Jamison Gibson-Park feels the prospect of igniting another St Patrick’s weekend party in Dublin is a “massive” incentive to help Ireland swiftly move on from an agonising 23-22 defeat to England.
Andy Farrell’s men were on the verge of retaining the Guinness Six Nations title with a game to spare before being punished by Marcus Smith’s last-gasp drop goal at Twickenham.
The “gutting” late drama halted Ireland’s pursuit of consecutive Grand Slams but they will still win the championship if they beat Scotland next Saturday at the Aviva Stadium.
Leinster scrum-half Gibson-Park is eager to lift more silverware on home soil following the jubilation of last year’s flawless tournament triumph, which was sealed with a win over England amid patron saint celebrations in the Irish capital.
“We’ve thrown a lot into this championship and we were pretty keen to go after the Grand Slam,” he said.
“That’s gone now but there’s still plenty to play for, thankfully.
“It’s massive, man. I mean we were able to get it done last year in front of our friends and family and home supporters, which means a huge amount.
“There will be that same drive next weekend for sure.
“Faz (Farrell) has already said to us that we’ve got to dust ourselves down, congratulate England and just get ready for Scotland.”
Jack Crowley’s four penalties ensured Ireland led 12-8 at the break in south-west London before James Lowe’s two tries put them on the cusp of glory.
But Steve Borthwick’s impressive hosts were the better side for large parts and deservedly snatched victory at the death as replacement fly-half Smith decisively added to scores from Ollie Lawrence, George Furbank and Ben Earl to spark wild scenes on the pitch and in the stands.
Gibson-Park was forced to play the final 30 minutes out of position on the right wing after the departures of Calvin Nash and Ciaran Frawley to failed head injury assessments exposed head coach Farrell’s decision to name a six-two split of forwards and backs on the bench.
The 32-year-old expects a thorough inquest into only Ireland’s second defeat in 22 games dating back to the summer of 2022.
“We are thankful over the last number of years, we have been on the right side of the ledge a lot of the time,” he said.
“But every now and again, it’s the way it goes.
“Plenty of things to review and obviously we have to dust ourselves down because there’s still a championship on the line.
“It will be tough but England showed up and sometimes that’s how the cookie crumbles and you don’t end up on the right side of the result.
“It’s gutting but plenty to learn and we’ll have to show up for next week.”
Captain Peter O’Mahony credited England for derailing Ireland’s Grand Slam dream.
The Munster flanker, who was sin binned for hands in ruck just before the hour mark, said: “It was a massive pressure match, pressure environment.
“They’re a quality side and I thought they showed that in spades with the way they defended, clinical in their attack, and disrupted a lot of the stuff that we wanted to do.
“It was a savage battle out there.”
Kai Havertz may have scored the winning goal in a Champions League final but his late header to seal victory over Brentford and send Arsenal top of the Premier League was also a “dream” moment for the forward.
With title rivals Liverpool and Manchester City facing off 24 hours later, any victory for Arsenal would have taken them to the summit for the first time in 2024.
It looked like they were on course to miss out after returning goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale gifted a goal to Yoane Wissa to cancel out a brilliant Declan Rice header, only for Havertz to convert with four minutes remaining and secure a 2-1 victory.
After a slow start following his summer move from Chelsea, where he netted the only goal of the 2021 Champions League final against Manchester City, Havertz now has four in four league games and was serenaded by the home fans at full-time.
“As a kid, I think you dream that you’re going to have moments like this in your career and Saturday I had something like this,” he said.
“The supporters made it very special to me and I’m very thankful to have this moment. Thank you to all of them.
“You always hope for that (connection with fans). I know maybe it wasn’t from the beginning but I always try to work hard and just not drop my confidence.
“I just give my best every game and I did it so I’m happy now that I’ve had some of those moments now.
“I’m very delighted, it was a big game for us. To play in these games and win it at the end is always very nice and it was a great feeling.”
Havertz’s late goal was controversial as there was a chance he could have been sent off earlier in the game.
