Sports
The Briefing: Liverpool’s odd ending, a derby of nothingness and Southampton’s anti-survival blueprint
Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s Premier League football.
This was the weekend when Aston Villa closed in on the Champions League places, Brighton & Hove Albion and Crystal Palace shared as many red cards as goals, Arsenal slipped up again and Chelsea played out a drab 0-0 draw with Brentford.
Here, we will ask about the odd final few weeks of the season for the champions elect, whether the awful Manchester derby was fitting for the Premier League as a whole, and if relegated Southampton have shown next season’s promoted sides exactly how not to do things.
Is the end of this Liverpool season becoming… a little weird?
Arne Slot and Virgil van Dijk were irked with Michael Owen this week when the former striker suggested Liverpool’s season might end as merely brilliant, rather than historic, given at one stage they looked on for a cabinet full of trophies, but are now left with ‘only’ the league title.
Slot made the correct point that there’s no such thing as ‘only’ the Premier League title, particularly for a club who have won just one of the things in the last 35 years. This season cannot be regarded as anything other than a triumph if and when they are confirmed as champions. They have been the best team in the country by a fair distance and the fact it’s in Slot’s first season makes it even more impressive.
They will still win the title quite handily. They’re 11 points ahead with seven games remaining, and even if their form collapsed, would you trust Arsenal to take advantage?
That said, the season is ending quite weirdly, isn’t it?
Liverpool’s last four games in all competitions have seen them exit the Champions League, having been outplayed by Paris Saint-Germain twice, be convincingly beaten by Newcastle United in the Carabao Cup final, narrowly win against Everton, and lose in fairly limp fashion to Fulham.
Liverpool suffered a rare league defeat at the weekend (Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)
Maybe it’s because we’ve all had our brains rewired by Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, who have redefined what champions look like: relentless juggernauts who rarely dip as low as mid-80s when it comes to points totals. Maybe it’s better for all of us that the champions look fallible, fragile even.
But it still must be a bit odd for Liverpool and their supporters. If nothing else because, when they watch performances like Sunday, they may think: how many of this team are going to be there next season?
Trent Alexander-Arnold (absent from this game) looks to have one foot and four toes out of the door, the futures of Van Dijk and Mohamed Salah are still uncertain, Andrew Robertson’s lesser-spotted triple error for Fulham’s second goal is emblematic of his decline, Diogo Jota’s fitness is unreliable, as are most things about Darwin Nunez. The midfield looks broadly fine, but there will probably be significant surgery elsewhere, to the point that half of the team next season might be different.
Which is not something you usually say about runaway champions.
When the time comes, they will celebrate a fantastic achievement enthusiastically and deservedly. But at the same time, there might be a strange nagging feeling at the back of their collective minds.
What did the Manchester derby say about both clubs – and the Premier League?
It felt fitting that the Manchester derby ended with Manchester United passing the ball along the edge of the penalty area, nobody willing or able to either shoot or provide a decent final ball, until the referee finally seemingly grew weary of it all and blew the final whistle.
To describe this game as dreary is probably giving it too much credit. The best you could say of it is that it happened. It was a football match that took place. Beyond that, what could anyone take from it? What will you remember, if you made it to the end?
There were virtually no moments of real quality, maybe aside from Omar Marmoush’s rocket shot in the closing stages that Andre Onana did pretty well to get behind, and Bruno Fernandes’s general performance.
You have to feel sorry for the United captain, the only player of any real class in his team who looks like he’s trying to do everything himself — not for reasons of misguided ego, but because he clearly knows he’s the only one who can.
Bruno Fernandes after United’s dreary draw with City (Michael Steele/Getty Images)
The rest of it wasn’t just boring or uneventful, but pretty sad.
There’s Ruben Amorim on the touchline, desperately hoping to see some signs of progress but having to squint pretty hard.
Then there’s his team, a collection of young players who currently look fairly clueless but might be much better in a different environment.
Take Patrick Dorgu, who was fairly dreadful but you have the sense could be a decent player: he was signed by United in January because they were desperate for a very specific player, of which there are very few in the world, so he had to go straight in and be good immediately, which is a lot of pressure for a 20-year-old. If, say, Brighton had signed him and eased him in sensibly, he’d be OK.
