Sam Cunningham

London

Football Correspondent at The i Paper

Chief football correspondent @theipaper Email: [email protected]

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Articles

How Liverpool are winning the title without touching the ball

1 week ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

There was something unnerving about playing Liverpool in the months after Arne Slot took over. But, at first, nobody could work out what. Every time they attacked, they seemed always to have an extra man available and unmarked – a full-back at the back post, a deeper lying midfielder making a late run, a winger that should’ve been marked somehow free. They were scoring freely: three past Manchester United, three past AC Milan, three past Bournemouth, five past West Ham.
Declan Rice scores two sensational free-kicks as Arsenal stun Real Madrid

2 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

Arsenal 3-0 Real Madrid (Rice 58′, 70′, Merino 75′ | Camavinga 90+3′ red card)EMIRATES — There are free-kicks, and then there are free-kicks. The sort of free-kicks that come along once in a thousand games, that are dissected for decades to come, immortalised in replays. And Declan Rice scored two of them in 12 minutes. Who knew he was even that good at free-kicks? Which to discuss first? The first is as good a place to start as any.
How do Southampton scout players? I went to find out

2 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

The game is about to kick off, the teams lined up in formation, and we have already hit a snag. Chris Robinson, Southampton’s head of academy recruitment, has agreed to let me tag along while he scouts an 18-year-old left-back at a non-league game. But as we sit in the tiny, sheltered stand at Test Park, in Southampton, I realise the problem. The kid isn’t starting. “That’s scouting life,” Robinson says. “It’s very accurate!”He’s come to watch Millbrook v Hamworthy Recreation to see Bobby Gorman.
PGMOL admits 'reckless' Tarkowski should have been sent off against Liverpool

2 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

The PGMOL – the body in charge of referees – has acknowledged that James Tarkowski should have been sent off in Everton‘s match against Liverpool. It sparked widespread disbelief when the defender was only shown a yellow card by referee Sam Barrott for a lunge on Alexis Mac Allister that caught the Liverpool midfielder just below the knee with his studs early in a heated Merseyside derby at Anfield. The Video Assistant Referee checked the decision but did not recommend Barrott reconsider it.
Retired footballers do not know what to do next - there is an unlikely solution

3 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

Liam Trotter was in Hanoi, Vietnam, when an email that changed the course of his life dropped into his inbox and led to him standing here, seconds before kick-off, being asked by former Premier League referee Lee Mason to check if he remembers which pockets his yellow and red cards are in.
In a week, Reading could cease to exist

3 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

In a little over a week, Reading could cease to exist. It is the sharpest end of the spectrum of consequences, but a point in time fans now genuinely fear since the EFL disqualified Dai Yongge as an owner and told him he had until 5 April to sell the club. How it emerged publicly that Dai had been struck off encapsulates everything about the mess the club has become, one that not so long ago touched the Premier League and was considered one of the shrewdest in the country.
Wembley’s paper aeroplane problem is out of control

4 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

Two minutes and 54 seconds and the first paper aeroplane could be spotted gliding around Wembley. It sailed over the press box, thrown from the tier of seats above, before swooping into the stand below. Even by England standards, that was an early one. Usually, you start seeing them around halfway through the first half. If not then, at the very latest early in the second. There was one seen 14 minutes into the Nations League game against Finland last September.
England fail to impress in anxiety-filled win over Latvia

4 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

England 3-0 Latvia (James 38′, Kane 68′, Eze 76′)WEMBLEY STADIUM — Thomas Tuchel retrieved a small notepad from his coat pocket and, resting it on his thigh, bent over to scribble notes. At that stage, they were probably along the lines of: WHY DID I SIGN UP FOR THIS?
'Jude Bellingham had a mouth on him even at 15 - but he's never beat me'

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

It has been, Morgan Rogers says, a long, hard road to this point. Including the highs of signing for Manchester City aged 17, the lows of tough loans in League One and the Championship, before another steep climb since joining Aston Villa last year for £8m, starring in the Champions League, and sharing video calls with Thomas Tuchel before Rogers’s first call-up under the new England manager. The 22-year-old will be given a chance to earn a place in Tuchel’s highly competitive midfield.
The fight for England's No 1 jersey - and who will have it for the World Cup

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Sam Cunningham

Six camps, 21 training days, eight qualifying games. Thomas Tuchel has impressed upon the England players he met for the first time this week how little time he has to turn them into World Cup winners. This first camp, with home games against Albania and Latvia, will offer early signs of his ideas, who he has taken a shine to, who fits his direct, aggressive style of football, what shape he believes a World Cup-winning team must take.