Roma boss Eusebio Di Francesco took delight in upsetting the doubters after his side progressed to the Champions League knockout stages as Group C winners.

Diego Perotti s lone goal in a 1-0 win over Qarabag proved enough for the Serie A side to finish above Chelsea courtesy of a superior head-to-head record.

Roma took four points off the Premier League champions and were only beaten once, away to Atletico Madrid, in qualifying for the last-16 for the second time in three seasons.

They will now be seeded for Monday s draw as they attempt to reach the quarter-finals a decade after their last appearance.

It was a great victory, a difficult one, especially as I have no Champions League experience, Di Francesco told Mediaset Premium.

It is satisf…

Leicester City have rejected a loan approach from Aston Villa for defender Christian Fuchs, according to Sky Sports.

The Championship outfit were keen on signing the Austria international until the end of the season, with a view to a permanent deal in the summer though the Foxes were not willing to do business.

Since signing from Schalke in the summer of 2015 the thirty-two-year-old has played one hundred and seventeen times in all competitions, however just one of those appearances have come in the league so far this season.

Fuchs played in all but six games as Leicester memorably clinched the Premier League title in the 2015/16 campaign while the last of his three goals for the club so far came in the 4-0 EFL Cup second round win over Fleetwood Town back in…

Sven Bender will join twin brother Lars at Bayer Leverkusen, Borussia Dortmund have confirmed.

Bender – whose switch is subject to a medical – joined Dortmund from 1860 Munich in 2009 and made 224 appearances for the club, winning the Bundesliga and DFB-Pokal twice.

The 28-year-old has been capped seven times by Germany and will move to Leverkusen in a deal worth a reported €15million.

Fitness problems including torn ankle ligaments hindered Bender last season, restricting him to three Bundesliga starts, and he told Dortmund chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke and sporting director Michael Zorc he felt the time was right for a fresh challenge.

A few days ago, I approached Aki Watzke and Michael Zorc with a personal request to take a new challenge …

Manchester City returned to the FA Cup final for the first time since 2013 with a 1-0 last-four win over Brighton and Hove Albion at Wembley, keeping their quadruple bid alive.

Pep Guardiola s men have already won the EFL Cup this season and remain in the reckoning for the Premier League and Champions League titles. Unlike last season, when Wigan Athletic stunned City in the cup, they will return to the national stadium in May, too.

Gabriel Jesus appeared to set the tone for the five-time winners with a fine early header, although they were frustrated for the remainder of the first half.

The second period was then surprisingly uncomfortable for City, yet they came through unscathed with the help of one phenomenal Aymeric Laporte clearance to take a big step towar…

Ronald Koeman became the latest Dutch coach to find his Premier League stay cut short on Monday after Everton announced he had been discarded.

The 54-year-old presided over a woeful start to the season and Sunday s 5-2 humiliation at home to Arsenal was ultimately the final straw, with Everton dropping into the relegation zone as a result. 

Koeman s dismissal comes 16 months after he left Southampton for Goodison Park, with the former Barcelona player building a strong reputation at St Mary s Stadium.

But after spending a reported £142million during the close-season, Koeman has paid the price for the Toffees underwhelming start to the campaign, making him the latest in a long line of Dutch coaches to get the boot in English top flight, with Guus Hiddink arg…

Everton and Liverpool played out a thrilling and controversial Merseyside derby on Saturday, while Pep Guardiola brought up his 500th managerial win.

Mohamed Salah and Dominic Calvert-Lewin both continued their scoring streaks in a dramatic encounter at Goodison Park, which finished 2-2 in contentious fashion.

Manchester City then saw off Mikel Arteta s Arsenal 1-0, after Chelsea had been pegged back to a 3-3 draw by Southampton, with Manchester United bouncing back from their 6-1 defeat to Tottenham with a comprehensive 4-1 win at Newcastle United in the late match.

Here, using Opta data, take a look at the key stats from Saturday s games.

19 Bruno Fernandes has been directly involved in 19 goals in his 18 Premier League appearances for Manchester Unite…

Paul Pogba felt Harry Maguire was wrongly denied a beautiful goal but hailed Manchester United for keeping cool heads to move top of the Premier League.

United captain Maguire thought he had headed United into a first-half lead against Burnley only for referee Kevin Friend to controversially adjudge he had fouled Erik Pieters in the process. 

VAR backed that decision and for a while it looked like United would be frustrated in their bid for victory.

But Pogba connected sweetly with a Marcus Rashford cross 19 minutes from time and his volley beat home goalkeeper Nick Pope with the aid of a deflection off Matthew Lowton.

It gave United a 1-0 win that moves them three points clear of Premier League champions Liverpool ahead of the massive clash between the …

The second set of Champions League last-16 fixtures to take place this week is full of intrigue, with the continent s biggest-spending club of the January transfer window in need of a result.

Graham Potter s Chelsea forked out an estimated £291million to reshape their squad last month, but the misfiring Blues have won just one of their eight games this calendar year.

For all his struggles on the domestic front, Potter has yet to suffer a Champions League defeat with Chelsea, and maintaining that record at Borussia Dortmund would give them an excellent chance of reaching the last eight.

Potter is not the only under-fire English boss to take centre stage on Wednesday, with former Fulham and Bournemouth head coach Scott Parker overseeing Club Brugge s clash with B…

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Atletico Madrid are set to welcome Sevilla to their Wanda Metropolitano stadium on Tuesday evening, in a game which is officially a part of the fourth round of the 2020-21 season in La Liga, even though some of the teams in the Spanish top flight already have 19 matches behind them.

Atletico Madrid

At the moment, Atletico look to be on the right track to repeat the success of 2014 and break the domination of Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spanish football, at least for a while. They sit at the top of the table with 38 points, one more than Real in second and no less than three games in hand on their city rivals. In fact, with 15 matches played, they have at least one game in hand on all the teams in the league apart from Elche in 18th…

Georgina Nicholas was “devastated” to lose her job at Arsenal due to the coronavirus pandemic but will now join them in Europe in her role as chief executive of JD Cymru Premier club Haverfordwest.

Nicholas spent eight years at Arsenal after managing multiple retail businesses in London’s West End and being headhunted by the Premier League club to work as their retail operations manager.

The 38-year-old “loved my job” of overseeing five stores, 27 managers and 300 people, but her world was turned upside down in August 2020 when Arsenal responded to the Covid crisis by announcing plans to make 55 staff redundant.

Nicholas was among those to get the dreaded call to join a Teams meeting and hear the bad news as Arsenal publicly defended their actions by sa…