Sports
After three successive defeats, are Manchester City in crisis?
After Manchester City’s 4-1 defeat to Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League on Tuesday evening, Bernardo Silva said that his side were “in a dark place”, although Pep Guardiola did not agree.
The City boss pointed out that his side had played very well for the most part, as they did when exiting the Carabao Cup at Tottenham last week. Guardiola is not blind to City’s issues, though, admitting that they were not good enough in defeat at Bournemouth at the weekend and that they struggled to contain Sporting’s counter-attacks.
Guardiola has been largely satisfied with his side’s efforts in recent matches. Where some saw narrow victories against Fulham, Wolves and Southampton as fortunate, the City manager has been pleased with their fight and desire to get the job done.
But there’s no getting away from the fact that, over the past week, City have lost three times. Add to that the manner of Tuesday’s defeat, plus Bernardo’s comment and there’s a hint of crisis about the club right now. So here’s an inquest into just what has been going wrong.
(Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
The injuries
The obvious place to start is the injuries.
Ballon D’Or winner Rodri is the biggest and most obvious loss, compounded by fellow midfielder Kevin De Bruyne missing almost two months. Various other players have dropped out recently, including Ruben Dias, Jack Grealish and Jeremy Doku. The biggest problems flow from there, although in the wake of the Sporting defeat, there have been complaints among supporters about the club’s recruitment — or lack thereof — over the past two years.
(Glyn Kirk/AFP via Getty Images)
Whatever the rights and wrongs of City’s approach to the transfer market, they have been hit with a significant number of injuries at the same time and that has had an obvious knock-on effect.
Combined with the fact that others, like Ilkay Gundogan and Phil Foden (who is improving week by week), have not been playing at their peak level, it is perhaps no surprise that some of the team’s recent performances, even when victorious, have looked a little underwhelming.
A soft centre
Guardiola’s answer when he spots a weakness in his team, not least when Rodri is not available, is to fill the midfield with ball players and instruct them to make as many passes as possible to wrestle control of the game and build from there. That was exactly what they did in Lisbon on Tuesday night, and with Rico Lewis, Mateo Kovacic, Bernardo and Gundogan, they have players who are very accomplished at keeping the ball.
The problem is that those players are not especially athletic when it comes to winning the ball back or even chasing it back, and that was also evident against Sporting, leaving the defence — missing Lewis because he was pushed up from right-back — exposed.
That is why Tuesday’s game was a curious one. City played well but were also well beaten. In another sense, it was easy to explain: they played well with the ball, did not take their chances and were weak on the break. Fulham, Wolves and Bournemouth, as well as Spurs in the Carabao Cup, have been able to exploit opportunities on transitions.
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Those issues are exacerbated when those charged with keeping safe control of the ball start to give it away easily, which has also been happening for a while now. Gundogan has yet to rediscover his best form since returning in the summer, Lewis is at times imprecise and Kovacic — the main fulcrum of the team in Rodri’s absence — embodies City’s recent form in that he does many things well within matches but can be very easily beaten, and fail to recover, as Sporting’s second goal highlighted.
(Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
This trend has had some fans crying out for a different approach, which results in something of a vicious circle. Guardiola’s solution to these problems is more passes, more control, and he has a sound supporting argument: if City are vulnerable to fast breaks, then why not try to limit them as much as possible?
Some will argue that if the fast breaks are not being limited, why don’t the team fight fire with fire and try to be a bit more direct and play with more pace in the middle? That is a debate for another day but, in short, when most teams sit deep against City and do not allow them space to play, there is not really anywhere to break into.
The shorter and blunter answer is that we already know that Guardiola just will not consider it.
Lack of goals
This is quite the statement about the Premier League’s second-highest scorers (behind Spurs) but they do seem to be lacking goals, which is something that Guardiola acknowledged on Tuesday. “We have to do a lot to score,” he said.
The thing about the start of the season, when, in fairness, City looked very good without Rodri, was that Erling Haaland was breaking records left, right and centre, so very few people noticed that hardly anybody else was scoring, or needed to score.
John Stones has recorded some important last-gasp strikes, Josko Gvardiol is doing his bit from the back and Kovacic has contributed — but too often in matches, there is a lack of bite in the final third, which was the case on Tuesday night. And when there’s the frailty in midfield mentioned in the previous section, it adds up to the kind of problems we are seeing.
Haaland has failed to score in six of his last 10 appearances for City in all competitions (Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
On the wings, City have players who are superb in bringing the ball up to and into the box — but who lack an end product inside it. In fairness to Savinho, he could have had three excellent assists against Southampton only for others to squander the chances, and the Brazilian has started his City career well but at the moment he is not a goal threat — and neither is Doku.
