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Everton manager Sean Dyche has tried to keep things consistent this week as the club head into arguably the biggest game in their history. The Toffees need to match the results of Leicester and Leeds, who are both inside the relegation zone, in order to extend their stay in the top flight to a 70th season. There have been no rousing speeches or trying to artificially boost player morale ahead of the visit of Bournemouth as Dyche does not believe that would not make as much difference as reinforcing the same messages he has been giving since taking over from Frank Lampard in late January. “I think all games are important but it stands to reason with it being the last game and what’s on it that of course it is a massive game,” he said. “A lot of these players were here last season in a similar position so I think they are aware of it. It comes down to a big performance on Sunday. “But I don’t have to emphasise that: I know it, the players know it, the fans know it, so we go into it open-minded. “I don’t think positivity can win you football matches, performances win you matches. “Inner confidence is a different thing but I’ve always been confident with the group, we go into every game confident so that doesn’t change. “I think I have a good measure of what it is to be a manager and a player and the feeling in the group is consistent from myself and the staff, that’s all I try to bring. “The consistencies I talk about are in performance, the mentality to perform, and then clarity. Consistent level of behaviours on and off the pitch I think pays you back. “There will be some key pointers about the team and the way we perform of course but we will stick to the level of performance we expect from the players and the level we expect in training.” Everton have a two-point cushion over 18th-placed Leicester but an inferior goal difference so only a win will guarantee safety, although as long as the Foxes and Leeds do not get a better result then the Toffees will be safe. Home advantage will be key for all three teams but the pressure on the game is huge and, even if backed by a raucous Goodison Park, Dyche knows he will have to lean on senior players despite a large number of holes in his squad due to injuries, with striker Dominic Calvert-Lewin and defenders Nathan Patterson and Ben Godfrey all added to the unavailable list. “We have worked hard to get in this position; two points in front doesn’t sound a lot but it is at this stage of the seaosn – but only if we capitalise on it,” added Dyche. “With the senior players it is more about their experience. “It’s unlikely unless you really have to you put a young player into a situation like that – we’re not in a position quite where we have to – but it’s fair to think a couple of the young lads will be involved in the squad.” The effect of relegation on a club which has posted cumulative losses of over £430million over the last four seasons – and with a new stadium more than half-built – is almost unthinkable for a club which has enjoyed such a long spell in England’s top division. But the repercussions of not avoiding the drop is not something Dyche is thinking about just yet. “I’m not worried about that at the moment, trust me the game will be the focus,” he said.

Coventry City and Luton Town are one game away from the Premier League as they meet in the Championship play-off final. Each side has fought back from times of strife to leave themselves on the verge of promotion after edging out Sunderland and Middlesbrough respectively in the semi-finals. Coventry were last in the English top flight in 2001, and have endured an eventul season that included another forced relocation due to stadium conflicts at the Coventry Building Society Arena. Their opponents, meanwhile, are hoping to earn their first elevation to the Premier League, having been relegated out of the top tier in the season before it rebranded in 1992 – dropping down to non-league before rising again. Here’s everything you need to know. When is the Championship play-off final? Coventry vs Luton is due to kick off at 4.45pm BST on Saturday 27 May at Wembley Stadium in London. How can I watch it? Viewers in the United Kingdom can watch the match live on Sky Sports Football and Sky Sports Main Event, with coverage from 4pm BST. Subscribers can stream the action via the Sky Go app. Team news Gustavo Hamer has trained with the Coventry squad this week and appears likely to be fit after his decisive semi-final role. Tyler Walker remains absent with an undisclosed injury, but Casey Palmer has made an ahead-of-schedule return to training after initially being ruled out for the remainder of the season. His recovery from a hamstring issue could still force him out of the game. Luton would appear to be in good health and could well name an unchanged side from the semi-final second leg. Predicted line-ups Coventry City XI: Wilson; McNally, McFadzean, Doyle; Norton-Cuffy, Allen, Kelly, Hamer, Bidwell; Sheaf; Gyokeres. Luton Town XI: Horvarth; Osho, Lockyer, Bell; Drameh, Clark, Nakamba, Mpanzu, Doughty; Morris, Adebayo. Odds Coventry win 2/1 Luton win 7/5 Prediction A tight play-off final could be decided in extra time. Coventry 1-2 Luton a.e.t. How much will the winners get for being promoted to the Premier League? Ahead of the 2020 Championship play-off final, Deloitte reported that the victorious club could earn anywhere between £135m and £265m, depending on whether or not they could avoid immediate relegation from the Premier League. What TV money will the winning club receive in the Premier League? Official figures for the 2020-21 season showed that broadcast revenue incredibly totalled more than £2.5bn and was distributed among the 20 clubs in the Premier League. Of that, each club was guaranteed at least £31.4m in equal share payments, £47.5m in international TV money and £5.9m in central commercial payments: a baseline of roughly £84.8m per team, regardless of position. In fact, Norwich City, who finished bottom of the league in that campaign, were handed just over £101.5m. By comparison, Championships clubs only receive around £8m in TV rights income for a season spent in the second tier. What other payments are there? On top of this, clubs are given merit payments based on where they finish in the Premier League. For the 2022/23 campaign, the sliding scale will see the champions receive roughly £44m and the bottom-placed team around £2.2m. The team finishing 17th, and just avoiding relegation, is set to receive around £8.8m, as well as staying in the top tier to cash in again next term. Read More Of course the play-off final is about money – but Coventry and Luton also represent something greater Coventry City aiming to come full circle after journey to hell and back A tiny ground and a squad costing less than a Man City sub. How are Luton one game from the Premier League? Coventry and Luton are proof the play-off final means more than just money How much is winning the Championship play-off final worth? Play-off final ‘one for the romantics’ as Coventry and Luton meet

