Premier League: Live scores, team news and updates from Saturday’s afternoon kick-offs with Burnley, Newcastle, Brentford and Nottingham Forest all in action
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Wood will have to put that miss out of his mind
Simmered down a little bit at Bramall Lane after that early miss from Chris Wood.
He really should have scored, the big Kiwi striker, but he’ll have to put that out of his mind and get his focus on making it right and helping his side’s survival bid.
Slightly slower going over at Brentford
Over in west London, Brentford are getting plenty of the ball, but there’s not quite been the close chances we’ve had at our other two games.
Mind you, we’re only seven or so minutes in, so there’s still plenty of time!
Burnley have come flying out
And Burnley have come flying out the blocks against Newcastle in yet another must-win game.
Dubravka has already been called into action once, and Burnley have begun thumping on the door in no time at all.
Can Newcastle weather the storm and land a counter blow?
Almost the perfect start for Forest!
Well it’s almost the perfect start for Nottingham Forest, and it’s Chris Wood who’s spurned a great chance.
He hit the headlines last time out for his wasteful finishing, but he’s tried to palce one at the back post from a great Morgan Gibbs-White delivery, but he’s just a hairs-width wide of the post!
KICK-OFF!
Kick-off across the 3pm games – strap yourselves in!
No 1 fan
And maybe the most important picture you’ll see today, here’s a look at my new favourite football fan.
Not long to go until kick-off until this west London dogfight…
Muniz on the verge of something special
Here’s the man to watch for Brentford today…
Rodrigo Muniz turns 23 today, but has nine goals to his name and is becoming only the fourth player in Fulham history to get to double figures in his first campaign.
The other three? Aleksandar Mitrovic, Dimitar Berbatov and Andy Cole.
Under 10 minutes to go people!
Less than 10 minutes to go before kick-off and it’s a cloudy, humid 12 degrees up at Turf Moor.
Not the sunniest of May days here in London either, and pretty similar over at Bramall Lane.
Someone let them know it’s meant to be the start of the summer, please!
Quite the turn around for Gibbs-White
Tom Collomosse at Bramall Lane:
Strange how things work out. Forest made the play-off final two years ago when Morgan Gibbs-White missed the decisive kick in the shoot-out for Sheffield United in the semi-final.
Today Gibbs-White represents one of Forest’s main hopes of staying in the top flight following his £25m move from Wolves two years ago.
We’ve already had one game this afternoon of course, and Arsenal have just gone four clear at the top after putting three past Bournemouth.
Declan Rice played out of his skin and got the goal to go with it, the third after Bukayo Saka and Leandro Trossard got on the scoresheet.
That puts penty of pressure on Man City – who play later tonight – as this title race looks set to go down to the wire.
You can check out more on that one below…
And speaking of Nuno and Forest…
Mail Sport columnist Martin Keown – who knows a thing or two about defending himself – has given his verdict on how the back three can be vital to Forest’s survival push.
Seems that Keown and Collomosse are on a similar vein while Nuno has gone with the unexpected.
Interesting choice of system
Our Midlands football reporter Tom Collomosse is at Bramall Lane, and he’s a little bit surprised by Espirito Santo’s system choice…
Have to say I’m surprised Nuno has reverted to 4-2-3-1. The back three served him so well at Wolves and Forest produced one of their better displays of his time in charge against Manchester City last week.
Ton up for Burn!
A memorable day for one Newcastle star in particular.
It’s a century of Newcastle appearances from the crowd favourite Dan Burn!
Breaking:Ipswich seal their return after 22 years!
Yes, all our eyes are firmly planted on the Premier League action today, but many of you will of course know that today was teh final day of the Championship regular season.
And Ipswich have done it! The newly-promoted side have won a spot in next year’s top-flight after beating Huddersfield Town 2-0 earlier on.
For more on next term’s newest arrivals in the Premier League, check out this one below!
An answer to our earlier question
Well we’ve got an answer to our earlier question.
Sheffield United have partnered with their charity partners to raise some funds for dementia care – an undeniably brilliant cause and well done to the Blades.
If you ask me, more games should have a fancy dress element, would make for a great watch.
Given it’s May the fourth, I’ll leave you to piece together the Star Wars costumes…
Bit of a dry spell for Toney
There’s no doubting his calibre – the guy’s scored for England if justification were needed – but Toney has been going through something of a lean patch.
The Bees talisman has gone nine league matches without a goal.
He’s not gone longer since misfiring for 10 in a row with Peterborough United between February and April 2019.
Fancy camerawork…
This one has a whiff of someone finding the slow-mo feature on their camera and getting a little bit trigger happy with it…
Lovely looking ground is Brentford though, you’ve got to admit.