And then there’s Kevin De Bruyne, an approximation of a once-great player who is still trying the things that once made him so brilliant, but they just aren’t coming off anymore. He will leave City and the Premier League a legend in the summer but, watching him now, you’re left with the sense that it would have been a better end had he departed last year.
It was fitting for the weekend as a whole: the top five all dropped points, the big winners being Newcastle who don’t play until Monday and find themselves two points off the likely Champions League places with two games in hand on everyone around them.
The longest current winning streak in the division is three games, jointly held by Aston Villa and… Wolves.
Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal, Nottingham Forest, Liverpool, United and City were all, to one degree or another, very poor.
So yes, the Manchester derby was awful. But at the same time, it didn’t seem out of place.
Have Southampton provided the anti-blueprint for promoted teams?
It’s official then: Southampton are down, their defeat to Tottenham on Sunday meaning their return to the Championship is confirmed with seven fixtures remaining, making it the earliest in terms of games that a team has ever been officially relegated. Even Derby in 2007-08 kept it going for 32 games.
To be down with nearly a fifth of the season remaining is embarrassing, as is managing to stand out as awful among this historically bad bottom three.
Are they the worst team the Premier League has ever seen? Maybe. All they have left now is to collect the two points that will mean they don’t finish with the lowest points total ever, the sort of minuscule reclamation of dignity that won’t really matter to anyone but the people involved, and maybe that Derby side from 17 years ago.
What they might do, of broader significance, is provide a blueprint of how not to approach a Premier League season as a promoted side.
Their transfer business is one place to start, with basically all of their recruits having disappointed, with the possible exception of Matheus Fernandes. Of course, assembling a team to challenge in the Premier League is extremely difficult but there was a lack of imagination in their recruitment and some theoretically key arrivals (Aaron Ramsdale, for example) came in at the last minute.
Aaron Ramsdale couldn’t keep Southampton up (Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Images)
Then there is how they played. There was no real point in suggesting to Russell Martin that he should play in a different way, because he was always going to be a stubborn fundamentalist and indeed, that’s why Southampton hired him. So, really, the blame for that doesn’t all lie with Martin, rather with the people that appointed him.
They should also be blamed for how long they waited to act: it was clear from very early on that it wasn’t working under Martin, but they kept him on until the 16th game, by which point it was basically all over anyway.
What this shambles of a season proves is that, as a promoted side, the way you play doesn’t really matter: the first season is about doing what you can to survive, by any means necessary, regardless of how ugly that is. That’s what Nottingham Forest and, to an extent, Bournemouth and Fulham did a couple of seasons ago and Brentford before that.
Then, when you are established and have the basis of a decent enough team, you start thinking about the football you actually want to play.
All of that is easier said than done, and even with the approach they chose, Southampton don’t have many excuses for just how bad they’ve been. But it’s something for the teams at the top of the Championship to think about.
Coming up
- One more game of a pretty weird Premier League round of games to go, and it’s Newcastle, who, after a rough weekend for most of those around them, suddenly look pretty good for a Champions League spot — even more so considering they will play Leicester City on Monday night.
- Tuesday sees some Women’s Nations League goodness: England are off to Belgium, while Spain vs Portugal could be lively and Germany face Scotland.
- Bored of an increasingly insipid Premier League season? Good news! The Champions League returns on Tuesday, and there are a couple of big-dog, heavyweight games to kick us off: it’s Bayern Munich vs Inter in Germany, while in London, it’s Arsenal vs Real Madrid. There’s no wrong answer when choosing which one of those to watch.
- And then on Wednesday, it’s Barcelona vs Borussia Dortmund and arguably the favourites for the whole thing, PSG, against Aston Villa, who will be bringing a familiar face: Marco Asensio, who is, of course, technically a PSG player.
- A few seasons will hinge on Thursday night in the Europa League — Spurs host Eintracht Frankfurt in the first leg of their quarter-final, while Manchester United are at Lyon and Rangers host Athletic Club, with Bodo/Glimt vs Lazio completing the line-up.
- Finally, your Euro line-up is completed with some piping-hot Conference League action: Chelsea are at Legia Warsaw for the first leg of their quarter-final, while elsewhere it’s Djurgarden vs Rapid Vienna, Real Betis vs Jagiellonia Bialystok and NK Celje vs Fiorentina.
- Manchester City. 115 (at least) charges. Verdict? Who knows.
(Top photos: Getty Images)
Sports
Law firm fighting for women’s sports in SCOTUS battle comments on ruling possibly impacting SJSU trans lawsuit
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A law firm leading the charge in the ongoing Supreme Court case over trans athletes in women’s sports has responded after a federal judge suggested the case’s ruling could impact a separate case involving a similar issue.
Colorado District Judge Kato Crews deferred ruling in motions to dismiss former San Jose State volleyball co-captain Brooke Slusser’s lawsuit against the California State University (CSU) system until after a ruling in the B.P.J. v. West Virginia Supreme Court case, which is expected to come in June.
Slusser filed the lawsuit against representatives of her school and the Mountain West Conference in fall 2024 after she allegedly was made to share bedrooms and changing spaces with trans teammate Blaire Fleming for a whole season without being informed that Fleming is a biological male.
Meanwhile, the B.P.J. case went to the Supreme Court after a trans teen sued West Virginia to block the state’s law that prevents males from competing in girls’ high school sports.
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is the primary law firm defending West Virginia in that case at the Supreme Court, and has now responded to news that Slusser’s lawsuit could be affected by the SCOTUS ruling.
“We hope the ruling from the Supreme Court will affirm that Title IX was designed to guarantee equal opportunity for women, not to let male athletes displace women and girl in competition. It is crucial that sports be separated by sex for not only the equal opportunity of women but for safety and privacy. Title IX should protect women’s right to compete in their own sports. Allowing men to compete in the female category reverses 50 years of advancement for women,” ADF Vice President of Litigation Strategies Jonathan Scruggs said.
Slusser’s attorney, Bill Bock of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, expects a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the legal defense representing West Virginia, thus helping his case.
(Left) Brooke Slusser (10) of the San Jose State Spartans serves the ball during the first set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Oct. 19, 2024. (Right) Blaire Fleming #3 of the San Jose State Spartans looks on during the third set against the Air Force Falcons at Falcon Court at East Gym on October 19, 2024 in Colorado Springs, Colorado. ( Andrew Wevers/Getty Images; Andrew Wevers/Getty Images)
“We’re looking forward to the case going forward,” Bock told Fox News Digital.
“I believe that the court is going to find that Title IX operates on the basis of biological sex, without regard to an assumed or professed gender, and so just like the congress and the members of congress that passed Title IX in 1972, allowed this specifically provided for in the regulations that there had to be separate men’s and women’s teams based on biological sex, I think the court is going to see that is the original meaning of the statute and apply it in that way, and I think it’s going to be a big win in women’s sports.”
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared prepared to rule in favor of West Virginia after oral arguments on Jan. 13.
Slusser spoke on the steps of the Supreme Court on Jan. 13 while oral arguments took place inside, sharing her experience with a divided crowd of opposing protesters.
With Fleming on its roster, SJSU reached the 2024 conference final by virtue of a forfeit by Boise State in the semifinal round. SJSU lost in the final to Colorado State.
Slusser went on to develop an eating disorder due to the anxiety and trauma from the scandal and dropped out of her classes the following semester. The eating disorder became so severe, that Slusser said she lost her menstrual cycle for nine months. Her decision to drop her classes resulted in the loss of her scholarship, and her parents said they had to foot the bill out of pocket for an unfinished final semester of college.
President Donald Trump’s Department of Education determined in January that SJSU violated Title IX in its handling of the situation involving Fleming, and has given the university an ultimatum to agree to a series of resolutions or face a referral to the Department of Justice.
