Roberto De Zerbi believes in-form Brighton top scorer Joao Pedro must sustain performances over 90 minutes to take the final step in becoming a “great, great player”.

Brazilian forward Pedro increased his tally for the season to 18 goals in all competitions with a hat-trick during Saturday’s 5-2 FA Cup win at Sheffield United.

The 22-year-old – a £30million summer signing from Watford – opened his Albion account on the first weekend of the campaign in a 4-1 victory at home to Tuesday evening’s Premier League opponents Luton.

“Joao Pedro’s DNA is of a top player,” said Brighton boss De Zerbi.

“The target of Joao is to play better and better and to keep this mentality because now he’s showing a great mentality, a mentality he needs and we need.

“He’s becoming amazing as a striker because his quality to play in ball possession, to play in between the lines, to make assists were important but in terms of goals, he’s improving a lot.

“The last step to become a great, great player is to play 90 minutes in the same way.

“Sometimes he starts the game not pushing off his best and I would like at the beginning of the game until the end of the game the same mentality.”

Pedro is likely to receive a hostile reception from Luton fans due to his Watford connections.

De Zerbi feels Kenilworth Road is one of the most challenging places to go in the top flight.

The relegation-threatened Hatters have beaten Newcastle and drawn with Liverpool on home soil this term, in addition to suffering single-goal defeats to Tottenham, Arsenal, Manchester City and Chelsea.

“Playing in the Luton stadium is one of the toughest games in the Premier League because they have a great intensity,” said De Zerbi.

“People think Brighton have to win and it’s normal if Brighton win in Luton but in football there are no easy games and if you want to win you have to push until the end.

“Arsenal and Man City, they won a game at the end of the game and I watched both games and they were very, very difficult games for both teams.”

Seventh-placed Brighton have been linked with a move for Leicester midfielder Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall before the transfer window closes.

De Zerbi, who has a close relationship with Foxes boss Enzo Maresca, says Dewsbury-Hall has “great quality” but was tight-lipped on the speculation.

“I don’t know anything about him (personally); I know him as a player,” the Italian said of the 25-year-old.

“He has great quality but it’s not my business speaking about other players, especially because Enzo Maresca is my friend and I want to be correct with him.”

Brighton remain without Joel Veltman, Solly March, Simon Adingra, Kaoru Mitoma, Julio Enciso and Ansu Fati.

Barcelona loanee Fati has returned to training following an injury sustained in November but will not be rushed back into first-team action.

“He’s a risk and he’s important for us in the second part of the season,” said De Zerbi.

“We can’t take any risks in this moment.”

Steve Borthwick insists England’s battle-hardened players are ready for the Guinness Six Nations as a result of facing greater club demands than any of their rivals.

Borthwick’s 36-man squad have comfortably racked up the highest number of minutes played since the World Cup due to their Gallagher Premiership and European commitments.

But while they will enter the Six Nations depleted by a greater workload – they have accumulated over two hours of game time more per player than next highest France – Borthwick believes they have benefited from the competitiveness of English clubs.

Six Premiership teams have reached the knockout phase of the Investec Champions Cup while the domestic league itself is more compelling that ever following its reduction in  teams.

“The players are match-hardened, so that’s a great benefit. Generally I will try to look at the positive side and I have a group of players that are match-hardened. They are ready to go,” Borthwick said.

“The other thing is the nature of the Premiership. All of the games are counting so the leverage of all these games is huge.

“And there have been teams fighting in Europe to get qualification, fighting to find a way to win which, again, is a real positive.

“Everything we’re getting is saying all the clubs are running more than they were 12 months ago, so that’s a real positive.”

England may enter Saturday’s opener against Italy in a fitter state than they were at the equivalent stage in 2023, but Premiership duty will not have equipped them for breakdown and contact area demands of a Six Nations.

And Borthwick has also told his players that there is a minimum requirement every time they pull on a Red Rose jersey.

“The Six Nations is a real contest. It’s breakdown contest game so we need to ensure that we’ve got that running right as well as the level of repeatability around the contact area,” Borthwick said.

“We are going to improve as a rugby team. We will get tactically and technically better, and we will get fitter.

“The supporters also need to see that this team fights all the time, is competitive all the time and plays at the intensity required in an England team.

“That is the base standard and if you have that, you can add the technical and tactical elements that will then follow.”

Argentinian coach Gonzalo Quesada took charge of Italy after the World Cup, replacing Kieran Crowley, and Borthwick insists England will have to think on their feet to contain a repurposed Azzurri.

“Under Kieran Crowley Italy played a phased attack game,” he said.

“They beat Australia, pushed South Africa, beat Wales in Cardiff and in the first game of the Championship last year they went very close to beating France. This is a very dangerous team.

“Quesada played a very different style to that at the Jaguares and at Stade Francais, much more of a blend of forward dominance with competitive kicking, lower phase count.

“They are two contrasting styles so the interesting question for Italy is what can they put together in that first game? We’ll have to be ready to recognise what style they are bringing very early in the game.”

A four-year doping ban has been imposed on Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, with her results at the 2022 Winter Olympics disqualified.

News that Valieva had tested positive for a banned substance, trimetazidine, during the Russian national championships in December 2021 emerged during the following year’s Winter Games in Beijing. She was 15 years old at the time.

The subsequent legal case reached the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), which ruled on Monday that Valieva had been unable to establish that the anti-doping rule violation had not been committed intentionally.

The start of the four-year ban is backdated to the time of the failed test, meaning it will run until Christmas Day 2025.

CAS confirmed all Valieva’s results subsequent to the failed test had been disqualified and that she would have to forfeit any medals won during her period of disqualification, which would include the team gold she won with Russia in Beijing.

The United States finished second to Russia in the team event, but CAS said “the consequences linked to the retroactive disqualification of Ms Valieva from past events, including from the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022, were not within the scope of this arbitration procedure and will have to be examined by the sports organisations concerned”, which means that any decision on reallocation of medals will have to come separately.

The International Olympic Committee has been contacted for comment.

Despite news of her positive test emerging after the team event, Valieva was cleared to compete in the individual event, but failed to finish in a medal-winning position. Even if she had secured a spot on the podium, the IOC had stressed before the individual competition that medals would not be awarded until a full investigation had been completed.

In its decision on Monday, CAS said it had found Valieva’s age at the time of the doping violation had no bearing on the sanction it should impose, and that there is a burden on athletes of all ages to prove there had been no intention to commit the violation.

The CAS decision is final and binding, but parties in the case have the right of appeal to the Swiss Federal Tribunal within 30 days on limited grounds.

Bayern Munich have hit out at suggestions that head coach Thomas Tuchel has touted himself as a replacement for outgoing Barcelona boss Xavi.

Xavi revealed in the wake of Barca’s 5-3 home defeat by Villarreal on Saturday that he would leave the club this summer, sparking a frenzy of speculation over potential successors.

A day later, Tuchel spoke about his ambition to work in Spain one day at a fan event, prompting claims he was setting out his stall for the post soon to be vacated by Xavi, much to the annoyance of his current employers.

In a statement issued via Bayern’s official website on Monday, chief executive Jan-Christian Dreesen and sporting director Christoph Freund said: “Our head coach Thomas Tuchel was asked by supporters on Sunday as part of a fan club visit about his coaching career and his previous experiences abroad at Paris St Germain and Chelsea, and naturally provided information about this during the discussion.

“He also answered general questions from fans about Spain as a footballing country. He never spoke about Xavi Hernandez and his successor, as was falsely claimed afterwards.

“We will no longer accept such non-factual statements directed against our coach, which always come from the same source.”

Tuchel, who took charge at the Allianz Arena in March last year, has found himself under pressure in recent weeks with the Bundesliga champions trailing current leaders Bayer Leverkusen in a two-horse title race.

However, that has eased somewhat in the last week courtesy of an edgy 1-0 win over Union Berlin in their game in hand and a 3-2 victory at Augsburg on Saturday which reduced the gap to just two points as a result of Leverkusen’s 0-0 home draw with Borussia Monchengladbach.

Baaeed has sired his first foal with a new arrival at Haras de la Perelle in Normandy.

The Shadwell-owned superstar was trained to six successive Group One victories by William Haggas, landing the Lockinge, Queen Anne, Sussex Stakes and Juddmonte International in his four-year-old season before meeting with the only defeat of his career in the Champion Stakes.

He subsequently retired to Beech House Stud in Newmarket, having earned over £2.5million in prize-money and stands there for a current fee of £80,000.