Grealish is out of the picture again but, by his own admission, has never been a goalscorer, while Matheus Nunes is playing well of late on the left wing but rarely brings goals.
City have scored four times from corners in the Premier League this season, which is more than any other team, although they have also taken the most: 98. Their conversion rate from corners is the sixth-best in the league, which is respectable, but four goals from 98 corners ties into the idea that they have to do a lot to score, especially when rivals such as Arsenal spend so much time and effort on set plays.
It does feel like City are in a gloomy place at the moment, but that comment from Bernardo is reminiscent of a similarly worrying message from Gundogan, 18 months ago. “I feel like something is missing, something’s off,” he said in January 2023. “At the minute, there’s a special recipe missing — performances, the desire and hunger is not as in recent years.” And that season ended pretty well.
It would be a stretch to suggest another treble is around the corner but that Gundogan quote should help to put things into perspective. The best way for City to do that is to put things right against Brighton on Saturday evening.
With Tottenham and Liverpool coming up after the November international break, City are going to need to tighten up in defence and midfield and start taking some more chances when they arrive.
It’s rare for a mini-crisis to develop into a major problem at City, but this is a side who are more vulnerable than we’ve seen them for some time.
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(Top photo: Patricia De Melo Moreira/AFP via Getty Images)
LONDON — A local boy sleeps in his own bed, plays in front of a king and queen and makes a Cinderella run to the Wimbledon semifinals. Sounds like a Hollywood script that might never see the silver screen.
But it’s no fairy tale — it’s Arthur Fery’s out-of-nowhere performance over the last 10 days.
Fery, a virtually unknown British wild card with a triple-digit ranking, has become the emotional heartbeat of Wimbledon while legitimately diverting some national attention from England’s World Cup quest.
The royal treatment at his matches across the All England Club has come in more ways than one.
Fery, who grew up five minutes from Wimbledon and is staying at home during the tournament, first played before grass-court king Roger Federer, Wimbledon’s eight-time singles champion, during Monday’s fourth-round victory. Two days later, he beat No. 9 seed and French Open runner-up Flavio Cobolli of Italy in the quarterfinals 6-4, 7-6 (4), 6-0 in front of Queen Camilla.
Ranked 114th, Fery had never reached the semifinals of an ATP Tour event, let alone a major, before his brief chat with the queen following the match.
“She just said, ‘Congratulations, keep going,’” 23-year-old Fery told reporters later. “I told her it was my birthday on Sunday, so it would be great to play the Wimbledon final on my birthday.”
That’s still a match away. To get there, Fery will have to get past one of the hottest players on tour: No. 2 seed Alexander Zverev, who is fresh off his first Grand Slam title at the French Open. Looming on the other side of the draw is a highly anticipated showdown between defending champion Jannik Sinner against 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic.
If Fery can continue his magical run to the end, he would become the first British wild card to win a Wimbledon title.
Arthur Fery reacts after defeating Flavio Cobolli in the Wimbledon quarterfinals on Wednesday.
(Maja Smiejkowska / Associated Press)
Born in France, Fery’s family moved to Wimbledon when he was an infant. His mother played professional tennis. He was a top British junior but chose to sharpen his game for three years in the U.S. collegiate system at Stanford, as many of his compatriots have done.
“I came out with a lot of hunger coming out of that, and I was ready to attack the pro circuit,” Fery said.
After struggling with bone bruising in his arm that limited him to playing mostly on the lower-tier Challenger circuit in recent years, Fery is finally healthy and playing consistently.
His path to the last four in London has been a masterclass in clutch come-from-behind performances. The Brit has stared down near-certain elimination in multiple matches, repeatedly breaking his opponents’ momentum with Houdini-like on-court acts.
At 5-foot-9, Fery possesses a skill set perfectly suited for low-bounding grass.
His compact strokes, low center of gravity, and elite movement allow him to hug the baseline, take time away from opponents, and confidently execute delicate volleys at the net, according to ESPN analyst Chris Eubanks.
“He defends well,” said Eubanks, a 2023 Wimbledon quarterfinalist. “He can scrap. He can claw. He can dig his way back into points. And when he ventures forward, he’s very, very comfortable at the net. This is a picture-perfect example of someone whose game is built for the surface.”
Still, it’s hard to fathom the multitude of milestones for Fery, who briefly reached the No. 1 ranking in college and earned 2023 Pac-12 Singles Player of the Year honors before leaving early to pursue a pro career.
