RB Leipzig defender Willi Orban admits it will be difficult for the club to mount another Bundesliga title challenge as last season s fairy-tale story prepare to make their Champions League bow.

Leipzig took the Bundesliga by storm in 2016-17, threatening to dethrone German giants Bayern Munich in their first season in the top flight.

Orban and his team-mates eventually finished runners-up to Bayern, securing automatic Champions League qualification in the process, capping their meteoric and rapid rise through the German divisions having only been formed in 2009.

An unknown quantity in 2016-17, Leipzig will have to deal with additional pressure and matches this time around, and Orban was keen to play down any hype following last season s remarkable exploits.

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Enzo Maresca was pleased with Chelsea s win in their Europa Conference League play-off first leg but says they played with fire in the closing stages.

Christopher Nkunku and Noni Madueke both netted in the second half of their 2-0 victory, earning Maresca his first win in charge of the Blues.

However, it was almost a different story as Chelsea came under late pressure, with Jeremy Guillermenot squandering two chances in stoppage time to half the deficit for the Swiss side.

Despite seeing improvements from their Premier League defeat against Manchester City, Maresca says there is still a lot of work to do if they want to find some consistency.

I was a bit worried because in the last 10 minutes, we played a little bit with fire because we could manage the …

Video Assistant Referee (VAR) Lee Mason has left his role by mutual consent after his blunder cost Arsenal a win against Brentford last weekend.

The Gunners were held to a 1-1 draw in a London derby last Saturday, though Ivan Toney s equaliser should have been disallowed.

Toney headed in from close range after Christian Norgaard nudged the ball across the face of goal, but the latter had been offside in the build-up.

The goal went to a VAR check for a separate incident instead, with Mason – in charge of the technology for the game – not spotting Norgaard strayed just offside.

The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the body responsible for referees in England, subsequently acknowledged it was a significant error and Mason was not assign…

Juventus failed to give Massimiliano Allegri a winning send-off as late goals from Gregoire Defrel and Gianluca Caprari secured a 2-0 win for Sampdoria on Sunday.

The Old Lady have made a habit of winning under Allegri during his five years in charge, lifting five successive league titles, though they fell short of those standards in Genoa and dropped points for a fifth Serie A game on the bounce.

There was a distinct end-of-season feel to the majority of the first half, with excitement lacking and clear-cut chances at a premium.

Proceedings picked up at the start of the second period, with Juve going close three times and having a Moise Kean goal disallowed, but Sampdoria s more clinical finishing saw them claim victory.

Defrel opened the scoring six min…

Germany striker Mario Gomez has sealed a return to former club Stuttgart from Bundesliga counterparts Wolfsburg on a two-and-a-half-year contract.

The 32-year-old was a product of the youth system at Stuttgart, where he made his Bundesliga and international breakthroughs more than a decade ago, memorably firing Die Schwaben to the title in 2006-07.

Gomez has 155 goals in 281 Bundesliga appearances over the course of his career and 87 of those came with Stuttgart before joining Bayern Munich in 2009 for a then German top-flight record of €30million.

He went on to play for Fiorentina and Besiktas, with Gomez s form for the Turkish giants earning him a surprise Germany recall for Euro 2016, four years on from his previous competitive appearance for Die Mannsc…

Liverpool are still getting to know Xherdan Shaqiri, according to Jurgen Klopp, who admitted it was difficult to leave the Switzerland winger out of his staring XI against Cardiff City.

Despite setting up Mohamed Salah s winner against Huddersfield Town before impressing against Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League, Shaqiri had to settle for a place on the bench for Saturday s Premier League clash at Anfield, with Adam Lallana preferred.

But the former Stoke City man made the ideal impact when he was introduced, netting Liverpool s third goal in a 4-1 win just moments after Callum Paterson had pulled one back.

And Klopp has emphasised that Shaqiri was rested, rather than dropped, with Liverpool unsure of how the 27-year-old would react to a congested fixtur…

According to a recent report from Sky Sports News, Napoli forward Fernando Llorente has been offered to Tottenham Hotspur on a short term deal – however, Spurs aren’t believed to be all too interested in re-signing their former striker. 

Llorente was well known towards the back-end of his Tottenham days for popping up with goals of real importance from time to time. Alas, it always seemed likely that he was going to leave, which he did. 

The veteran seems to be interested in the potential of a return to North London but now that Jose Mourinho is in charge, it seems like the priorities of the club have shifted. Tottenham certainly have something of a minor injury crisis on their hands, especially with Harry Kane being out until April. If they want to make a serio…

Manuel Neuer will call time on his career as soon as he feels Germany and Bayern Munich no longer need him.

Neuer, 33, has been first-choice Germany goalkeeper for the best part of a decade, while he has been of similar importance to Bayern since joining them in 2011.

But the Schalke academy product has endured injury problems more frequently in the past three seasons, missing almost the entirety of 2017-18 with a broken foot.

Neuer was also absent for a chunk of last term with thumb and calf issues, though he remains the go-to man between the posts for club and country, starting all but one of Germany s 11 post-World Cup matches and Bayern s three games of the new Bundesliga campaign.

Once that regularity disappears, however, Neuer expects to retire beca…

Andrea Agnelli wishes to reinforce Juventus position among Europe s elite, suggesting the club must continue to look beyond Serie A dominance, while adding Cristiano Ronaldo is worthy of winning this year s Ballon d Or.

Juve have won Serie A in each of the past eight seasons, while reaching the Champions League final in 2014-15 and 2016-17 under Massimiliano Allegri.

The Italian giants signed Real Madrid superstar Ronaldo in 2018, reportedly paying €100million for the Portugal forward.

But Juve, while maintaining their control of Serie A last term, failed to make it past the quarter-finals in the Champions League, with Allegri subsequently replaced by Maurizio Sarri, who has taken 22 points from 24 on offer in the league so far.

Now, club presiden…

The first heavyweight tussle of the new year in the Premier League did not disappoint as Chelsea and Liverpool played out an entertaining 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge.

The Blues were held at home for the fifth time in six league games, a run that includes three straight draws in the top flight for the first time since February 2016.

But Thomas Tuchel s side can be happy with a point after recovering from two goals down as they extended their unbeaten run against the Reds in the league to four matches.

While there was nothing to separate the sides sitting second and third, Brentford, Brighton and Hove Albion and Leeds United were all victorious on Sunday.

Here, Stats Perform unpacks the pick of the Opta data from another eventful day in the Premier League.<…