Former Liverpool star Pennant joins non-league Billericay Town

Brentford have confirmed the arrival of centre-back Sepp van den Berg from Liverpool, in a deal worth an initial £20million.

Van den Berg joined Liverpool from PEC Zwolle as a 17-year-old but never made a Premier League appearance for the Reds, his four outings for the club coming in cup competitions.

He has enjoyed loan spells at Preston North End, Schalke and Mainz in the last four seasons, but was always deemed likely to pursue a permanent move this year, with Virgil van Djik, Ibrahima Konate and Jarell Quansah ahead of him in the pecking order.

Brentford – who also signed attacking midfielder Fabio Carvalho from Liverpool earlier this month – have now won the race for his signature, reportedly seeing off competition from Bundesliga champions Bayer Leverk…

Jarrod Bowen feels like he has returned to the England set-up in the form of his life as the West Ham forward prepares to fulfil a childhood dream of playing at Wembley.

Having come through at Hereford and flourished at Hull, the 26-year-old is well on the way to club great status at the London Stadium.

Bowen fired the Hammers to Europa Conference League glory in June’s unforgettable final against Fiorentina and has shone in the early stages of this season, scoring five in nine appearances.

That form helped the forward to earn his first England call-up since September 2022, shortly before signing a new deal until 2030 at the London Stadium.

“A really special week,” Bowen said. “Obviously got the call on Thursday before our European game so had tha…

Juanfran said an emotional goodbye to Atletico Madrid as he prepares to leave when his contract expires in June, claiming he came a Viking and I leave as an Indian.

Atleti arranged a ceremony where the experienced right-back made a departing speech and was hailed by president Enrique Cerezo before being gifted a signed shirt.

These are my last few days at Atletico, I hope to return soon, this is my home. They have been wonderful years, the best of my career, Juanfran said.

It is an honour to be considered a legend of this club and it is incredible that people think I m one of them.

The Spain international has made 355 appearances for Los Rojiblancos since joining from Osasuna in 2011 and has won seven trophies, famously including LaLiga in 2013-14, on…

Ghana coach Kwesi Appiah believes the team s captaincy issue is behind them, believing they are now well prepared for the Africa Cup of Nations.

The Black Stars begin their campaign against Benin on Tuesday, but their build-up to the tournament was marred by Asamoah Gyan s retirement, a decision he backtracked on, as he was removed as captain.

Andre Ayew was instead named skipper, with the returning Gyan given the role of general captain .

But Appiah insists there is unity within his Ghana team.

The captaincy is nothing, he said, appearing alongside Ayew. The most important thing is to have unity in camp.

I think this is the best camp I have ever witnessed in my six or eight camps with the national team.

Coach Kwesi Appiah and Black S…

Cristiano Ronaldo has reached 300 goals in LaLiga, furthering his reputation as one of the finest attackers to ever feature in Spain s top flight.

Ronaldo reached the landmark by grabbing Real Madrid s second goal against Getafe on Saturday, after Gareth Bale had opened the scoring.

The Portugal star has reached 300 LaLiga goals in just 286 appearances, notably quicker than Lionel Messi, who needed 334 outings to bring up his triple-century.

Ronaldo had a slow start to the campaign, scoring only twice in the league before December as Madrid made a poor title defence.

However, since returning from the mid-season break, Ronaldo has been on fire, the 33-year-old scoring 11 goals in his last seven appearances.

Here, we examine Ronaldo s incredible…

Both Ramos and McGregor are heavily tattooed and often bushily bearded, and the Madrid skipper captioned his video:  When you re ready, @thenotoriousmma.

That was followed by a winking emoji, with Ramos probably well aware he would come off second best in the Octagon against the man from Dublin.

McGregor (22-4-0) is currently in training for a UFC comeback, having done a U-turn on the retirement he announced in June.

He will fight against American Dustin Poirier on January 23 in a rematch of their September 2014 bout at UFC 178, with the clash expected to happen in Abu Dhabi.

Ramos, meanwhile, was recently named among the 11 nominations for The Best FIFA men s player award, with the 34-year-old having led Madrid to last season s LaLiga title.

…

As for the visitors, suffering a 5-1 hammering against Slovakia in their last Group E appearance, Head Coach Nikola Jurčević has seen his side lose each of their opening three contests and have all but seen their qualifying ambitions disappear once again. Already stuck at the foot of Group E, a huge part of Azerbaijan s continued issues has been their defensive struggles. Already shipping 10 goals in their opening three appearances, Milli have lost four of their last five matches across all competitions and have not picked up a single victory since November 2018. A squad the is desperately low on both form and confidence, Azerbaijan have also famously struggled when up against Friday s hosts. Never recording a victory over Wales in any of their seven meetings and losing six of those c…

On October 16, 2004, Lionel Messi got his first taste of competitive senior football for Barcelona, coming on as a substitute for Deco against city rivals Espanyol.

Few watching at the time could have imagined quite what was to come from the Argentinian maestro, who has gone on to become arguably the greatest player of all time.

Messi s influence at Barca has become unrivalled, scoring 604 times to become their all-time leading scorer.

Fittingly, the 15th anniversary of his Barca debut comes on the same day he was presented with the European Golden Shoe for last season, and we have looked back at 10 of his very best goals in action for Barcelona.

15 years ago he debuted with the first team Today he will receive his sixth  

The best in history. …

Manchester City picked up from where they left off in 2021 by battling to a late 2-1 win over Arsenal, extending their lead at the Premier League summit.

A Riyad Mahrez penalty and a last-gasp strike from Rodri cancelled out Bukayo Saka s first-half opener after Gabriel Magalhaes received a needless red card for the Gunners in an action-packed game – the first top-flight match of 2022.

City s 11th league win in a row means they end New Year s Day with an 11-point advantage at the top, a tally bettered by only two clubs in the competition s history on January 1 – Manchester United in 1993-94 and City themselves in 2017-18 (both 12 points).

There were also victories for Tottenham and West Ham, the London pair seeing off Watford and Crystal Palace respectively…

Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta has insisted discussions over the future of Granit Xhaka will wait until the end of the season.

Xhaka has been central to the Gunners’ title bid this campaign but is approaching the final 12 months of his deal at the Emirates Stadium.

Bayer Leverkusen are interested in taking the Switzerland international back to Germany, where the midfielder played for four years with Borussia Monchengladbach before he moved to England in 2016.

It has been a rollercoaster journey for Xhaka at Arsenal but his manager is eager to finish strongly in the final two games before he switches his attention to a number of contract scenarios.

Arteta said: “The clarity is there. He is a player that has played I think every minute since I have been t…