After being cautioned for catching Kristoffer Ajer with an elbow, the Germany forward seemingly dived in an attempt to win a second-half penalty.
“Right now, I don’t think momentum is with us,” Vitaly Janelt told Brentford’s official website.
“Everyone expected that Arsenal would win by three, four, five today because of their last results, but everyone knows how difficult it is to play against us either at home or away.
“They didn’t create many chances and, for me, it was a clear yellow and then red to Havertz, it was a clear dive for me. Then he scores the winner, but that’s football.”
Bruno Fernandes says Manchester United need to knuckle down, rack up wins and improve in possession as they attempt to sneak into the Champions League spots.
This has been a season to forget for Erik ten Hag’s side, who put back-to-back Premier League defeats behind them by edging past relegation-threatened Everton 2-0 on Saturday lunchtime.
First half penalties from Fernandes and Marcus Rashford decided the contest at Old Trafford, with the former calling on United to ignore background noise and focus on themselves during the run-in.
Put to the Red Devils skipper that it feels like every match feels like a big game right now, he told MUTV: “It is actually.
“Obviously we know that this season is not being (as) good as we want, so we want to improve as much as we can until the end of the season.
“Improve obviously position-wise because we want to try to get as close as possible to the Champions League spots.
“We know that we don’t depend only on ourselves, but we have to do our job like we did today and win our games.”
United remain sixth after beating Everton and sit eight points behind fourth-placed Aston Villa, who host Tottenham – the team between them – on Sunday.
Fifth could yet prove enough for Champions League qualification but the Red Devils will be relying on other teams to improve England’s UEFA coefficient.
United have 10 Premier League matches remaining and now turn their attention to keeping alive their hopes of ending a season to forget with silverware.
Ten Hag’s men host Liverpool in the FA Cup quarter-finals next weekend, when a repeat of the kind of sloppiness seen against Everton, particularly in the first half, could lead to an ugly outcome.
“No one gives the ball away on purpose,” Fernandes told Stadium Astro.
“So, you miss the pass, sometimes it doesn’t go the way you want.
“Obviously, we need to get high focus in these kind of games (against Everton) because we know they have a really strong counter-press and a really strong counter-attack.
“We know that every ball that they could recover, they will try to get their space and their time to have their chances.
“But I think overall the performance was good, obviously there’s always margin to improve.
“I think keeping more on the ball, more spells with more passes, trying to play higher on the pitch in their half, keep the ball there and then still creating a lot of chances that we create today.”
United take on a Liverpool side whose FA Cup progress led next weekend’s Merseyside derby to be postponed.
That means Everton have three weeks to stew on an 11th successive winless Premier League match, with boss Sean Dyche taking his team on a European training camp next week.
“We want to remind the players of the good side of these performances while putting that demand on the next part of it,” said the Everton manager, whose side return to action at Bournemouth on March 30.
“So, what is it that changes this situation? What is it that occurs when we take responsibility? That’s where we’re trying to get to. That will certainly be part of the demand of these next three weeks.
“We’re all together, make no mistake about that. I lead it. I’ve got no problem with that.
“We’ve got to stay with the consistency of what we’re doing while adding… the only way I can describe it is the will and demand to get hurt to score a goal, where it means that much that you will score a goal.
“When you get tight then, of course, a bit of that freedom can go, but we’re the only ones who can change it.”
Luke Evangelista snapped a third-period tie and Kevin Lankinen made 32 saves to lift the surging Nashville Predators to a 2-1 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday.
Kiefer Sherwood had the other goal for Nashville, which has won 10 of its last 11 games (10-0-1) to move into the top wild card playoff spot in the Western Conference.
The Predators have won six straight road games and are 17-4-2 in their last 23 away contests.
Columbus got a career high-tying 47 saves from Daniil Tarasov but was unable to win for the fourth time in five games.
The Predators registered the game’s first 14 shots, but it remained scoreless until Sherwood scored his eighth of the season with 7:41 left in the opening period.
