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Manchester United v Brentford: Premier League – live | Premier League
Key events
37 min Damsgaard caresses a gorgeous pass over the top and again, Thaigo is in behind Heaven! he takes a touch but, as he shapes to shoot, a telescopic left foot comes from arounds his body, effectively shooting for him, and Lammens saves well from his own man. That’s very good recovery-defending, but Thiago didn’t protect the ball well enough.
35 min Outtara marches between Amad and Shaw, then threads a fine pass through the middle for Thaigo and he’s in! But rather than hit it first time, he takes a touch, slips, and Heaven bumps it back to Lammens, just about. Brentford are knocking at the door.
34 min Brentford move it nicely as they look for holes in United’s defence, then Mainoo crunches in on Kayode and the home side clear.
31 min And here he is now, doing just that to touch off for Bruno who, on the edge, flights a lovely cross over Kayode’s head and again, Amad is in space! But this time, he heads straight at Kelleher … then the flag goes up.
30 min I’m not sure Sesko has had a kick yet. He’s not had great service, but given the players outside him, he can come to the ball and lay it off as the runners motor.
29 min Amad wins the first header but the ball comes back, and Mainoo does well to hook clear.
27 min Damsgaard is pulling the strings for Brentford, controlling their attacks, and when he slides a pass in behind, Lewis-Potter barges through one tackle, then wins a corner off Dalot.
26 min Mainoo finds himself on the left wing and again, looks to attack his man, but Kayode is a terrific one-on-one defender and does enough to win the ball.
24 min Damsgaard spreads left then, when the ball goes right, Outtara’s cross is blocked.
23 min Since that early run, Mainoo has been quiet, and that’s been his problem so far – he must get better at finding the ball and passing it incisively. Chelsea felt like a step forward, but only if he maintains the level
22 min “There’s an unbelievable amount of space in this game,” reckons Tim Stappard, and I agree. Both sides are good at finding it and United are also excellent at leaving it – a situation I imagine they hope to address in the summer by signing midfielders
20 min When United opted to start the season with Andre Onana in net, it was mind-boggling enough, but seeing how solid Lammens is, it makes even less sense. He saves almost everything he should, which alone makes him a massive upgrade, and also plenty he shouldn’t. There’s work to do with his passing and foot-movement, especially when facing long shots, but he’s been a monumental upgrade, and having him there has made a huge difference to United’s defenders.
18 min The resultant corner comes to nothing, but this is a really entertaining and open game.
17 min oh, he does get a touch because it’s a corner and gain, Brentford pick a pass in behind United, Damsgaard sliding in for Kayode as the defence steps up. He looks to send an outswinging finish towards the far side-netting, but Lammens spreads himself well to make the save.
16 min But then United give it away and Outtara seizes upon the loose ball, slipping a fine reverse-pass in behind for Lewis-Potter, who delivers a perfect low cross into the corridor. Thiago is there, but Shaw slides in and must put him off, because he doesn’t get a touch but the striker can’t land a boot on it.
15 min Brentford come forward and win a corner, the ref taking a moment as the players jostle around Senne Lammens, then the ball comes in and Casemiro, equally adept in his own box, heads clear.
13 min That’s now nine league goals for Casemiro; it’s not often you see a player whose timing and execution are both stellar, never mind a defensive midfielder who scored 24 goals in 221 games for Real Madrid.
GOAL! Manchester United 1-0 Brentford (Casemiro 11)
It’s absolutely absurd, it really is. Bruno swings the corner out and Maguire is totally unmarked, nodding back to what was the near post where Casemiro sneaks in behind the defensive line to again deposit an expert headed finish into the roof. How on earth are United going to replace his output?
10 min United fancy Mbeumo in behind Lewis-Potter, another ball setting him away and he’s got a start on Collins, who gets back at him well, conceding another corner.
10 min It’s been a really good start – there’s proper tempo to the game.
8 min Bruno’s corner picks out Mauire at the back post, he arches backwards to make it his, butts firmly … and Kelleher claws away, just, some of the ball over the line but the rest not.
