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Sam Allardyce said Leeds chairman Andrea Radrizzani was “hugely frustrated and disappointed” as the club stand on the brink of relegation. The Premier League concludes on Sunday and Leeds must beat Tottenham at Elland Road while hoping relegation rivals Everton and Leicester both drop points in their final games. Majority shareholder Radrizzani boldly declared last summer that another relegation battle was “impossible” after Leeds had survived on the final day with victory at Brentford. But the odds of pulling off another great escape are even bigger this time round and Allardyce said: “He’s hugely frustrated and disappointed. “He didn’t expect at the start of the season that the club would be in this position. “He didn’t expect he would have to employ three managers to get out of this position. He’s hugely frustrated. “The only way you sort that out is at the end of the season, have a look at the whole structure of the football club, and do whatever needs to be done. “But in the meantime the only focus is one big game, one massive game for the players and for us all in controlling the destiny of Leeds, only by winning and hoping that other people lose. “It’s not what we wanted, but it’s the position we’re in.” Radrizzani is reported to be part of a consortium poised to complete a takeover of Italian club Sampdoria, in partnership with Paris St Germain owners Qatari Sports Investments. The Italian, who turned to Allardyce with four games left in a last-ditch bid to retain Leeds’ top-flight status, is expected to expedite the sale of his remaining shares to 49ers Enterprises. The financial arm of NFL franchise the San Francisco 49ers increased its stake in the club to 44 per cent at the end of 2021 and has an option to own 100 per cent by January next year. Allardyce has taken one point from his three games in charge since becoming Leeds’ third manager of the season. Marcelo Bielsa’s successor Jesse Marsch was sacked in February and his replacement Javi Gracia lasted 11 league games before he too was dismissed. Allardyce, open to talks about staying in the role whatever Sunday’s outcome, said: “We’ll try and take advantage of the fact we’ve still got a small window of opportunity open. “On the balance of where we are, there are two completely different avenues where the club goes down. “You can pencil things in, but the only way you can put it in ink is whether you’re in the Premier League or you’re not.” Allardyce invited in Leeds great Eddie Gray, plus former captains Gordon Strachan and Gary McAllister for inspirational talks with his players this week. The former England boss added: “They had very successful times here and I think on the mentality side it’s about improving our mentality to deliver. “So somebody speaking a different voice about football, about what they did at this club, how much they love this club, I think is really important.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Liverpool’s lack of final-day drama ‘completely new’ to boss Jurgen Klopp Frank Lampard will be ‘back at Chelsea many times’ as a fan after interim role Ruben Selles urges Southampton to end wretched season on positive note

Eddie Howe has vowed to adopt a siege mentality once again as Newcastle prepare for a first Champions League campaign in 20 years. The Magpies have dragged themselves from the thick of a Premier League relegation fight when the club’s new owners took control in October 2021 to Europe’s top table in the space of a remarkable 19 months. They have done so with the help of a £250million-plus investment, provided in large part by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which holds an 80 per cent stake, and the source of that wealth has prompted concerted criticism, with human rights campaign group Amnesty International in particular voicing concerns over “sportswashing”. That focus is only likely to increase as they strengthen further before taking to the European stage, but head coach Howe has insisted his mission will not be derailed as a result. He said: “We’ve been used to that from day one, to be honest. There’s been that feeling that popularity-wise, I don’t think we’re high up on people’s lists for various reasons. “You accept that, I’ve got no issue with that and almost we’ve tried to use that for our benefit and for our gain, really. “I’ve said we’re not here to be popular, we don’t care, really, about outside opinion. We very much care about inside opinion, we care about what the people of Newcastle think of us and what our supporters think. “We’ve tried to act in the right way and make them proud, that’s been our biggest focus.” Newcastle will bring down the curtain on a season which has delivered far more than they might have expected back in August at Chelsea on Sunday, where they will face a club which has spent around £600million since Todd Boehly completed his takeover last summer, but will end the campaign in the bottom half of the table. That tends to suggest that money alone is not the key to success, and the way Howe has blended his new arrivals with the players he inherited and has since improved markedly has been equally, if not more important. Asked if he regretted the focus on finance, the 45-year-old said: “I don’t really take it personally as in my achievement because it’s not really my achievement, it’s the achievement of the players who have committed to this season and what they’ve given. That would hurt me for them. I've said many times sitting here, it's not about money. Newcastle head coach Eddie Howe “I think the players deserve huge credit individually for some of the seasons that they’ve delivered and collectively for what they’ve done. “I’ve said many times sitting here, it’s not about money. Money has played a part, it’s been a contributing factor, of course it has. “But we’ve seen teams up and down the Premier League spend similar amounts of money and not have the success and not be as consistent as we have.” Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Liverpool’s lack of final-day drama ‘completely new’ to boss Jurgen Klopp Frank Lampard will be ‘back at Chelsea many times’ as a fan after interim role Ruben Selles urges Southampton to end wretched season on positive note

