the times | Tuesday April 5 2022 2GM 63
Sport
Tottenham and Arsenal
set for potential top-four
decider late in season
Tomás Hill López-Menchero Premier League season in a game
shown on Sky Sports.
Tottenham, meanwhile, will travel to
Liverpool on Saturday, May 7 for a
7.45pm kick-off shown live on BT Sport.
Jürgen Klopp’s team will hope their title
challenge is still alive by then. They are
second in the table at present, one point
behind the leaders Manchester City.
Manchester United will host Chelsea
on Sunday, May 15 live on Sky Sports,
although their game depends on whe-
ther Thomas Tuchel’s team advance
past Crystal Palace in the FA Cup semi-
finals later this month. Steven Gerrard
will entertain his old team when Aston
Villa face Liverpool at Villa Park on
Tuesday, May 10 at 8pm.Rearranged matches
Saturday, May 7 Brighton v Manchester United (5.
30pm, Sky); Liverpool v Tottenham Hotspur
(7.45pm, BT Sport); Sunday, May 8 Arsenal v Leeds
United (2pm, Sky); Manchester City v Newcastle
United (4.30pm Sky); Tuesday, May 10 Aston Villa
v Liverpool (8pm, Sky); Wednesday, May 11 Leeds
v Chelsea (7, 30pm, Sky); Thursday, May 12 Totten-
ham v Arsenal (7.45pm, Sky); Sunday, May 15 Tot-
tenham v Burnley (noon, BT Sport); Southampton v
Liverpool (4.30pm, Sky); West Ham United v Man
City (4.30pm, Sky); Man United v Chelsea (tbd, Sky);
Monday, May 16 Newcastle v Arsenal (8pm, Sky).Tottenham Hotspur will play Arsenal
on Thursday, May 12 in a match that
could be pivotal in the race for a top-
four place and qualification for the
Champions League.
The Premier League postponed
Arsenal’s scheduled visit to Tottenham
on January 16 after Mikel Arteta’s club
successfully argued they were unable to
field a team due to Covid-related
absences, injuries and players being
away at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Tottenham said they were “extreme-
ly surprised” that Arsenal had been able
to postpone the fixture, pointing out
that they had previously had an appli-
cation denied despite a significant
number of Covid cases leading to their
disqualification from the Europa
Conference League.
Privately they expressed frustration
as Arsenal had only suffered one Covid
absence in their previous game. They
had also let Ainsley Maitland-Niles
join Roma on loan earlier that week.
The two north London rivals will
now meet ten days before the end of theSpurs ready to move early
to snap up £25m Kulusevski
Gary Jacob and has suggested he could move on.
Both play in a similar position to the
Swede.
Juventus paid an initial £29 million to
sign Kulusevski from Atalanta in 2020
and he spent a season on loan at Parma,
where he scored ten goals and claimed
eight assists in the league, winning the
Serie A’s award for best young player.
Tottenham are expected to hand
Oliver Skipp a new contract worth
around £40,000 a week. The midfielder
has broken into the first team, making
18 league appearances this season, after
returning to the club from Norwich
City, who he helped win promotion to
the Premier League in May.
His present deal runs until 2024 and
is worth around £20,000 a week. Tot-
tenham hope that Skipp will return to
training this week having been out for
more than two months with a pelvic
injury which was complicated by an
infection caused by an injection.Tottenham Hotspur plan to trigger an
option to sign Dejan Kulusevski at the
end of the season after being impressed
by the start of his career at the club.
The Sweden attacking midfielder, 21,
has scored two goals and claimed five
assists in the Premier League since
joining Tottenham from Juventus in
January on a loan that runs until the
end of next season.
It will be cheaper for Spurs to exercise
a clause to sign him permanently for
£25 million this summer rather than
wait until his loan expires, when the
option would cost around £33.5million
if he has played more than half of their
matches.
Kulusevski’s progress could raise
doubts over the future of Lucas Moura,
29, who has two years left on his con-
tract, and Steven Bergwijn, 24, who has
been frustrated with his opportunitiesScoring isn’t rocket science,
Dyche tells goal-shy strikers
Adam Lanigan three. With ten games remaining,
Dyche knows those statistics must
improve if they are to avoid relegation.
“Even recently at Brentford, we had
chances,” he said. “We had one-on-
ones with the goalkeeper and good
movements into the box, but not the
final moment. All managers talk about
that. The moment of execution is the
toughest bit to coach. You work on get-
ting the players in the right areas to al-
low the team the chance to score goals.
“But the final moment is the chal-
lenge and that’s where we want our
players to stand up and take responsi-
bility, as they have done many times.”
Burnley’s run-in begins with a crucial
game at home tomorrow night to 17th-
placed Everton, who are four points
ahead of them after the same number of
games. They remain without Mee, who
went off with a knee injury in the 2-0
defeat to Leicester City on March 1.Burnley manager Sean Dyche has
called upon his goal-shy forwards to
shake off their woes and help the club
pull off another Premier League escape
act. Only bottom-placed Norwich City
have scored fewer than Burnley’s 22
goals from their 28 league games and
Burnley have not netted in any of their
past four matches, which they have lost.
Asked if he expected more from his
strikers, Dyche, 50, replied: “Yes, I can
ask for more. It’s not rocket science —
kick it in the net.”
Wout Weghorst, the Dutchman who
arrived from Wolfsburg in January for
£12 million to offset the departure of
Chris Wood to Newcastle United, has
managed only one goal in ten games.
Maxwel Cornet is Burnley’s leading
scorer with six, while the next best is
Ben Mee, the injured captain who hasmanager Ralf Rangnick, either. “I don’t
think it’s worked with [Rangnick],” he
added.
“Pochettino is a top manager, heRooney candidly expressed his viewsFrustrating foes
Atletico knocked out Guardiola's
Bayern Munich side in the 2016
semi-finals on away goals despite a
very mismatched contest over two
legs
Bayern Munich Atletico Madrid
GoalsTotal shotsShots on targetPossession2
253
1818
973% 27%two weeks of reign
Frustra
Atletico k
Bayern M
semi-fina
very mism
legs
Bayern
GoalsTotal shoShots onPossessi973 %4
Antoine Griezmann is
Atletico Madrid’s top
scorer in the Champions
League with four goals —
44 per cent of their
total this season‘Solskjaer didn’t work out and neither did
Rangnick. They can’t afford to fail again’
completely different player. His ability,
his vision [and] control of the game is
there every game for France.”
United dropped to seventh place in
the Premier League after Saturday’s 1-1
draw against Leicester City at Old
Trafford.
Rooney, the Derby County manager,
believes that the players are so disen-
chanted that this season is effectively a
write-off.
“I think they’d want the season to
stop now if it could,” Rooney, United’s
record goalscorer, said. Rooney did not
put the blame squarely on the players,
insisting that “everything around the
club” needed to be changed.
The appointment of Ole Gunnar
Solskjaer “didn’t work” according to
Rooney, who has not been impressed
by his replacement, the interim
continued from back
knows how to work with top-class
players and young players. You need to
get that blend right because they can’t
afford to fail again.
“There hasn’t been a settled manager
since Sir Alex Ferguson, so they need to
give time to the new manager to build
up relationships with players.”
Rooney believes that the new United
manager, whoever it might eventually
be, can build the team around Marcus
Rashford, Scott McTominay, Jadon
Sancho and Harry Maguire.
Maguire has been criticised for some
of his performances this season, but
Rooney likes the United captain and
England central defender.
“He hasn’t been in his best form this
season, but then you look at him when
he’s with England and he looks like a
world-class centre back,” Rooney
added.
Henry Winter, page 60