Lionel Messi did not speak with reporters after his Major League Soccer debut, a violation of the league’s media rules

Eddie Howe had admitted the hardest part is yet to come for Sandro Tonali after watching him play a cameo role in Newcastle’s 4-0 Premier League victory over Crystal Palace. The 23-year-old Italy international, who could face a lengthy ban if he is found to have breached betting rules by an ongoing investigation in Italy, was applauded warmly by the Toon Army before, during and after Saturday’s game at St James’ Park. Tonali and his club do not yet know when he will discover his fate, but head coach Howe is convinced the support he has received to date will help him whatever comes his way. Howe said: “Let’s wait and see, but yes, I think the hardest part is ahead regardless of what happens. “Immediately, you get a lot of attention and people are talking about the situation. He’s had the love of the supporters today, but that’s difficult to maintain over a long period of time. Who knows what’s ahead? “I just think it’s great for him to know he’s got the support, not just of the senior management at the football club and the manager, but also the support of the supporters and they’re the most important people.” Tonali was introduced as a 69th-minute replacement for Bruno Guimaraes with the Magpies already four goals to the good in what could conceivably be his final game for several months if he is found to have broken the rules and is suspended. Whether he is able to be involved in Wednesday night’s Champions League clash with Borussia Dortmund on Tyneside remains to be seen, but whichever team Howe sends out will kick off brimming with confidence after a comprehensive win over the Eagles. Jacob Murphy set the ball rolling with a fourth-minute lob which owed a great deal to good fortune – Palace boss Roy Hodgson described it as a “freak” goal – and further strikes from Anthony Gordon and Sean Longstaff before the break and Callum Wilson after it wrapped up the points with the minimum of fuss. Howe said: “It was a really important game today. It can’t be underestimated how tough those games are because you don’t have a full squad, we’re having to manage players who have travelled a long way and had a big mental load for their countries. “So I’m really pleased with the players’ response to that because these are very tough games. “Crystal Palace don’t concede many goals. We knew the first goal today was going to be really, really important and thankfully we got it quite early.” There's nothing really positive to say from our point of view Crystal Palace boss Roy Hodgson Hodgson’s emotions were understandably different after his best-laid plans were ripped apart before the break. He said: “We came here thinking and believing that we could give Newcastle a good game and maybe even make life a little bit difficult for them, but we fell woefully short in that department. “The first half was really nowhere near what we’ve been able to do up to now and what I thought we would still do despite the fact that this is a tough ask against such a good team because they are a hard team to defend against. “But it didn’t work out and at half-time, we were just looking really at salvaging something from the game and not going away totally and utterly dejected because we’d conceded even more goals than the four we conceded. “There’s nothing really positive to say from our point of view.” Read More Pep Guardiola hails ‘exceptional’ Brighton after Man City return to winning ways Thomas Frank: Five-year anniversary meal will taste better after Brentford win Rob Edwards salutes Luton super-sub Elijah Adebayo after equaliser at Forest England skipper Jos Buttler questions his decision to field first in latest loss Skipper Rob du Preez gives Sale deserved win against Leicester A true gentleman – David Beckham pays tribute to ‘national hero’ Bobby Charlton

Manchester City bid for a trophy treble in Saturday’s Champions League final against Inter Milan. Having seen off Manchester United at Wembley to add the FA Cup to their Premier League title, City can match the feat previously only achieved in English football by their cross-city rivals. Here, the PA news agency looks at how this season’s City side compares to United’s celebrated 1998-99 group. Team performance United lost only three games in their treble-winning season but a remarkable 21 draws in 57 games across the three competitions in question sees City overshadow them in most other statistical categories. Excluding the League Cup from both teams’ records and with their 57th and final game still to play, Pep Guardiola’s side have 41 wins (73.2 per cent) to United’s 33 (57.9 per cent), 144 goals to 121 and 25 clean sheets to 20. They have conceded only 39 goals to their predecessors’ 56, scoring an average of 2.57 per game and conceding 0.70 compared to 2.12 against 0.98 for United. City have also scored four goals or more on 16 occasions, 28.6 per cent of their matches and twice as many as that United side – and they have an unsurprising advantage when the two teams’ top scorers are compared… Player stats Erling Haaland’s extraordinary 51-goal contribution to City’s potential treble had no equivalent in a United squad that shared the burden much more equally. Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole formed a potent front two, Yorke edging his strike partner by 18 league goals to 17 and by 29 to 24 in all competitions. Super-sub Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scored 12 league goals despite starting only nine games and 15 in the three competitions with just 14 starts alongside 20 appearances from the bench. Teddy Sheringham was even more sparingly used, but his four goals included the vital equaliser in Barcelona before Solskjaer’s even-later winner. Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs also hit double figures, with David Beckham on nine. Haaland won this year’s Premier League Golden Boot with a record 36 goals and will receive the same honour in the Champions League. His 12 goals – including five in a game against RB Leipzig – have him four clear of the pack and no other finalist has more than four. He has been backed up by fellow summer signing Julian Alvarez with 15 goals in the league, FA Cup and Champions League, the same as Phil Foden, plus 13 from Riyad Mahrez and double figures too for cup final hero Ilkay Gundogan and Kevin De Bruyne. Eight of Sir Alex Ferguson’s squad featured in 50 or more of the 57 games that led to the treble – goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, defenders Gary Neville and Jaap Stam, midfield trio David Beckham, Roy Keane and Paul Scholes, and Cole and Yorke up front. Just Rodri and Bernardo Silva can boast the same figure for City this term as Guardiola’s famed rotation policy and squad depth shows its worth. Haaland and Gundogan have hit 50 in all competitions, as can Jack Grealish if he plays in Saturday’s final. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Caitlin Foord signs new Arsenal contract Man City’s holy grail and Pep’s tactics – Champions League final talking points Chelsea’s owners pledge to improve and say they are optimistic over future

PSG have confirmed the signing of Lee Kang-in from Mallorca.

