Julen Lopetegui calls for West Ham unity amid injury crisis before Liverpool clash​

Cristiano Ronaldo has insisted that Manchester United‘s problems are not down to new manager Ruben Amorim, and believes he would be able to fix them if he was the club’s owner.

Amorim has lost five of his 10 games in charge of United — including four of the past five in the Premier League — and said ahead of the next game against Newcastle United that his job is not safe.

But Ronaldo, who scored 145 goals over two spells at United but has been critical of the club’s ownership, among other things in recent years, has said his countryman is not to blame.

“The Premier League it’s the most difficult league in the world,” Ronaldo, now playing for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia, said at the Globe Soccer Awards in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, on Friday.

“All the teams are good, all the teams fight, all the teams run, all the players are strong. Football is different right now. There’s no easy games anymore.

“I said this one and a half years ago, and I will continue to say it: The problem is not the coaches.

“It’s like an aquarium. If you have the fish inside and he’s sick and you take him out and you fix the problem and you put him again in an aquarium they will be sick again.

“The problem of Manchester United is the same. The problem is not always the coach. It’s much more than that.

“If I will be the owner of the club, I will make things clear and adjust what I think is bad there.”

Ronaldo’s comments followed him hinting at ownership of a “big club” in the near future.

“I’m not a coach. I’m never going to be a coach, president of the club? No. Maybe owner of the club,” he said.

“It will depend on the moment, the right opportunities.”

Asked if he had any in mind, Ronaldo cryptically responded: “Not yet. A few, maybe.”

But questioned about contact with the Glazers directly, Ronaldo said: “I’m still very young, I have so many plans and dreams ahead.

“But mark my words, I will be owner of a big club. For sure.”

Ronaldo left United in 2022 following a public fallout with Erik ten Hag and a TV interview where Ronaldo made a number of explosive claims, including that the owners — the Glazer family — “don’t care about the club.”

Since Ronaldo’s exit, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos Group have assumed control of football operations, while Ten Hag was sacked before the hiring of Amorim. But Ronaldo still feels problems persist.

Asked about Amorim, the Portugal forward was complimentary as he said: “He did a fantastic job in Portugal with my club Sporting. But the Premier League is a different beast, it’s a different league, it’s the most competitive league in the world.

“I knew it would be tough and they would continue the storm, but the storm will finish and the sun will rise. Fingers crossed things will be good with him and I hope the best for Manchester United because this is a club I still love.”

At the awards, Ronaldo was named Best Middle East Player of 2024 after a strong year in Saudi Arabia.

Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson Becker has said Arne Slot’s side have the “quality to achieve something special” this season and has called on his teammates to “create their own history” at the club.

The Merseyside club are six points clear at the top of the Premier League table with a game in hand, having also won all of their games in the revamped Champions League and secured passage to the semifinals of the Carabao Cup.

Their impressive form has inevitably led to parallels being drawn with Liverpool’s title-winning side of 2019-20 but Alisson — who played an integral part in the club winning both the Premier League and Champions League under Jürgen Klopp — has insisted that it is impossible to compare the two teams.

“I don’t think it’s too similar, [it’s] two different teams,” the Brazil international said. “A few players still play in the team but we have a little bit different style now, more ball possession, before it was really straightforward: a lot of transition, a lot of intensity.

“That team was really special, we achieved great things, it was the first Premier League title for this club in a long time. We achieved the Champions League together as well, the season before. I think there’s no comparison with both situations.

“Just what makes me happy is to see that this group of players, we have the quality to do something special and the most important thing is the commitment that is needed to win something is there, and the passion, the desire.

“We are hungry and we want to win every game in front of us and that we have in front of us and that’s all we are focused on at the moment.

“We know that in the future we’re going to remember more about the good moments now that you had together in football. Winning is not everything, of course, but it’s a big part of football so I want to remember this team as a winning team.

“I believe we don’t have to compare ourselves with the teams in the past, we have to create our own history. This season, this group has to create its own history.”

Liverpool have defied expectations this season to mount a title charge under new head coach Slot.

Alisson was quick to praise the Dutchman for how quickly he has been able to implement his ideas at Anfield.

“I think when Arne joined the club, everybody thought it would be hard work for him to replace a manager like Jürgen,” he said. “He’s showing his qualities and he brings us a lot of good things.

