Join Luke McLaughlin and Tom Bassam for our special FA Cup final live blog covering all the buildup to the afternoon’s big game as Manchester City take on Crystal Palace at Wembley. Ready to field your final-related questions will be the Guardian’s chief sports writer, Barney Ronay. Email him atmatchday.live@theguardian.comwith your views, notes and queries. Spicing up our bumper coverage will be views from both sets of fans as City seek silverware to shore up an underwhelming season by their standards and Palace go for the first major trophy in their history – their third shot at an FA Cup final.
Tanya Aldred keeps you up to date with the latest action from all nine matches. Tanya takes her seat at Old Trafford after a week of upheaval at Lancashire following the resignation of Keaton Jennings as captain, with the club sitting rock bottom of the County Championship. The Red Rose were relegated from Division One last season but were strongly fancied to win promotion this term. Instead, they have failed to win any of their first five games and sit at the foot of the standings with 50 points. The Australian Marcus Harris, who tops the Division Two run charts with 749 despite his side’s struggles, takes over as interim captain.
Tom Bassam is your live host as the pace hots up at Imola in the race for No 1 spot on the grid for Sunday’s grand prix, with our F1 reporter Giles Richards trackside. This weekend sees a last hurrah for the famous old circuit, infamous for the deaths of Roland Ratzenberger and Ayrton Senna at the the 1994 San Marino Grand Prix. The Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari has been hosting F1 races since 1963 but drops off the calendar next season.
Rob Smyth keeps the updates flowing as our live coverage switches to the day’s big event. In place at Wembley are our reporting team of David Hytner, Barney Ronay, Jonathan Wilson and Jamie Jackson. Will Erling Haaland rediscover his spark? Despite seemingly scoring goals galore for City, the striker is yet to register for the club in a final. He drew blanks in the 2023 Champions League showpiece and the past two FA Cup finals against Manchester United. He has scored 30 times this season but not since March due to a long spell out injured. City’s high hopes of silverware rest with Haaland.
Scott Murray is your expert guide to events unfolding at Quail Hollow. Never mind the mud balls, Masters champion Rory McIlroy ended the first round 10 shots behind the leader Jhonattan Vegas and faces an uphill struggle.
Robert Kitson reports from the Recreation Ground with plenty at stake for the Tigers. Leicester sit second in the table and can seal a play-off spot if they beat Bath, the Premiership leaders. MichaelCheika has Leicester challenging for the league crown in his one season in charge at Welford Road before he hands over to successor Geoff Parling this summer. However the former Wallabies coach insists he is firmly focused on this campaign. “The best thing I can do for the future of the club is to go well for the rest of this year,” he told the BBC this week. “Nothing else … to make sure we are playing our best footy and trying to stay in this competition for as long as possible.”
Our columnist looks forward to Wednesday’s Europa League final in Bilbao by asking: is an all-English final between Manchester United and Tottenham really something to celebrate? It will be just the sixth time two English clubs have contested a European showpiece, and Spurs have featured in two of them. The others? Manchester City 0-1 Chelsea (Champions League, 2021); Spurs 0-2 Liverpool (Champions League, 2019); Chelsea 4-1 Arsenal (Europa League, 2019); Man Utd 1-1 Chelsea (Man Utd won 6-5 on pens) (Champions League, 2008) and Wolves v Spurs (Spurs win 3-2 on aggregate) (Uefa Cup, 1972).
After Saturday’s men’s Wembley showpiece, it’s the Women’s FA Cup final with Chelsea facing Manchester United. Emillia Hawkins and Niall McVeigh set the scene with live updates as we build towards the 1.30pm kickoff. They will be inviting questions for our Merseyside correspondent Andy Hunter about Goodison Park as the old ground hosts its last men’s fixture when Everton face Southampton. Emailmatchday.live@theguardian.comwith your queries. Peter Lansley will consider Jamie Vardy’s final Foxes bow before the striker makes his final Leicester appearance, the striker’s 500th game for the club. The 38-year-old has scored nine goals this season – one more would make it 200 for Leicester.
Join Tanya Aldred for our continued coverage of the latest county cricket games, including Surrey v Yorkshire at the Oval.
Daniel Harris takes in the action and the colour at Goodison Park as Everton’s home since 1892 bids a last hurrah to hosting men’s matches. As Andy Hunter recounts in his colourfully entertaining piece on the ground’s memorable moments, Everton won the first derby they hosted, Dixie Dean set his goals record there and Pelé made World Cup history.Read it here.
Emillia Hawkins returns to the hotseat with live updates on events at Wembley before Suzanne Wrack, Tom Garry and Jonathan Liew provide reports and analysis. Marc Skinner’s United take on Chelsea for a repeat of the 2023 final, which the Blues won 1-0. WSL champions Chelsea are chasing another piece of silverware after they lifted the Women’s League Cup with a 2-1 victory over Manchester City in March and completed an unbeaten WSL campaign. The chance to complete a domestic clean sweep beckons.
Lap-by-lap updates from Niall McVeigh and race reports from Giles Richards at the circuit. McLaren’s Italian boss Andrea Stella will be hoping for a happy homecoming as he leads the champions to Ferrari’s backyard and the start of a run of three races on successive weekends. Oscar Piastri leads Lando Norris by 16 points after four wins, including the last three in a row, with Red Bull’s reigning champion Max Verstappen - winner of the last three races in Imola - 32 points off the pace in third. There has been plenty of swirl in the paddock, meanwhile, particularly at Alpine. Wiley F1 stalwart Flavio Briatore takes over from Oliver Oakes as team boss, though not technically as principal, while on the track Jack Doohan has been replaced by Franco Colapinto after only six races.
Dominic Booth follows the cut and thrust live, followed by Jacob Steinberg’s match report as the visitors seek their first league double over the Hammers since 1983-84. West Ham won 2-0 at Manchester United last time out, but have only once this season won consecutive Premier League matches (v Arsenal and Leicester in February). Their last three at home have all finished level. Forest, meanwhile, have won just one of their last six Premier League games, a dip in form that has seen them slip from third to seventh in the table. They must hope the noise around striker Taiwo Awoniyi’s serious injury and owner Evangelos Marinakis’ intemperate behaviour will not prove a distraction as they seek a place in Europe.
A big game to bookend our weekend football coverage: Second meet third in the table separated by two points and Newcastle are certainly Arsenal’s bogey team. Eddie Howe’s visitors have won three games against the Gunners this season, 1-0 in the Premier League and 2-0 in both legs of the League Cup semi-final. No team has ever beaten Arsenal four times in a single campaign and it must be troubling for Mikel Arteta that his side are without a win in their last four home games in all competitions. Join Rob Smyth to see if Newcastle can make it a clean sweep before Ed Aarons’s report.
Our attention swings once again to Quail Hollow and, in the capable hands of Scott Murray, the closing rounds from the North Carolina venue.