Sports

Are Manchester United now part of the Premier League relegation battle?

Published

1 year ago

December 31, 2024

Are Manchester United now part of the Premier League relegation battle?

Manchester United’s final game of 2024 felt like the moment the big top on the Old Trafford circus started to sink.

Before now, United’s calamities in the last decade or so have been incubated to a tier most other clubs can only dream of: finishing bottom of a Champions League group; coming eighth in the Premier League but winning the FA Cup; losing a Europa League final 11-10 on penalties.

As we turn into 2025, however, the ground on which this weekly entertainment show is built is crumbling to a base level.

After Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, Newcastle’s 2-0 win inflicted on United a third straight league loss at home for the first time since 1979. It was their sixth defeat in all competitions this December, the most they’ve suffered in a single calendar month since September 1930. They will end the year in 14th place, their lowest position at this stage since 1989.

United are performing like an inverse trapeze artist — “Roll up, roll up, be dazzled at how low we can go!”

Amid such a spiral, the relegation places are looming into the rear view, just seven points behind. Rather than reject the proposal of a scrap for survival, Ruben Amorim is leaning into it. “We have to acknowledge our position,” he said. “I think people are tired of excuses in this club. Sometimes I talk about relegation. Because our club needs a shock.”

United could face the potential of a relegation scrap (Stu Forster/Getty Images)

Amorim, charming as he continues to be, gives full and frank answers. It is what has got him this far, winning two titles in Portugal and landing him the job to replace Erik ten Hag. Still, it is startling to hear a United manager talk in these terms and the effect on his team will be interesting to observe.

A sardonic take might be that a trip to the Championship would provide the cover required for further INEOS streamlining, but nobody is seriously planning for a 1974-style jolt to reboot the club.

Amorim also suggested United would have to change coach before he compromised his 3-4-2-1 approach, and the mitigation for him is huge. He has had only four full training sessions with a squad built for a different system — the quality and athleticism of which is being exposed as the weeks go on.

United’s fans gave their view, heartily singing “Amorim’s Red and White Army,” either side of the break.

The man himself said: “I have to sell my idea, I don’t have another one. If I’m going to change all the time it is going to be even worse.”

Amorim’s commitment is commendable. But starting Casemiro and Christian Eriksen in midfield was an idea that had gone stale by the start of last season, let alone midway through this one. Newcastle, as expected, were far too strong for Amorim’s side in the middle of the pitch.

The sight of Bruno Guimaraes passing the ball round Eriksen on the way to Newcastle’s second goal was painful from a United perspective.

It was one of the most catastrophic openings at Old Trafford in recent memory. At 25 minutes, with United failing to register a single attempt at goal, Newcastle had recorded eight shots, with four on target, three of them Opta-defined big chances. That didn’t include two wicked corners from Kieran Trippier that could be counted as real efforts to score given recent goals against United. By the time Sandro Tonali walked into United’s box for a clear strike, only to hit the post, the atmosphere was mutinous.

Rather than either one of the two 32-year-olds in midfield coming off, and with United needing goals, it was Joshua Zirkzee replaced, a player ostensibly bought as a striker. Amorim acted on 33 minutes in what became a brutal, surreal spectacle.

Loud cheers greeted Zirkzee’s number going up, and although some supporters booed that cruel response as a way of showing solidarity, the 23-year-old, a £36.5million ($45.8m) summer signing, headed straight down the tunnel. He did emerge a few minutes later, although his hood was up as he took his seat on the bench.

Zirkzee walks off after being substituted in the first half (Simon Stacpoole/Offside/Offside via Getty Images)

Kobbie Mainoo came on, and helped prevent a hammering, but some light comedy continued. Casemiro delivered quite plausibly the most off-target shot humanly possible, and then skewed a much closer finish wide too. Mainoo, gifted the ball by Fabian Schar, had chosen to go to him over Rasmus Hojlund or Amad when four on two, for reasons that are not entirely clear.

At one point Harry Maguire tried to inject urgency, bursting forward with the ball and urging Alejandro Garnacho and Diogo Dalot to run ahead. In apparent frustration, his pass went behind both and out of play. (It is notable United have not scored in three successive games that Dalot and Noussair Mazraoui have started as wing-backs.) Even Amad was afflicted, wasting a good counter-attack by passing the ball into touch.

