Frank Lampard will be the latest man to return to a club where he starred as a player if he agrees to replace Maurizio Sarri at Chelsea.
Derby County on Tuesday gave the Blues permission to speak to their former midfielder about the vacancy created by Sarri s departure for Juventus and the 41-year-old is expected to make an emotional return to Stamford Bridge, where he spent 13 years as a player.
Lampard scored 211 goals in his Chelsea career, setting a club record, and if he re-signs will be tasked with reviving the enthusiasm of supporters who struggled to warm to Sarri during a season of mixed fortunes.
Chelsea reached the EFL Cup final and won the Europa League in 2018-19, but fans voiced their dismay after results like the 6-0 hammering at Manchester Cit…
Can Paris Saint-Germain get back on track? Are champions Lille in contention again? Could any top French sides face the drop?
Stats Perform aims to answer all of these questions and more as the new Ligue 1 season gets under way.
The Stats Perform League Prediction Model, created by Stats Perform AI using Opta data, has analysed the division ahead of the new season to assign percentages to potential outcomes for each club.
The model estimates the probability of each match outcome (win, draw or loss) based on teams attacking and defensive qualities, which considers four years worth of results, with weighting based on recency and the quality of opposition. The season is then simulated 10,000 times to calculate the likelihood of each outcome.
What does that …
The 2017 Africa Cup of Nations kicks off on Saturday, 14 January in Gabon as hosts take on Guinea Bissau, and the 31st edition of the continental tournament promises premium excitement.
Riyad Mahrez, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Sadio Mane are just some of the star players who will be looking to lead their respective national teams to glory, but it is holders Ivory Coast that have been made .
They are followed by perennial underachievers Senegal (5/1), Algeria (7/1), hosts Gabon (8/1) and Cameroon, Egypt and Ghana (all priced at 10/1).
The top goalscorer chase should prove quite interesting as well, with Gabon’s own Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang leading the betting at 11/2.
Aston Villa striker Jonathan Kodjia and Leicester City star Islam Slimani…
data-mm-id=”_whqivmjhg”>The Philadelphia Eagles beat the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday. Taylor Swift was not in attendance, which pretty much explains all the of the Chiefs' struggles. It's hard not to believe that Marquez Valdes-Scantling dropped that easy touchdown from Patrick Mahomes or Travis Kelce played poorly again just because Swift chose to stay in Argentina, rather than travel to Missouri to sit next to her boyfriend's mom during the game. Of course, if she had been in attendance, we only have a small sample size saying the Chiefs would have won and Kelce would have excelled. Perhaps it really would have been like the final match in Dodgeball with Travis Kelce playing Justin Long's character and Taylor Swift distracting him with her proclimation of love ri…
Defiant France boss Didier Deschamps has insisted he does not care if people have been “bored” by his Euro 2024 semi-finalists.
Deschamps, who guided his country to World Cup glory in 2018, will send them into battle against in-form Spain in Munich on Tuesday evening with some onlookers less than impressed with the form they have shown in the competition so far.
Sorry if the Swedish are bored
Asked by a Swedish journalist at his pre-match press conference about accusations his team has played “boring” football, he said: “If you’re getting bored, you know what? Watch another game, that’s fine. You don’t have to watch, it’s fine. It’s a European Championship, it’s very difficult for everyone.
“Up until now, it has not been the same as in…