Now Guardiola has granted his players freedom to improvise, it’s the Gunners’ manager who is the stickler for blueprint over instinct

At half-time in the Carabao Cup final, Arsenal’s hopes of a quadruple remained strong. They were unbeaten in 14, 11 of them won. They were drawing 0-0 against Manchester City and it wasn’t unreasonable to think that if the second half carried on as the first half had, they would eventually find a winner – quite possibly from a corner.

They had drawn a Championship side in the sixth round of the FA Cup and a Portuguese side in the quarter-finals of the Champions League. They held a nine-point lead in the Premier League. This was shaping up to be the greatest season in Arsenal’s history.

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Roberto De Zerbi could only watch in stunned silence. The Italian had been a crucible of emotions as Tottenham tried to hold out against his former club after Xavi Simons scored the goal that looked like ending their long wait for a victory. But football is capable of providing the cruellest twists and Georginio Rutter’s late equaliser must have felt like a dagger to the heart for the Spurs fans.

The draw leaves Tottenham still in the relegation zone having still failed to record a win in 2026 and the prospect of this magnificent stadium hosting Championship football next season is growing by the minute. Having arranged a special team-bonding meal at a swanky Mayfair restaurant this week, De Zerbi promised to take his team out for more expensive dinners if they delivered in his first home match.

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Deputy prime minister says it is ‘inexplicable’ top civil servant kept Downing Street in dark

Keir Starmer would have blocked Peter Mandelson from serving as the UK’s ambassador to Washington had he known he failed security vetting, David Lammy has said, as he attempted to shore up the prime minister amid damaging fallout from the row.

In his first public comments on the vetting affair, Lammy said it was “inexplicable” that Oliver Robbins, the former top civil servant who was forced out of the Foreign Office this week, had opted to leave Downing Street in the dark over the outcome.

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• Iceland 0-1 England

• Russo’s first-half goal keeps Lionesses on track for tournament

Snow-capped mountains provided an idyllic backdrop to a less impressive performance, but England’s 1-0 win over Iceland ensured they maintained a three-point gap over Spain in their bid to earn an automatic place in the 2027 World Cup.

Only the four League A teams who top their groups will avoid the playoffs and qualify automatically and with the European and world champions drawn in the same group, one will be left frustrated and with more games required to book their trip to Brazil.

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The Joy of Six: Chelsea v Man Utd

This archive piece, written by the great Scott Murray, is well worth reading.

United were newly crowned champions of Europe – finally – and the world appeared to be their oyster. But of course they wouldn’t pick up another trophy until winning the Second Division championship in 1975. This was the first sign that a mild complacency had set in at Old Trafford. “Chelsea surely will never gain two points so easily again,” reported the Guardian, “and at the same time it is difficult to visualise United being so abysmally poor.”

The visitors employed a power game – Ron Harris, Eddie McCreadie and David Webb crunching in with hard tackles, winning almost every ball, and shipping it forward quickly. Tommy Baldwin put Chelsea in front within 40 seconds. Bobby Tambling snaffled a ridiculous clearance by Tony Dunne to make it 2-0 on 13 minutes. Baldwin made it three seven minutes before half-time. United made a few “desultory raids” which were easily mopped up before Alan Birchenall added a fourth.

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In 2026 heeft Bangladesh het grootste leger ter wereld wanneer alle militairen – actief, reserve en paramilitair – worden meegeteld. Het land komt uit op ruim 7 miljoen manschappen, blijkt uit nieuwe cijfers van onder meer data-analisten van Voronoi en militaire statistiekplatformen.

Vietnam volgt met 5,75 miljoen militairen, Oekraïne met 5 miljoen, India met 4,9 miljoen en Zuid-Korea met 3,65 miljoen. Rusland, China en de Verenigde Staten staan wel in de top tien, maar scoren vooral hoog doordat ze grote actieve legers en forse defensiebudgetten combineren.

Bij de actieve troepen alleen voert China de lijst aan, met naar schatting ongeveer 2 miljoen soldaten, gevolgd door India en de VS. De ranglijsten illustreren dat landen onder directe militaire dreiging relatief veel reservisten achter de hand houden, terwijl traditionele grootmachten zwaarder leunen op technologie en materieel.

Russia faces one of the highest HIV prevalence rates in Europe, with infections continuing to climb despite record screening levels.

SergioQ79 - Osanpo Photographer - posted a photo:

Dalla collina, nero e imponente, tiene tutto sotto controllo. Non c’è bisogno di movimento, non c’è bisogno di rumore: la sua presenza basta. Anche nella notte, quando tutto si attenua, lui resta lì, a osservare ciò che accade sotto di lui.

丘の上から、黒く堂々とすべてを見下ろしている。動く必要も、音もいらない。その存在だけで十分だ。夜になり、周囲が静まっても、城はそのまま、下で起こるすべてを見続けている。

From the hill, dark and imposing, it keeps everything under control. No need to move, no need for noise: its presence is enough. Even at night, when everything softens, it remains there, watching what unfolds below.

SergioQ79 - Osanpo Photographer - has added a photo to the pool:

Dalla collina, nero e imponente, tiene tutto sotto controllo. Non c’è bisogno di movimento, non c’è bisogno di rumore: la sua presenza basta. Anche nella notte, quando tutto si attenua, lui resta lì, a osservare ciò che accade sotto di lui.

丘の上から、黒く堂々とすべてを見下ろしている。動く必要も、音もいらない。その存在だけで十分だ。夜になり、周囲が静まっても、城はそのまま、下で起こるすべてを見続けている。

From the hill, dark and imposing, it keeps everything under control. No need to move, no need for noise: its presence is enough. Even at night, when everything softens, it remains there, watching what unfolds below.

Nextcloud joined a project to create a sovereign replacement for Microsoft Office called "Euro-Office". But after that project forked OnlyOffice, OnlyOffice suspended its partnership with Nextcloud. "They removed all references to our brand/attribute as required by our license," argued OnlyOffice CEO Lev Bannov on March 30th. ("The core issue here isn't just about what the AGPL license states, but about the additional provisions we, as the authors, have included... If the Euro-Office team believes our approach conflicts with the AGPLv3 license, we invite them to submit an official request to FSF for review.")

But this week the FSF responded (as "the steward of the GNU family of General Public Licenses"), criticizing OnlyOffice's "attempt to impose an additional restriction on the AGPLv3" and calling it "inconsistent with the freedoms granted by the license," in a blog post from FSF licensing/compliance manager Krzysztof Siewicz:



It is possible to modify the (A)GPLv3 with additional terms, but only by adhering to the terms of the license... The (A)GPLv3 makes it clear that it permits all licensees to remove any additional terms that are "further restrictions" under the (A)GPLv3. It states, "[i]f the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term"...

We urge OnlyOffice to clarify the situation by making it unambiguous that OnlyOffice is licensed under the AGPLv3, and that users who already received copies of the software are allowed to remove any further restrictions. Additionally, if they intend to continue to use the AGPLv3 for future releases, they should state clearly that the program is licensed under the AGPLv3 and make sure they remove any further restrictions from their program documentation and source code. Confusing users by attaching further restrictions to any of the FSF's family of GNU General Public Licenses is not in line with free software.


"If FSF determines that our license and project align with AGPLv3, we will continue as an open-source initiative," OnlyOffice's CEO had written in March. "However, if the decision goes against us, we are ready to consider other options."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.