Rangers

Rangers have sacked manager Philippe Clement following Saturday's home defeat by St Mirren, with the side 13 points behind Scottish Premiership leaders Celtic.

The Belgian, 50, had been under pressure this season as his team struggled to match Celtic's consistency and this month's Scottish Cup loss at home to Queen's Park increased supporter unrest.

"The club would like to put on record their sincere thanks to Philippe for his hard work and dedication during his spell in charge," Rangers said.

"A further update from the club will follow in due course."

Clement joined Rangers in October 2023 following Michael Beale's 10-month reign, soon winning the League Cup and leading the team to the top of the Premiership.

However, a poor record against Celtic contributed to missing out on last season's league title and Scottish Cup.

This term, league defeats by Celtic, Kilmarnock, Aberdeen and St Mirren put Clement under scrutiny and Rangers missed out on another League Cup triumph by losing the final to Celtic on penalties.

Image source, Getty Images

While we wait for the Premier League media conferences to kick off this morning, let's take a look at some of the major news headlines from the world of football - starting with a big managerial departure north of the border...

Simon Stone
BBC Sport's chief football news reporter

It was another difficult day for Manchester United on the pitch on Saturday. Today the focus will be off the field.

A staff meeting due to be held this afternoon at which it is anticipated an extra round of redundancies, possibly as many as 170, will be confirmed.

It is part of co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe's determination to drive down costs in an effort to address continuing losses at Old Trafford.

United have lost over £300m over the last three years and last Wednesday, the club revealed a loss of £27.7m in their second quarter financial results.

Despite an initial round of 250 redundancies last year, which club officials said were likely to result in an overall saving of between £40m-£45m over time, Ratcliffe feels further cuts are needed.

Yet many question whether Ratcliffe is choosing the right targets given the first team are 15th in the Premier League and were awful for 70 minutes at Everton on Saturday before eventually fighting back to claim a 2-2 draw.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, Getty Images

Does one judge by statistics? If so, there looks to be only one winner based on 2024-25 so far.

Mohamed Salah

• Played: 38
• Goals: 30
• Assists: 21

Vinicius Jr

• Played: 33
• Goals: 17
• Assists: 12

Kylian Mbappe

• Played: 38
• Goals: 27
• Assists: 4

Lamine Yamal

• Played: 33
• Goals:11
• Assists: 16

Mohamed Salah is getting all the headlines again after his goal and assist in Sunday's 2-0 victory against Manchester City helped Liverpool edge closer to the Premier League title.

But is he the best player in the world right now? And if not, who is?

There is a poll running at the top of this page right now for you to go and have your say.

Also, make sure you get involved using the details above to back up your opinion. We'd love to hear from you!

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Mohamed Salah is heading for a record-breaking season with Liverpool.

His goal on Sunday was his 30th of the campaign in all competitions and that means he has now hit the 30 mark on five separate seasons for the club, a record he shares with Roger Hunt and Ian Rush.

Salah also provided the assist for Dominik Szoboszlai to score the second goal against Manchester City, his 21st of the season in that column.

From an assist standpoint, the 32-year-old has already smashed his best season with the Reds out of the park - but now he will have goals on his mind.

His first year at Anfield in 2017-18 remains his best as a goalscorer. He found the net 44 times in all competitions with 32 coming in the Premier League alone.

He now needs eight goals from the final 11 league fixtures to surpass his best season in the top flight, while 15 across all competitions would see him break that record of 44 goals.

BBC iPlayer

Match of the Day 2 pundits Mark Chapman, Troy Deeney & Joe Hart analyse how Manchester City were not able to get past Liverpool's "red wall" as Liverpool won 2-0 in the Premier League to go 11 points clear.

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Premier League

We will be hearing from several Premier League managers today, ahead of games across tomorrow, Wednesday and Thursday in the English top flight.

