in the Premier League.

“We don’t have the margin.

“The first is Newcastle and we are going for it.”

Charlie Appleby goes in search of more big Saturday success this weekend with two runners in the tote Victoria Cup (4:05) at Ascot, live on Sky Sports Racing.

The Godolphin handler sends One Ruler – ridden by dual-Guineas winner James Doyle – and Path Of Thunder to the big-field handicap over seven furlongs (4:05), with exciting apprentice Harry Davies taking the ride on the latter.

Dark Shift currently heads the market for Charlie Hills and Andrea Atzeni, having won on his last two starts at the track – the four-year-old sneaks in towards the bottom of the weights off just 8st 8lb.

Other likely contenders include Fresh (James Fanshawe), Chiefofchiefs (Charlie Fellowes) and Magical Morning (John & Thady Gosden), to be ridden by Frankie Dettori.

Also on the Ascot card, Al Aasy looks to be the headline act in the Listed Buckhounds Stakes (2:20), but will need to get back on track after a couple of below-par displays at the end of last season.

Classic credentials on the line at Lingfield

Over at Lingfield, it’s Classic hopes wherever you look with the SBK Derby and Oaks Trials (2:40 and 3:15) that could unearth some Epsom contenders.

The aforementioned Charlie Appleby has the favourite in the Derby Trial with Walk Of Stars, who is currently a 10/1 shot for the Cazoo Derby but will surely shorten up with an impressive success on Saturday.

Appleby also runs unbeaten Natural World, while the red-hot Ryan Moore and Aidan O’Brien combo run United Nations in the race.

Moore and O’Brien have the favourite in the Oaks Trial, with Emily Dickinson stepping up in grade after landing a Naas maiden just under two weeks ago.

Two unbeaten prospects head the opposition, with Belt Buckle (John & Thady Gosden) and Rogue Milennium (Tom Clover) looking like potential improvers, both with Royal Ascot entries.

Asmussen out to break Kentucky Derby duck

Steve Asmussen might be the winning-most trainer in North America, but the Hall of Famer has yet to add the prestigious Kentucky Derby title to his haul, despite sending out 23 previous runners in the race.

His 24th hopeful might just be the one to break the duck as favourite Epicenter bids to follow up on victory in the Louisiana Derby in March, live on Sky Sports Racing at 11.57pm.

Tim Yakteen looks to have two of the main dangers in the famous $1.89m Run for the Roses with Santa Anita Derby front two Taiba and Messier, while Zandon will need to overturn the form with Epicenter from February’s Risen Star Stakes, but followed up that effort by claiming the Grade One Blue Grass at Keeneland last month.

Watch every race from Ascot, Lingfield, Hexham and Churchill Downs live on Sky Sports Racing (Sky 415 | Virgin 535) on Saturday May 7.

After both medalling for Team GB at the Tokyo Olympics, British boxing’s new power couple Lauren Price and Karriss Artingstall are setting their sights on conquering the professional game together.

Price, who won middleweight gold in Japan last summer, will make her professional debut live on Sky Sports on June 11 at Wembley Arena. Featherweight bronze medallist Artingstall, who has also signed a long-term promotion deal with BOXXER, will no doubt be in the vicinity as she awaits confirmation of a date for her first professional outing.

The pair, both 27, publicly confirmed their relationship after the Olympics as they revealed they had recently bought a house together, and have now explained how training and competing alongside each other has helped propel them to this point.

“It’s just like having a home comfort everywhere you go,” Artingstall told Sky Sports News. “If we’re ever having to travel away to a different country for a training camp or anywhere, she’s always by my side and I’m always by hers. So it’s always having that home comfort with you.

“I say you never feel out of your comfort zone, you do because the sessions are hard, but it’s always that little bit easier having her beside me pushing me on.”

Following confirmation of their long-term deals with BOXXER, it has been announced that Price and Artingstall will become the first professional boxers to sign training and management contracts with GB Boxing.

Under the terms of the deal, the duo, who were keen to remain under the guidance of performance director Rob McCracken and the GB Boxing coaches, will continue to train in Sheffield, alongside the next generation of Olympic aspirants.

Price says the experience of contributing to a record GB boxing medal haul in Tokyo was only heightened by competing alongside Artingstall.

“It was pretty special doing that with Karriss, my partner,” Price says. “We live together, we train together and to go to the Olympic Games on the biggest stage there is with your partner, that’s pretty special. It was great.