He arrived at Wimbledon with just one main-draw victory at a major, a losing record as a professional, and only one previous ATP quarterfinal, at Queen’s Club last month. He’s now 11-8, won his first two five-set matches, and is the first British wild card to reach the Wimbledon men’s semifinals in the Open Era. The only other men’s wild-card semifinalist was Goran Ivanisevic, who won the title as a wild card in 2001.
Fery, who started the season ranked No. 185 and will climb to at least No. 36 after the tournament, said there were a “lot of first times” as he reflected on his unprecedented run. “First five-setter, longest match that I’ve ever played, first time breaking into the top 100, first second week in a slam, all at home, five minutes from where I grew up. It’s a great story for me,” he said.
The gap with his fellow semifinalists is understandably massive.
Entering Wimbledon, Djokovic, Sinner and Zverev’s combined records include 29 Grand Slam titles, 2,088 match wins and 155 tour-level titles. Fery was 6-8 in tour-level matches with zero titles.
But he has singlehandedly lifted the tournament for locals. With top hopes Jack Draper and Emma Raducanu withdrawing before the tournament and the rest of Britain’s singles prospects falling one by one — 18 men and women were eliminated by the third round — Fery became the nation’s last knight standing.
If his first name inevitably evokes Arthurian legend, Fery’s march through the draw gave Britain reason to believe again. No sword, no Round Table, just world-class shot-making, a lion’s heart and a Centre Court crowd thrilled to rally behind him.
“This is really quite something to see on home soil,” said Russell Fuller, the BBC’s tennis correspondent, who compared it with Raducanu’s stunning U.S. Open win in 2021 as a qualifier.
Fery earned every bit of it.
In the first round against Damir Dzumhur, Fery dropped the opening set and trailed by a break in the second before surging back. Against Zizou Bergs in the third round, he faced a 4-1 deficit with a double break in the fourth set, and again fell behind 4-1 in the fifth, before somehow surviving.
Then, stepping onto Centre Court for the first time against former top-10 stalwart Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria in the fourth round, Fery clawed out of a 2-sets-to-1 hole and a break down in the fourth set to clinch the victory in a fifth-set tiebreak.
“He carries himself with humility, but he’s a fierce competitor, and he’s got a ton of belief in himself,” said Stanford men’s coach and former top-60 player Paul Goldstein, who flew to England Tuesday to see his former charge compete against Cobolli.
While Fery attempts to outmaneuver Zverev on Friday, the other semifinal features a 2025 Wimbledon semifinal rematch between seven-time Wimbledon winner Djokovic and top-ranked Sinner, who defeated the Serb in straight sets on his way to the title. It’s also their second Grand Slam semifinal meeting in 2026. At January’s Australian Open on hard courts, Djokovic bested 24-year-old Sinner in five sets before falling to now-injured Carlos Alcaraz in the Melbourne final.
Arthur Fery hits a return during his Wimbledon quarterfinal win over Flavio Cobolli on Wednesday.
(Clive Brunskill / Getty Images)
Djokovic, 39, enters the match after surviving a grueling five-set, 5-hour-plus quarterfinal slugfest against No. 3 Félix Auger-Aliassime that concluded just minutes before Wimbledon’s 11 p.m. curfew. But the seventh-seeded Serb has a way of defying Father Time and he has had two days to recover on a surface where points are shorter and generally less taxing on the body.
Italy’s Sinner, who defeated Alcaraz in last year’s Wimbledon final, has been efficient if not at the level that saw him capture five consecutive titles before crashing out in the second round at the French Open. After a first-round scare here, the four-time Grand Slam champion has dominated opponents behind his improving serve, winning 80% of his first-serve points. He hasn’t dropped a set since the opening round. Sinner leads the head-to-head with Djokovic 6-5.
According to Eubanks, Djokovic must disrupt Sinner’s movement to break his rhythm, and take his chances.
“He’s got to play similar to how he played in Australia, where it was just all-out aggression,” Eubanks said.
For Sinner, he added: “His serve can be a neutralizing force for what Novak is going to try to do.”
On the other side of the ledger, Fery’s poise under pressure and deft use of the home crowd will be paramount to continue his surprise run against Germany’s Zverev, whom he called a “step up again” from his last five matches. Zverev, 29, is seeking his fifth major final and first at Wimbledon.
“I’m ready for it,” Fery said. “I have nothing to lose. I’m just going to go out there and … put my game on the court, do what I’ve done, believe in myself. We’ll see where that takes me.”
Home has never been closer to Centre Court. Nor has Arthur Fery ever been closer to tennis history.
Sports
Pirates star pitcher makes unfortunate history after being taken out in middle of perfect game bid
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Jared Jones was flirting with Major League Baseball history on Wednesday night — he got it, but it was not what he originally envisioned.
The Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher retired the first 18 batters he faced, but he was taken out in the middle of his perfect game bid after six innings.
