FOR the third year in the last four, a Manchester City player has been named Football Writers’ Association player of the year. Phil Foden, 23, received 42% of the votes from FWA members, with Arsenal’s Declan Rice in second place and Foden’s team-mate, Rodri, in third. Martin Ødegaard (Arsenal), Ollie Watkins (Aston Villa) and Cole Palmer (Chelsea) make up the top six. Bunny Shaw of Manchester City was named women’s player of the year. Khadija Shaw, 27, is the top scorer in the Women’s Super League with 21 goals.  Shaw, who broke a foot last week, and Lauren James claimed 80% of the ..read more

THE whole structure and ethos of domestic football is in danger and not because of the European Super League hovering in the background. The commoditisation of the game and attempts by broadcasters and corporates to take Europe’s best leagues and send them on tour, poses multiple threats to the stability of football. It would be foolish to assume the Premier League totally “belongs” to England because it has so obviously become a global business, but the company’s product is English domestic football, which by definition is something that most certainly is part of the country’s sporting cultur ..read more

TERRY Medwin, a member of the Tottenham Hotspur side that won the double in 1961, FA Cup in 1962 and European Cup-Winners’ Cup a year later, has died aged 91. Medwin, a Welsh international won was capped 30 times, played in the 1958 World Cup in Sweden and scored a vital goal for his country that secured a place in the quarter-finals. Medwin was a fast winger who was signed from Swansea in 1956 for £ 25,000 and played 345 Football League game for his two clubs. His career was ended in 1963 with a broken leg. Real Madrid displayed their Champions League expertise with a 2-2 draw at Bayern Munic ..read more

England: The Premier League title race is effectively down to two clubs after Liverpool dropped more points away to West Ham United while Arsenal and Manchester City powered on. Arsenal raced into a 3-0 half-time lead in the north London derby, but Spurs came back to put pressure on the league leaders. They hung on to win 3-2. Manchester City won 2-0 at Nottingham Forest with Erling Haaland coming on to score the clinching goal late on. Liverpool, in the early Saturday game, were held 2-2 at West Ham.  Northern Ireland: Larne are champions for the second successive season, the f ..read more

CHELSEA’s hopes of winning the UEFA Women’s Champions League were dashed by holders Barcelona at Stamford Bridge in front of 39,000 people. Barca, who lost 1-0 at home to Emma Hayes’ side in the first leg, scored through Aitana Bonmati and Fridolina Rolfö to take the semi-final 2-1 on aggregate. Hayes was incensed about a red card for Kadeisha Buchanan and the penalty awarded to Barca that clinched victory, calling them “probably the worst decisions in UEFA Women’s Champions League history”. Barcelona, who have been in five of the last six finals, will play the winners of Paris Saint-Germain a ..read more

IT FELT like a rather raucous wake. The bar was packed, beer was flowing, there was lots of back-slapping, laughing and joking. In the cold light of day, when the pints of lager have run from the system, the stark realisation that Hitchin Town had been relegated will sink in. It had been coming, not just this season, but at various times in the past decade. These things are often cyclical and the cycle had been running 15 years. A team doesn’t lose 23 of 40 games because they are unlucky, a group of players cannot deliberately lose so many times, and a squad that fails to win at home for month ..read more

ITALY’s Serie A had had four different champions in five years, with only Inter Milan securing two scudetti in that period. Their latest triumph, a 20th Serie A title, was richly deserved and underlined how much stronger Inter are than their nearest rivals. Beating AC Milan to rubber-stamp their title must have been satisfying even if the tension of the occasion almost got the better of both teams’ composure. Inter have lost just once in Serie A, a surprise home defeat at the hands of Sassuolo. Their relentless form this season has been built on what many people believe is Europe’s tighte ..read more

THE FA Cup semi-finals were exciting, but we still ended up with a very predictable outcome: Manchester City versus Manchester United. It’s no longer a novelty, not especially appetising for the majority of football’s community. The neutral world wanted Coventry City to get to the final, the sort of plucky FA Cup story we were all brought up on. The magic, the drama, the romance of the world’s oldest knockout competition, and all that. Coventry will be talking about their ruled-out goal for decades – Technology 1 Coventry 0 – and yet more debates about VAR (great when you benefit, lousy when y ..read more

Italy: Inter Milan have clinched their 20th Scudetto, beating local rivals Milan 2-1 at the San Siro. Inter took the lead in the 18th minute through Francesco Acerbi and added a second from Marcus Thuram in the 49th. Milan pulled one back 10 minutes from time through Fikayo Tomori. The game was bad tempered at times, Milan had Theo Hernández and Davide Calabria sent off and Inter’s Denzel Dumfries was also red-carded. The victory meant Inter went 17 points clear of second-placed Milan with five games to go. They have lost just once this season in Serie A and have scored 79 goals ..read more

ITALIAN football has rarely let teams from outside the Milan-Turin axis into the title race. Not even the capital, Rome, has a lengthy list of major honours. Parma, a city known for food production rather than football, had a spell when it threatened to challenge for major honours. Between 1991 and 1996, Parma finished in the top six in Serie A in five out of six seasons. They won two European trophies and the Coppa Italia and had an exciting side that made life uncomfortable for the aristocrats of Italy. Before winning promotion in 1990, Parma had spent most of their history in Serie B and C ..read more