8 min United have stared well and Bruno sweeps out to Mbeumo – seeing the farthest pass first, as Glenn Hioddle said of David Beckham. The eventuating cross, though, is blocked at source.
7 min “Yes, all joking aside,” retyuns Justin, “if readers haven’t ever heard of Eamon Dunphy’s work, he is a very fine sports journalist, well worth checking out. And no, he’s not my uncle or anything. And neither is Chris Kavanagh, tonight’s ref, btw. Only a Game is a classic fly-on-the-wall account of a season in freefall in mid-1970s Cold Blow Lane.”
It starts so positively too, which is why it’s so heartbreaking as it progresses.
6 min Now Brentford counter and Shaw hauls down Schade on halfway; he’s booked.
5 min United win another corner, again cleared, but they’ve started well here.
3 min The corner is cleared to Shaw, who leathers over the top from distance.
2 min OH MY DAYS HOW HAS AMAD MISSED THIS?! Mainoo gets on the ball and runs – United have been poor at putting him where he can do what makes him special, beating men in small spaces with such dexterity you barely believe he’s come out with the ball. He sways inside and away from Damsgaard and, now in the box, feints and dips inside Yarmolyuk then Collins. He might shoot, but instead makes sure by squaring for Amad, who punches towards the far corner … only for the shot to clip Van den Berg’s heel and fly wide. That’s why you go high when faced with a man on the line.
2 min United sweep forward with Bruno and Casemiro moving it quickly, then the ball arrives at Dalot inverting; he swipes into touch.
1 min For now, at least, it’s Mbeumo on the right and Amad on the left. I’m not sure why, but perhaps it’s because he badly needs a goal, so is in the position that best enables him to seek that.
1 min Away we go!
Our teams are tunnelled … and out they come!
“You’d worry for Keith Andrews’ hair tonight with those ominous-looking storm clouds over Old Trafford,” writes Justin Kavanagh. “This is hair so great that it gets parodied on Irish TV alongside the bald truth of Liam Brady’s and another guy’s who used to play for Manchester United (but mainly Milwall) called Eamon Dunphy.”
It’s a work of art. I actually found a book Dunphy’s, Only A Game, in the school library – it’s a classic – and his biography of Matt Busby, A Strange Kind of Glory, is absolutely magnificent.
I’m really looking forward to seeing how Brentford’s wide players do. They’ve got serious pace on both sides with Outtara and Schade, but also behind them, where Kayode and Lewis-Potter will be thrusting forward. Neither Luke Shaw nor Diogo Dalot are all that, and if both are pinned back, United might struggle defensively and also for width.
“Any idea why the he FA Cup semi was on TNT yesterday?” wonders Dave Estherby. “I give Sky enough money as it is and still miss the Saturday lunchtime game every week, now I have to go the pub for domestic Cup games too? Joke.
On another note, a well-known turf accountant was offering 1500-1 last week on Utd finishing higher than Arsenal; if that ain’t worth a tenner nothing is.
(Not to condone gambling etc…)”
Well they paid for the rights, but yes, it is absolutely the case that, generally speaking, monopolies are bad for consumers, but in the case of televised sport, it means more subscriptions are necessary – you also need Amazon Prime for Champions League. And it’s particularly egregious in the case of TNT, formerly BT, who used their historic telecoms monopoly to fund their tenders in order to flog broadband.
So where is the game? United will look to find Bruno Fernandes, who’s recently started pulling wide to feed ball and swing over crosses; a question is whether Mainoo can continue the form he showed at Chelsea, linking play to get his attackers the ball. If his touch volume stays high, he can start controlling play, exactly what United currently lack – and their front players can score against anyone.
Brentford, meanwhile, will want to flood the middle of the pitch, where Casemiro can’t cover ground, and also look to double-up out wide, putting crosses into the box – and throws, and corners. For that reason, United will be happy to have Maguire back, but I’d not be surprised if Igor Thiago looks to drag him out to the wings, nor if Shade and Outtara come from out to in, looking to test his pace and get hi facing his own goal.
This is a pretty big game for Michael Carrick. As we said at the top, his team struggled against Leeds and also lost at Newcastle, despite playing against 10 for a half. Brentford will be similarly physical, so it’s up to United to show their manager can combat that kind of opponent.
It seems like Benjamin Sesko is now installed as United’s first-choice centre-forward – though full confirmation will come next weekend, when Liverpool visit Old Trafford, as in previous big games, Carrick has deployed Mbeumo through the middle.
Ultimately, though, the club spent all that money on Sesko because the plan is for him to be a regular, so really, they need to build around him, which means better delivery from wide areas; I wonder if we’ll see whoever plays on the left whip balls for him to the front post, though I also think there’s hay to be made with Mbeumo coming inside to swing those in to the back stick.
It’s been a difficult second half of the season for Amad who, as a dribbler, offers a threat that no other United player does, and is also an excellent scavenger for possession. But his numbers are nowhere near where they need to be, which is presumably why he was left out at Chelsea.
Either Amad or Bryan Mbeumo will be playing out of position tonight. I’d imagine it’ll be Amad on the right and Mbeumo on the left, as the latter has the pace and power to go on the outside, the former less so.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is in the sky studio, for some reason dressed as Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
As for Brentford, Andrews picks the same side for the third match in a row – partly a facility of those injuries – but Josh Dasilva is back on the bench after nobbling his knee in February 2024 and missing the entirety of last season. Godspeed, old mate.
So looking at that United XI, Harry Maguire returns after suspension, replacing Noussair Mazraoui, while Amad Diallo is back in with Cunha out. Otherwise, Patrick Dorgu is back on the bench having jiggered his hamstring at Arsenal in January, while Shea Lacey is rewarded for his excellent age-gpoup performances, included on the bench despite playing yesterday.
Now here’s Keith Andrews, and you’ll be delighted to know his barnet is looking lush. Brentford have earned the right to go into this match in a confident manner and though they’ve not earned as many points as he’d like in recent weeks, he’s been fairly happy with the performances; though he’s got injury problems, there’s a special togetherness within the group and he wants them to play with personality.
On Ciaomhin Kelleher, he says he’s known him a long time through Ireland, so when he became available, signing him was a no-brainer – and he felt it’d be a good move for the player.
Before we go over those, Michael Carrick is talking to Sky, telling them he wanted to get Kobbie Mainoo on to the pitch enjoying himself – he needed to find himself and against Chelsea, he was excellent – without giving him too much guidance.
On Ayden Heaven, he says he’s got the talent and did so well in the last game, he’s kept his place.
Otherwise, he’s been asked about what business the club needs to do in the summer and however long he’s there, he’s not taking short-term decisions, he wants the best for the football club. However long it goes on, he’s really enjoying working with the players.
Matheus Cunha hurt his hip flexor at Chelsea and improved during the week but they’re not risking him tonight.
Teams!
Manchester United (4-2-3-1): Lammens; Dalot, Maguire, Heaven, Shaw; Casemiro, Mainoo; Amad, Fernandes, Mbeumo; Sesko. Subs: Bayindir, Dorgu, Malacia, Mazraoui, Yoro, Mount, Ugarte, Lacey, Zirkzee.
Brentford (4-2-3-1): Kelleher; Kayode, Collins, Van Den Berg, Lewis-Potter- Jensen, Yarmoliuk; Schade, Damsgaard, Ouattara; Thiago. Subs: Valdimarsson, Hickey, Pinnock, Dasilva, Nelson, Ajer, Donovan, Furo, Shield.
Referee: Chris Kavangh (Ashton-under-Lyne)
Preamble
One of the most joyous things about football is how miserable it makes almost everyone – Arsenal, for example, are top of the table and in the semi-finals of the Champions League, yet there’s no sense anyone connected with them is enjoying any of it.
Unusually, though, both tonight’s clubs are pretty happy with life. United have near enough secured Champions League football for next season and, since Michael Carrick took over from Ruben Amorim, no side has won more points nor scored more goals. For the first time in a long time, talk of a title challenge doesn’t sound ridiculous.
Brentford, meanwhile, looked relegation favourites in August, losing some of their best players and their manager too. But Keith Andrews has guided them superbly such that they now sit eighth in the table, and have every chance of securing European football for the first time in their history.
And make no mistake, they’ll come to Old Trafford to win. It won’t have escaped Andrews’ attention how much United struggled with Leeds’ physicality this time last week and, though tonight’s probable centre-back partnership will be better able to cope with pressure of that sort, Brentford are better at applying it.
Which is to say that, with both teams committed to attack and needing points but not under pressure, this should be a lot of fun – unless one of football’s overarching truths decides to the contrary.
Kick-off: 8pm BST
Nicole Blain claims she took a nap and woke to find her fatally-injured baby daughter lying beside her crib.
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NIFRS is continuing to tackle wildfires in the Ballagh Road, Newcastle, and Sandbank Road, Hilltown, areas of the mountains.
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UK News
White House blames Democrats and journalists for attack at Correspondents’ Dinner as suspect to be charged – US politics live | Trump administration
Trump’s press secretary blames Democrats and journalists for attack on president
Karoline Leavitt quickly pivoted to blaming Donald Trump’s opponents for the attack at the White House correspondent’s association on Saturday, including Democratic lawmakers and reporters.
“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than president Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said.
“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at president Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
She singled out “those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points” for fueling the violence.
Key events
Veering back into partisan politics, Leavitt argued that if the White House ballroom had been built, Saturday’s attack would not have been able to happen.
“It’s why the White House ballroom project is not just a fun project for president Trump, like you will read in the media, it is actually critical for our national security,” Leavitt said.
Rightwing commentators had been making such an argument almost immediately after Saturday’s attack, and Republican senators Lindsey Graham, Katie Britt and Eric Schmitt just announced they would today introduce a bill to fund the ballroom’s construction.
Democrats haven’t publicly changed their minds about a project they have scorned:
All that being said, Leavitt said that Donald Trump “satisfied” with the security response to Saturday’s attack.
“I think if you just sit here and say everything is perfect all the time, that’s not a good way to operate. And so the White House will continue to engage with DHS and with Secret Service of to find ways to improve and strengthen security,” Leavitt said.
“But as far as Saturday night is concerned, the president was satisfied with the response, and he’s very grateful to the men and women who provided the response for him and his wife and members of his team.”
Leavitt continued by rattling off a list of statements from Democrats in which they accuse Donald Trump of acting like a “dictator” or in an authoritarian fashion.
“Senator Adam Schiff, saying President Trump using a dictator playbook. Senator Ed Markey, calling President Trump a dictator, saying that this administration’s actions are authoritarianism on steroids,” Leavitt said.
But it’s not just Democrats who are worried about the direction Trump has taken governance in the United States during his second term:
Leavitt calls for reopening of homeland security department after attack
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt urged Congress to restart funding to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which has been partially shut down since mid-February amid a standoff between Democrats and Republicans over immigration enforcement.
“Saturday night served as yet another reminder of how important it is to fund the Department of Homeland Security. It is shameful that the United States Congress has kept this vital agency defunded for 73 days, the longest shutdown of a federal agency in US history,” Leavitt said, adding that the Secret Service, a sub agency of DHS, “has been directly impacted by this reckless political game and gamesmanship.”
Funding for DHS lapsed after Democrats refused to support an appropriations bill for the agency unless it included new restrictions on immigration enforcement operations. Negotiations between the White House and Senate Democrats on those restrictions eventually broke down, and the Senate unanimously passed a bill to fund all of DHS with the exception of some of its agencies focused on deportations.
But House Republicans have refused to pass that bill until those agencies – Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection – are funded. Republicans expect to do that along party lines using the reconciliation procedure, with the Senate taking a major step towards doing that last week:
Trump’s press secretary blames Democrats and journalists for attack on president
Karoline Leavitt quickly pivoted to blaming Donald Trump’s opponents for the attack at the White House correspondent’s association on Saturday, including Democratic lawmakers and reporters.
