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Phil Jones out of the Europa League

Manchester United defender Phil Jones has not travelled to the Europa League final eight tournament in Germany because of a knee injury.

The 28-year-old’s last match was an FA Cup tie at Tranmere on 26 January.

“Phil has been following an individualised training programme during the post-lockdown period to optimise recovery from a knee problem,” said United boss Old Gunnar Solskjaer.

United play Copenhagen on Monday in their quarter-final.

The ties in the closing stages of the competition will be single-leg games and held at venues across Germany, including Dusseldorf, Gelsenkirchen, Duisburg and Cologne.

After the last-eight games on 10-11 August, the semi-finals take place on 16-17 August, with the final four nights later.

Jones has played just eight times this season. Solskjaer said he would continue to work with a fitness coach while the squad was in Germany.

Defenders Axel Tuanzebe and Luke Shaw had already been ruled out of the trip because of injury

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football Sports News

Lyon win record ninth French cup

England internationals Lucy Bronze, Nikita Parris and Jodie Taylor helped Lyon win a ninth French Cup as they beat Paris St-Germain 4-3 on penalties.

With the score 0-0 after normal time, Bronze scored in the shootout to put Lyon ahead, before Sarah Bouhaddi saved Lea Khelifi’s effort.

Taylor made her Lyon debut as she replaced Parris in the 90th minute.

The game was stopped for 10 minutes in the first-half as the floodlights failed.

A crowd of 5,000 people watched the game in Auxerre due to Covid-19 restrictions.

European champions Lyon were crowned French champions in May after the league was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

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F1 Sports News

Red Bull wins 70th Anniversary Grad prix

A warm summer’s day, at one of the sport’s most demanding circuits, and some softer tyres was all it took to knock the Mercedes juggernaut off course at the 70th Anniversary Grand Prix.

The two black cars that had looked unbeatable in the first four races of the season suddenly did not look so special. Their high performance became their Achilles’ Heel and they tore their tyres to shreds around the high-speed sweeps of Silverstone.

If anyone was going to benefit from a situation like this, it was always going to be Red Bull’s Max Verstappen, and the Dutchman turned in one of those days when he looks irresistible.

Give Verstappen a sniff and he locks onto it like a pit bull. Early in the race, his team were warning him to be careful of his tyres as he homed in on the Mercedes in front of him.

“Mate,” he replied to his engineer Giampiero Lambiase, “this is the only chance. I’m not backing off and driving like a grandma.”

He kept pushing, of course, and the race surrendered to him, as Mercedes’ tyres fell apart. And the result was one of the most unexpected victories for some time.

Whether this turns out to be Red Bull’s only chance to beat Mercedes remains to be seen, but it’s certainly the case that a perfect storm of circumstance emerged to make a team that had been threatening to win every race this season suddenly look vulnerable.

“I enjoy the situation,” said Mercedes F1 boss Toto Wolff, “because everyone said it would be a walk in the park for Mercedes and it wasn’t a walk in the park. We didn’t have the quickest car and maybe not even the second quickest car.”

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football Sports News Transfer News

Liverpool go for Olympiacos Left back

Liverpool could turn their attention to Olympiakos left-back Kostas Tsimikas after their initial attempt to sign Norwich’s Jamal Lewis failed.

The Reds had a £10m bid for 22-year-old Lewis, which included a substantial sell-on clause, rejected.

It is understood they were prepared to go to £12m but the Canaries wanted significantly more.

Liverpool, seeking cover for Scotland captain Andy Robertson, have also been monitoring Tsimikas, 24.

The Greece international played for Olympiakos in a 1-0 defeat by Wolves in the second leg of their last-16 Europa League tie this week as his side went out 2-1 on aggregate.

He also played for them in their six Champions League group games earlier on in the campaign as they finished third behind Bayern Munich and Tottenham.

After Olympiakos dropped down into the Europa League, he put in an impressive performance as his side won 2-1 at Arsenal and knocked the Gunners out of the competition at the last-32 stage.

Real Madrid left-back Sergio Reguilon, 23, was also an option looked at by Liverpool.

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football Sports News

Atletico Madrid have two cases of corona Virus

Atletico Madrid say two individuals have tested positive for coronavirus before Thursday’s Champions League quarter-final against RB Leipzig in Lisbon.

The Spanish club said the unnamed individuals are isolating at home.

The positive cases were discovered after first-team players and club staff travelling to Lisbon were tested in Madrid on Saturday.

They will now be retested along with close contacts of the positive cases.

“This motivates changes in the training schedules, in the structure and development of the trip and the accommodation in the Portuguese capital,” Atletico said in a statement.

“The club will coordinate the new schedules with Uefa and as soon as there is a new plan it will be made public. It also calls for maximum respect for the identity of the two positive cases.”

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Champions League is concluding with a ‘final eight’ tournament in Lisbon, with single-leg games held behind closed doors.

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Golf Sports News

Dannielle Kang wins Championship

England’s Jodi Ewart Shadoff finished joint second at the Marathon Classic alongside Lydia Ko, whose dramatic late collapse allowed Danielle Kang to win the title by one shot.

New Zealand’s Ko, 23, had a five-shot lead with six holes to play at Highland Meadows in Ohio.

But she hit two bogeys and a double-bogey on the last to post a two-over-par 73 to finish on 14 under overall.

American Kang’s three-under 68 saw her win the title on 15 under.

“My caddie looked at me and said, ‘You’re right in it,'” said Kang, 27, who also won the Drive On Championship last week, the first LPGA Tour event since the coronavirus shutdown.

“I looked at him and said, ‘I’m five down with six holes to go’ but I kind of liked that mentality, made some good birdies coming in and kept it together.”

Ewart Shadoff, 32, hit a four-under 67 to join Ko, who had led by four shots overnight, in second place.

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basketball Sports News

Draymond Green fined for Tampering

Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green has been fined $50,000 (£38,300) by the NBA under anti-tampering rules for remarks about Phoenix Suns guard Devin Booker.

During an appearance as an analyst on TNT on Friday, Green, 30, suggested Booker should leave Phoenix.

NBA rules prevent teams or players attempting to persuade other players to leave their contracted team.

“It’s not good for him, it’s not good for his career,” said Green of Booker.

“They gotta get Book out of Phoenix. I need my man to go somewhere where he can play great basketball all the time and win, because he’s that type of player.”

When asked by TNT host Ernie Johnson if his comments were tampering, Green said: “Maybe.”

At the start of the season the NBA said it would more strictly enforce its anti-tampering rules.

The Suns have won all five of their games since the NBA season restarted in Orlando in July and are now 10th in the Western Conference.

They are two games behind the Memphis Grizzlies in the eighth and final play-off spot, with three games left to play.

Booker, 23, is Phoenix’s highest scorer with 26.4 points per game this season and is under contract there until the end of the 2023-24 season after signing a five-year extension in 2018.

The Warriors, who have won three of the past five NBA titles, were already eliminated from play-off contention before the restart after an injury-hit season.

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Golf Slides Sports News

Morikawa wins Pga championship

American Collin Morikawa emerged from a stacked leaderboard to win the 2020 US PGA Championship after a flawless final round in San Francisco.

At one point on the back nine, six players shared the lead – but an eagle two on the 16th saw Morikawa go clear.

The world number 12, playing in just his second major, carded a six-under 64 at TPC Harding Park to reach 13 under.

England’s Paul Casey was two shots back in a tie for second with overnight leader Dustin Johnson after a 66.

Like Morikawa, Matthew Wolff was another unheralded American to rise through the field on Sunday, shooting a 65 to finish on 10 under.

He tied for fourth with compatriots Bryson DeChambeau and Tony Finau, plus Australia’s Jason Day, who all carded 66s on a nail-biting final day that made a mockery of concerns over how competitive the year’s first major would be with no fans.

Justin Rose hit a 67 to finish a shot further back after being three behind the lead overnight, along with fellow Englishman Tommy Fleetwood, who slipped to three under.

Two-time defending champion Brooks Koepka trailed Johnson by two heading into the final round, but the American stumbled to a four-over 74 to also finish on three under.

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football Sports News

Willian to sign three year deal with Arsenal

Willian has agreed on a three-year contract at Arsenal worth around £100,000-a-week, sources have said with the move expected to be announced later this month.

Willian, who turns 32 on Sunday, had been in talks over a new contract at Chelsea but will end his seven-year association with the club after they were not prepared to offer him the terms he wanted.

Blues head coach Frank Lampard wanted Willian to stay and had been pushing the club to find a breakthrough in negotiations, which have been deadlocked for months.

However, sources have told ESPN that Lampard failed to persuade the Chelsea hierarchy to sort a new contract for Willian and Mikel Arteta has stepped in to secure the midfielder, who won two league titles and the Europa League at Chelsea.

Willian’s agent, Kia Joorabchian, claimed last week his client had five clubs interested in signing him, including two in the Premier League. Sources have told ESPN that Everton were also keen on Willian.

Arsenal’s FA Cup final victory over Chelsea last weekend — which Willian missed because of an Achilles injury — means they can at least offer Europa League football next season.

Arteta is set for a busy summer as he looks to shape his squad, and Lille defender Gabriel is also in his sights. The 22-year-old is also keen on a move to Arsenal, though Everton and Napoli are interested as well. The player will make a decision on his future at the weekend.

Arteta’s attempts to bolster his squad this summer come amid fierce criticism of the club following their announcement that 55 members of staff will be made redundant.

Head of football Raul Sanllehi and managing director Vinai Venkatesham released a joint statement on the club website on Wednesday which said the move was necessary so that Arsenal can continue to invest in the playing staff.

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football Slides Sports News

Premier league clubs vote not to use five substitutes next season

Premier League clubs have voted against continuing to allow five substitutions in a match for the 2020-21 season.

The rule was brought in when the 2019-20 top-flight season restarted in June, having been halted for three months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

For next season, the league will revert to three permitted substitutions, after the vote at a meeting on Thursday.

The Premier League said clubs had also “approved the implementation of VAR, in line with the full Fifa VAR protocol”.

It comes after world governing body Fifa took on control for overseeing the video assistant referee system from the International Football Association Board (Ifab), the sport’s lawmakers.

In terms of the extra substitutions, many members are believed to have felt having five was unfairly benefiting the major clubs, despite Fifa allowing the continued use of the rule if leagues wanted.

Fifa said the five-substitute rule can be used in competitions until August 2021, meaning the European Championships and Copa America can adopt it next summer.

The Premier League also voted for a maximum of seven substitutes on the bench.