Arsenal defeated Chelsea 2-1 in the 2017 FA Cup Final after Alexis Sanchez opened the scoring in the fourth minute with a truly awful goal, and Aaron Ramsey secured the victory after Diego Costa had equalized for 10-man Chelsea. Victor Moses was sent off in the 68th minute for a sad, not even remotely believable dive.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: these cats are young. They’re like kittens in that sense — feral, attack-minded, alley kittens. It’s easy to get hyped on talent at the FIFA U-20 World Cup because the game, at this age, so heavily favors attackers. The goals are beautiful, but they’re generally scored in acres of space and triggered by a breakdown in midfield or defense.
England’s showpiece club soccer fixture will finally feature a heavyweight matchup. Each year the inevitable questions arise regarding whether or not the FA Cup has lost its magic, but the argument can be made that the tournament has seen too much magic as of late.
With the 2016-17 Premier League season in the books, we wanted to take a deep dive into how each team performed based on its payroll.
The final table reflected the spending gap between the top six teams and the rest. In fact, the eight teams that spent over $100 million in wages this season all finished in the top 8 of the table.
Although that might seem entirely too predictable, there was significant performance variance among those teams. Also, ninth place Bournemouth had one of the lowest payrolls, suggesting that they found some good players at a discount.
Manchester City defender Jason Denayer, who spent this season on loan at Sunderland, said he was reacting instinctively when he kicked a man in the head during a brawl in Belgium.
The 21-year-old's agent said Denayer "was in the wrong place at the wrong time".
City defender Jason Denayer was filmed kicking a man in the head during a brawl outside a bar in Brussels. pic.twitter.com/x0jTwdjJDr
John Terry is not mad. This is funny to him. He's laughing, actually.
Terry arranged his own substitution in the 26th minute of Chelsea's final match of the season — the final match of Terry's Chelsea career — because he wanted to honor himself by having the fans honor him. Terry was made fun of for this frivolous situation (The other players formed an honor guard as he left the stadium! Really!), but he is not mad at all.
Let's see what Manchester City new boy Gabriel Jesus thinks of the Premier League now that he has had half a season to get acclimated to elite European football.
From ESPN:
"I thought it would be harder."
(takes deep sigh, looks up at sky, mumbles "God forgive me", crosses self)
That's what she said.
Go get a pint glass. Fill it up with white wine. Pour some out. Big Sam is leaving.
From his statement on Crystal Palace's website: