Headlines
EPL Winds Down Today as Man City, Liverpool Hope for Glory
Liverpool will have to make Premier League history on Sunday if they are to overhaul leaders Manchester City and end their 29-year title drought on a dramatic final day of a thrilling title race.
It is the eighth duel for the Premier League crown to go down to the last round of fixtures, but Liverpool would be the first team to move above the leaders on the final day if Jurgen Klopp’s men get their hands on the trophy.
Pep Guardiola’s City are firm favourites to retain the title as they travel to lowly Brighton with a one-point lead over second placed Liverpool, who face Wolves at Anfield.
The last team to start the final day in first place and not win the title were Liverpool in 1989, when Arsenal’s 2-0 win at Anfield clinched the old First Division.
Whoever gets their hands on the silverware will have earned it the hard way after phenomenal campaigns from both clubs.
City, on 95 points, have won their past 13 Premier League matches to wipe out a seven-point lead for Liverpool and are on the brink of becoming the first team to win successive titles since Manchester United in 2009.
Klopp’s men, with 94 points, have recovered from a mid-season stumble to record eight straight victories and are agonisingly close to their first English top-flight title since 1990.
The 18-time league winners face the scarcely credible scenario of ending the season with the third-highest points tally in Premier League history and a single defeat yet still missing out on the title.
City look almost certain to finish off the job on the south coast and Guardiola admits he has so much faith in his players that he might not even give a pre-match team-talk at the Amex Stadium.
“I don’t have to say anything to motivate them. I think my speech on Sunday will be zero,” he said.
“They want to win the Premier League. From what I saw in the training sessions, they want to win it, knowing that we can lose it.
“We saw in the Champions League in the last week why this game is amazing. But we want to win. So we are going to go out there at Brighton to try to win the game.”
City cannot quite match the record 100 points they mustered last season but they have shown their ability to dig deep in recent weeks.
Guardiola’s side have been free-scoring for the majority of the campaign, racking up 91 goals, but three of their past four wins have been 1-0 victories.
A second consecutive title for the club, who remain on course for a historic domestic treble, would underline their status as the dominant force in the English game.
– ‘It’s not in our hands’ –
Klopp will have to re-focus his players’ minds on their clash with Wolves at Anfield after their Champions League semi-final heroics against Barcelona as they cling to the hope that City will slip up.
“We think about Wolves now,” said Klopp, who has not won a major trophy since 2012.
“It was for sure one of the best moments in football history, not only Liverpool. But it has nothing to do with the weekend except that we should be confident.”
The Liverpool narrative has changed dramatically since they overturned a 3-0 first-leg deficit against the Spanish champions to reach the Champions League final 4-3 on aggregate on Tuesday.
They now know that even if they fall short they have the chance to become champions of Europe for a sixth time if they can get past Tottenham in Madrid on June 1.
The Anfield faithful are desperate to see their team at the top of the domestic tree again, but regardless of whether Liverpool finish the weekend on top, Klopp insists he is happy with his team’s progress.
“Sunday is our last Premier League game. If we can win it, it’s not in our hands what we get, but it doesn’t make our season a little bit less good. It’s just a different finish,” he said.
Behind the runaway front two, all the issues in the Premier League are virtually done and dusted.
Barring a spectacular swing in goal difference, Tottenham will finish above Arsenal and mathematically seal the remaining Champions League spot alongside Chelsea, while the highest Manchester United can finish is fifth.
Wolves, in seventh place, cannot be caught and will earn a Europa League spot provided Watford do not beat City in the FA Cup final.
Fixtures:
Sunday (1400 GMT)
Brighton v Manchester City, Burnley v Arsenal, Crystal Palace v Bournemouth, Fulham v Newcastle, Leicester v Chelsea, Liverpool v Wolves, Manchester United v Cardiff, Southampton v Huddersfield, Tottenham v Everton, Watford v West Ham
AFP
By Eric Elezuo
The Presidency has announce that President Bola Tinubu will be departing Abuja to (Wednesday) for Paris, France, on a ‘short working visit’.
A statement to the effect, signed and released by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, was however silent on the shape of international relationship the working visiting the president was embarking on will take, but noted that Tinubu will use the ‘retreat’ to review his administration’s mid-term performance and assess key milestones, as well as review progress of ongoing reforms.
While acknowledging that the president will spend ‘about a fortnight’ on the trip, the statement added he would supervise administration while away.
The statement in details
PRESIDENT TINUBU TO EMBARK ON WORKING VISIT TO PARIS
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu will depart for Paris, France, today on a short working visit.
During the visit, the President will appraise his administration’s mid-term performance and assess key milestones.
He will also use the retreat to review the progress of ongoing reforms and engage in strategic planning ahead of his administration’s second anniversary.
This period of reflection will inform plans to deepen ongoing reforms and accelerate national development priorities in the coming year.
Recent economic strides reinforce the President’s commitment to these efforts, as evidenced by the Central Bank of Nigeria reporting a significant increase in net foreign exchange reserves to $23.11 billion—a testament to the administration’s fiscal reforms since 2023 when net reserves were $3.99 billion.
While away, President Tinubu will remain fully engaged with his team and continue to oversee governance activities.
He will return to Nigeria in about a fortnight.
President Bola Tinubu has sacked the Group Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, Mele Kyari.
Tinubu also dissolved its board, removing the Chairman, Chief Pius Akinyelure.
Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on information and strategy, announced this in a statement on Wednesday.
Onanuga said Tinubu invoked his powers under section 59(2) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 to carry out the sweeping reconstitution, citing the need for “enhanced operational efficiency, restored investor confidence, and a more commercially viable NNPC”.
He announced that Tinubu has now approved a new 11-man board, which has Engineer Bashir Bayo Ojulari as the Group CEO and Ahmadu Musa Kida as non-executive chairman.
According to the statement, “Adedapo Segun, who replaced Umaru Isa Ajiya as the chief financial officer last November, has been appointed to the new board by President Tinubu.
“Six board members, non-executive directors, represent the country’s geopolitical zones. They are Bello Rabiu, North West, Yusuf Usman, North East, and Babs Omotowa, a former managing director of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas( NLNG), who represents North Central.
“President Tinubu appointed Austin Avuru as a non-executive director from the South-South, David Ige as a Non-executive director from the South West, and Henry Obih as a non-executive director from the South East.
“Mrs Lydia Shehu Jafiya, permanent secretary of the Federal Ministry of Finance, will represent the ministry on the new board, while Aminu Said Ahmed will represent the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.”
He added said that all the appointments are effective today, April 2.
President Donald Trump claimed on Monday that Americans want him to run for another term, a step banned by the US constitution but which he continues describing as possible.
“People are asking me to run,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about the possibility of a third term.
“I don’t know. I never looked into it. They do say there’s a way you can do it, but I don’t know about that, but I have not looked into it,” Trump said.
Trump was asked about the prospect of a race pitting him against former president Barack Obama, who served two terms.
“That would be a good one, I’d like that,” Trump said.
“I’m not joking” about the idea of seeking a third term, Trump said Sunday in an interview with NBC News.
The 78-year-old Republican served from 2017 to 2021 and began his second term in the White House on January 20.
The first US president, George Washington, established a tradition by not seeking a third term after completing his second one in 1797.
But this tradition was not formally added to the US constitution until after World War II, with the ratification of the 22nd amendment in 1951.
It says no one can be elected president more than two times.