United resorted to set pieces, with Eriksen seizing on free kicks around halfway as a chance to get the ball into the box. A long throw from Dalot caused some chaos. From one of these situations, Maguire went closest to scoring with a header that hit the post.

Hojlund cut a forlorn figure, a combination of his own limitations and poor service presenting him with one chance, which he put wide.

Up to the final whistle, Marcus Rashford remained on the bench. It was his first appearance in a matchday squad after four omissions. He scored a brace on his last Premier League start, against Everton at the beginning of this long December, but there are good reasons why Amorim has kept him out.

Marcus Rashford was an unused substitute against Newcastle (Carl Recine/Getty Images)

He was brought back to the squad against Newcastle with Bruno Fernandes and Manuel Ugarte suspended. But despite the circumstances, he stayed in his seat. More humbling than not being involved at all? Or the first step towards reintegration? Time will tell.

“I’m not making a point,” Amorim said. “I think about the team. You think a lot about Marcus. I just want to win the game and you can feel it. I’m talking about the idea and the fight for relegation and I want to make a point during a game? No, I just want to win the game.”

The buoyancy of that 4-0 win over Everton, when Rashford and Zirkzee each scored twice, has popped, and so much about United right now feels like a tightrope walk.

(Top photo: Molly Darlington/Copa/Getty Images)

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Sports

Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo makes NBA history with 83-point game

Published

6 hours ago

March 11, 2026

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Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo makes NBA history with 83-point game

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Miami Heat star Bam Adebayo made NBA history on Tuesday night.

Adebayo scored 83 points, all while setting league marks for free throws made and attempted in a game for the Miami Heat in a 150-129 win over the Washington Wizards. It is the second-highest scoring game for a player ever, only to Wilt Chamberlain’s famed 100-point game.

“An absolutely surreal night,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters after the game.

Adebayo started with a 31-point first quarter. He was up to 43 at halftime, 62 by the end of the third quarter. And then came the fourth, when the milestones kept falling despite facing double-, triple- and what once appeared to be a quadruple-team from a Wizards defense that kept sending him to the foul line.

He finished 20 of 43 from the field, 36 of 43 from the foul line, 7 for 22 from 3-point range.

After the game, he was seen in tears while he hugged his mother, Marilyn Blount, before leaving the floor after the game.

“Welp won’t have the highest career high in the house anymore,” Adebayo’s girlfriend, four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson, wrote on social media, “but at least it gives me something to go after.”

MAGIC’S ANTHONY BLACK MAKES INCREDIBLE DUNK OVER FOUR DEFENDERS IN HISTORIC NBA GAME

Bam Adebayo #13 of the Miami Heat celebrates during the fourth quarter of the game against the Washington Wizards at Kaseya Center on March 10, 2026, in Miami, Florida. (Megan Briggs/Getty Images)

The NBA’s previous best this season was 56, by Nikola Jokic for Denver against Minnesota on Christmas night. The last player to have 62 points through three quarters: one of Adebayo’s basketball heroes, Kobe Bryant, who had exactly that many through three quarters for the Los Angeles Lakers against Dallas on Dec. 20, 2005.

He wound up passing Bryant for single-game scoring as well. Bryant’s career-best was 81 — a game that was the second-best on the NBA scoring list for two decades.

Adebayo scored 31 points in the opening quarter against the Wizards, breaking the Heat record for points in any quarter — and tying the team record for points in a first half before the second quarter even started.

He finished the first half with 43 points, a team record for any half and two points better than his previous career high — for a full game, that is — of 41, set Jan. 23, 2021, against Brooklyn.

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Adebayo’s season high entering Tuesday was 32. He matched that with a free throw with 5:53 left in the second quarter, breaking the Heat first-half scoring record.

Adebayo’s 43-point first half was the NBA’s second-best in at least the last 30 seasons — going back to the start of the digital play-by-play era that began in the 1996-97 season.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Jackson Thompson is a sports reporter for Fox News Digital covering critical political and cultural issues in sports, with an investigative lens. Jackson’s reporting has been cited in federal government actions related to the enforcement of Title IX, and in legacy media outlets including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Associated Press and ESPN.com.