Demko exits in Canucks’ win
Thatcher Demko and Casey DeSmith combined on a shutout and the Western Conference-leading Vancouver Canucks rolled to a 5-0 win over the Winnipeg Jets.
Demko stopped all 12 shots he faced before leaving midway through the second period and the Canucks said only that he would not return to the game.
DeSmith turned aside 10 shots to help the Canucks win their fourth straight game.
Elias Pettersson, Nils Hoglander and Pius Suter each had a goal and an assist for Vancouver.
Tarasenko leads Panthers over Flames
Vladimir Tarasenko scored his first two goals in a Panthers uniform and Anthony Stolarz turned aside 34 shots to lift the league-leading Panthers to a 5-1 win over the Calgary Flames.
Tarasenko, acquired from Ottawa on Wednesday, scored his first goal of the game 23 seconds into the second period to snap a scoreless tie, and tallied again with 5:05 left in the period to extend the lead to 4-1.
Sam Bennett and Kevin Stenlund also had goals for the Panthers, who bounced back from Thursday’s loss to Philadelphia to improve to 13-2-0 in its last 15 games.
Yegor Sharangovich scored for the Flames, who had won six of seven.
Kelly Gallagher and guide Charlotte Evans won Great Britain’s first-ever gold medal at the Winter Paralympics on this day in 2014 with victory in the women’s visually impaired Super-G in Sochi.
The duo had experienced disappointment days earlier in the downhill event where they were five seconds off the pace and finished last.
Yet visually impaired Gallagher and guide Evans turned around their fortunes, with a time of one minute and 28.72 seconds enough to secure the Super-G title ahead of Russian world champion Aleksandra Frantceva.
Evans had been emotional after a sixth-placed finish in the downhill, but vowed they would “come back fighting” and proved true to her word.
The first of the six pairs to take on the course, Gallagher and Evans navigated the track impressively to set what would prove a winning time.
Russia’s Frantceva and guide Pavel Zabotin clocked one minute and 28.94 seconds, but it was not enough to deny Gallagher and Evans gold and they were joined on the podium by compatriots Jade Etherington and guide Caroline Powell, who claimed third (1:29.76) to follow their silver in the downhill.
“It was really hard work coming from downhill into Super-G because they are similar speed events. We were told by our sports psychologist to put it away, it’s one result. It’s so easy to say, so hard to do,” Gallagher explained.
“I lost all of my faith in myself, in Charlotte, in our processes, in what we were doing and I was like, ‘I only have a couple of hours to put this together, because we’re going to be back on snow and we’ve got to race’.
“We wouldn’t have got here if it wasn’t for Charlotte. When I haven’t believed in myself, she has believed in us and believed in herself.”
Luka Dončić made NBA history by becoming the first player to register six straight 30-point triple-doubles as the Dallas Mavericks pulled away for a 142-124 win over the Detroit Pistons on Saturday.
Doncic had 39 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists to surpass Russell Westbrook’s run of five consecutive 30-point triple-doubles. Doncic also extended his own record with a fifth straight 35-point triple-double.
During his six-game run, Doncic is averaging 36.3 points, 11.5 assists and 10.5 rebounds while shooting 51.6 percent from the field.
Kyrie Irving added 21 points and Daniel Gafford and Tim Hardaway Jr. each scored 17 points as Dallas won its second straight after a three-game losing streak.
Cade Cunningham had 33 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds and Simone Fontecchio chipped in a career-high 27 for Detroit, which has lost 10 of 12.
Celtics overcome Durant’s big game
Jayson Tatum had 29 points, 10 rebounds and seven assists and Jaylen Brown scored 27 points as the Boston Celtics survived Kevin Durant’s 45-point outburst in a 117-107 win over the Phoenix Suns.
With Kristaps Porzingis sidelined with right hamstring tightness, the Celtics got 14 points from reserve Luke Kornet and 10 from Payton Pritchard to avoid a third straight loss.
