English Clubs

Chelsea's progress has been severely dented this season due to a number of injury setbacks and several senior players will be unavailable for Tuesday's FA Cup fifth-round clash with Liverpool, manager Frank Lampard said on Monday.

Players such as influential midfielder N'Golo Kante have had a stop-start campaign while others like Antonio Rudiger have either returned from injury recently or been sidelined like winger Christian Pulisic.

The fifth round of the FA Cup kicked off with Arsenal visiting League One side Portsmouth on Monday. Because rules makers in England are about as smart as blade of grass, just three of the eight matches this round will feature a VAR. The lunacy of this decision was highlighted by a horrific Lucas Torreira injury that went unpunished.

Former Liverpool and England striker Daniel Sturridge has been suspended from all football-related activity until June 17 after he was found guilty of breaching betting rules, English football's governing body (FA) said on Monday.

Sturridge became a free agent earlier on Monday after mutually agreeing to terminate his contract with Turkish side Trabzonspor.

He had been charged by the FA in July with 11 alleged breaches of its betting rules, nine of which were dismissed by an independent regulatory commission, and banned for six weeks — four of which were suspended.

With the biggest clubs resting their starters until the later rounds of the competition, the League Cup is effectively England’s litmus test for who has the deepest squad of them all. It’s an opinion that’s supported by the fact that Manchester City has now won the competition five of the last seven years, including three straight.

Raúl Jiménez scored his 13th Premier League goal of the season on Sunday (equalling his total from last campaign with 10 games remaining), and it was an all-important match-winner as Wolves defeated Tottenham in North London. With the victory, Wolves moved above Spurs and into sixth-place. The club’s now level on points with fifth-place Manchester United and only three behind Chelsea in fourth.

It had been 422 days since last Liverpool had lost a Premier League match. The Reds were thought to be infallible. Saturday’s Liverpool-Watford match proved otherwise.

Not only did Watford defeat Liverpool, it beat the hell out of the Reds at Vicarage Road. A spectator with no prior knowledge of the teams would have thought it was Watford on an 18-game winning streak and Liverpool winless in its last five.

The Hornets opened up the flood gates in the second half on the league leaders, courtesy of abysmal Liverpool defending on a throw-in.

Training sessions at Newcastle United will be a lot less cordial after manager Steve Bruce said on Friday that players and staff had been advised to avoid handshakes in a bid to prevent spreading coronavirus.

The United Kingdom now has 19 confirmed cases of coronavirus and Bruce said the club was not taking any chances.

"There's a ritual here that everybody shakes hands with everybody as soon as we see each other every morning; we've stopped that on the advice of the doctor," Bruce told a news conference ahead of Saturday's match against Burnley.

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang thought he was the GOAT — 10 minutes later he was the goat.

Arsenal’s No. 14 scored a breathtaking bicycle kick with seven minutes left in extra time to briefly give Arsenal the lead in its Europa League matchup with Olympiakos. But Youssef El Arabi equalized in the 119th minute and Aubameyang missed a sitter right in front of the goal as Arsenal went crashing out of Europe. Olympiakos advanced on away goals with a 2-1 win on Thursday after a 1-0 defeat to Arsenal last week.