Cars with hydrogen powered engines will be allowed to enter the 24 Hours of Le Mans — the

Jurgen Klopp’s seasons at Anfield have tended to end with everything riding on the last game: Champions League qualification or winning the Champions League. Even the one that didn’t, in 2020, could culminate in a celebration, with Liverpool already champions of England for the first time in 30 years. Now comes a rare meaningless match, with Southampton certain to come bottom and Liverpool guaranteed to end up fifth, and a chance to reflect on what might have been. Last season threatened to be Liverpool’s greatest, when they closed in on a quadruple. After the false dawn of an emphatic Community Shield win over Manchester City, things soon started to go awry. “It was clear from a specific point on it would not be a historically good season,” said Klopp. Perhaps that specific point was the opening league game, and a disjointed, disappointing first hour against promoted Fulham. Or maybe their first match at Anfield, when Darwin Nunez, the flagship summer signing, was sent off on his home debut for headbutting Crystal Palace’s Joachim Andersen. Or possibly their third outing: a defeat at Old Trafford that kickstarted Erik ten Hag’s reign at Manchester United and to a team who ultimately pipped them to a top-four finish. For three-quarters of a season, Liverpool only mustered three away wins and did not muster three victories in a row, except when those fixtures were separated by a World Cup. Klopp nevertheless felt, and the facts supported him, that the mid-season break brought an improvement. “After the training camp during the World Cup, it was not that everything was great but the amount of points we have won since then is pretty good,” he said. “If we could have done that over the whole season, we would be in a different place.” He is right: only the Manchester clubs have more points over the last six months. However, it still went wrong over the course of Liverpool’s first 29 matches, when they dropped 43 points and were left at the risk of their lowest league finish since promotion in 1962. “I think we said everything about it, we are absolutely not happy with it,” said Klopp. “We made mistakes, we couldn’t deliver often enough and were not consistent enough.” Three particularly damning results, symptoms of that inconsistency and which could cost them Champions League football, were the defeats to Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, all then in the relegation zone. That they lost to Forest six days after beating City and were beaten at Bournemouth six days after scoring seven against United make each missed opportunities to generate momentum. “I really think this was not a season we will talk about,” reflected Klopp. “Maybe about parts but we failed to give the people more to enjoy.” Perhaps he was doubly wrong: Liverpool’s shortcomings can always bring anguish and anxiety while, amid mediocrity, there have been genuine highs: at Anfield against both Manchester clubs, winning home and away against Newcastle, the contrasting double against Tottenham, thrashing Leeds 6-1 and Rangers 7-1 on the road, the 9-0 demolition of Bournemouth. Yet each illustrated what could have been, not what ultimately was. There were causes. A crippling injury list felt a constant, with midfield the most affected department but lengthy absences of Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota feeling particularly telling in attack. There was the already infamous decision not to buy a midfielder last summer, which was compounded by Fabinho’s awful form, Naby Keita’s seemingly never-ending injuries, Thiago Alcantara’s perhaps predictable absences and signs of ageing from Jordan Henderson. There were mix-and-match combinations from Klopp all season, casting around in search of a solution before a late-season switch to bring Trent Alexander-Arnold infield alongside Fabinho and behind Curtis Jones and Henderson worked. It reflected two enduring issues: Alexander-Arnold’s defensive