Gabriele MarcottiApr 27, 2026, 09:37 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
play3:02Do Arsenal now have the advantage over Man City in the title race?The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal going back to the top of the Premier League after beating Newcastle 1-0.
play1:30Has Mohamed Salah played his last game for Liverpool?ESPN FC’s Steve Nicol believes Mohamed Salah may have played his last game for Liverpool after coming off injured in their 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
play2:58Nicol expects Tottenham to be relegated over West Ham despite victory vs. WolvesESPN FC’s Steve Nicol believes Tottenham will still go down despite their 1-0 victory over Wolves.
play2:43Did Man City deserve to reach the FA Cup final after victory vs. Southampton?The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Manchester City reaching the FA Cup final after dramatically beating Southampton 2-1.
Burley: Chelsea avoided a disaster in FA Cup semifinal win vs. Leeds (1:26)Craig Burley reacts to Chelsea’s narrow FA Cup semi-final victory over Leeds, highlighting areas for improvement. (1:26)
Do Arsenal now have the advantage over Man City in the title race?The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal going back to the top of the Premier League after beating Newcastle 1-0.
The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Arsenal going back to the top of the Premier League after beating Newcastle 1-0.
Has Mohamed Salah played his last game for Liverpool?ESPN FC’s Steve Nicol believes Mohamed Salah may have played his last game for Liverpool after coming off injured in their 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
ESPN FC’s Steve Nicol believes Mohamed Salah may have played his last game for Liverpool after coming off injured in their 3-1 victory over Crystal Palace.
Nicol expects Tottenham to be relegated over West Ham despite victory vs. WolvesESPN FC’s Steve Nicol believes Tottenham will still go down despite their 1-0 victory over Wolves.
Did Man City deserve to reach the FA Cup final after victory vs. Southampton?The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Manchester City reaching the FA Cup final after dramatically beating Southampton 2-1.
The ‘FC TV’ crew react to Manchester City reaching the FA Cup final after dramatically beating Southampton 2-1.
Chelsea are 90 minutes away from another trophy … but will that satisfy anyone?
Inter Milan on verge of Scudetto, but is Serie A facing another refereeing scandal?
Arsenal go back to old ways, but get three big points in title race
The weekend has been and gone, leaving tons of European soccer action and talking points to break down. In the English FA Cup, Chelsea booked their place in the final with victory over Leeds United just days after firing Liam Rosenior, and will meet Man City there after Pep Guardiola’s side rallied to get past Southampton.
On Sunday, the Blues beat a resurgent Leeds United — who were undefeated in seven heading into the game — to advance to the FA Cup final, where they’ll face Manchester City. It ought to be cause for celebration, but the general vibe is one of worry and not just because folks miss Liam Rosenior’s public appearances.
Chelsea didn’t necessarily play badly — certainly not compared to the horror show at Brighton that immediately preceded Rosenior’s dismissal — but 0.38 expected goals with just two shots on target is a paltry amount. With Cole Palmer half-fit — he only played the last 20 minutes — McFarlane went safety-first and you wouldn’t blame him. But if you were looking for a spark, well, it wasn’t there.
McFarlane: Reaching FA Cup final completely changes feel at Chelsea
I’m sure there are good reasons for all this. It’s just that, because nobody talks — ever — at this club, we’re left to speculate. But hey, Chelsea do get another shot at silverware. That’s not nothing. It just feels like it.
Italian football only has itself to blame for its past — after the Calciopoli scandal, folks will imagine the worst — so maybe it’s inevitable that news of Serie A referee chief Gianluca Rocchi being criminally investigated for sporting fraud would hit the league like a ton of bricks.
Rocchi and VAR supervisor Andrea Gervasoni have both suspended themselves while under investigation for sports fraud by Milan’s Public Prosecutor’s Office. “This choice, painful, difficult but shared with my family, is intended to allow the legal proceedings to run their course properly, from which I am sure I will come out unscathed and stronger than before,” said Rocchi in a prepared statement to Italy’s referees’ association (AIA).
It should be noted here that Inter lost both games and, especially in the Bologna match, felt hard-done by.
The third accusation alleges that Rocchi interfered with a VAR review by banging on a glass door during a game between Udinese and Parma. VAR officials are supposed to have total autonomy, but video and audio of the incident (which only shows the match officials) suggests they corrected themselves (and made the right decision) after being distracted by something off-camera.
Rocchi and Inter (who aren’t under investigation) both deny wrongdoing, and it’s worth noting that the allegations stem from a complaint by former assistant referee Domenico Rocca. That complaint was filed with Italy’s sporting prosecutor, who decided there was no grounds to investigate further, and it’s now with the criminal prosecutor.
