Gabriele MarcottiApr 13, 2026, 08:47 AM ETCloseGabriele Marcotti is a senior soccer writer for ESPN.com. Read his archive here and follow him on Twitter: @Marcotti.Follow on XMultiple Authors
play1:53Laurens: Chelsea’s project with Rosenior is failingJulien Laurens slams Chelsea’s performance vs. Manchester City and believes Liam Rosenior is out of his depth.
play1:49Have Arsenal opened the door for Man City in the title race?The FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League.
play2:21Are Bayern Munich the best team in Europe?The FC TV’ crew react to Bayern Munich’s 5-0 victory over FC St. Pauli in the Bundesliga.
play2:11Nicol: Rio Ngumoha must start for Liverpool moving forwardESPN’s Steve Nicol has praised Rio Ngumoha’s performance in Liverpool 2-0 victory over Fulham in the Premier League.
play2:02Are Real Madrid officially out of the LaLiga title race?The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw with Girona in LaLiga.
play2:03Laurens slams De Zerbi after Tottenham’s loss to SunderlandJulien Laurens reacts to Tottenham’s 1-0 loss Sunderland in Roberto De Zerbi’s first game as manager.
Laurens: Chelsea’s project with Rosenior is failingJulien Laurens slams Chelsea’s performance vs. Manchester City and believes Liam Rosenior is out of his depth.
Julien Laurens slams Chelsea’s performance vs. Manchester City and believes Liam Rosenior is out of his depth.
Have Arsenal opened the door for Man City in the title race?The FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League.
Are Bayern Munich the best team in Europe?The FC TV’ crew react to Bayern Munich’s 5-0 victory over FC St. Pauli in the Bundesliga.
Nicol: Rio Ngumoha must start for Liverpool moving forwardESPN’s Steve Nicol has praised Rio Ngumoha’s performance in Liverpool 2-0 victory over Fulham in the Premier League.
ESPN’s Steve Nicol has praised Rio Ngumoha’s performance in Liverpool 2-0 victory over Fulham in the Premier League.
Are Real Madrid officially out of the LaLiga title race?The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw with Girona in LaLiga.
Laurens slams De Zerbi after Tottenham’s loss to SunderlandJulien Laurens reacts to Tottenham’s 1-0 loss Sunderland in Roberto De Zerbi’s first game as manager.
Julien Laurens reacts to Tottenham’s 1-0 loss Sunderland in Roberto De Zerbi’s first game as manager.
Manchester City smack Chelsea … have they shifted momentum too?
A thriller in Serie A, as Inter roar back to put upstart Como in their place
– Is it happening again? Reviewing Arsenal’s prior title wobbles – Ogden: Man City’s big win piles pressure on Arsenal in title race – Olley: Tottenham’s relegation looks inevitable after Sunderland loss
On Sunday, Chelsea set up to play on the counter and leave City the ball (they ended up with 67% possession in the first half). It worked (sort of) until the inevitable individual error — Andrey Santos getting brushed aside by Nico O’Reilly — and the floodgates opened. Rayan Cherki’s magic set up Marc Guehi to make it 2-0, before Moises Caicedo got caught in possession for City’s third.
Laurens: Chelsea’s project with Rosenior is failing
As for Chelsea, the boos rang out (again). This wasn’t a good performance — it can’t be when more than half your xG come from Marc Cucurella’s header with seven minutes left — and Rosenior will be getting hammered by the critics once more. But there are only so many things on which you can second-guess him. The squad is what it is: some sort of Frankenstein soup of undercooked talent, real or imagined.
Now, the Champions League places are four points away, and in the rear view mirror, there are five teams within three points. Things won’t get easier.
Forty-five minutes gone in Como and Cesc Fabregas was enjoying himself. Nico Paz was tearing Inter apart and had just threaded the needle to put Como 2-0 up. Inter had taken zero shots of any kind, and there was no Lautaro Martinez safety blanket.
With Napoli drawing at Parma, Inter’s gap at the top of Serie A is nine points with six games to go. The title race isn’t over yet, but it’s close. Not a bad way for Cristian Chivu — who, by the way, is less experienced as a coach than Fabregas, despite being seven years older — to finish his first full season of coaching.
Sure, that’s the narrative, because it fits, right? Nerves and all that, crumbling with the finish line in sight, when the going gets tough. Downright Spursy. There may be some of that — we’re not in the players’ heads after all — but I expect it’s much simpler. When you set up to play a certain way — safety-first play, predicated on intensity, physicality and set-pieces — it’s hard to change things when pieces are missing or when the opponent’s style demands it.
Ideally, Bournemouth’s high-energy, high-press approach would have been countered by passing, quality and patience. All Arsenal could muster on Saturday was the latter, and that quickly turned into sluggishness, because that’s what patience without quality can be. Arsenal’s “changed” approach this season might have gotten them to the top of the league, but it might not keep them there.