Previewing Crystal Palace's Premier League clash with Nottingham Forest on the final day of the Premier League season. Includes TV channel, team news, predicted lineups and score prediction.

Jurgen Klopp’s seasons at Anfield have tended to end with everything riding on the last game: Champions League qualification or winning the Champions League. Even the one that didn’t, in 2020, could culminate in a celebration, with Liverpool already champions of England for the first time in 30 years. Now comes a rare meaningless match, with Southampton certain to come bottom and Liverpool guaranteed to end up fifth, and a chance to reflect on what might have been. Last season threatened to be Liverpool’s greatest, when they closed in on a quadruple. After the false dawn of an emphatic Community Shield win over Manchester City, things soon started to go awry. “It was clear from a specific point on it would not be a historically good season,” said Klopp. Perhaps that specific point was the opening league game, and a disjointed, disappointing first hour against promoted Fulham. Or maybe their first match at Anfield, when Darwin Nunez, the flagship summer signing, was sent off on his home debut for headbutting Crystal Palace’s Joachim Andersen. Or possibly their third outing: a defeat at Old Trafford that kickstarted Erik ten Hag’s reign at Manchester United and to a team who ultimately pipped them to a top-four finish. For three-quarters of a season, Liverpool only mustered three away wins and did not muster three victories in a row, except when those fixtures were separated by a World Cup. Klopp nevertheless felt, and the facts supported him, that the mid-season break brought an improvement. “After the training camp during the World Cup, it was not that everything was great but the amount of points we have won since then is pretty good,” he said. “If we could have done that over the whole season, we would be in a different place.” He is right: only the Manchester clubs have more points over the last six months. However, it still went wrong over the course of Liverpool’s first 29 matches, when they dropped 43 points and were left at the risk of their lowest league finish since promotion in 1962. “I think we said everything about it, we are absolutely not happy with it,” said Klopp. “We made mistakes, we couldn’t deliver often enough and were not consistent enough.” Three particularly damning results, symptoms of that inconsistency and which could cost them Champions League football, were the defeats to Leeds, Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth, all then in the relegation zone. That they lost to Forest six days after beating City and were beaten at Bournemouth six days after scoring seven against United make each missed opportunities to generate momentum. “I really think this was not a season we will talk about,” reflected Klopp. “Maybe about parts but we failed to give the people more to enjoy.” Perhaps he was doubly wrong: Liverpool’s shortcomings can always bring anguish and anxiety while, amid mediocrity, there have been genuine highs: at Anfield against both Manchester clubs, winning home and away against Newcastle, the contrasting double against Tottenham, thrashing Leeds 6-1 and Rangers 7-1 on the road, the 9-0 demolition of Bournemouth. Yet each illustrated what could have been, not what ultimately was. There were causes. A crippling injury list felt a constant, with midfield the most affected department but lengthy absences of Luis Diaz and Diogo Jota feeling particularly telling in attack. There was the already infamous decision not to buy a midfielder last summer, which was compounded by Fabinho’s awful form, Naby Keita’s seemingly never-ending injuries, Thiago Alcantara’s perhaps predictable absences and signs of ageing from Jordan Henderson. There were mix-and-match combinations from Klopp all season, casting around in search of a solution before a late-season switch to bring Trent Alexander-Arnold infield alongside Fabinho and behind Curtis Jones and Henderson worked. It reflected two enduring issues: Alexander-Arnold’s defensive deficiencies at right-back had felt more pronounced when he was afforded less protection and the 4-3-3 formation that had served Klopp so well for years brought a rethink. There were flirtations with 4-4-2 and 4-2-3-1 before a spring switch towards 3-2-4-1. Klopp has started to argue that at most clubs, the manager changes inside seven-and-a-half years; at Liverpool, the manager is belatedly changing things. Maybe the most damaging change was not of his own volition. Sadio Mane’s move to Bayern Munich has worked out for neither club nor the player. Without him, with Roberto Firmino starting only 12 league games, there has been a different dynamic in the attack. In part the story of the season has lain in the erratic, compellingly watchable Nunez; thus far, he has been an imperfect fit in different combinations and, with decidedly mixed finishing, one of the great expected goals underachievers while Liverpool have struggled to press as rigorously. Maybe it is no coincidence their surge of 22 points from their last eight games came with Nunez largely a substitute. Transition was perhaps never going to be easy for Liverpool but has been jarringly awkward at times this season. And yet that recent run engenders optimism. Liverpool may have turned a corner; they never became as fractured as some of their rivals. “The dressing room is not in a bad mood,” Klopp said. “We have learned to deal with the situation. We didn’t get divided in one moment between manager and team, which is super helpful. We didn’t point fingers at each other.” They ended up seemingly pointed further forward than he had wanted, with Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, James Milner, Keita and Firmino all going, when Klopp had wanted to keep two of them. There will be Europa League football at Anfield next season, perhaps further sightings of Alexander-Arnold in midfield. But as the German’s worst year in England comes to an anticlimactic conclusion, it is with the last few weeks offering renewed hope it will be a one-off. Read More Jurgen Klopp: ‘If a player wants to leave Liverpool because of Champions League, I will drive them’ Mohamed Salah ‘devastated’ as Liverpool fail to qualify for Champions League Jurgen Klopp has ‘no worries’ over Mohamed Salah’s future at Liverpool Jurgen Klopp: ‘If a player wants to leave Liverpool, I will drive them’ Jurgen Klopp reacts to Mohammed Salah’s ‘no excuse’ tweet