Meanwhile, Inter let a two-goal lead away to Torino on Sunday and had to settle for a point. Along the way, Fede Dimarco set a new Serie A assist record (18), eclipsing the mark set by Alejandro “Papu” Gomez a few years back. They can still win the title next weekend while hoping this unwanted — and frankly bizarre — cloud lifts quickly.
Do Arsenal now have the advantage over Man City in the title race?
Bukayo Saka is back, and that’s great, but you can’t expect him to play 90 minutes at his level straight away, not after more than a month on the sidelines. Seeing Eberechi Eze (who scored a stunning goal) and Kai Havertz come off injured is another concern (we’ll know in the next 24 hours) because in a stretch-run, they can be match winners.
Arteta’s sarcastic response to Havertz & Eze injury question
Maybe this would be a different Arsenal side with a fully fit Saka and a fit Jurrien Timber (and Riccardo Calafiori). Maybe with Eze and Havertz on the pitch for longer, they would have played better (though they weren’t great with the two of them, either). Maybe they were looking ahead to the Atletico Madrid clash in midweek.
Has Mohamed Salah played his last game for Liverpool?
Nicol expects Tottenham to be relegated over West Ham despite victory vs. Wolves
ESPN FC’s Steve Nicol believes Tottenham will still go down despite their 1-0 victory over Wolves.
Did Man City deserve to reach the FA Cup final after victory vs. Southampton?
That’s why the fans are restless. Sunday’s game, with interim boss Calum McFarlane at the helm — at least this time people know who he is since we got to see him before, just a few months ago, when he stepped in for the last sacked Chelsea coach, Enzo Maresca — was a chance to generate some enthusiasm and forward momentum. It did no such thing, despite the 1-0 win. Chelsea scored a first-half goal with Enzo Fernandez and then hung on, with Robert Sanchez — the oft-criticized Robert Sanchez — making some big saves as Leeds created chances after the break.
Why? Did the club really believe that Rosenior was so damaging that they had a better shot at qualifying for the Champions League with McFarlane? And after 18 months of nurturing Rosenior at Strasbourg, investing time, resources (and money) to develop him as a coach, is it really wise to dump him in this way? If the wise men liked him and rated him, would it not have been better to arrange some sort of “soft exit” at the end of the season, allowing him to go back to Strasbourg to learn and grow rather dumping him in this way?
Based on widespread reports in the Italian media — there are no official statements from the prosecutors yet — there are three accusations against Rocchi, whose job includes assigning referees to matches and overseeing VAR officials. He’s accused of choosing a referee, Andrea Colombo, “liked by Inter” for a match against Bologna last April. Allegedly, he also did Inter’s bidding when he picked one of Italy’s top referees, Daniele Doveri, for the Coppa Italia semifinal return leg derby against Milan.
Arteta knows he can’t rely on mitigating factors and excuses. Man City are chasing: he can’t just put his faith in them dropping points because, frankly, when Arsenal play like this, they look more like the side likely to drop points. He may need to play the goal difference game too because if they finish level, that comes into play. And, most of all, he wants to make sure that when City play their next Premier League game (May 4, though Arsenal will have played yet another game in between, against Fulham), they’ll look at their two games in hand and six-point deficit and feel like they have a mountain to climb, against a confident opponent firing on all cylinders, with a nicely padded goal difference to boot. That won’t happen if Arsenal play against Fulham the way they did against Newcastle.
10. Al Ahli are Asian champions again, and maybe Matthias Jaissle made the right decision: Three years ago Matthias Jaissle was killing it at Salzburg and was the next bright thing to come out of the Red Bull machine — a list that includes Marco Rose and Jesse Marsch. That summer, the Summer of Saudi (when Neymar, Karim Benzema et al joined Cristiano Ronaldo), Jaissle raised eyebrows when he chose Al Ahli — and, even more so, when Al Ahli chose him instead of a big-name coach. He was only 35 at the time and from a career development standpoint, it felt like an odd choice.
Maybe it wasn’t. Three years on, he’s not only a very rich young man, but he also has two Asian Champions League titles under his belt. The second came on Saturday when Al Ahli, despite playing a man down from minute 68 (not smart from Zakaria Al Hawsawi), beat Japan’s Machida Zelda 1-0 in the AFC Elite Final. Jaissle’s stock is still rising despite being out of the limelight, and he’s coaching a caliber of player he probably wouldn’t get to work with had he gone via a more traditional European route. He’s now 38 and in case you hadn’t noticed, a number of top European sides will be looking for a new coach this summer…