Bradley Beal had 25 points and Jusuf Nurkic added 11 with 11 rebounds for the Suns, who played without injured All-Star Devin Booker and failed to win a third consecutive game.
Murray, Jokic too much for Jazz
Jamal Murray scored 37 points and Nikola Jokić played through a bruised arm to score 26 as the Denver Nuggets eased to a 142-121 rout of the Utah Jazz.
Michael Porter Jr. added 19 points for the Nuggets, who won for the eighth time in nine games to pull within one-half game of Oklahoma City for the Western Conference lead.
Keyonte George led the Jazz with 29 points and Jordan Clarkson added 22 as Utah dropped to 2-10 in its last 12 games.
The Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and five-time Pro Bowl defensive tackle Chris Jones reached agreement Saturday on a five-year deal that contains $95 million guaranteed, his agents told ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
Jones will have the highest-ever average annual salary for a defensive tackle once the deal is complete.
Jones, 29, would have been the top prize amongst defenders in free agency, but the Chiefs made him their top priority after he held out of all training camp last year and missed the first game of the regular season.
He eventually came to an agreement on a reworked deal with more incentives and went on to record 10.5 sacks and earn first-team All-Pro honors for the second straight season as the Chiefs won a third Super Bowl in four years.
Jones has recorded 75.5 sacks in 123 career games since Kansas City selected him with the 37th overall pick in the 2016 draft.
The Chiefs will try to become the first team in NFL history to win three Super Bowls in a row next season.England captain Harry Kane made Bundesliga history as he became the first man to score four hat-tricks in a debut season as Bayern Munich routed lowly Mainz 8-1.
Kane struck after 13 minutes, in first-half stoppage time and 20 minutes from the whistle to take his tally for the season to 30 league goals, in the process equalling Uwe Seeler’s record in a first campaign in Germany’s top flight.
Leon Goretzka helped himself to a double and goals from Thomas Muller, Jamal Musiala and substitute Serge Gnabry, with Nadiem Amiri replying for the visitors, completed a win which eased Bayern back to within seven points of leaders Bayer Leverkusen, who host Wolfsburg on Sunday.
There were goals too at Borussia Park as Monchengladbach and Cologne played out a 3-3 thriller.
Faride Alidou put the visitors in front after just seven minutes and then restored their advantage after Franck Honorat had levelled.
Robin Hack made it 2-2 and then fired the home side ahead with his goals coming in as many minutes, but Damion Downs ensured the spoils were shared.
Ten-man Borussia Dortmund maintained their place in the top four with a battling 2-1 win at Werder Bremen.
The visitors looked to be cruising when first-half goals from Donyell Malen and Jadon Sancho put them 2-0 up, but Marcel Sabitzer’s stoppage-time dismissal for a challenge on Mitchell Weiser left his side up against it, although Justin Njinmah’s strike 20 minutes from time was as good as it got for the hosts.
Thomas Isherwood’s own goal and a second from Christoph Baumgartner handed RB Leipzig a 2-0 win over rock-bottom Darmstadt, while Jeffrey Gouweleeuw’s first-half strike was enough to hand Augsburg a 1-0 win over Heidenheim.
Inter Milan moved 18 points clear at the top of Serie A with a hard-fought victory at Bologna.
Yann Bisseck’s first-half header clinched a 13th successive win in all competitions and stretched Inter’s advantage over second-placed Juventus, who host Atalanta on Sunday.
Substitute Eldor Shomurodov scored twice to help ease Cagliari to a precious 4-2 victory over bottom-of-the-table Salernitana.
First-half efforts from Gianluca Lapadula and Gianluca Gaetano and Shomurodov’s first put the home side 3-0 ahead and although Grigoris Kastanos and Giulio Maggiore dragged the visitors back into it, Shomurodov made sure with 14 minutes remaining.
Kristian Thorstvedt fired Sassuolo to a first league win in nine attempts as his goal secured a 1-0 victory over fellow strugglers Frosinone, for whom substitute Kaio Jorge missed a late penalty.