“Like she says, it’s like a home comfort. Boxing is a lonely sport, so to be there – we travel to Sheffield every week and even just having her in the car by the side of me – in training if we’re having a tough day, we kind of pick each other up.”

From international footballer to kickboxing world champion

While they have ended up on the same path, Price and Artingstall’s routes to professional boxing were extremely contrasting.

Price, raised by her grandparents in Wales, was set for sporting stardom from a young age. Her grandpa took her to play football at the age of eight, before her grandma took her to a kickboxing club soon afterwards.

“If it wasn’t for them then I wouldn’t have achieved anything in life really,” Price says of her grandparents.

“My grandad took me down to a little football club in the valley. I was the only girl at the time in the team with a bunch of boys. I was playing centre-half, I was bigger than most of the boys. Then my nan took me to kickboxing club as well just to let some energy off. I was like Tigger as a child, I was always just bouncing around. From there I just fell in love with sport.”

Both ventures proved successful. After being spotted by scouts from Cardiff City, Price would go on to represent Wales at senior international level. As for kickboxing, she would become a four-time world champion.

Not content, Price turned her attention to boxing, which is also going rather well.

“My nan always said reach for the moon and if you fall short you land on the stars,” says Price, who received an MBE after her Olympic triumph. “That’s something I’ve always stuck with and they were big believers in me having dreams and it just goes to show if you work hard enough you can achieve anything.”

Artingstall: Army discipline set me up for boxing

Artingstall’s route to the ring is a familiar one for the sport, which has offered salvation and discipline at a young age to many of its future champions.

“I got into boxing from just being a little rascal basically,” she says. “I was always into bother with the police and I got kicked out of four different schools and ended up in a non-mainstream school because of that.

“Every Friday we went down to the local boxing gym for an hour, but the coaches said they could see potential in me, so I went down there three times a week and just stuck with it.”

While pursuing her amateur boxing career, Artingstall joined the British army, and only in April ended her eight-year service as a gunner to focus solely on being a professional athlete.

“In the army you have to be disciplined, in boxing I believe you have to be disciplined,” she says. “So going through the army set me up nicely for the ring. They bounce off one and other.

“I solely left just so I could focus on my pro boxing career, even though they were the backbone of my career, they supported me massively.”

A seamless transition to the pro ranks?

Price, who will come down a weight division to start her pro career, is expecting a seamless transition.

“I’ve got a good boxing IQ,” Price says. “Very technical, very fast. I can dig a little bit and now I’m coming down from middleweight to welterweight, I’ll be boxing people my own size, not giants.

“I’ve always had pressure really because for a while now I’ve been going into tournaments seeded as No 1 and expected to win gold and expected to perform, so there’s nothing really new to me. I just cope with it, I’m very laid back. I’m just very excited. It’s great to be on a platform like Sky Sports, there’s no bigger platform, so I’m really excited.”

Artingstall is also confident of her amateur success translating at pro level, and admits the presence of world champions Savannah Marshall, Claressa Shields and Natasha Jonas in the BOXXER ranks were crucial elements in her decision.

“I’m powerful, explosive – when the time’s right,” Artingstall says. “I’m not just going to go out there and try to blow someone’s head off, I can box.

“To be looking up to people like Savannah, Claressa and Tasha, they’re the footsteps we want to follow in to become world champions ourselves, and hopefully be the next females to be taking over.”

Wherever their professional journeys take them, merely attempting to climb the mountain together is an extremely rare experience.

“It’s a once in a lifetime sort of a feeling that no-one else really gets to see,” Artingstall says. “Going to the top of the sport with their partner by their side.”

Todd Boehly’s consortium has signed an agreement to purchase Chelsea from Roman Abramovich.

The proposed deal, announced by the club in a statement in the early hours of Saturday morning, has to be approved by the UK Government and the Premier League before it can be completed. Chelsea say a deal is “expected to complete in late May”.

The group headed by the LA Dodgers part-owner – which includes backing from Clearlake Capital, a US investment firm – beat off late competition from £4.25billion bidder Sir Jim Ratcliffe and other consortiums led by Stephen Pagliuca and Sir Martin Broughton to win the battle to become the Premier League club’s new owners.