How the final ten games of the Premier League season are expected to end. Will Everton have enough to beat the drop? Can Tottenham leapfrog Aston Villa and qualify for Europe, relegating Leeds in the process?

The Oakland Athletics are asking Nevada for $380 million for a 30,000 seat, $1.5 billion retractable roof stadium on the Las Vegas Strip

How 90min has predicted the final Premie League table to look. Which teams will avoid relegation and who will qualify for Europe?

Andrew McCutchen hit the 21st leadoff homer of his career, the first of four home runs off Seattle starter George Kirby, and the Pittsburgh Pirates matched a franchise record with seven long balls on their way to an 11-6 win over the Mariners

Chris Sale threw five strong innings, Kiké Hernández smacked a two-run homer and the Boston Red Sox snapped a four-game losing streak by beating the Arizona Diamondbacks 7-2

Hunter Brown struck out a career-high 10 over seven innings and retired 16 straight hitters during one stretch, Corey Julks drove in three runs on a pair of singles and the Houston Astros bounced back from being shut out the two previous games to beat the Oakland Athletics 5-2

Francisco Lindor homered and drove in four runs, leading Max Scherzer and the New York Mets past the Colorado Rockies 5-2

Brewers shortstop Willy Adames was taken to the hospital after getting hit by a foul ball off the bat of teammate Brian Anderson while in the dugout during Milwaukee’s game against the San Francisco Giants