deficiencies at right-back had felt more pronounced when he was afforded less protection and the 4-3-3 formation that had served Klopp so well for years brought a rethink. There were flirtations with 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 before a spring switch towards 3-2-4-1. Klopp has started to argue that at most clubs, the manager changes inside seven-and-a-half years; at Liverpool, the manager is belatedly changing things. Maybe the most damaging change was not of his own volition. Sadio Mane’s move to Bayern Munich has worked out for neither club nor the player. Without him, with Roberto Firmino starting only 12 league games, there has been a different dynamic in the attack. In part the story of the season has lain in the erratic, compellingly watchable Nunez; thus far, he has been an imperfect fit in different combinations and, with decidedly mixed finishing, one of the great expected goals underachievers while Liverpool have struggled to press as rigorously. Maybe it is no coincidence their surge of 22 points from their last eight games came with Nunez largely a substitute. Transition was perhaps never going to be easy for Liverpool but has been jarringly awkward at times this season. And yet that recent run engenders optimism. Liverpool may have turned a corner; they never became as fractured as some of their rivals. “The dressing room is not in a bad mood,” Klopp said. “We have learned to deal with the situation. We didn’t get divided in one moment between manager and team, which is super helpful. We didn’t point fingers at each other.” They ended up seemingly pointed further forward than he had wanted, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Milner, Keita and Firmino all going, when Klopp had wanted to keep two of them. There will be Europa League football at Anfield next season, perhaps further sightings of Alexander-Arnold in midfield. But as the German’s worst year in England comes to an anticlimactic conclusion, it is with the last few weeks offering renewed hope it will be a one-off. Read More Jurgen Klopp: ‘If a player wants to leave Liverpool because of Champions League, I will drive them’ Mohamed Salah ‘devastated’ as Liverpool fail to qualify for Champions League Jurgen Klopp has ‘no worries’ over Mohamed Salah’s future at Liverpool Jurgen Klopp: ‘If a player wants to leave Liverpool, I will drive them’ Jurgen Klopp reacts to Mohammed Salah’s ‘no excuse’ tweet

The Oakland Athletics are asking Nevada for $380 million for a 30,000 seat, $1.5 billion retractable roof stadium on the Las Vegas Strip

Andrew McCutchen hit the 21st leadoff homer of his career, the first of four home runs off Seattle starter George Kirby, and the Pittsburgh Pirates matched a franchise record with seven long balls on their way to an 11-6 win over the Mariners

Chris Sale threw five strong innings, Kiké Hernández smacked a two-run homer and the Boston Red Sox snapped a four-game losing streak by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-2

Hunter Brown struck out a career-high 10 over seven innings and retired 16 straight hitters during one stretch, Corey Julks drove in three runs on a pair of singles and the Houston Astros bounced back from being shut out the two previous games to beat the Oakland Athletics 5-2

Brewers shortstop Willy Adames was taken to the hospital after getting hit by a foul ball off the bat of teammate Brian Anderson while in the dugout during Milwaukee’s game against the San Francisco Giants

Lane Thomas opened the game with a home run, Corey Dickerson’s three-run shot highlighted an eight-run sixth inning and Luis Garcia had six hits as the Washington Nationals outslugged the Kansas City Royals 12-10

Francisco Lindor homered and drove in four runs, leading Max Scherzer and the New York Mets past the Colorado Rockies 5-2

Kevin Kiermaier and Bo Bichette homered in a three-run third, Kevin Gausman won for the first time in more than month and the slumping Toronto Blue Jays beat the Minnesota Twins 3-1 on Friday night