Arsenal move into top four with win over West Ham
LONDON: Arsenal moved into the Premier League’s top-four at West Ham United’s expense as goals by Gabriel Martinelli and Emile Smith Rowe earned a 2-0 win on Wednesday.
Brazilian forward Martinelli struck just after half-time with a clinical finish and substitute fellow youngster Smith Rowe eventually gave a dominant Arsenal some welcome breathing space with a superb 87th-minute effort. It could have been a more comfortable night for Arsenal had Alexandre Lacazette, captain again in place of the disciplined Pierre-emerick Aubameyang, not had his penalty saved midway through the second half.
West Ham, for whom Vladimir Coufal was red-carded after conceding the penalty, failed to produce the kind of form that has seen them stationed in the top four since October.
Victory hoisted Arsenal up two places into fourth spot with 29 points from 17 games with West Ham on 28.
The Premier League on Thursday postponed Manchester United’s weekend game against Brighton was called off shortly after Leicester’s scheduled match against Tottenham on Thursday was postponed.
Clubs spend $500 million in agents fees: FIFA
MANCHESTER: Football clubs spent $500.8 million in fees to agents in 2020, more than in the previous year, despite a drop in spending on transfers, FIFA said in a report published on Wednesday.
FIFA said that club spending on transfer fees shrank for the second year in a row, due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, but that “this decrease did not carry over to spending on intermediary service fees, which remained on the same level as in 2020 and even slightly increased by 0.7 per cent”.
European clubs accounted for 95.8 per cent of the total spent on ‘intermediary service fees’ with clubs from England ($133.3m), Germany ($84.3m), Italy ($73.5m), Spain ($34.8m), France ($30.3m) and Portugal ($29.3m) responsible for 77 per cent of the total sum worldwide.
Bengaluru hold Bagan in six-goal thriller
BAMBOLIM: A high-scoring fixture with six different goal scorers saw Bengaluru FC and ATK
Mohun Bagan play out a 3-3 draw in the Indian Super League here on Thursday.
The result stretches BFC’S winless run to six matches and further extends ATKMB’S run to four games without a win.
Subhasish Bose (13th) broke the deadlock early on with a well-placed header before Cleiton Silva (18th) scored from a penalty to level the score. Danish Farooq (26th) scored his firstever goal in the competition to send the Blues into the lead but Hugo Boumos (38th) turned up to draw level for the Mariners.
Roy Krishna (58th) also got on the scoresheet as he converted a second-half penalty but Prince Ibara (72th) equalised with his second goal of the season.
PAK-WI ODIS postponed after rise in Covid cases
KARACHI: The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) and Cricket West Indies (CWI) have postponed the three-match ODI series due to multiple cases of Covid-19 in the visitors’ camp, although the T20I series was completed on Thursday.
In a joint statement during the final T20I in Karachi, the PCB and CWI said that after Wednesday’s RT-PCR test results emerged, the number of Covid-19 positive cases has risen up to nine.
Lekhara wins ‘Best Female Debut’ award
NEW DELHI: Indian shooter Avani Lekhara won the “Best Female Debut” honour at the 2021 Paralympic Awards for her record-breaking gold medal at the Tokyo Games.
The 20-year-old from Jaipur won the gold in the women’s 10m Air Rife Standing SH1 event earlier this year. “It is an hour for me to win this award. The focus was always on bringing back medals for my country,” said Avani in a video posted tweeted by the Paralympic Games.