A new biennial international rugby competition featuring teams from the Six Nations and the southern hemisphere is set to start in 2026

White Sox outfielder Luis Robert Jr. is back in the starting lineup after being sidelined by a sprained right pinky finger

A review of how VAR is used in the English game is under way after miscommunication between officials led to a Liverpool goal being wrongly disallowed on Saturday. Here, the PA news agency provides an update on where we are. What happened? On-field referee Simon Hooper and his assistants flagged Luis Diaz offside after he fired in what would have been the opening goal in the Reds’ Premier League match at Tottenham on Saturday. Crucially, VAR Darren England thought the on-field decision had been onside. So although he followed the correct procedure in drawing lines and identifying that Diaz was onside, by telling the on-field officials “check complete” they thought their decision to give offside had been upheld by the check. Only in the seconds which followed did the VAR operators realise their error, by which time play had restarted. Current protocols do not permit a decision to be revisited once that has happened. How did Liverpool react? The club issued a statement on Sunday night saying that sporting integrity had been undermined by the error and that they would “explore the range of options available given the clear need for escalation and resolution”. The club requested – and were sent – the audio of the incident before it was released publicly on Tuesday evening. What happens next? The first thing to say is that Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) admitted on Saturday evening that a “significant error” had occurred. As well as standing down England and the assistant VAR Daniel Cook for duties on Sunday and Monday, plus the weekend to come, it has identified some “key learnings” from the incident. These include the development of a new communications protocol to enhance clarity between referees and VARs. Phil Bentham has been brought into PGMOL from rugby league to improve communication between officials and will no doubt be key to this work. VARs will now also confirm the outcome of their check with their assistants in the booth, before relaying the final decision to on-field officials. PGMOL and the Football Association will also review the policy allowing officials to be involved in domestic league matches overseas, after England and Cook were part of a team which oversaw a game in the United Arab Emirates last Thursday, arriving back in the UK on Friday morning. What has the Premier League said? The league issued a statement saying that the Diaz incident highlighted “systemic weaknesses” in the VAR process and said a wider review to seek consistently-higher standards would now take place. Besides improving communication between officials, what else could change? The incident has led to renewed calls from fans and pundits to allow the conversations between VARs and referees to be broadcast live. Eighty per cent of fans supported this being introduced in a Football Supporters’ Association survey published in the summer and the boss of TNT Sports – one of the league’s key broadcast partners – said in July it was a “huge missed opportunity” not to have such a system in place. While the Premier League has never publicly given its view on live audio, it was part of a World Leagues Forum poll published in June which found 25 out of the 41 leagues surveyed supported its introduction. Crucially though, the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which sets the game’s laws, is understood not to have received any requests so far in the current cycle to trial a live audio system. What about in-stadium announcements like we had at the Women’s World Cup? To date this has been a FIFA-only trial, but IFAB is prepared to open it up to allow other competitions to take part. However, the announcements are limited to decisions where an on-field review is conducted by a referee at a pitchside monitor. Offside decisions such as the Diaz incident are not checked in this way. What about semi-automated offside? This is in operation in a number of major competitions, having first been trialled at the men’s World Cup in Qatar. However, the Premier League has so far opted not to introduce it. It can also be argued that it would not have helped in a situation like Diaz – the existing technology was used to identify that Diaz was onside, the mistake was human error, pure and simple.

Thursday's roundup of transfer rumours includes news on Man Utd's interest in Joao Felix, Barcelona's new approach for Bernardo Silva, PSG firming up interest in Harry Kane and more.

Arsenal seemed to be in control of Group B following a convincing win over PSV Eindhoven in their Champions League opener but a shock 2-1 defeat to Lens at the start of October has left them with work to do to secure a place in the knockout rounds. Tonight they travel to Spain for the first of two consecutive matches against Sevilla which could determine whether Mikel Arteta’s side reach the next stage of the competition or not. The Europa League champions have two points from their opening two games but should they defeat the Gunners in Spain and at the Emirates, Arteta’s side will be on the brink of an early exit. Sevilla’s head coach, Diego Alonso, replaced Jose Luis Mendilibar during the international break due to Sevilla’s poor domestic record this year and earned his team a 1-1 home draw against Real Madrid on Saturday. Can he cause a similar upset against Arsenal this evening? Follow all the action from the Champions League below and get the latest odds and tips for the match right here:

Miami Marlins centerfielder Jazz Chisholm Jr. was put on the 10-day injured list because of a right toe turf injury

Sri Lanka’s top order continued to struggle against Pakistan’s quicks as Naseem Shah and Shaheen Afridi made early inroads to reduce the hosts to 79 for four at lunch on the first day of the second test at Sinhalese Sports Club in Colombo

The Pittsburgh Steelers had one of the best NFL Drafts in recent memory, if expert grades are to be believed. But their UDFA class has some diamonds in the rough as well.In terms of targeting positions of need and selecting the best players available, it's tough to beat the Pittsburgh Steel...