Carrick delivers extraordinary monologue defending United; Dortmund take on the influencers: football – as it happened

Michael Carrick started his press conference with a 5m27s monologue – revisit that and all the football news and comment Álvaro Arbeloa’s been talking ahead of Fulham’s trip to Coventry on Saturday, and buoyed up by last weekend’s much needed win over Hull. “Nothing has changed for us,” insisted the manager, “we were not winning games but we believed in ourselves, we were doing so many things well, “The most important thing [about the Hull win] is we were in same situation against Manchester United and Ipswich but didn’t win but now we had to improve in our transition and did. We controlled the ball in their half better than before. ” As the Messi-Ronaldo rivalry faded, though, so too did the clásico’s relevance. This isn’t to say matches between Barcelona and Real Madrid no longer matter. They always have and always will. In 2026, however, it’s difficult to measure