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Aston Villa v Arsenal: Premier League – live
⚽️ Premier League updates from the 8pm BST kick-off
⚽️ Email Scott and follow us on TikTok and Bluesky
Aston Villa make two changes to the team who found themselves four goals down after 31 minutes at Brighton last weekend. In come two debutants: goalkeeper Zion Suzuki and striker Nicolas Jackson. Marco Bizot drops to the bench, while João Gomes, sent off in that aforementioned debacle-by-the-sea, is suspended. Villa have three other potential debutants on their bench in Alejandro Garnacho, Matteo Ruggeri and Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
Arsenal, coming off the back of their three-goal win over Coventry, are unsurprisingly unchanged. Bruno Guimarães is back from injury and on the bench, waiting to make his first Premier League appearance for the Gunners … as is Ezri Konsa, a Villa player just ten days ago. capturengo.com
Continue reading...Joe Burrow on Super Bowl goals: "If you don’t talk about it, I don’t know how you can do it.”
Not many teams that have missed the playoffs for three straight seasons are viewed as a team of destiny. That isn't stopping Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow from attempting to speak a Super Bowl win into existence.
“I’ve never understood why people are scared to say it,” Burrow told Albert Breer of SI.com. “I guess people get scared of how the media will portray them or their team in a certain way. But you have to set expectations with yourself, your teammates, your organization. Everybody says they want to win the Super Bowl, you talk about it every day, you set that expectation every day, you go and work for it every single day. I mean, I don’t know the answer to that for everybody, but that’s what I want to do, that’s what I’m trying to do, that’s what I do this for.
“I won the championship in college, and there’s no freaking better feeling than that. And if you don’t talk about it, I don’t know how you can do it.”
He's right about that. He's also right about the other 31 teams having the same goal. Whether they talk about it or not, they enter each season at 0-0 and with high hopes.
For Burrow, he's basing his belief on something tangible. He's comparing the vibe at the 2026 Bengals to the sense he had at LSU, seven years ago.
“I don’t know, it just felt inevitable,” Burrow told Breer. “We finished stronger the year before. I knew how good Justin [Jefferson] was. I didn’t quite know how good Ja’Marr [Chase] was going to be yet because his superpower is after the catch, and in practice you can’t really see that. He was getting open and making plays. Obviously, that’s what he does, but what makes him one of one is after the catch. I realized that somewhere in the early 2019 season.
“But, yeah, I just knew how things felt around the building. I knew how practices were going. I knew that offense fit my skill set more so than any one I had been in. It just made sense to me. As I said, there was just a feeling around the building that it was inevitable.”
Burrow's confidence in the Bengals is bolstered by the other side of the ball.
“The vibe of the defense is really good right now,” Burrow said. “Our defensive line is so deep this year. The depth of that unit was a weak point last year, [but] now we have nine or 10 guys that we feel good about putting out there in five-down sets. Obviously, Dexter [Lawrence II] plays a big role in that. Jonathan Allen plays a big role in that. And those guys have been vocal leaders for us to start this out, which is something that we needed."
Whatever happens, the stakes are high. A fourth straight year with no postseason appearance will likely spark a coaching change. And it could make Burrow, after seven years in Cincinnati, look for a place where it will seem even more inevitable that he'll be smoking a locker-room cigar in one or more of the remaining Februarys of his career.
Marseille’s squad is being gutted but their manager is staying – for now
It has been a tough transfer window for Marseille and a 2-0 defeat at Monaco suggests it could be a long season
A humid night in Monaco provided an opportunity to gauge the temperature of the Marseille supporters. Despite the ban on away fans at the Stade Louis II, plenty were in attendance for their 2-0 defeat in the Principality. There were cheers for their new manager, Bruno Génésio, and boos for Geoffrey Kondogbia, but it was the silence for much of the second half that spoke volumes.