His first foal is a bay filly out of Mejthaam, a well-related Exceed And Excel mare who is a half sister to Alflaila – also owned by Shadwell and trained by Owen Burrows to three Group-race successes so far.

William Rimaud, manager of Haras de la Perelle, said of the new arrival: “We are delighted with her.

“She is a strong, good-sized foal, full of energy and has a great temperament.

“She is doing everything right. It is very exciting to have had the first foal of the brilliant champion Baaeed.”

Harry Fry will not shirk a Cheltenham Festival rematch with Lossiemouth despite seeing his own star mare Love Envoi come off clear second best in their clash in Saturday’s Unibet Hurdle.

The latter is already a Festival winner having claimed the Mares’ Novices’ Hurdle in 2022 and last season gave the retiring Honeysuckle a real run for her money in the Mares’ Hurdle itself.

Fry admitted to being disappointed with Love Envoi’s performance when filling the runner-up spot in the rescheduled Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Sandown last month, but was much more encouraged by her display on Cheltenham Trials day, albeit she was no match for the impressive Lossiemouth.

“Obviously the winner was in a different league, but we were pleased with the run,” he said.

“She travelled and jumped with her usual fluency and it was good to see that she was much sharper for her reappearance.

“The Mares’ Hurdle has always been the plan, we were runner-up in the race last year and we’ve got six weeks to look forward to going back there.

“Obviously Lossiemouth is going to be very hard to beat on the form she showed on Saturday, but it’s a horse race at the end of the day and you’ve got to be in it to win it.”

Love Envoi is a general 14-1 shot for the Mares’ Hurdle, with the Willie Mullins-trained Lossiemouth odds-on to record her second Festival win following last year’s Triumph Hurdle success.

Such was the impression she made on her comeback, plenty have suggested Lossiemouth should be heading for the Champion Hurdle, a notion Fry is unsurprisingly fully behind.

He quipped: “I don’t know what they’re thinking, I think it’s a no-brainer to go for the Champion Hurdle. If anything is going to give Constitution Hill a race it must be her, surely!

“I can understand where they’re coming from (going for the Mares’ Hurdle), but they’ve all got to get there and in six weeks anything can happen.

“We know the trip on Saturday is short of our best and we prefer slower ground as well. Hopefully we get conditions in our favour and the more testing it is the better, basically.”

Glasgow wing Kyle Rowe has declared himself ready to step into the Scotland starting line-up in the absence of the injured Darcy Graham for Saturday’s Guinness Six Nations opener away to Wales.

The 25-year-old has scored seven tries so far in his first season since returning to Warriors following the demise of previous club London Irish last summer, including three in his last two outings before meeting up with Gregor Townsend’s squad.

Edinburgh wing Graham will miss at least the first two matches of the championship, in Cardiff and at home to France, with a quad issue.

Townsend must decide whether to replace Scotland’s joint second-highest try-scorer of all time with Rowe, who has one injury-stunted cap to his name, his Glasgow team-mate Kyle Steyn, who has just returned after three months out, or the uncapped Sale flyer Arron Reed.

“You never want to see anyone getting injured, but Darcy’s injury has given me an opportunity to potentially get a starting spot,” said Rowe. “If not, I’m just looking to get better as a player and person over this period. My main goal is to try and get as many games in the Six Nations as possible.

“Glasgow and Scotland are pretty similar in terms of attack and defence so it’s a pretty seamless transition from one set-up to another.

“I feel like what I’ve done over the course of the first half of the season has put me in good stead for potential selection.

“It’s about taking the confidence I’ve got in my game at the minute and bringing it to Scotland.”

The Scotland squad are currently training in Spain before travelling to Wales on Thursday, and Rowe acknowledges he faces a stiff challenge in the days ahead as he bids to prove he deserves the chance to add to his solitary cap.

“The back three is such a competitive area, even with Darcy being out,” he said. “We’ve got Duhan (van der Merwe), Blair (Kinghorn), Kyle, myself, Arron and Ross McCann, who are all capable of playing at the top level.

“All of the players in the back-line can score tries, so we’re pretty dangerous. We all go into training looking to prove to the coaches we can train and play at this level, so we’ll see what happens.”

Rowe’s Scotland debut away to Argentina in July 2022 lasted just 10 minutes after he damaged his ACL and part of his MCL, sidelining him for the entirety of last season.

