Oliver Kay

United Kingdom

Senior Football Writer at The Athletic

Senior football writer @TheAthleticFC @TheAthletic Author of Forever Young: The Story of Adrian Doherty @ForeverYoungAD https://t.co/ogl3TwxP0o

Articles

Aston Villa 3 PSG 2 (4-5 agg)

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Jacob Tanswell |Oliver Kay

Aston Villa are out of the Champions League after a 3-2 win against Paris Saint-Germain saw them lose 5-4 on aggregate to the Ligue 1 leaders. The home side's energetic start mirrored the heady atmosphere inside Villa Park, but PSG absorbed it and used Villa's understandable need to attack against them, scoring twice from typically rapid counter-attacks. The first came from Achraf Hakimi after Emi Martinez had spilled a cut-back, the second from his fellow full-back Nuno Mendes.
Premier League's failure to prevent Chelsea's latest accounting tricks shows it can't regulate its clubs

1 week ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay

At various points over the past few years, people have stopped and asked how on earth Chelsea could afford to spend such enormous sums in the transfer market without falling foul to the Premier League's financial regulations.
'I was really emotional at the end'

3 weeks ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay

On the final stretch into Ipswich, seeing the floodlights in the distance, Marcus Stewart tries to prepare himself for the wave of emotion about to wash over him. Twenty-five years have passed since he signed for Ipswich Town. It is where he spent the best years of his career, his goals propelling them into the Premier League and then into Europe. Coming back to Portman Road has always felt special, but those homecomings have become more poignant in recent years. This one has been made on foot.
Newcastle's moment of triumph felt so wholesome. But we still need to talk about why it wasn't perfect

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay

There was something familiar about the roar that filled Wembley Stadium at 6.30pm on Sunday. It wasn't just ear-splittingly loud. It was visceral, fuelled not just by joy or euphoria but by all the frustration and longing that had built up for decades inside every Newcastle United fan.
tragic tale of boy who was as good as Giggs

1 month ago | thetimes.com | Oliver Kay
Thomas Tuchel picking a 34-year-old Jordan Henderson for England underlines two inconvenient truths

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay

There is a biography of Thomas Tuchel entitled Rulebreaker, and it plays to a certain image: an innovator, an outside-the-box thinker, the kind of maverick many England fans were calling for when the national team kept falling just short under the straight-laced Gareth Southgate.
Who should make Thomas Tuchel's first England squad?

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay |Jack Pitt-Brooke

Five months on from being appointed, we will finally get the first signs of what a Thomas Tuchel-managed England team might look like when he names his initial squad on Friday. The German, who led Chelsea to win the 2020-21 Champions League, was hired with next year's World Cup in mind, and his tenure will begin with the first two (of eight) group-stage qualifiers against Albania next Friday, March 21, and Latvia three days later, both at Wembley.
Donnarumma shootout heroics seal dramatic win

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Gregg Evans |Oliver Kay |Mark Carey

It was a tie which always looked like having the potential to thrill - and Liverpool vs Paris-Saint-Germain did not disappoint. Trailing 1-0 from the first leg, PSG took the game into extra-time thanks to Ousmane Dembele's early goal and then to penalties after a tense additional half-an-hour yielded no more goals. From there, Gianluigi Donnarumma was the hero, saving from Darwin Nunez and Curtis Jones as PSG earned a 4-2 win on spot-kicks.
Premier League fans are revolting

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay

On the Old Trafford forecourt, crowds emerge from the Manchester United megastore weighed down by bags of merchandise, while other fans look for the perfect spot for a photograph.
Eight under-the-radar players to watch

1 month ago | nytimes.com | Oliver Kay |Rory Smith

The Champions League gets serious this week as the round of 16 begins. To get to this point, 160 games have been completed - now there are just 29 left to play. But those 29 are the most consequential matches of the competition, the moments when each team's key players must step up and perform. But who should we be keeping an eye on? The superstars, sure, but you can't land the European Cup with stellar names alone.