“I think it’s not only one key, but many things that are helping us to achieve our goals. I want to highlight the commitment of this team, of the players, to do what the manager asks, to go every day and train hard and having the desire to improve as well, to be a better team and the desire of winning big things for this club. So that will always be an important point for a team that wants to be a winner.”

It has been a challenging season so far for Alisson, who was sidelined for more than two months with a hamstring injury earlier in the campaign. However, the 32-year-old has confirmed he is now fully fit and is thrilled to be able to now help Slot’s side on the pitch.

“It’s not easy when you stay for a long time away,” he said. “It was not easy for me, but I worked really hard.

“I was looking forward to coming back because when you are injured, these days you just don’t go there, put some ice on your legs and just wait until you’re fully recovered.

“You work so hard in the gym every day, sometimes double sessions, pretty much every day double sessions, doing treatment at home, having treatment at the club.

“So I spent a lot of time working without doing the best side of football, that is playing. So I was looking forward to coming back, even because the team was doing so well, so you get even more excited to be part of it.”

Liverpool will look to keep their impressive run going when they travel to West Ham United on Sunday. But while the league leaders seem in rude health, Alisson has stressed the importance of Slot’s squad keeping their feet on the ground.

“It’s too soon to talk about the title, of course, but it’s our goal, it’s our target,” he said. “At this point, we cannot just start to look to the points and see how it goes. We have to really focus on the next opponent that we have in front of us.

“That’s the mentality that we need and that is the mentality that we are having at the moment. We know how Premier League can change so quickly in two games.

“Two games ago, maybe everybody was saying, looking to us at the table, Chelsea coming closer, all the teams coming closer, and now two games after we are in a better position. So everything changes so quickly here because of the quality of all the teams. So we have to be really focused on ourselves.

“As I said before, we have so many things to improve. During the season, you have to become a champion not only in one game or only for what we did at this half way point.”

Bukayo Saka has undergone surgery on a hamstring injury and is set to be sidelined until March, Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta confirmed on Friday.

The 23-year-old sustained a tear to the muscle in his right leg during the first half of last Saturday’s 5-1 win at Crystal Palace.

“He had a procedure, everything went well,” Arteta told a news conference after Arsenal’s win over Ipswich. “But unfortunately he will be out for many, many weeks.”

Pushed further to clarify an exact time frame, Arteta said: “I said ‘many weeks’ so I think it will be more than two months. I don’t know exactly how much longer. I think it will depend on how the scar tissue starts to heal the first week or so, the mobility of that. Let’s see. Very difficult to say.”

The Gunners laboured in Saka’s absence as Kai Havertz‘s 23rd-minute close-range finish was enough to move Arteta’s side up into second place, six points adrift of Premier League leaders Liverpool.

Arteta was more upbeat about Raheem Sterling‘s prognosis after Arsenal initially feared the winger would also be sidelined for a lengthy period due to a knee problem.

“The news with Raz I think is better,” he said. “We have to see this week how he evolves, but we expected the knee injury to probably take longer than the way the knee has evolved the last few days. That is good because we need him.”

Injury issues continue to plague AC Milan, with leading scorer Christian Pulisic now out of Sunday’s Serie A clash against Roma after a setback during his recovery, coach Paulo Fonseca said.

However, eighth-placed Milan, who were missing eight players when they beat Verona 1-0 on Dec. 20, are expecting forward Álvaro Morata to return to the squad, Fonseca told reporters on Saturday.

“I expected to have Pulisic. He is fine, he has recovered from his calf problem, but in the last two days he has had an ankle problem,” the coach said about the United States international.

“It has arisen in the recovery process, and he is not ready to play tomorrow, not even for the bench.”

Fonseca said that although Morata and Ismaël Bennacer were doing well, English midfielder Ruben Loftus-Cheek would only be back next week, with Yunus Musah and Rafael Leão trying to be fit for next Friday’s Italian Super Cup clash with Juventus.

“We’ll have 11 anyway,” the 51-year-old coach added.

Fonseca, who previously coached Roma for two years, said it would be special to face his former club.

“Roma is a great club; they have a great team … I have many friends there,” he said. “But … in the 90 minutes, I only have the thought of winning.”

Milan, who have 26 points from 16 matches, are five points behind the top five, with frustrated fans booing their performance earlier this month. Fonseca said it was too early to write his team off.

“The mood is good. I can’t be more positive after the last training sessions,” he added.