Among the department’s findings, it determined that a female athlete discovered that the trans student allegedly conspired to have a member of an opposing team spike her in the face during a match. ED claims that “SJSU did not investigate the conspiracy, but later subjected the female athlete to a Title IX complaint for ‘misgendering’ the male athlete in online videos and interviews.”
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SJSU trans player Blaire Fleming and teammate Brooke Slusser went to a magic show and had Thanksgiving together in Las Vegas despite an ongoing lawsuit over Fleming being transgender. (Thien-An Truong/San Jose State Athletics)
SJSU Athletic Director Jeff Konya told Fox News Digital in a July interview that he was satisfied with how the university handled the situation involving Fleming.
“I think everybody acted in the best possible way they could, given the circumstances,” Konya said.
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Sports
Myles Garrett cited for speeding a ninth time, an elite pass rusher seemingly always in a rush
Myles Garrett is in a hurry to become the greatest pass rusher in NFL history. The Cleveland Browns All-Pro defensive end set the single-season sack record in 2025 and has cracked the top 20 career leaders after only nine seasons.
“I’m going to take that down, and I prefer I take it down in the next five years,” Garrett told Casino Guru News last month.
Off the field, however, his urgency to get from point A to B is a problem. He’s accumulating speeding tickets at an alarming rate.
On Feb. 21, Garrett was handed his ninth speeding ticket since his NFL career began in 2017. He was cited for driving 94 mph in a 70-mph zone on Interstate 71 between Cleveland and Columbus, Ohio.
The citation from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office says Garrett was driving his green 2024 Porsche at 1:35 a.m., returning home after attending a Miami of Ohio basketball game in Oxford.
Body cam footage shows the officer telling Garrett that she kept the charge under 100 mph so that a court appearance wouldn’t be mandatory. Garrett reportedly still holds a Texas driver’s license — he attended Texas A&M — and told the officer that he did not have an Ohio license.
Cleveland Browns’ Myles Garrett wears a jacket displaying his girlfriend Chloe Kim before the women’s snowboarding halfpipe finals at the 2026 Winter Olympics, in Livigno, Italy.
(Lindsey Wasson / AP)
The officer wrote that the famously affable Garrett was “kind and cooperative,” and that drugs and alcohol were not a factor.
Garrett’s need for speed flies in the face of his persona. He has written poetry since high school, peppers social media with inspirational sayings and donates time and money to several charities.
His girlfriend is two-time gold-medal-winning U.S. Olympic snowboarder Chloe Kim, for whom he wrote a poem he shared on social media: “You enrapture fools to kings, and exist without a peer, put on this Earth for many things, but our love is why you’re here.”
Verse hasn’t slowed his roll. On Aug. 9 he was cited for ticket No. 8, clocked at 100 mph in a 60-mph zone in a Cleveland suburb a day after the Browns returned home from a preseason game at Carolina.
Garrett’s seventh ticket followed a frightening crash in 2022. He flipped his gray 2021 Porsche 911 Turbo S off State Road in Sharon Township and he and a female passenger were injured. He was cited for failing to control his vehicle due to unsafe speeds on what had been a slick roadway.
A witness told a responding police officer that Garrett’s vehicle went airborne, took out a fire hydrant and rolled three times. Garrett sustained shoulder and biceps sprains and was sidelined for the Browns’ game that week against the Atlanta Falcons. His companion was not seriously injured.
Cleveland television station WKYC reported that in September 2021 Garrett was stopped twice in a 24-hour period — for driving 120 and 105 mph. The infractions occurred on Interstate 71 in Medina County, where the speed limit is 70 mph, and he paid fines of $267 and $287.
A year earlier, Garrett was cited for driving 100 mph in a 65-mph zone of Interstate 77 — again while driving a Porsche — and paid a $308 fine. He accumulated his first batch of speeding tickets in 2017 and 2018, and the police reports recite similar circumstances: Garrett driving well over the speed limit, cited without incident, paid a nominal fine.
The piddly fines certainly aren’t a deterrent. Garrett, 30, and the Browns agreed to a four-year contract extension in March 2025 that made him the highest-paid non-quarterback in NFL history at the time. The deal pays the seven-time All-Pro more than $40 million a season and includes more than $123 million in guaranteed money.