Substitute Daniel Maldini came to Monza’s rescue with a late winner to see off Genoa in a mid-table battle at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium.
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The visitors led 2-0 through Matteo Pessina and Dany Mota, but goals from Albert Gudmundsson and Vitinha made it 2-2 before Maldini won it with 11 minutes left.
In LaLiga, fine finishes from Portu and Savio sent Girona back above Barcelona into second place courtesy of a battling win over Osasuna.
Portu’s sweet first-half strike and a deft toe-poke from Savio sealed a 2-0 victory at the Municipal de Montilivi Stadium in which Michel’s men created enough chances to have won far more comfortably.
Real Sociedad needed a late goal from Andre Silva to maintain their bid for a top-six finish with a 3-2 win at Granada.
The hosts led 1-0 and 2-1 courtesy of Myrto Uzini’s double either side of Umar Sadiq’s equaliser, but were pegged back with 10 minutes remaining when Robin Le Normand levelled to set the stage for Silva to win it five minutes later.
Juanmi scored either side of half-time as Cadiz dented Atletico Madrid’s top-four hopes with a 2-0 win at the Ramon de Carranza Stadium, while Hugo Duro’s 40th-minute goal proved sufficient to secure a 1-0 home victory for Valencia over Getafe.
Ruben Aguilar’s first-half header dashed Brest’s hopes of closing the gap on Ligue 1 leaders Paris St Germain as they went down 1-0 at Lens, while second-half goals from Nicolas Tagliafico and Mama Balde secured a 2-0 win for Lyon at Lorient.
Watford have sacked head coach Valerien Ismael following Saturday’s 2-1 home defeat by Coventry and placed former midfielder Tom Cleverley in interim charge.
The Hornets were beaten 2-1 by the Sky Blues to leave them 13th in the Sky Bet Championship, well adrift of the play-off places and seven points above the relegation zone.
Ex-Barnsley and West Brom boss Ismael had been appointed to the job at Vicarage Road in May and signed a contract extension in October, but he has paid the price for a poor run of form.
Ismael was the 20th managerial appointment under the Pozzo family. Of his 41 games in charge, Watford won 12 and lost 15, with 14 draws.
A statement from the club on Saturday evening read: “Tom Cleverley will assume the position of interim head coach at Vicarage Road.
“This follows Watford FC terminating the contract of Valerien Ismael after today’s home defeat to Coventry City.
“The Hornets thank Valerien and his staff for their dedication and commitment. However, the club’s board considers it an appropriate time to make a change in order to improve results.
“Tom Cleverley’s staff will be confirmed in due course.”
Former Manchester United and England midfielder Cleverley retired from playing last summer after six seasons with Watford and took up a role on the club’s coaching staff.
Mauricio Pochettino has revealed he spent the evening of his 52nd birthday watching football with his coaching staff as they sought to “heal” from Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Brentford.
The Argentinian opted for Valencia v Real Madrid and a glass of wine over time with his family, hours after his team were booed by their own supporters at the Gtech Stadium.
Chelsea’s faint hopes of qualifying for Europe are rapidly diminishing, ahead of Monday’s Premier League game at home to Newcastle.
The meeting with Eddie Howe’s side at Stamford Bridge will be the first league outing in front of their own fans since the team were jeered off at the end of a 4-2 loss to Wolves more than a month ago.
And there were signs of disquiet too during the narrow FA Cup win against Championship side Leeds.
The team’s only defeat in their last five games came after extra-time in the Carabao Cup final to Liverpool at the end of February, a run Pochettino has been keen to talk up.
However, the draw with Brentford – earned via a late Axel Disasi goal after the home side had fought back from a goal down to lead 2-1 – left the manager in no mood for celebrating his birthday.
“Saturday after the Brentford game, the draw was like a defeat,” he said.
“My coaching staff were with me at home. We finished the day watching Valencia v Real Madrid, more football. We shared a glass of wine. But nothing exciting. Only watching football.