While veteran followers of this live text will know conference times are flexible at best, here's a rough schedule of who we expect to hear from and when:

0830 Fulham (Marco Silva)

0900 Brighton (Fabien Hurzeler)

1000 Chelsea (Enzo Maresca)

1300 Bournemouth (Andoni Iraiola)

1330 Crystal Palace (Oliver Glasner), Ipswich (Kieren McKenna), Southampton (Ivan Juric), Wolves (Vitor Pereira)

Liverpool's dominance of this Premier League season is further underlined by the statistics that show they are superior in so many metrics that matter.

Slot's machine has scored more goals than every other team with 64. Liverpool are top of the shots, with 452, as well as shots on target, with 173.

And at the heart of it all is Mohamed Salah, who opened the scoring with his 30th goal of the season before creating the second for Dominik Szoboszlai, effectively wrapping up the win before half-time.

The 'Egyptian King' has now scored 30 goals or more in five separate seasons for Liverpooll, putting him level with Roger Hunt and Ian Rush.

Salah also has 21 assists this season, a remarkable total of 51 contributions to goals before the end of February.

Image source, Opta

Phil McNulty
BBC Sport chief football writer at Etihad Stadium

Arne Slot has brought his own touches to what Jurgen Klopp bequeathed him, which was an outstanding squad fit for purpose for a title tilt, aided and abetted by the astonishing collapse of Pep Guardiola's all-conquering Manchester City after a historic four successive titles.

Liverpool may not quite produce the fireworks that accompanied Klopp's so-called "heavy metal football", but they still have the fearsome Salah - and Slot's addition of a ruthless efficiency has made them the full package this season.

The champions-elect had just 33.9% possession in the win at City, their lowest in a Premier League victory since current Opta records started in 2003-04.

They also had fewer shots, eight to City's 16, and fewer touches inside the box, 27 to City's 40.

BBC iPlayer

Liverpool head coach Arne Slot says his side are in a good position after their "difficult" 2-0 win over Manchester City in the Premier League.

Available to UK users only.

Simon Stone
BBC Sport's chief football news reporter

As expected, Liverpool manager Arne Slot refused to embrace his club's fans singing 'We're going to win the league' towards the end of yesterday's 2-0 win at Manchester City.

They may be 11 points clear, and the sides in second, third and fourth may have lost over the weekend, but Slot is keeping his sights solely on what is ahead of his team - namely Newcastle at Anfield on Wednesday night.

"The fans can sing whatever they want," he said.

"I think they sing it for quite a long time already but we know as a team how hard we have to work for every single win.

"It is only three days ago someone asked me if we had a dip (at Aston Villa). I didn’t believe that as well as I’m calm now about this win.

"What we do know is no-one saw us a title contender when we started at the beginning of the season and no-one in the world of football expected City not to be so close to the one that leads the league."

Image source, Getty Images

Liverpool

Liverpool manager Arne Slot, understandably, was cautious.

"In every other league, having a lead like this would be very comfortable, but not in this league," he said. "There is a challenge in every game. We even saw Plymouth Argyle challenging us in the FA Cup."

Seemingly insurmountable leads have been surrendered at the top of the Premier League in the past, but very few as big as the one Liverpool now hold. Not at this stage of the season.

The only one bearing any comparison was during the 1997-98 campaign, when Manchester United were 11 points clear of Arsenal on 2 March and were reeled in.

However, they had already lost five games at that point and had proved they were far from infallible. Liverpool have one defeat to Nottingham Forest as the only blemish on their league record.

Devon Loch was a racehorse owned by the Queen Mother who looked set for victory in the Grand National - at Aintree Racecourse, not a million miles away from Liverpool's Anfield ground.

In 1956, with jockey Dick Francis in the saddle, the horse slipped up while in a clear lead with less than 50 yards to go, and ESB went on to to win

It was one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of the sport. The Queen Mother's reaction was philosophical. "Ah well, that's racing," she said.

We're not sure Liverpool fans would be so calm if their lead was lost.

Image source, Getty Images