He set the NFL single-season sack record with 23.0 last season, surpassing the 22.5 accumulated by T.J. Watt and Michael Strahan. Garrett has 125.5 career sacks, averaging 14 a season, a pace that would enable him to break Bruce Smith’s career record of 200 in five years.
“That is definitely on my mind to go out there and get,” Garrett said. “That’s a goal I’ve had for years now since college.”
Garrett has declined to discuss his driving habits.
“I’d honestly prefer to talk about football and this team than anything I’m doing off the field other than the back-to-school event that I did the other day,” he told reporters after ticket No. 8 in August, referring to a charity appearance.
“I try to keep my personal life personal. And I’d rather focus on this team when I can.”
Sports
Keith Olbermann under fire for calling Lou Holtz a ‘scumbag’ after legendary coach’s death
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Former ESPN broadcaster Keith Olbermann once again incited backlash on social media Wednesday after he called late legendary college football coach Lou Holtz a “legendary scumbag” in an X post on the day Holtz was announced dead.
“Legendary scumbag, yes,” Olbermann wrote in response to a clip of Holtz criticizing former President Joe Biden in 2020 for supporting abortion rights.
Olbermann received scathing criticism in response to his post on X.
“You’re a scumbag that needs mental help,” one X user wrote to Olbermann.
One user echoed that sentiment, writing to Olbermann, “You’re the real scumbag here. Lou Holtz had more class, integrity, and genuine decency in his pinky finger than you’ll ever show in your lifetime.”
Another user wrote, “You’re a grumpy, lonely, Godless man. All the things Lou Holtz was not.”
Keith Olbermann speaks onstage during the Olbermann panel at the ESPN portion of the 2013 Summer Television Critics Association tour at the Beverly Hilton Hotel July 24, 2013, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)
Olbermann has made it a pattern of sharing politically charged far-left statements that are often combative and ridiculed on social media, typically resulting in immense backlash.
After the U.S. men’s hockey team’s gold medal win, Olbermann heavily criticized the team for accepting an invitation from President Trump to the State of the Union address. Olbermann wrote on X that any members of the men’s team who attended the event were “declaring their indelible stupidity and misogyny,” while praising the women’s team for declining the invitation.
In January, Olbermann attacked former University of Kentucky women’s swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler for celebrating a women’s rights rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court during oral arguments for two cases focused on the legality of biological male trans athletes in women’s sports.
Former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz listens before being presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House in Washington, D.C., Dec, 3, 2020. (Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“It’s still about you trying to find an excuse for a lifetime wasted trying to succeed in sports without talent,” Olbermann wrote in response to Wheeler’s post.
In 2025, Olbermann faced significant backlash after posting (and later deleting) a message on X aimed at CNN contributor Scott Jennings, that said, “You’re next motherf—–,” shortly after the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.
Holtz was a stern supporter of President Donald Trump, even saying in February 2024 that Trump needed to “coach America back to greatness!”
Near the end of Trump’s first term, shortly after former President Joe Biden defeated him in the 2020 election, Trump awarded Holtz with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award of the United States.
After Holtz’s death was announced Wednesday, several top GOP figures paid tribute to the coach on social media.
Those GOP lawmakers included senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala.; Todd Young, R-Ind.; Tom Cotton, R-Ark.; and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; representatives Greg Murphy, R-N.C.; David Rouzer, R-N.C.; Erin Houchin, R-Ind.; and Steve Womack, R-Ark.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis; Indiana Gov. Mike Braun; U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon; and Rudy Giuliani.
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Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, addresses the America First Policy Institute’s America First Agenda Summit at the Marriott Marquis July 26, 2022. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc)
At the time of publication, prominent Democrat leaders have appeared silent on Holtz’s passing, including prominent Democrats with a football background.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who worked as an assistant high school football coach; Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who was a recruiting target for Holtz in 1986 as a college prospect; Rep. Colin Allred, D-Texas, who played in the NFL; and Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Ill., who played football for the University of Illinois, have not posted acknowledging Holtz’s death.
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