Now, the Pirates certainly have their reasons — the 24-year-old Jones hasn’t thrown more than 81 pitches in eight starts since returning May 20 after missing all of last season while undergoing ulnar collateral ligament internal brace surgery on May 21, 2025. He was yanked with 77 pitches and likely would have needed more than 100 pitches to record the 25th perfect game in MLB history.
Jared Jones of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitches during the first inning against the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park on July 8, 2026, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images)
However, Jones left the game after getting zero run support, so when the Atlanta Braves tacked on three runs late for a 3-0 victory, Jones instead found himself in the wrong chapter of the history books.
According to Opta Stats, Jones became the first pitcher in the modern era (since 1920) to pitch at least six perfect innings and not record a win.
“It does suck. Something’s cool coming on, but I’m on what? My eighth start off of surgery? I completely understand it, and it is what it is,” Jones told reporters after the game.
Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Jared Jones (17) makes his way to the field to warm up before pitching against the Atlanta Braves at PNC Park. (Charles LeClaire/Imagn Images)
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Jones said he didn’t entertain attempting to complete the perfect game.
“Not with the pitch count,” he said. “Not really ever expecting to go nine right now, so that was never in my head.”
Joey Bart, traded to the Braves from the Pirates on June 18, followed a double by Mike Yastrzemski with a 422-foot, two-run homer to left-center field off a slider from Dennis Santana. Drake Baldwin added an RBI single to center in the ninth for good measure.
It was the second time in less than a week that a pitcher was taken out of the game with a perfect bid through six innings — the Miami Marlins took Eury Perez out after seven innings in which he had 92 pitches. Perez, too, is in the midst of returning from injury and has surprisingly found himself right in the postseason mix.
He was pulled for Lake Bachar to start the eighth, and the Marlins allowed eight runs to the Athletics in the final two innings, but held on to win 9-8.
Jared Jones (17) of the Pittsburgh Pirates delivers a pitch during a MLB game against the Cincinnati Reds on June 27, 2026, at PNC Park in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Joe Robbins/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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The Pirates are 4.0 games out of the final wild card spot, which is held by the Marlins.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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WASHINGTON — The Dodgers are scheduled to visit the White House on July 23 to celebrate their latest World Series title.
“President Trump is excited to welcome the Los Angeles Dodgers BACK to the White House to celebrate their World Series championship!,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to The Times.
The date falls on a scheduled off day in the middle of a nine-game East Coast road trip for the Dodgers. The team will play three games in Philadelphia against the Phillies July 20-22 before ending the trip with a three-game series against the New York Mets July 24 to 26.
The visit continues a tradition from the Dodgers’ two previous World Series championships. They were hosted by President Biden in 2021 and President Trump in April 2025.
After the Dodgers claimed their second consecutive World Series title with a dramatic Game 7 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays, a visit to the White House was planned, but it wasn’t until Thursday that a date was officially booked and confirmed.
Questions swirled around whether players would decline the visit this year after it did not happen during a scheduled visit to Washington in April.
Kiké Hernández said in 2018 he was unsure he would have gone had the Dodgers won the World Series the previous year. Mookie Betts said he was undecided and needed to talk it over with his family when last year’s visit was announced. After winning his first World Series with the Boston Red Sox in 2018, Betts skipped their trip to the White House the following year during Trump’s first term.
Both players, along with every returning member of the 2024 team who was with the team during its road trip, participated in the visit. The only notable absence was first baseman Freddie Freeman, who remained in Los Angeles to nurse an ankle injury.
Manager Dave Roberts, who indicated in comments to The Times in 2019 he might not go to the White House if Trump was president, also participated in last year’s ceremony.
Asked at the Dodgers’ fan festival in January about the possibility of returning to the White House, Roberts told The Times’ Bill Shaikin: “For me, I stand by: I’m a baseball manager. That’s my job.”
“I was raised — by a man who served our country for 30 years — to respect the highest office in our country,” Roberts said. “For me, it doesn’t matter who is in the office, I’m going to go to the White House. I’ve never tried to be political. … For me, I am going to continue to try to do what tradition says and not try to make political statements, because I am not a politician.”
Clayton Kershaw, who retired after last season but was on Team USA for this year’s World Baseball Classic, told The Times in the spring that he was aware Dodgers fans are split over whether the team should visit the White House again this year, but he said he is looking forward to it.
“I went when President Biden was in office. I’m going to go when President Trump is in office,” Kershaw said. “To me, it’s just about getting to go to the White House. You don’t get that opportunity every day, so I’m excited to go.”
Times deputy sports editor Ed Guzman contributed to this report.
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