“I think that healed, watching more football. The last few days I watched the Champions League, the Championship, the Asian Champions League.”
Asked how his wife, with whom he marked 31 years of marriage the day before Chelsea’s Christmas Eve defeat to Wolves, deals with these moments, he said: “She knows very well because the mood is not good.
“When the mood is not good, it’s not easy for the family. The responsibility is to win and provide good feelings to our fans, the people that trust in us.
“Five games we didn’t lose in 90 minutes, you could say it was a good run. But the draw with Brentford appeared again the problems.”
After Newcastle comes an FA Cup quarter-final at home to Leicester next Sunday as the team chase down their last realistic hope of salvaging a bleak season.
Pochettino would not be drawn to look ahead however, pointing instead to the need for players returning from injury to reacclimatise, particularly after Ben Chilwell, Conor Gallagher and Levi Colwill joined an already lengthy absentee list.
“The most important thing is Monday,” he said. “I don’t want to think about Leicester. It’s important because of the circumstances. We’re going have three players less.
“We’re working really hard to see how we’re going to provide balance to the team. Players coming back from injury like (Marc) Cucurella, whether he can deal with 90 minutes. Trevoh Chalobah after seven, eight months (out). We’re managing his load.
“Always it is a risk. That is why the most important is Monday.”
Liverpool midfielder Harvey Elliott admits they cannot afford to focus too much on the multiple threats Manchester City pose or their own game plan will “go out the window”.
The two title rivals go head to head at Anfield on Sunday with Pep Guardiola’s side having hit top form with 18 wins and two draws in their last 20 matches.
Liverpool’s record over the last 19 fixtures has seen them lose just once and draw three times without, at times, coming close to playing at their best.
The attacking options City have at their disposal can be dizzying for opponents but Elliott said they will not be thinking about that.
“Look at the players and the squad depth they have, just Man City as a team are unbelievable,” said the 20-year-old.
“But it is about us not bigging it up too much. We just take it as another game, not worry about it too much, we just do what we do best, not over analyse or think about it too much
“We will play our football, the way we play as if we’re thinking about them too much then our game plan goes out the window.
“We just have to step up and make sure we’re ready from the start.”
The game will be billed as a potential title decider but Elliott has downplayed the hype.
“I don’t think we can big it up more than any other game,” he added.
“It’s a massive game, of course, but we’re a massive club as well and we just need to be thinking about ourselves.”
Considering the firepower of both sides Sunday’s game may be decided by who takes their chances.
Darwin Nunez warmed up for the tie with two goals in the midweek Europa League win over Sparta Prague, following on from his 99th-minute winner against Nottingham Forest, and represents Liverpool’s biggest threat.
“You know he has always had the skill and the quality, I think just sometimes it was a confidence thing. Now he is showing it,” said Elliott of the Uruguay international who has scored five in his last four games.
“He scored a vital, massive goal at the weekend and now he has come up with another great performance and goals in Prague.
“We are over the moon for him. He just needs to keep going, keep working hard and we will support him all of the way.
“We know what he is capable of doing, he just needs to keep doing it.
“But everyone needs to pop up with goals. It can’t just be the attackers, the midfielders need to chip in too.”
Aston Villa skipper John McGinn says Sunday’s crunch Premier League meeting with Tottenham is “the most important game in the club’s recent history”.
Villa welcome Spurs to Villa Park for a monumental battle in the race for top four and guaranteed Champions League football last season.
Victory for Unai Emery’s men would tighten their grip on fourth place by giving them an eight-point lead over Spurs, but defeat would see the London side cut the gap to two points with a game in hand.
With Villa never having qualified for the Champions League before, McGinn knows the importance of the match.
“Everyone knows how important the game is,” the Scot said. “It’s probably, in a league fixture, the most important game in the club’s recent history.
“So the players are aware of that. If I feel over the next couple of days that the boys are not aware, I’ll remind them.
“The supporters will be right up for it and we need to remember that so will Tottenham. We got away with one down at the Tottenham stadium.
