Premier League
Chelsea return to Champions League after win at Nottingham Forest
Chelsea’s Levi Colwill struck in the second half to send his team back to the Champions League for the first time in three seasons with a breathless 1-0 victory at Nottingham Forest on Sunday on a make-or-break final day of the Premier League.
Enzo Maresca’s men, the youngest side in league history, finished fourth in the table on 69 points in the crowded chase for European qualification, while Forest, who had Champions League dreams of their own in their best season in decades, had to settle for seventh on 65 points.
Colwill broke the deadlock of an intense game at the City Ground in the 50th minute when Forest defender Neco Williams struggled to head the ball clear and Pedro Neto was there to poke the ball across goal for Colwill to tap into the empty net, as the Chelsea fans behind Matz Sels’s goal erupted.
“Amazing, we’ve grinded it out all season and today for these fans, we hope they’re happy and get to see some Champions League next season,” Colwill said.
“We did it and we’re proud, as a club, we’re back where we should be.”
Chris Wood missed a chance to equalise at the death when Sels drilled a terrific ball into the box and Wood stretched to get his foot on it but chipped it over the bar from close range, prompting agonised groans from the Forest faithful.
While Chelsea’s goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of Forest, their season will be deemed a success.
They were tipped for another relegation battle by many before a remarkable turnaround under Nuno Espirito Santo saw them parked among the top five for much of the season and dreaming of a return to Europe’s elite club competition for the first time in more than 40 years.
As it is they will return to European competition next season, for the first time since the 1995-96 campaign, in the Conference League.
“After a game like this and the things that happened on the pitches, we didn’t achieve the dream,” Espirito Santo said. “We knew one goal could change everything, and that’s what the perception does to you — what if?”
PLAYERS APPLAUD FANS
The game promised to be intense and it did not disappoint, with both teams roaring out of the gates and the City Ground crowd at their raucous best.
Neto missed the game’s first real scoring chance midway through the first half when he latched on to Cole Palmer’s cross but his left-footed shot from the centre of the box sailed high.
Forest had a huge chance just before the break as Ola Aina sent in a beautiful cross that Wood flicked just over.
Chelsea players remained on the pitch, some of them teary-eyed, to applaud their fans after a promising first season for Maresca. They also play Real Betis in the Conference League final on Wednesday.
“Very tough,” Maresca said. “(Manchester) City lost here. Arsenal drew here. Liverpool drew here, and Chelsea won. So it’s not easy.
“The doubt (about his team’s success) was from outside,” he added. “They were saying that we are too young. We are not good enough. And they were saying that we were not able to win on this pitch because we’re too young, not experienced. And unfortunately for them, they have been all wrong.”
Despite the defeat, Forest fans lingered long at the stadium to applaud a campaign that saw them become the first team in Premier League history to double their points tally from one season to the next.
Forest striker Taiwo Awoniyi received a loud ovation when he stepped on the pitch to wave to fans two weeks after he had emergency surgery on an abdominal injury after colliding with a post during their 2-2 draw with Leicester City. Awoniyi was not in Sunday’s squad.
-Reuters
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Sunderland staged a remarkable comeback to beat Sheffield United 2-1 in the Championship playoff final with substitute Tom Watson sending them back to the Premier League by scoring the winner deep in stoppage time at Wembley on Saturday.
Teenager Watson drilled in a superb low finish from outside the penalty area to end the club’s eight-season absence from the top flight, which included a spell in the third tier.
Victory in what is widely-regarded as the richest game in world football means Sunderland will benefit to the tune of 220 million pounds ($297.79 million) in extra revenue thanks to the Premier League’s lucrative TV rights deals.
Finances were the last thing on the minds of the Sunderland fans though when Watson sparked ecstatic scenes of joy.
For United, it was a crushing disappointment as they dominated much of the game against a side who finished 14 points below them in the regular Championship season.
Incredibly, it was the 19-year-old Watson’s last contribution for his boyhood club before the winger moves to Brighton & Hove Albion, but what a parting gift it was.
“It’s unbelievable, we’ll see each other in the Premier League next season,” he said. “I have been thinking about it for weeks and that story was written when I came off the bench.”
YOUTHFUL SIDE
It had looked like a bridge too far for French coach Regis Le Bris’s youthful Sunderland side as they trailed to a stunning 25th-minute counter-attack goal by Tyrese Campbell in a first half completely dominated by United.
Campbell’s cool finish from Gus Hamer’s inch-perfect pass rewarded United for a superb start in which they almost took the lead in the opening minutes when Kieffer Moore’s header was brilliantly saved by Anthony Patterson.
Sunderland also lost defender Luke O’Nien to a dislocated shoulder and were relieved not to be 2-0 down when Harrison Burrows bounced a shot into the net after a clearance fell to him but the effort was ruled out for offside after a VAR check.
Chris Wilder’s United, bidding to bounce straight back to the Premier League, were in control after the break but stunned in the 76th minute when Eliezer Mayenda showed great control and fired an unstoppable shot high into the net past Michael Cooper.
Extra time and the possibility of a penalty shootout loomed when Moore was guilty of giving the ball away and Watson was allowed to advance and write his name in Sunderland folklore.
It completed an incredible playoff campaign by a Sunderland side who lost their last five regular-season games and then scraped past Coventry City in the semi-finals with a last-gasp goal by Dan Ballard.