Have Arsenal opened the door for Man City in the title race?
The FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal’s 2-1 defeat to AFC Bournemouth in the Premier League.
This was a game in which to “out-football” Bournemouth, not “outwork” them. But Arsenal rarely “out-football” opponents this season, and with Ben White and an out-of-form Myles Lewis-Skelly starting at fullback, while being without Bukayo Saka and Martin Odegaard, that was going to be a big ask. And given this was their ninth game since March 3 (and only Bournemouth’s third in that time period), they were unlikely to out-hustle them, too.
Don’t get me wrong: Arsenal could still have won this game, as they certainly had more than enough chances. You could argue that that this was as good a performance as we’ve seen in a while, and that they were unlucky for the opener. But that’s football: You work to set yourself up and diminish the impact of luck and randomness. The difference, if you like, is that they got late goals against Sporting, again Everton, against Leverkusen away and this time, they didn’t.
10. Bayern Munich smash goal record with five games to spare: The mark was 101 goals. That was equaled when Jamal Musiala scored after just nine minutes away to St. Pauli, and broken early in the second half when Leon Goretzka made it 102. At full-time, following the 5-0 away win, they had reached 105, an average of 3.6 plus per game. And it’s safe to say, with five matches left, they’ll add to it. In fact, they’re on pace for 123, which is PlayStation stuff.
Unsurprisingly, Vincent Kompany rested a bunch of players ahead of that Champions League return leg against Real Madrid in midweek. Other than Michael Olise, Joshua Kimmich and Konrad Laimer (all of whom came off at the hour mark), don’t expect any other outfield players to start against Madrid. The thing is, it didn’t matter, even on the road, even against a side fighting to avoid relegation. That’s the reality of the Bundesliga right now.
The FC TV’ crew react to Bayern Munich’s 5-0 victory over FC St. Pauli in the Bundesliga.
Nicol: Rio Ngumoha must start for Liverpool moving forward
We can praise Juve’s fighting spirit all we like and shower Spalletti with praise for reinventing Boga as a central striker, but we shouldn’t be in this position. And we certainly can’t view Boga as any kind of long-term solution. Juve were never going to match up well with Atalanta stylistically (and they didn’t), but it’s another game where, somehow, Spalletti managed to find a band-aid. They may be in the Champions League spots now, but they ought to know nothing is in the bag.
5. Atletico switching it up and losing is OK, if they put the time off to good use: That’s the gnawing question. Diego Simeone made 10 changes for the trip to Sevilla on Saturday, and Atletico Madrid promptly lost 2-1. I’m totally fine with that: whether they finish third or fourth makes no difference, and it makes sense to give the regulars a breather ahead of the Barcelona clash. Sevilla needed the points and, unsurprisingly, they got them.
4. Napoli pay hefty price for early mistake: Manager Antonio Conte is trying to stay positive, but we can only imagine what he was thinking when Juan Jesus ran into the back of Alessandro Buongiorno for no apparent reason, paving the way for Nesta Elphege to head on Zion Suzuki’s goal kick and set up Gabriel Strefezza’s opener. Thirty-three seconds in, and Napoli were in the hole.
They pulled one back with Scott McTominay (who else?), but failed to convert the draw into a win despite creating plenty. It’s tough to swallow because for the first time in a while, Conte had his big guns back starting and had every reason to think they could at least take Inter to the wire.
Are Real Madrid officially out of the LaLiga title race?
The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Real Madrid’s 1-1 draw with Girona in LaLiga.
3. Vibes only get worse at Real Madrid: And no, they’d be no different if Vitor Reis had been sanctioned for an errant elbow on Kylian Mbappe. All that would have changed was a penalty kick and maybe three points to keep the flimsy title hopes alive. But the overall mood would still be dark ahead of the Bayern game in midweek, as Alvaro Arbeloa didn’t get the answers he was looking for in Friday’s 1-1 draw with Girona.
Laurens slams De Zerbi after Tottenham’s loss to Sunderland
1. Bad luck, worse result for Spurs in Roberto De Zerbi’s debut as manager: An away trip to a physical and intense Sunderland was never going to be the ideal way for De Zerbi to start his Tottenham tenure. Nor was he going to be able to radically change this team’s DNA, even with several weeks of training sessions before their first match. But still, hope springs eternal and the mere fact it wasn’t Igor Tudor moping on the bench gave you some reason to believe.
It’s true that picking Jorrel Hato ahead of Mamadou Sarr raises the question of why the latter was brought back from loan in midseason. The self-inflicted Enzo Fernandez suspension feels excessive (unless there’s something we don’t know), and it robbed Rosenior of his only real tactical variant as well as a healthy does of leadership. When the only attacking changes you can make are Liam Delap and Alejandro Garnacho — projects with upside, but still projects at this stage of their careers — the issues go well beyond the manager.