Arsenal are now probably the best team in the world at this moment. If we were thinking today that it's a derby and we can give something more, more mentality and more motivation, the reality is that there are things you can't change in 3-4 training sessions. It's impossible. So this was not a perfect team to play in the first game, but we need something good and today shows me the level.
When the news cycle spins so fast, it's worth remembering where Brentford were in the summer. They had lost their popular manager of seven years, Thomas Frank. They had lost their two best forwards, Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa. They had lost their goalkeeper Mark Flekken. And they had lost two stalwarts in Christian Nrgaard and Ben Mee (even if the latter's involvement the previous season had been limited as he turned 35).
We want to win. You can't go out there aiming for a draw. We take the field to win; you don't prepare matches to draw. My focus is clear: to bring greater consistency to our performances and compete with conviction in every match.
On Friday night, after a decent break from Serie A action, AC Milan will travel to the Arena Garibaldi to face a struggling Pisa side. It has been a long 10 days with no Milan action to fill the gap. However, the Rossoneri will return to Serie A action tomorrow night to face Pisa, who have just hired a new manager in Oscar Hiljemark, who hada lot of praise for his opposition.
On Monday, Rennes announced they had sacked Habib Beye after a run of five games without a win in all competitions, which included an exit from the Coupe de France. Beye averaged 1.53 points in his 36 Ligue 1 matches, the fourth-highest tally, but with the club sixth in the table, he was surprisingly dismissed. The Senegalese coach held the second-highest win percentage (44.4% - 16/36) in the top flight with Rennes, behind only Bruno Genesio (49.5% - 49/99).
After weeks of pressure, tensions with some players and bad results -- including a 3-0 defeat at Club Brugge, which led to their exit from the Champions League, and a 5-0 thrashing by rivals Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday, it was felt De Zerbi's position had become untenable. The club's president, Pablo Longoria, sporting director Mehdi Benatia and De Zerbi conducted interviews with some players on Tuesday, sources said, and it was clear that the relationship between the manager and the squad was broken.
When the match starts, anything can happen. I want to win every time my team plays. Against Milan, we need a certain type of tactical work, but on Friday we will enter the pitch to get a result.
Teams don't always get the immediate 'bounce' anticipated from the arrival of a new manager. Éamonn Fitzmaurice routinely recalls 2013 when Kerry lost the first four Division 1 league games of his stewardship, only scoring an average of a little under eight points per game against Mayo, Dublin, Kildare and Donegal before turning the ship around in the final three games.
Manchester City are within touching distance of claiming their first Women's Super League (WSL) title in a decade, as they sit nine points clear at the top of the table with nine games left to play. That lead could stretch to 12 points -- the distance by which Chelsea won the league last season -- if City can secure a win over the defending champions this weekend, before they face a tricky test against Arsenal the following week.