Newcastle have still been firing up top
And on that note, it’s mighty impressive that in a season that feels like they’ve always got at least half their starting XI out injured Newcastle have already matched their 38-game Premier League goal-scoring record.
The Magpies have 74 this term, which draws them level with the team of 2001-02.
Alexander Isak has been such a huge part of that, and he is now one away from becoming just the fifth Newcastle striker to get 20 in a single top-flight season.
Bench boost for Magpies
Newcastle have become synonymous with injuries this term – but they’ve got Pope, Joelinton and Almiron ALL returning to the bench!
That injured XI just got a heck of a lot weaker.
Plenty of changes across the grounds
So we’ve got two changes each from Brentford and Fulham, with Lewis-Potter and Damsgaard in for Jensen and Wissa for the hosts, while Lukic is in for Reed and Willian comes in for De Cordova-Reid for Silva’s side.
Sheffield United meanwhile make just the one alteration with Robinson replacing Holgate, and Montiel and Yates get the nod ahead of Williams and Niakhate.
And lastly up at Turf Moor, it’s Brownhill replacing Fofana, and Howe brings in Krafth and Wilson for Schar and Anderson.
Plenty of changes across the grounds.
Burnley vs Newcastle XIs
And last but by no means least…
Time for some team news!
Right then, whose ready for some team news?
Blades could break a 30-year record today…
Well for those looking at the numbers before kick-off at Bramall Lane – Sheffield United are three goals away from equalling the record for most goals conceded.
Swindon Town let in 100 in 1993-94 – back when we had 42-game seasons – and the Blades are currently on 97.
After this miserable campaign for Sheffield United, that is one record that they really could do without breaking.
As for Forest, what a few weeks it’s been up at the City Ground.
There was THAT tweet after the Everton game that seemed to light the football world on fire, and while that has largely died down, there was the news that Mark Clattenburg has left his role as a board consultant.
The former Premier League referee’s exit comes after manager Nuno Espirito Santo and Neco Williams were charged by the FA for comments made about officials’ integrity following the loss to Everton.
Oh, how they could do with a nice, quiet 2-0 win with no frills attached.
And now to Bramall Lane
Newcastle aren’t the only ones enjoying a trip down memory lane ahead of KO.
It’s not been the most enjoyable season for the already-relegated Blades, but there was one moment of magic in their last clash with Forest.
Some way to open your account, eh?
Look away Fulham fans…
And speaking of that rivalry, Brentford has been something of a horror trip for Fulham in recent seasons.
Fulham have lost six of their last seven trips to the Bees in all competitions, that one victory coming seven-and-a-half years ago in November 2016.
Not the best reading for Fulham fans, so sorry about that – but at least the Craven Cottage outfit have taken a club record 15 points from London derbies this term (4W 3D 4L), so there’s that…
Big clash in west London
This is about the point in the season where we look at games like Brentford vs Fulham and say things like ‘they’re already on the beach’ and ‘they’ll have taken their feet of the gas pedal by now’.
Brentford are out of the relegation battle, Fulham can’t get Europe, what else can there be to fight for!
Rubbish if you ask me – there’s still plenty of incentive for finishing as high up the table as possible, and that’s before you get into the local bragging rights for this west London derby.
Wondering what’s going on behind the scenes at St James’ Park? Eager to find the stories beyond the headlines? Just really like reading about Dougie Freedman?
Well for any of the above you can check out Craig Hope’s Newcastle Notebook at the link below…
How about this for a hit?!
Before the chaos of six different starting XIs dropping in about 25 minutes, let’s just take a look around the grounds…
First up is Newcastle and how about this one for a hit!
Good memories for the Magpies from their last clash with Vincent Kompany’s side
What’s on offer then?
So, as we know now, we’ve got three games across the country with plenty on the line.
For Newcastle it’s a chance to solidify their European bid, while Burnley can move closer to surely the escape of all escapes with a win that would actually draw them out of the bottom three with results going their way.
Sheffield United might be down already, but Forest are also looking to beat the drop and would love to be able to capitalise on Luton’s 1-1 draw last night with a few points of their own to put some much needed daylight between them and the Hatters.
And then there’s the west London derby in the third game between local rivals Brentford and Fulham – what’s not to love?!
Hello!
Good afternoon one and all and welcome to Mail Sport’s LIVE coverage of the three 3pm KOs for today.
We’ve got action from all across the country, with Brentford hosting Fulham, Newcastle travelling to Burnley, and Sheffield United welcoming Nottingham Forest to Bramall Lane.
Stick with us for the next 90 minutes or so as we build up to all three of those games with all the latest news and goings on from around the grounds!