List of All Articles with Tag 'per'

The chief of the mercenary group made the claim but Ukraine says it still controls parts of the city.

Manchester City are Premier League champions once again after Arsenal’s title challenge fell short under Mikel Arteta. The Gunners were top of the table for 248 days this season - the longest time a team has led the Premier League without winning it - but won just two out of their last seven matches over the run-in. Pep Guardiola’s side have been on unstoppable form since mid-February and defeated Arsenal twice to surge to their third title in a row and fifth in six seasons. It extended City’s era of dominance under Guardiola, but Arsenal will wonder what might have been. Here are five ways Arsenal can improve over the summer to challenge City for the title again next season. Reach 90 points Really, it is an absurd situation that 80-plus points is not enough to win a league. It warrants grander debates than just unthinking declarations about how competitive the Premier League is. It has come from a growing financial gap since the early 2000s that has now been taken to extremes by the Abu Dhabi project at Manchester City. You need at least 85 points to properly challenge Pep Guardiola’s and probably over 90 – if not even higher – to beat them. “That team has the capacity to get 105 or 110 points,” Arteta warned. This is immensely demanding. Arsenal were the first club to reach 43 points after 16 games and not win the title. The default position at the start of any season is that City under Guardiola will win the title. In the end, they went on the unstoppable run everyone expected. Arsenal literally couldn’t compete against that, despite their own version early on. At least this season. Improve squad depth The true value of this campaign may be in highlighting to Arteta exactly where his team is short – and to use that knowledge to go one step further in the future. He has seen they lack depth overall, but also in key areas. While the variety of forwards means they can weather the loss of Gabriel Jesus, it doesn’t look like they can do similar with William Saliba and Martin Odegaard. They also need another strong midfielder - with the club set to battle West Ham’s Declan Rice this summer. The season has at least served to show what Arteta requires. Arsenal are also one of few clubs that at least have the resources and size to sustain something like a challenge over a medium-term spell. This is central to sizable summer ambitions, that involve a higher class of player. Arteta wants at least four. Arteta needs that: “What we have ahead of us next summer is extremely important and we have to absolutely nail it,” he said. Lock down key stars Two of Arsenal’s best players this season – Bukayo Saka and William Saliba – see their contracts run out next season. Saka is currently in negotiations and is expected to sign a new deal making him among the very highest earners at the club, but supporters will only relax when pen is put to paper for one of the best young wingers in Europe. The club have an option to extend Saliba’s contract for a further year, but will look to agree a new deal to tie down the 22-year-old centre-back for the long term. Gabriel Martinelli’s new contract has already been agreed but there remain deals to be done with Martin Odegaard, Thomas Partey, Aaron Ramsdale and Takehiro Tomiyasu over the coming months too in order to keep the core of this squad together for years to come. Rewarding key players for their contribution to this title push while retaining a well-balanced wage structure will be a new challenge for Edu and the Arsenal hierarchy. Make tough decisions Granit Xhaka has been one of Arsenal’s players of the season, unquestionably one of the reasons for the club’s improvement this year. The midfielder’s journey from being booed off at the Emirates and to becoming a fan favourite is symbolic of what Arsenal have achieved this year - a clear reference point of where they came from to where they are now. And yet, it hasn’t been enough to get Arsenal to where they want to get to, and Xhaka is now symbolic of another phase of the journey. The midfielder is 30, he has one year left on his contract, and there is reportedly a £13m offer from Bayer Leverkusen on the table this summer. Arsenal need to twist, and selling Xhaka to recoup a fee is a necessary step as they plot moves for Declan Rice and Moises Caicedo. It is therefore a crossroads both for Arsenal and Xhaka - a reminder of how brutal football can be, that the best times can end so suddenly, but the club needs to make tough decisions to take this team to another level. Learn from the experience Rewind 12 months and Arsenal’s collapse at Newcastle cost the Gunners fourth place and Champions League football. Few predicted Arteta’s side to challenge again and many assumed that the door had closed, only for Arsenal to make a spectacular start to the next season and exceed expectations by competing for the title. The fact that Arsenal are back in the Champions League is barely mentioned now, as was the rate of their progress under Arteta. If Arsenal were a year ahead of their development by competing for the title this year, next season may see the Gunners present a truer reflection of where they are at. Given that, the past few months will be invaluable for the squad and those costly draws at Liverpool and West Ham in April should strengthen their resolve when they face difficult moments next campaign. Arteta will set the standards. “The demands, the expectations, the challenges next season will be even higher,” he said. Read More Five titles in six years: Are Manchester City destroying the Premier League? Man City’s quest for legitimacy is a battle they may never win Pep Guardiola says Arsenal ‘took us to our limits’ and targets Champions League

'My wife has made our house a home, and raised these beautiful kids. She did the heavy lifting,' said Denzel Washington

By Nupur Anand NEW YORK JPMorgan Chase & Co executives will update investors on its takeover of failed

Take That are planning to release their comeback album later this year, followed by a big tour in 2024.

