English Clubs

Manchester United will host Liverpool in the fourth round of the FA Cup after the two arch rivals were drawn together on Monday, with the game set to be played a week after their Premier League summit clash.

The two sides, who are both top of the Premier League table and go head-to-head in the league on Sunday, meet in the cup for the first time since Dirk Kuyt scored a late winner as Liverpool beat United 2-1 in January 2012. United have not beaten Liverpool since March 2018, with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer yet to taste victory against Jürgen Klopp's side in four attempts.

Premier League Leeds United suffered the biggest upset of the FA Cup Third Round when they fell to a 3-0 defeat by fourth-tier Crawley Town on Sunday as Manchester City and Chelsea eased through.

A brilliant solo strike from Nick Tsaroulla in the 50th minute put League Two Crawley in front after a first half in which Leeds had caused them few problems.

Sunday’s FA Cup Third Round meeting between Tottenham Hotspur, fourth-place in the Premier League, and Marine AFC, sixth-place in the Northern Premier League Division One North West, represented a record gap of 161 places in the English football pyramid.

The prospect of the greatest giant killing of all time — and the spectacle of José Mourinho’s side visiting Rossett Park in Merseyside — allowed Marine to compensate for the potential loss in revenue of playing the match behind closed doors by selling 20,000 virtual tickets.

Fenerbahçe will sign German midfielder Mesut Özil from Arsenal for three and a half years for an undisclosed fee, Turkey's private Demirören news agency and other Turkish media reported on Wednesday.

While there was no immediate comment on the reports from Fenerbahçe, broadcaster A Spor said Özil and the club had agreed on the transfer in principle and that the 32-year-old would join the former Turkish champions later in January.

Tottenham Hotspur reached the League Cup final after goals from Moussa Sissoko and Son Heung-min sank Championship (second-tier) Brentford 2-0 on Tuesday to set up a clash with Manchester United or Manchester City in April's showpiece.

Fellow London side Brentford, playing in their first semifinal in a major cup competition, started brightly but fell behind in the 12th minute when unmarked French midfielder Sissoko headed in a fine Sergio Reguilon cross from the left.

Watford's promotion push gained some more vigor at the advent of the new year, as the club announced the signing of winger Philip Zinckernagel on a free transfer.

The Premier League is reassuring fans that the season will continue after its latest round of COVID-19 testing produced 40 positive cases among players and staff in the past week. This is the highest amount of Premier League COVID cases reported since the start of the pandemic, breaking the previous week’s record of 18 positive cases.

Despite 58 positive cases since Dec. 21, the EPL said in a statement that the season will go ahead as scheduled.

New Paris Saint-Germain boss Mauricio Pochettino said on Tuesday that he fulfilled a dream to return and manage the French club he played for and captained during his career as a defender in the early 2000s.

Pochettino had been out of a job since being dismissed by Tottenham Hotspur in November 2019 and took over the reins at PSG after Thomas Tuchel was sacked last month.