Sunderland’s surprise win means Jobe Bellingham, younger brother of Real Madrid’s Jude, will be a Premier League player next season, something his sibling has yet to experience.
“I take pride in saying I was one of the players to help this great club get back to where it belongs,” he said.
-Reuters
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The fight to finish in the Premier League’s top five and qualify for the Champions League intensified on Sunday but Arsenal can breathe easy on the final day after all-but securing runners-up spot with a 1-0 win over Newcastle United on Sunday.
Declan Rice’s superb 55th-minute strike sealed the points for Arsenal as they avenged three previous losses to Eddie Howe’s Newcastle this season despite a poor first half.
That lifted Arsenal to 71 points, 12 behind runaway champions Liverpool, but crucially mathematically out of reach of all the sides below them barring Manchester City.
Newcastle remained third position but only one point separates them and seventh-placed Nottingham Forest who kept alive their top-five hopes by beating West Ham United 2-1 away.
Forest (65 points) host fourth-placed Chelsea (66) in their final game next weekend while Newcastle (66) welcome Everton.
Aston Villa (66) are currently fifth and face Manchester United at Old Trafford next Sunday.
Sixth-placed Manchester City, who will end the season trophy-less after losing in Saturday’s FA Cup final to Crystal Palace, have 65 points but have two games left to play; Bournemouth at home on Tuesday and Fulham away on Sunday
“It’s going to go to the end and who knows what twists and turns there will be, we need one big effort in the last game,” Newcastle manager Howe said. “We need to be calm.”
Everton waved goodbye to Goodison Park — their home for 133 years and 2,791 games — with a 2-0 victory over Southampton secured by a double from Iliman Ndiaye.
“This team will be remembered in history as the one who played the last game,” Everton manager David Moyes said on an emotional afternoon on Merseyside in which a host of former players including Neville Southall, Wayne Rooney and Duncan Ferguson joined in the farewell celebrations.
Fulham kept alive their slim hopes of creeping into a European qualifying spot by securing a 3-2 win at eighth-placed Brentford.
In a battle for pride at the bottom between two relegated teams, Jamie Vardy scored his 200th goal for Leicester City in his last home appearance for Leicester City in a 2-0 defeat of Ipswich Town to move above them into 18th place.
500TH APPEARANCE
Vardy, who was making his 500th appearance for the club he fired to a fairytale Premier League title in 2016, announced last month that he would be leaving.
“From the bottom of my heart, thank you. For taking myself and family in as one of your own. Hopefully I’ve repaid you for that,” an emotional Vardy told fans on pitch.
Arsenal knew a win over Newcastle would secure a return to the Champions league and almost certainly mean a third successive runners-up finish in the Premier League.
They were indebted to keeper David Raya in the first half as he made a string of saves, but Rice’s sublime strike 10 minutes after the restart lifted the mood of the home fans whose dreams of silverware this season faded away.
“I had a dream and it was to deliver a big trophy this season to our people,” Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta said.
“I think we deserve it from the journey we have been through in the last three, four years, but we haven’t achieved that. Now we need to make some steps, some action and come back here fresh on day one next season ready to go.”
Nottingham Forest have already guaranteed a return to European competition for the first time in 30 years but their hopes of claiming a top-five spot and a place in the Champions League have faded in the run-in.
They will head into Sunday’s climax still with hope after a deserved win at West Ham.
Morgan Gibbs-White gave them an early lead after a mistake by home keeper Alphonse Areola and Nikola Milenkovic’s header doubled their lead after the break, although Forest had to endure a six-minute VAR check before they could celebrate.
Jarrod Bowen’s replay meant it was an anxious finale but Forest held on through 17 minutes of stoppage time as the game ended in a series of ugly scuffles between the players.
“We knew we had to win this game. We left it a bit nervy for ourselves towards the end,” Gibbs-White said.
“It’s a do or die (against Chelsea), one last push and we have to give it everything.”
-Reuters
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Super Eagles and Nottingham Forest striker Taiwo Awoniyi is in an induced coma after undergoing surgery on a serious abdominal injury, according to British media reports.
The Nigerian international, 27, collided with the goalpost in the 88th minute of Sunday’s 2-2 Premier League draw with Leicester City at the City Ground, attempting to connect with a cross from Anthony Elanga.
Awoniyi, who joined Forest from Union Berlin in June 2022, came on as a late substitute for Ibrahim Sangare and spent only five minutes on the pitch before the incident.
He received immediate treatment on the field and then rejoined the game but was limping for the last 10 minutes of the match.
The BBC was among British media outlets that reported late on Tuesday that Awoniyi had been placed in an induced coma after having the first phase of surgery.
In a statement earlier on Tuesday, Forest said Awoniyi had undergone surgery and was “recovering well”.
“Nottingham Forest can confirm that Taiwo Awoniyi is recovering well so far following urgent surgery on a serious abdominal injury sustained during Sunday’s match against Leicester City,” the club said.
Reuters has contacted Forest for comment.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis came onto the pitch after the Leicester game and appeared to remonstrate with manager Nuno Espirito Santo.
Espirito Santo said that the incident was due to Marinakis’s frustration over Awoniyi not being substituted. The Forest manager added that the Nigeria international was left on due to a misunderstanding between the coaching and medical departments.
Forest on Tuesday dismissed reports as “fake news” that Marinakis was involved in a confrontation with the manager.
-Reuters
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