Ed Sheeran's lookalike Ty Jones was banned from TikTok for apparently violating the platform's community guidelines

Conor McGregor has insisted that he will fight Michael Chandler before the end of the year, amid fan concerns that the UFC clash will not take place at all. It was announced in early February that McGregor and Chandler would serve as opposing coaches on the new season of The Ultimate Fighter, which airs between 30 May and 15 August, before fighting each other. However, no date, location or weight class has been confirmed for the bout. McGregor is also absent from the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s testing pool. Fighters must be in the pool for six months and return two negative tests (and zero positives) in order to compete in the UFC. As a result, McGregor must enter the pool imminently if he is to fight before the end of 2022. “That’s done, man,” Conor McGregor claimed in an interview with the Daily Mirror at the weekend. “That’s done. I’m ready. “By year-end, I’m back in that cage, having competed. I’m gearing up now, ready to go. “The fight’s signed now. It’ll be announced during The Ultimate Fighter. So, The Ultimate Fighter is airing in a few days on ESPN; by the time that show finishes, we’ll have a date and everything set for the fans.” Irishman McGregor, 34, has not fought since July 2021, when he suffered a broken leg in a TKO loss to Dustin Poirier. Meanwhile, Chandler also lost to Poirier in his most recent bout, having been submitted by his fellow American in November. Last week, the second documentary covering McGregor’s career was released on Netflix. McGregor Forever covers the former dual-weight champion’s fights with Khabib Nurmagomedov and Donald Cerrone, his back-to-back losses to Poirier in 2021, and his recovery from his broken leg. Read The Independent’s review of the four-part series here. Click here to subscribe to The Independent’s Sport YouTube channel for all the latest sports videos. Read More McGregor Forever: The problem with the new Conor McGregor documentary Conor McGregor cheers on Katie Taylor from ringside during Chantelle Cameron fight Joe Rogan is right: Tyson Fury has ‘no chance in hell’ against Jon Jones

John Stones is determined not to ease up as Manchester City chase the treble. City claimed the first of a potential three trophies in the coming weeks as they wrapped up the Premier League title over the weekend. They now have their sights on the FA Cup final against Manchester United on June 3 and the Champions League final in Istanbul the following week, in which they will face Inter Milan. Defender Stones, now a five-time Premier League winner, said: “We’re back in training on Monday and we’ll go from there. We’ve got to keep the rhythm. “The hunger is there and we know what’s ahead of us now, that we can try and make some more history.” City were presented with the Premier League trophy after celebrating their success with a comfortable 1-0 win over Chelsea, courtesy of a Julian Alvarez goal, at the Etihad Stadium on Sunday. Their title triumph – their fifth in six seasons and a third in succession – had been confirmed the previous evening when second-placed Arsenal lost at Nottingham Forest. City trailed the Gunners by eight points last month but have surged past their closest rivals on a run of 12 straight wins. I've been here nearly seven years now and we just keep going from strength to strength with the players that we've got, the team that we've got and the improvement John Stones Stones said: “I don’t think I had time to doubt what we can do. I think it was just focusing on what was ahead of us, focusing on winning. “We’ve done it so many times now. We just came on this run, and it’s just incredible what kind of team we’ve got. “I’ve been here nearly seven years now and we just keep going from strength to strength with the players that we’ve got, the team that we’ve got and the improvement. “The titles that we’ve won – I think it speaks for itself.” Stones has been one of City’s key players during their strong run throughout the spring, playing in a hybrid defence-midfield role. The England international has been part of the back line, at either centre-back or right-back, when opponents have been attacking but has stepped into midfield when City have been in possession. Consequently he has made a big impression at both ends of the field. “I absolutely love it,” he said. “It’s something new for me that I’m learning, giving my everything, every game. “I don’t know if it’s my best football but I’m absolutely loving playing. “It’s always easy when you’re winning and playing the football that we are, but it’s another string to my bow and I am absolutely enjoying it.”

MOSCOW Roman Protasevich, the Belarusian opposition blogger arrested in 2021 after his Ryanair flight was forced to land

Daniil Medvedev revealed one reason behind his incredible form this year after winning the Italian Open: new racket strings.

Prominent Indigenous journalist Stan Grant will step away from television hosting duties after viewers responded with racist abuse to his comments on historic Aboriginal dispossession

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott on Monday will formally enter the Republican presidential primary as he seeks to upend a contest that has so far been dominated by coverage of former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to enter the fray in the coming weeks.