Génésio, who replaced Habib Beye in the summer, has been appointed to keep a lid on things. The former Lille manager has been part of a larger reshuffle at Marseille, with the president and the sporting director also replaced. The new arrivals have inherited a mess. After making promises to Uefa and the DNCG – French football’s financial watchdog – Marseille were allowed to compete in Europe this season. However, if they fail to reduce their wage bill drastically, they will not be allowed to do so next season.
Continue reading...Who would fall in love with a fake NFL player? Plenty of sensible people
The FBI has charged Daejon Love after he allegedly pretended to be a 49ers receiver. Although football isn’t as glamorous as it looks, it easy to see the attraction
Is romance dead? Yeah, probably. There have never been more options for finding a mate – dating apps, Instagram DM slides, hanging out next to a gas station at 2am – but it’s also never been harder. Meeting someone who is compatible, stable, and even remotely attractive is akin to putting a square peg in a round hole. Blindfolded. From a mile away. Underwater. So, I can’t blame anyone for falling for an elaborate hoax like the one allegedly perpetrated by Daejon Love.
Love is now infamous around the world for allegedly posing as an NFL player in order to scam more than 20 women out of $1.3m. Now that Love and his alleged accomplice, Taylor Jamie Chen, have been charged by federal authorities, prosecutors are claiming they are a flight risk. They certainly seem like they have the money to flee the country. According to court documents, Love managed to fabricate an entire online persona as a San Francisco 49ers player – posting photos and videos in Niners gear, posing with expensive cars, and even performing football drills (badly) to bolster the alleged grift. Love allegedly used AI to trick search engine results to add credibility to his claims on football success with the 49ers. There’s even a video of Love running wide receiver routes on the beach. In a helmet. Do real NFL players carry their helmets in the car, just in case? You never know when you may risk a concussion while laying in the sand.
Continue reading...Duke Debuting On-Court Ads In 2026 College Basketball Season
One of college basketball’s cathedrals is getting a corporate makeover. Duke is slated to announce a four-year sponsorship deal with Edward Jones that will see the company’s logos added to the floor at Cameron Indoor Stadium. The agreement will also include Edward Jones being designated a "Champion Partner of Duke Athletics" and becoming the presenting sponsor of the Duke Champions Club. "What we have available and the changing economic realities of running a big-time [Division I] college sports program, we realized if we could find a great partner that fit us and who we are, then let's go ahead and create a partnership," Duke athletics director Nina King told me. Duke’s efforts to add branding to Cameron Indoor have largely played out over the last six months in conjunction with the school’s multimedia rights partner, Learfield, which sells corporate sponsorships on its behalf. King had been in constant communication with Learfield’s Duke-centric team, while conversations were also had with longtime Blue Devils basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, in order to receive his blessing on any corporate logos that would adorn the court that bears his name. Others involved in the process included Duke men’s basketball coach Jon Scheyer and women’s basketball coach Kara Lawson. "It’s balancing our needs with the history and tradition, evolving with the current landscape and figuring out what is right to do here," King said. "I'm just really excited by how this looks. It's not like, ‘Oh my goodness we turned into NASCAR.’" That Duke is leaning into modernization comes amid a push-pull for schools across the country as to how best to marry the past traditions of college athletics with the ongoing commercialization that’s required to remain competitive. Cameron marks new territory in this sense, and comes just two weeks after Michigan agreed to a similarly groundbreaking agreement with Coca-Cola, Meijer and a new agreement with Google Gemini to allow outside signage in The Big House for the first time. Corporate branding has also appeared at places like Notre Dame and Ohio State in the form of jersey patches — an asset that was made allowable by the NCAA in January. "It's really looking at the economics of how college has changed over the last couple years, and what the best way is to commercialize those venues," said Learfield President of Sports Properties Kim Damron. " Working with the athletics team in the most respectful manner that still really feels like we're representing their brand and maintaining the tradition — it’s a pretty comprehensive approach to it."