Under-fire Sheffield United boss Paul Heckingbottom insisted he could hold his head up high after a number of fans turned on him following his side’s 5-0 capitulation away to fellow strugglers Burnley.
The odds on Heckingbottom becoming the first Premier League manager to lose his job this season tumbled after a humbling defeat, in which a Burnley side who started the day bottom of the table scored an opener through Jay Rodriguez just 15 seconds in and recorded their biggest top-flight win since 1970.
Jacob Bruun Larsen doubled the lead and, with the Blades reduced to 10 men when Oli McBurnie was sent off before half-time, they crumbled in the second half with Zeki Amdouni, Luca Koleosho and Josh Brownhill helping Burnley end their wait for a home league win this season at the eighth attempt.
United never looked in the game, and fans made their feelings known at the final whistle.
“I bet they’re nearly as angry as me,” Heckingbottom said.
“I’ve had this now since the beginning of September. But the one thing I can say is I can walk out of this stadium with my head held high.
“I know how hard I work for everyone at the club. I won’t change, I’ll make sure the staff do the same. And we continue to give everything we’ve got with what we’ve got. That won’t change. But, as I said the first time I was asked this, you’re asking the wrong person (about his future)…
“Of course if fans start changing, it changes the dynamic. It doesn’t change how I feel or my job. I just said to the players in there, I can walk out with my head held high but you can’t kid people.
“The fans are right to shout, say that wasn’t good enough. I was almost singing along with them at one point.”
Given Burnley were two goals to the good at the time with United barely laying a glove on them, McBurnie’s red card in the first minute of stoppage time was hardly a turning point, but the Scot’s two yellow cards in the space of 10 minutes killed off any hope of a comeback.
“He’s let me down,” Heckingbottom said. “He knows he has.”
Burnley’s first home win and first clean sheet of the season lifted them off the foot of the table, and relieved some of the tension that has been building around Turf Moor.
“I think we were so desperate to do it,” Kompany said. “We felt against (Crystal) Palace was good, against West Ham was good. You don’t know when it’s coming but I felt we always believed it was coming so for us hopefully it’s a starting point.
“The performance today was really good but you have to turn it into results. I just hope with the goals they’ve scored today and the fact we had a lot of goalscorers as well, that’s an important sign with Lyle Foster still not being there. Hopefully of the consistency of doing that will remain.”
Both of Burnley’s wins to date have come against sides they were promoted with during the summer. The challenge of taking points of established Premier League sides remains, starting away to Wolves on Tuesday night.
“I’ll have a glass of red wine tonight and then back on to Wolves, it’s coming on Tuesday,” Kompany said. “When we win there’s only three days to enjoy it. But we go again. It’s the same recipe really.
“I see the boys making progress, they work as hard as the top teams in the league. They don’t get the rewards for it at the moment but now we live towards the Wolverhampton game.”
Bristol City Women 0-4 Man City Women: Hosts relegated as Fowler double inspires WSL leaders
Mary Fowler scored twice to set WSL leaders Manchester City on their way to a 4-0 rout of Bristol City, who suffered relegation as a result, on Sunday.
With Arsenal having drawn with Everton earlier in the day, Man City knew a victory would be enough to take the title race down to two teams.
That victory duly arrived in emphatic fashion, with all four of Man City's goals arriving in the second half.
Fowler's fantastic strike opened the scoring in the 62nd minute, with the Australia international doubling her tally soon after, paving the way for an Amy Rodgers own goal and Alex Greenwood's late header to seal a huge victory.
Arsenal are now out of the title race, with Chelsea - who have two games in hand on Gareth Taylor's team - the only side capable of catching Man City.
The Robins, meanwhile, will be playing in the second tier again next term.
Data Debrief: Bristol heading down with a whimper
Bristol City have failed to score in their last five games in the WSL, a run of 544 minutes without a goal.
They mustered just 0.09 expected goals (xG) to Man City's 3.4, with the visitors having now kept a clean sheet in nine of their 20 league games this season.
De Rossi demands more from 'tired' Roma ahead of crunch run
Daniele De Rossi acknowledged his Roma team may be tired, but he insisted they must not allow themselves to be embarrassed.
Roma fought back to draw 2-2 with last season's Serie A champions Napoli in a pulsating fixture on Sunday.
Tammy Abraham's late header secured a point for De Rossi's team, who took the lead through Paulo Dybala's penalty before going behind to goals from Matias Olivera and Victor Osimhen.
With Serie A set to have five teams in the Champions League next season, Roma occupy fifth spot with four matches remaining, but sixth-placed Atalanta are just two points behind with a game in hand.
There is also the small matter of a Europa League semi-final against Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverkusen on the cards over the coming weeks, and De Rossi set the stall out.
"We drew, it is not a result to throw away, but it is not the result or the performance that we wanted," Roma coach Daniele De Rossi told Sky Sports Italia.
"At times you can steal the ball off Napoli, but we then gave it back again too many times. Napoli had a lot of chances in the first half, we did better in the second, but we have to do better.
"Look, we are tired, but we cannot start thinking that we’re tired and that means we can be embarrassed in the final few weeks of the season."
Roma host Leverkusen on Thursday before taking on Juventus on May 5, with a crunch clash against Atalanta – who are also into the Europa League semi-finals – set to follow after the away leg against Xabi Alonso's team.
Key to a successful end to the campaign for Roma will be keeping Dybala fit. The Argentine has been involved in the joint-most goals (12) in Serie A since the turn of the year, scoring nine and setting up three, level with Juve's Dusan Vlahovic.
PSG's latest Ligue 1 title arrives as Monaco lose to Lyon
Paris Saint-Germain have been crowned as Ligue 1 champions after Lyon overcame Monaco 3-2 on Sunday.
A 4-1 midweek win over Lorient ensured that one more victory would be enough for Luis Enrique's team to get over the line, but PSG failed to get the job done themselves when they faced relegation-threatened Le Havre on Saturday.
That game was the 700th match of the QSI era at PSG, and the club's 1,900th in France's top flight.
However, PSG's wait to win their third straight title did not last long, as less than 24 hours later, Lyon – who will face the Parisians in the final of the Coupe de France at the end of May – came out on top in a topsy turvy encounter with second-placed Monaco.
Substitute Malick Fofana was the matchwinner for Lyon, and ultimately the player who handed the title to PSG.
Wissam Ben Yedder had put Monaco ahead in the opening minute, but quickfire goals from Alexandre Lacazette and Said Benrahma turned the match on its head before half-time.
Ben Yedder netted his second to restore parity on the hour mark, and thought he had sealed his hat-trick when he volleyed in from a free-kick, only to have strayed offside.
With only a win good enough for Monaco to stay in the fight, the visitors were then caught out in the 84th minute, with Fofana racing onto Lacazette's throughball and finishing calmly.
After a dismal start to the season, relegation looked a real possibility for Lyon, but they are now, with three games remaining, still in with a shout of qualifying for Europe.
PSG on the other hand now have 12 Ligue 1 titles to their name, with 10 of those coming under QSI's ownership. Aside from the COVID-impacted 2019-20 season, five of their last six league titles have been secured before the start of May.
It also means Luis Enrique remains in the running for a treble in his first season at the club, with PSG taking on Borussia Dortmund in the Champions League semi-finals next week.
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