“It was one of the worst injuries I could get,” he said. “It was very mixed emotions for me that day. It was a very proud moment for myself and my family and then to basically have that all taken away from me was pretty devastating.

“Not everybody does their ACL but you get those big injuries from time to time and it was devastating that my big injury had to come during my first cap for Scotland.”

After recovering from injury, Rowe was included in Scotland’s pre-World Cup training squad last summer before being cut from the final 33 for the showpiece in France.

“If I had come back a little bit quicker, I might have had an outside chance. but during the summer when I was coming into training I knew in my heart and my head that it was only a slim chance and it was a long shot that I was going to go to the World Cup,” he said.

“I didn’t hold any grudges or anything about not getting selected, I knew it was a long shot.

“I’m back in the squad now which is really good so I’m just looking to build on what I’ve done in the first part of the season and get a game for Scotland.”

Marie-Louise Eta praised Union Berlin’s display in their victory against Darmstadt after the history-making assistant coach stood in for media duties on Sunday.

Union beat relegation rivals Darmstadt 1-0 to move five points clear of the Bundesliga’s bottom three in the absence of suspended first-team coach Nenad Bjelica, who started a three-match ban after shoving Bayern Munich winger Leroy Sane on Wednesday.

Danijel Jumic took charge in Bjelica’s stead, with fellow assistant Eta – who this season has become the first female coach to be actively involved at a men’s team in Bundesliga and Champions League history – assisting him on the sideline and handling the post-match press conference.

“We’re delighted that we were able to put in such a good performance,” she said.

“We did what we set out to do on the pitch.”

The 32-year-old former Germany youth international was named as an assistant first-team coach at the capital club earlier this season.

A Women’s Champions League winner with Turbine Potsdam in 2010, Eta had previously worked in the youth set-up at Union.

Mick Appleby has delivered a positive winter bulletin on star sprinter Big Evs, as connections prepare to map out the three-year-old campaign for the Breeders’ Cup hero.

The speedy son of Blue Point was one of the standout sprinting juveniles of the 2023 season, winning four of his six starts and ending the year with success at Santa Anita in November.

That big-race verdict had connections dreaming of what the colt could achieve this year and having strengthened up during his time off, he is now reported to be in rude health as he begins building up to peak fitness ahead of the new term.

Appleby has his eye on a May return, but suitable ground appears to be crucial with the Oakham handler hesitant to start his stable standard bearer off in testing conditions.

“He’s doing well and back in training now. He’s wintered well and grown and filled out more – he looks a bit stronger now,” said Appleby.

“I’m going to have a sit down with his owner soon and map out a campaign for him. We would probably look at getting out May time I think, it’s just working out what there is for him early season really.

“It will all depend on what the ground will be like really more than anything – we don’t want it too soft, even though he handled it at Glorious Goodwood when he won on bottomless ground.

“We will play it by ear with him and he’s getting fitter, so we’ll crack on with him and see when he’s ready.”

Appleby is also preparing high-class operators Roberto Escobarr and Annaf for international duty in Saudi Arabia next month, where both will seek valuable prizes at the Saudi Cup meeting.

A three-time winner when trained by William Haggas, Roberto Escobarr claimed the Italian St Leger on stable debut for his new handler in November and after a tune-up run at Newcastle on New Year’s Day is now hoping for a bit of luck to ensure he makes the line-up for the $2.5million Red Sea Turf Handicap.

“Roberto Escobarr ran well at Newcastle and he’s possibly going out to Saudi for the Red Sea Handicap,” added Appleby.

“He needs three to come out at the moment, so hopefully he gets in and we’ve got Annaf going out there as well for the turf sprint. He’s in the dirt race as well but he’ll run on the turf.

“There’s a bit to look forward to with two nice horses and it’ll break the winter up a bit.”

Virgil van Dijk admits Liverpool’s hierarchy have a big job to replace Jurgen Klopp and is “curious” to see the direction they go in.

The Reds captain does not believe uncertainty over the future will affect their ambitions this season, having continued their challenge on four fronts with a comfortable FA Cup victory over Norwich.

But with the likes of himself, Mohamed Salah and Trent Alexander-Arnold all in the final 18 months of their contracts, there are a lot of significant decisions to be made before the summer.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Virgil van Dijk (@virgilvandijk)

“The club will have a big job on their hands, that is well known,” he said.

 “To replace not only the manager but the whole staff and there are so many things that will change.