“Nobody in recent years has faced more bullets and more violence than president Trump. This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by commentators, yes, by elected members of the Democrat party and even some in the media,” Leavitt said.
“This hateful and constant and violent rhetoric directed at president Trump, day after day after day for 11 years, has helped to legitimize this violence and bring us to this dark moment.”
She singled out “those who constantly, falsely label and slander the president as a fascist, as a threat to democracy and compare him to Hitler to score political points” for fueling the violence.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt kicked off the briefing by recounting the events of Saturday night.
“Saturday was supposed to be a joyful evening celebrating free speech and the first amendment with all of you members of the press. Instead, the night was hijacked by a crazed anti-Trump individual who traveled across the country to assassinate the president and as many administration officials as possible,” said Leavitt.
She noted that she was supposed to be on maternity leave, but decided to hold the briefing in light of the attack: “I felt it was prudent to be here today to answer your questions and inform the American people about how the administration is responding to yet another attempt on president Trump’s life.”
King Charles to meet Donald Trump off camera to avoid awkwardness
Kiran Stacey and Pippa Crerar
King Charles will be spared the potential humiliation of being upbraided in public by Donald Trump this week after the White House agreed that any meeting between the two men should be held off camera.
British officials have pushed for the Oval Office meeting between the monarch and the US president to be held off camera for fear of a repeat of the scenes when Trump berated the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in front of the world’s press.
Sources involved in planning the trip say Charles will pose for the cameras at the start of his centrepiece bilateral meeting tomorrow, but will not be filmed talking about anything substantive.
UK ministers have pinned great hopes on the state visit, which they are hoping will help repair the relationship between the two countries at one of its most difficult periods in decades.
With Trump threatening retaliation for criticism of the Iran war by UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and chancellor, Rachel Reeves, the British government is hoping the king might be able to talk the US president down from some of his more aggressive statements.
The king will attend several other events with Trump, at which he will be accompanied by palace officials as well as UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, in line with usual practice for a state visit.
Diplomatic sources suggested that Cooper, who has previously travelled with the monarch to the Vatican, was ready to step in to deal with any awkward moments if required.
She’s ready to leap into action as a human shield for the king should Trump start criticising Starmer or the UK more generally, as he is prone to do.
Justice department to hold news conference at 3pm ET after suspect’s court appearance
The Department of Justice will hold a 3pm ET news conference today, led by acting attorney general Todd Blanche, FBI director Kash Patel, and US attorney Jeanine Pirro, following the initial appearance in federal court of the suspected White House correspondents’ dinner gunman.
We’ll bring you all the key lines from that when it gets under way later.
It was ‘quickly assessed’ that ‘continuity of government’ was in place after shooting, says Rubio
Speaking to Fox News earlier, secretary of state Marco Rubio described his experience of Saturday night’s shocking shooting at the White House correspondents’ dinner.
“I didn’t hear shots I just saw a bunch of security people rushing in,” he said. “The first thing you wonder immediately is … is there an internal threat, is there a threat inside the ballroom itself?”
He said he watched the staff follow “all the security protocols”, adding:
It was sort of an unfortunate situation that happened there, where one individual can disrupt what is one of the bigger nights in Washington, especially when the president attends.
That’s kind of the world we live in right now.
As well as Donald Trump, many key figures in the presidential line of succession including vice-president JD Vance and Rubio himself were at the event.
Rubio said that after administration officials “went backstage to the command center, where the president sat in the back” after being rushed out of the ballroom, it was “quickly assessed” that the “continuity of government” was in place.
Sort of the first assessment that needed to be made was to be clear that all the continuity of government things were in place, and that was quickly assessed to be the case.
Washington Hilton puts out statement about event’s security
In a statement issued today, the Washington Hilton hotel, the venue for Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, has said it had been operating under “stringent” Secret Service protocols.
“The hotel was operating under stringent security protocols for the property as directed by the U.S. Secret Service, which led security,” a hotel spokesperson said in a statement, as quoted by Reuters.
The Secret Service, which is responsible for the president’s safety, worked in coordination with a range of security teams, including local Washington DC police and hotel security, the spokesperson added.
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