“They’re a really good team who we’ll fully respect. But we know at Villa Park we’re a force and hopefully we can get three points.”
Villa won the European Cup in 1982 but they have never played in the modern Champions League.
McGinn admits his side are talking about the possibility of qualifying and knows they have it in their own hands.
“We speak about it, we are ambitious,” McGinn added.
“Obviously we want to achieve something that the club haven’t achieved in a long, long time. Our focus from last year was to try to improve and be competitive in this competition which we’ve done so far.
“Try to improve, get Europa League and then maybe try and get the Champions League. We know it’s in our hands at the moment and we’ve got a really exciting run of games.
“There’s a lot of us that have been through the journey with the club so we’ve experienced the lows and the highs are hopefully still to come.”
Pep Guardiola has urged his Manchester City team to be ready to “overcome absolutely everything” as they head to Liverpool for a crunch title showdown.
The champions make the journey to Anfield on Sunday for a game that could have a huge bearing on the destiny of the Premier League crown.
The atmosphere is likely to be intense with all the pressure that can bring, for the players and especially the referee, but Guardiola hopes his side can rise above it all.
“When that happens we have to perform better,” the City manager said. “We cannot control what happens in these stadiums with the referees.
“We have to do better. It’s the only thing we can do. It’s not the first time, it will not be the last.
“We have to overcome these situations and to do the peak achievement, of trying to fight for the fourth Premier League in a row, that no team have done, never ever, this is the type of challenge we have to face – overcome absolutely everything.
“Otherwise will be difficult, in this case, to win on Sunday. But, whatever happens, I’m pretty sure we’ll perform well.
“And, whatever happens, still we’ll have many, many games to play. This is a really important game for the title challenge, but I still have the feeling that many things are going to happen.”
Guardiola has refused to get drawn into a war of words ahead of the game after Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold claimed winning trophies meant more to the Merseyside club than City.
Guardiola insists what people outside of the club have to say has no impact.
He said: “We have a public job and the job cannot be done without the opinion of the external people, so it’s normal.
“There are good ones and bad ones, it’s not a problem. We have to live with that, we have to deal with that, otherwise you cannot be in that world.
“But at the end, inside of the ropes, we know who we are, what we have to do.”
Fine finishes from Portu and Savio sent Girona back above Barcelona into second place in the LaLiga table courtesy of a battling win over Osasuna.
Portu’s sweet first-half strike and a deft toe-poke from Savio sealed a 2-0 victory at the Municipal de Montilivi Stadium in which Michel’s men created enough chances to have won far more comfortably.
Girona went ahead with 13 minutes gone when Ukraine international Viktor Tsygankov’s reverse pass allowed striker Portu to burst clear and fire low across keeper Sergio Herrera and open the scoring.
Striker Ante Budimir headed high over from a promising position and former Girona full-back Johan Mojica dragged a 30th-minute shot from distance just wide as the visitors responded.
Osasuna’s Jon Moncayola curled an attempt wide from 22 yards seven minutes before the break with the hosts struggling to build upon their early breakthrough, and they headed for the dressing room still only a goal to the good.
Girona striker Artem Dovbyk fired wastefully wide three minutes after the restart after Portu and Tsygankov had combined to set him up, and he only just failed to get on the end of Miguel Gutierrez’s 53rd-minute cross.
Defender Jorge Herrando blocked efforts from Tsygankov and Daley Blind in quick succession and the home side were incensed not to be awarded a penalty after Savio went to ground under Alejandro Cateno’s clumsy challenge, with VAR official Carlos del Cerro Grande backing referee Mateo Busquets’ original decision.
Herrera clawed Dovbyk’s 64th-minute header off the line with Girona pressing for a second, and substitute Cristhian Stuani passed up a glorious opportunity eight minutes from time when he ballooned a shot high over after going one on one with the keeper.
Savio saw an 85th-minute strike ruled out for a foul during the build-up, but was celebrating within seconds when he ran on to Aleix Garcia’s back-heel to cement the win.
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