Chelsea had until May 31 to find a new bidder as the UK Government’s licence for the club to operate ran out on that date. With the Raine Group – hired by Abramovich to oversee the sale of the club – having chosen its preferred bidder, the government can issue a separate licence to allow the Premier League club to be sold.

The Premier League is meeting on June 8 to constitute the new season, by which time Chelsea would need to have a licence to be part of the next campaign.

Chelsea said in a statement: “Of the total investment being made, £2.5bn will be applied to purchase the shares in the Club and such proceeds will be deposited into a frozen UK bank account with the intention to donate 100 per cent to charitable causes as confirmed by Roman Abramovich.

“In addition, the proposed new owners will commit £1.75bn in further investment for the benefit of the Club. This includes investments in Stamford Bridge, the Academy, the Women’s Team and Kingsmeadow and continued funding for the Chelsea Foundation.”

Sky Sports News reported in April Boehly’s consortium was chosen as the preferred group to buy Chelsea, despite a late £4.25bn bid from Britain’s richest man Ratcliffe for the west London club – though that offer was rejected out of hand.

The Pagliuca consortium was told at the end of last month it was out of the running to become the Raine Group’s preferred bidder. However, the Broughton consortium – led by former Liverpool and British Airways chairman Sir Martin, and including the billionaire Crystal Palace shareholders Dave Blitzer and Josh Harris – was still in the race.

Lewis Hamilton was one of the investors backing Broughton’s attempt to acquire Chelsea and is understood to have committed £10m to the bid. Tennis legend Serena Williams was also among the backers of the Broughton consortium.

A group led by the Ricketts family, which owns the Chicago Cubs, and the Citadel hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin, with the US investment bank Lazard was in the final four but withdrew its offer in March. The plans fell apart due to members of the consortium being unable to agree on the final make-up of the deal.

It is expected Chelsea will have new owners by the end of this month – nearly three months after Russian owner Abramovich, who has been at the Stamford Bridge helm for 19 years, first put the club up for sale on March 2.

The 55-year-old was sanctioned by the UK Government on March 10, with Downing Street claiming to have proven links between the Russian-Israeli billionaire and Vladimir Putin.

Abramovich will not ask for Chelsea loan to be repaid

This week, departing Chelsea owner Abramovich denied he wants his £1.5billion loan to the Blues repaid and has committed to giving proceeds from the sale of the club to charity.

The Russian owner said he would not be asking for his loans to Chelsea to be repaid and that proceeds from the sale of the club would go to a charitable foundation for “all the victims of the war in Ukraine”.

After reports the oligarch was looking to recoup the money he loaned the club, the 55-year-old has reiterated his commitment to giving money from the sale to charitable organisations.

In a statement released by Abramovich and Chelsea on Thursday evening, a spokesperson for the Russian said: “Firstly, Mr Abramovich’s intentions in relation to gifting the proceeds from the Chelsea sale to charity have not changed.

“Since the initial announcement, Mr Abramovich’s team has identified senior representatives from UN bodies and large global charitable organizations who have been tasked with forming a Foundation and setting out a plan for its activities. The lead independent expert has had conversations with Government representatives presenting the structure and initial plans.

“Mr Abramovich has not been involved in this work and it has been managed independently by experts with years of experience working in humanitarian organizations.

“Secondly, Mr Abramovich has not asked for any loan to be repaid to him – such suggestions are entirely false – as are suggestions that Mr Abramovich increased the price of the Club last minute. As part of Mr Abramovich’s objective to find a good custodian for Chelsea FC, he has however encouraged each bidder throughout this process to commit investing in the Club – including in the Academy, Women’s team, necessary redevelopment of the stadium as well as maintaining the work of Chelsea Foundation.”

The UK government will not allow the sale to go through unless it is completely certain Abramovich will not receive any of the proceeds.

The spokesperson added in the statement: “Following sanctions and other restrictions imposed on Mr Abramovich by the UK since announcing that the Club would be sold, the loan has also become subject to EU sanctions, requiring additional approvals.

“That means that the funds will be frozen and subject to a legal procedure governed by authorities. These funds are still earmarked for the Foundation. The Government are aware of these restrictions as well as the legal implications.

“To be clear, Mr Abramovich has no access or control of these funds and will not have any access or control of these funds following the sale. Despite the changing circumstances since his initial announcement – he remains committed to finding a good custodian for Chelsea FC and making sure the proceeds go to good causes.”