“I’m very curious which direction that will go in but when that will be announced we will see our situation.

“It will be the end of Jurgen Klopp’s era – I am still part of it that’s why I don’t like to talk about it – and that is my main focus.

“Hopefully we will have the success we all dream of and by then probably there will be more clarification about what the club wants for the future and then we will see.”

Asked whether he saw himself being part of the next era, Van Dijk added: “That’s a big question. I don’t know.”

However, any questions about how the players would respond to learning the news of Klopp’s departure at the end of the season were emphatically answered with a 5-2 victory over the Canaries at an emotional Anfield.

Bigger tests await this week with Chelsea visiting on Wednesday before they head to Arsenal next weekend but Van Dijk insists nothing will – or should – be different.

“Nothing has really changed. Obviously things will change at the end of the season and in the new season but at the moment it doesn’t and we have to keep doing the same things,” he added.

“It’s easier said than done but I sense the rest of the boys think like that as well and it is the job for me to ensure we keep it that way.

“We are all human beings and we have emotions – some players feel different about the manager’s announcement than others.

“That’s absolutely normal because everyone thinks in different ways but I didn’t notice the professionalism being dropped or the level of standard. The training sessions I have seen in the last couple of days were not different than before.

“For the boss it (the Norwich game) was a bit different but for us it was to make sure we got to the next round with some players coming back from injury and now we focus on Wednesday.

“We can speak about the situation, about what will happen next year, every week but it doesn’t change, it’s noise we don’t need and that’s why we focus on getting the job done and that’s why I feel nothing has changed.

“It is still the same but at the end of the season there will be different things happening of course, but that is for the club to sort out.”

Monty Williams believes the Detroit Pistons proved they care for the team after a morale-boosting win over the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Pistons have endured a dismal campaign, only snapping a 28-game losing streak at the end of December.

Detroit have since won a further three games, with their most recent victory coming on Sunday, in a 120-104 defeat of the Western Conference-leading Thunder, who were on a five-game winning spin.

Jalen Duren starred with 22 points and a career-best 21 rebounds for the Pistons, and while they remain rooted to the bottom of the Eastern Conference with the league's worst record (6-40), Detroit are showing they care, says Williams.

"I just think our guys care," he said. "We had every reason to make excuses, a back-to-back against the best team in the West, and our guys just competed."

Making the Pistons' win even more impressive was the fact that Cade Cunningham, their leading scorer, was out due to a lingering knee issue.

Cunningham played in a defeat to the Washington Wizards on Saturday, but Williams did not want to risk his star player.

"We felt like, on a back-to-back, if there was any level of concern, we didn't feel good putting him out there," Williams said.

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault, meanwhile, reflected on a poor all-round showing from his team.

"I thought it was an energy thing in both directions," Daigneault said.

"They played with great energy, beat us to balls, played with intensity, and as the game wore on, we couldn't drum up that same energy. They obviously deserved to win today."

India’s hopes of squaring the Test series with England have taken a double blow, with key all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja and batter KL Rahul both ruled out through injury.

Already missing star batter Virat Kohli for personal reasons, Rohit Sharma’s side were on the wrong end of a huge upset on Sunday, when the tourists chased the game from behind to complete a 28-run win in Hyderabad.

The series moves on to Visakhapatnam this week, with the second Test starting on Friday, and two experienced players will not be involved for the hosts.

Jadeja, a world-class left-arm spin bowler as well as a dangerous top-six batter who top scored for India last week, pulled his hamstring while being run out by Ben Stokes on day four and the experienced Rahul has hurt his right thigh. Between them, the pair have 119 Test caps, know-how India cannot easily replace.

Jadeja’s place is liable to go to wrist-spinner Kuldeep Yadav, but his absence with the bat threatens to unbalance India. All-rounders Washington Sundar and Sourabh Kumar and batter Sarfaraz Khan have been added to the squad.

It is not yet known whether Jadeja and Rahul will come back into contention for the remainder of the five-match series, with Kohli’s status also unclear. Pace bowler Mohammed Shami is working his way back to fitness and is expected to be in contention for the third Test.

Meanwhile, seamer Jasprit Bumrah has been reprimanded by the International Cricket Council for stepping into the path of England centurion Ollie Pope. Bumrah admitted a level one charge of causing “inappropriate physical contact”, earning one demerit point and losing half of his match fee.