Newcastle would be willing to let Alexander Isak leave for £83.3m (100m euros) this summer if they fail to qualify for the Champions League, with Barcelona, Liverpool, Arsenal and Chelsea among those keen on the 25-year-old Sweden striker. (Sport - in Spanish), external
Atletico Madrid are interested in Leicester's 28-year-old Nigeria midfielder Wilfred Ndidi. (Caught Offside), external
Liverpool are bracing themselves for the potential departure of Netherlands centre-back Virgil van Dijk, 33, in the summer and have added Bournemouth's 19-year-old Spain Under-21 defender Dean Huijsen to their shortlist of replacements. (Football Insider, external)
Everton will make a move for Burnley's 22-year-old French centre-back Maxime Esteve if England international Jarrad Branthwaite, 22, leaves this summer. (Sun - subscription required), external
Chelsea have been closely monitoring Middlesbrough's 16-year-old twins Anton and Bailey Palmer, with Tottenham, Aston Villa and Brighton also interested in the England Under-17 midfielders. (TBR Football), external
Everton are set to revive their interest in Lyon's Rayan Cherki after considering a move for the 21-year-old French winger in January. (Football Insider), external
Premier League clubs are scouting Shamrock Rovers' 16-year-old Irish striker Michael Noonan, who became the second-youngest goalscorer in Uefa club competition history when he scored against Molde in the Conference League on Thursday. (Times - subscription required), external
Real Madrid are considering trying to quit Spanish football for another league in protest at the leadership of La Liga president Javier Tebas and what they perceive as biased refereeing decisions. (Sport - in Spanish)
Sky Paper Talk
THE SUN
Jude Bellingham could face 12 MATCHES on the sidelines following his red card for an X-rated rant towards the referee in Real Madrid's draw with Osasuna.
Former Premier League manager Garry Monk has been sacked by Cambridge United.
DAILY MAIL
Barcelona manager Hansi Flick has hit out at Jude Bellingham for his red card and abusive language during Real Madrid's game against Osasuna on Saturday.
Virgil van Dijk confessed Liverpool were "sloppy" as they struggled to deal with a spirited Wolves side before digging out a 2-1 win on Sunday afternoon.
DAILY MIRROR
Ederson has vowed to keep adding to his record assists total after setting up the first goal of Omar Marmoush's hat-trick.
Jhon Duran says he has been so blown away by sharing a pitch with Cristiano Ronaldo that he feels like they are in a video game.
DAILY STAR
Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe has not told staff at the club about the latest round of redundancies with employees still waiting to learn if their jobs are safe or not.
DAILY EXPRESS
James Maddison sent a pointed message to Roy Keane after putting Tottenham ahead against Manchester United.
The fourth frame of the Welsh Open final took a frustrating turn for Stephen Maguire, who punched the table after leaving himself in a sticky situation.
DAILY TELEGRAPH
Ben Duckett has been accused of "hiding your failures behind humour" by Indian legend Ravichandran Ashwin, after the England opener came through an injury scare to be confirmed fit for the Champions Trophy.
SCOTTISH SUN
Rangers have slashed their wage bill by almost a third, Philippe Clement has revealed.
DAILY RECORD
Ronaldo has named former Celtic and Everton midfielder Thomas Gravesen as the worst player he ever played with.
Philippe Clement insists he was not feeling the pressure as he watched his under-fire Rangers side bounce back from their Scottish Cup shocker to sink Hearts.
The Athletic
Welcome to West Ham – the club the 2024-25 season forgot
By Tim Spiers
The sight of Evan Ferguson’s shot being comfortably saved by Brentford ‘keeper Mark Flekken is the signal for dozens of West Ham fans to head for the exit.
That’s not unusual to see towards the end of a match for any struggling team, but this is the 80th minute. There will be another 15 minutes of football played — a third of a half of football — but those leaving have no desire to watch anymore of what could fairly be described as apathetic bilge. They don’t miss much: Flekken’s reflexes won’t be tested again.
After 85 minutes, hundreds more trudge out. By the final whistle there are thousands of empty white and claret seats and the mood is one of quiet resignation.
“Bring back Lopetegui” one fan shouts as a smattering of boos greet the end of an utterly miserable afternoon. He is probably joking.
In 2023 the Hammers won a European trophy. In 2024 they finished ninth in the Premier League.
What on earth will this season be remembered for? West Ham are 16th, out of both cups, nowhere near Europe, clear of the relegation scrap and now basically have three months of purgatory and dead rubbers to endure before the cycle starts all over again.
This is pretty depressing. In fact, on a bleak Saturday afternoon in east London, this feels like anti-football. This is West Ham… the club the 2024-25 season forgot.
It should be inexplicable that it has come to this, but underperformance is not an unusual trait for this club who, since moving to the London Stadium in 2016, have finished outside the top half on the same number of occasions they have finished inside it (four apiece).