Sports

Kings lose in overtime to the Boston Bruins

Published

7 hours ago

March 11, 2026

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Kings lose in overtime to the Boston Bruins

BOSTON — Charlie McAvoy scored 39 seconds into overtime and Jeremy Swayman stopped 14 shots on Tuesday night to earn the Boston Bruins their 13th straight victory at home, 2-1 over the Kings.

Mason Lohrei scored midway through the third period to break a scoreless tie. But the Kings tied it five minutes later when Drew Doughty’s shot from the blue line deflected off the heel of Bruins forward Elias Lindholm and into the net.

It was the seventh straight time the teams had gone to overtime in Boston.

In the overtime, Mark Kastelic blocked a shot in the defensive zone and made a long pass to David Pastrnak, who waited for McAvoy to come into the zone. The Bruins’ defenseman and U.S. Olympian, who went to the locker room at the end of the second period after taking a puck off his mouth, skated in on Darcy Kuemper and went to his backhand for the winner.

Kuemper stopped 21 shots for the Kings, who entered the night one point out of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. The victory kept Boston in possession of the East’s second wild-card spot.

Swayman tied his career high with his 25th win of the season. The Bruins haven’t lost at the TD Garden since before Christmas.

After the game, Kings forward and future Hall of Famer Anze Kopitar stayed on the ice to shake hands with the Bruins after what is expected to be his last game in Boston.

Sports

Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card

Published

19 hours ago

March 10, 2026

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Jon Jones requests UFC release after Dana White says legend was ‘never’ considered him for White House card

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Mixed martial arts legend Jon Jones ended his retirement from UFC simply because he wanted a spot on the “Freedom 250” fight card at the White House in June.

But, when UFC CEO Dana White announced the card during UFC 326 this past weekend, Jones wasn’t among the fighters. As a result, he has requested a release from his UFC contract.

White was candid when asked about Jones following the UFC 326 card.

Jon Jones of the United States of America reacts after his TKO victory against Stipe Miocic of the United States of America in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on Nov. 16, 2024 in New York City. ((Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images))

“Never, ever, ever, which I told you guys a hundred thousands times, was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House,” White explained, per CBS Sports. “Some guy with Meta Glasses filmed him talking about his hips – that his hips are so bad. And I don’t know if you guys saw that flag football game where he can barely run. Jon Jones retired because of his hips. He’s got arthritis in his hips. Apparently, doctors say he should have a hip replacement.”

White added that “the Jon Jones thing is bulls—,” saying that he texted the fighter’s lawyer saying he would never be on the White House card despite Jones saying he was in negotiations for it.

UFC ANNOUNCES CARD FOR WHITE HOUSE EVENT

The Meta Glasses incident White is referring to came from a viral video, where Jones, unaware he was being filmed, discussed issues with his hips to a fan.

On Monday, Jones composed a thorough response to White’s comments about him and the White House Card. He previously posted and deleted social media explanations, but Monday’s appeared to be his final statement on the matter.

UFC President Dana White speaks after UFC Fight Night at Toyota Center on Feb. 21, 2026. (Troy Taormina/Imagn Images)

“Yes, I have arthritis in my hip and it’s painful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” Jones, who retired a heavyweight champion in 2025, said. “So let me get this straight, if I had accepted the lowball offer, suddenly my hip would be fine and I’d be on the White House card? That doesn’t make sense. I even received stem cell treatment last week to get ready for the White House card, and training camp was scheduled to start today. I was preparing to be ready.

“I understand business deals fall through sometimes, but going out publicly and saying things that aren’t true isn’t right. After everything I’ve given to the UFC, the years, the title defenses, the fights, hearing that I’m ‘done’ is disappointing. Especially when as recently as Friday UFC was calling me trying to get me on that White House card for a much lower number.”

Jones finished his statement by saying he “respectfully” asks to be released from his UFC contract.

Jon Jones enters the ring before facing Stipe Miocic in the UFC heavyweight championship fight during the UFC 309 event at Madison Square Garden on November 16, 2024 in New York City, New York. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

“No more spins, no more games. Thank you to the real fans who know what’s up,” he wrote.

The UFC did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.

Jones is considered one of the best UFC fighters of all time, owning a 28-1-1 record, which includes his last bout with Stipe Miocic, knocking him out to take the heavyweight title belt. He is also a two-time light heavyweight champion.

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Scott Thompson is a sports writer for Fox News Digital.