MANCHESTER, England — There was a moment during stoppage time at the Etihad Stadium when Phil Foden swept the ball out to Bernardo Silva. With the score at 1-1, it was one final chance for Manchester City to scrape a winner against Everton. But it came to nothing. Silva’s cross was rushed and panicked — too words not usually associated with Pep Guardiola’s serial winners.

This, though, is City’s new reality. The spark that has inspired four straight Premier League titles has disappeared over the past two months. A group of players who once found excellence so easy to come by now look like they’re battling a chronic lack of self-confidence.

Silva scored the opener against Everton but also missed a glorious chance to make it 2-0. Quite why he opted to use the outside of his boot and hit his shot first time rather than taking a calming touch and pass the ball into the net, only he will know. Again, it was rushed and panicked, but Silva wasn’t alone in making mistakes. Erling Haaland missed a second-half penalty as City stretched their miserable run to just one win from their past 13 games in all competitions.

It says everything about City’s drop-off that Everton didn’t look like they were trying to win for much of the game and still should have snatched it at the end. In the last of six minutes of injury time, Everton had four players breaking against two City defenders, with the resulting shot from Jack Harrison blocked before it could reach goalkeeper Stefan Ortega. It saved City from further embarrassment, but the eventual draw didn’t stop boos from ringing round the Etihad at the final whistle.

“We played really good but we are in the period right now that is what happens,” Guardiola said afterward. “We create, we concede the first time [they] arrive [in the penalty area]. But yeah, [we] keep going.

“That is the momentum in the situation that everything takes more time to make it work. Football is about winning, scoring goals and not conceding, and always we’ve done it until the last month and a half. Now we’re not able to do it.”

This was supposed to mark the start of City’s revival. Everton at home kicks off a run that includes Leicester, West Ham, Brentford, Ipswich and an FA Cup tie against League Two side Salford City. All of them will kick off against City as underdogs, but the relative ease with which Everton handled Haaland & Co. will spread hope that positive results are possible whatever the odds.

City’s aura of invincibility has been shattered and in its place there’s an anxiety that has infected almost everything. When Silva missed his golden opportunity to make it 2-0 midway through the first half, Foden — who laid on the pass — spun round and screamed in anger. On the touchline, Guardiola arched his back in frustration. In the past, these minor setbacks would have meant very little. Now it feels like things are so difficult that City can’t afford to pass up those chances. Foden and Guardiola seemed to know it, too.

Jordan Pickford expertly saved Haaland’s 53rd-minute penalty, but the only other close call for Everton came from a Josko Gvardiol header which hit the post. Haaland’s penalty was his only shot on target and one of just 22 touches. It’s now one goal in seven Premier League games for the double Golden Boot winner. Even the robotic Norway international seems to be suffering from self-doubt and when a cross was later lofted into the box, he chose to head it back toward Foden rather than go for goal himself.

Afterward, Guardiola spoke about his players not being able to “bounce back mentally” after the penalty miss; counterpart Sean Dyche, meanwhile, admitted there’s a different feeling around the Etihad these days.

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Why Pep Guardiola is now the one to blame for City’s poor form

Luis Miguel Echegaray explains why he blames Pep Guardiola for Manchester City’s poor run after their 1-1 draw against Everton on Boxing Day.

“They are getting heavily questioned for the first time,” Dyche, whose team has taken points off Arsenal, Chelsea and City in its past three games, said. “Does that give you an opportunity? It is not easy to take advantage of it. You know [it’s there] because of the noise around it.

“It is the first period of questions, but the prowess they have shown year after year, it’s pretty impressive to have the first period after all the years and trophies, so certainly the maximum respect. I do think they are due one and will open someone up but we worked hard to make sure it didn’t happen today.”

Guardiola can only hope that a few of the eight senior players missing against Everton are back when City travel to Leicester on Sunday. Beyond that, he’s praying that the January transfer window can offer a solution to some of his problems.

“The transfer window in the winter is not easy,” he said. “Even the players know that we have to add some new players. We have a lot [of injuries] and this is a problem. Sometimes it is not easy. We have to try because this is sustained for a long time.”

Having players fit again and getting a few extra bodies through the door in January will help, but the bigger issue facing Guardiola is how he lifts the confidence of a squad that has been battered and bruised by this unprecedented run. Sheikh Mansour’s money will fill some of the gaps in the dressing room. Repairing the self-belief of his players might be harder to achieve.