That is in contradiction to the consistent spending power they enjoy. Only six Premier League clubs — Chelsea, Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Newcastle United and Manchester City — have registered a higher net spend than West Ham’s £271million ($340.9m) over the last five years.
It is not like they are spending above their means. Only seven Premier League clubs (the big six plus Newcastle) posted higher revenues than West Ham’s £268m last season. And, in what is not an oft-quoted statistic, West Ham can proudly state they have the second-largest attendances in the country, with only Manchester United attracting more fans than the London Stadium’s average of 62,371.
Yet, despite all of the advantages they have worked to earn, West Ham are enduring what is just about the most pointless season of top-flight football imaginable.
They spent £120m on new players last summer to usher in what was supposed to be a bright new era of progress. Instead they have scored 29 goals in 25 league matches, are 10 points clear of relegation and 14 off the European places in what is the epitome of a footballing no-man’s land.
The plan has been, well, confusing.
They said goodbye to David Moyes at the end of last year, then successor Julen Lopetegui was sacked in January, with technical director Tim Steidten — the man banned from the training ground by the aforementioned managers — ditched in February.
Graham Potter carefully chose West Ham as the place he thought he could rebuild his reputation, but there has been no new-manager bounce with just one win in six.
In one way, there is absolutely nothing to say about West Ham. They are boring, have brought nothing to the Premier League table in 2024-25 and have become about as relevant as Eastenders and dial-up modems.
But in another way, there’s so much to say: on the wasted millions, the stadium move, the questionable appointments and the glaring lack of a coherent strategy to put the club where it should be on paper — in other words, consistently in the top eight in the league and challenging in the domestic cups.
Perhaps the incessantly farcical campaigns of Manchester United and Spurs, who sit just above them in the table, have taken the focus away. Or maybe we’re just immune to their ineptitude. West Ham, Prague aside, have become a byword for underachievement.
This defeat by Brentford is a microcosm of their futile season. It starts badly, threatens to get a lot worse, then there’s a brief period of hope which ultimately descends into futility.
Brentford score in the fourth minute (West Ham have only kept one clean sheet in their last 22 home league games) and, via two marginal offside goals, an effort off the post and a couple of glaring openings spurned, it is no exaggeration to say they could be 5-0 up by half-time.
The atmosphere is quieter than at most funerals. The tone had been set before kick off when, after I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles dies down and with no music playing, the players walk onto the pitch in near silence.
“You sold your soul, for this s***hole” rings out from the away end in the first half. There is no comeback from West Ham’s weary fans, many of whom trudge to the concourse on 40 minutes for some respite, many not even bothering to turn around when Yoanne Wissa thinks he’s doubled Brentford’s lead only for it to be chalked off by VAR.
It’s been said many times before, but this is and always will be a soul-destroying place to watch football. A vacuous corporate bowl plonked in a concrete desert, with no sense of community or belonging; the complete opposite to the raucous, captivating scenes of joy, of belonging and of rivalry seen at Goodison Park a few days earlier.
The London Stadium is a place to visit, not one to call home. The space between the stands and the pitch is big enough to park a plane in, noise from any pockets of singing supporters evaporates and some people genuinely eat popcorn.
No wonder the atmosphere is awful. It’s not the fault of the fans, who turn up in huge numbers, that they have been given a stadium more suited for a baseball franchise and a team more suited to the Championship.
All of this reflects horribly on David Sullivan and the West Ham ownership.
When you think of the stick Daniel Levy is getting six miles away, Sullivan appears to get off lightly, especially when you consider that Brentford, who before 2021 spent 66 of the previous 67 years at least one division below West Ham, currently have a better team, a better-run club, a better recruitment policy, a better atmosphere and probably a better manager. It’s beyond galling.
What good is there to hold onto here? What is there for West Ham to build on? Well, the rambunctious Ferguson’s sprightly debut, complete with a sense of intent and positivity that his team-mates lack, sparks the team and the stadium into life (when they sing en masse it does hold the noise in) and there is a brief 10-minute period when you actually feel the tide might turn.
It doesn’t last, of course, but in Ferguson (albeit he’s only on loan) there is a symbol of hope. If Potter and head of recruitment Kyle Macaulay can bring in a few more additions of that ilk in the summer, perhaps he can get West Ham firing again.
Potter is remarkably upbeat for a head coach who has just seen his team register an expected goals (xG) tally of 0.77. He talks of positives in defeat, of positives in previous defeats to Chelsea and Aston Villa, and of being happy with the second half.
The bar, then, has been set incredibly low.
Perhaps Potter turns things around. Perhaps West Ham finally fulfil their potential and the London Stadium becomes a bastion of noise, community and positivity.
Right now though, all those things feel an awful long way off… and there are still 13 games to go in the season no one will want to remember.