Premier League

Manchester City's Erling Haaland scored his 100th goal for Manchester City in his 105th appearance for the club, tying Cristiano Ronaldo's European record as the fastest man to reach 100 goals with a European club.

Haaland achieved the feat early in Sunday's crucial Premier League showdown against Arsenal, a match featuring the league's two title favorites.

Ronaldo accomplished the feat back in 2011 during his time with Real Madrid.

The 24-year-old forward has been on an absolute tear this season, with 10 goals through his first five Premier League matches. It's an even more stunning form than he showed in his debut season at City back in the 2022-23 campaign, when he notched 36 goals in 33 EPL starts.

Last year was a more muted—albeit still incredibly clinical—campaign, with 27 goals in 29 EPL starts.

Haaland's blistering form comes has accompanied a perfect start to the 2024-25 season on the pitch for Manchester City, but it also comes while the team is on trial for an alleged 115 breaches of the EPL's financial regulations.

Per Reuters (h/t ESPN), City is facing charges related to "failing to provide accurate financial information; failing to provide full disclosure about player and manager remuneration; breaches of Premier League and UEFA financial fair play regulations; and a failure to cooperate with Premier League investigations," among others.

If found guilty, City is facing punishments that could range from fines and point deductions to potentially being removed altogether from competitions like the Premier League and Champions League.

That has cast something of a pall over the 2024-25 campaign for the defending champs, though it certainly hasn't affected Haaland's form.

The 2024-25 season will apparently be Mohamed Salah's swan song with Liverpool.

"As you know, it's my last year at the club," he told Sky Sports on Sunday following the Reds 3-0 victory over Manchester United (h/t Callum Davis and James Pearce of The Athletic). "I just want to enjoy it—I don't want to think about it. I feel like I'm free to play football and we will see what can happen next year."

Salah is entering the final year of his contract and said Sunday that no talks over an extension have taken place.

"Nobody at the club has spoken to me yet about contracts, so I will play my last season and see at the end of the season," he noted. "I don't know if I will (come back) but, yes, my last game here [at Old Trafford] with Liverpool. It's not up to me. Nobody (has) talked to me from the club but we will see."

New Liverpool manager Arne Slot didn't directly address the situation when asked about those comments.

"In this moment he's one of ours and I am really happy with him being one of ours," he said. "He plays really well. I don't talk about players' contracts but I can talk for hours about how Mo played today if you're interested in that? He was impressive, like he was in the first two days, but if you talk about an individual, you don't do justice to all the other ones because you saw a real good team performance—playing out from the back, high press, midfield that kept on running."

Salah, 32, had a goal against United—and probably could have had one or two more—to go along with two assists. He now has three goals and three assists in three matches to open the Premier League campaign, a blistering start that has only been bested in league play by Erling Haaland's absurd seven goals from three matches.

If Salah were to depart after the season, it would end a legendary run at Anfield that has included titles in the Premier League (2019-20), Champions League (2018-19), the FA Cup (2021-22), the League Cup (2021-22, 2023-24), the Community Shield (2022-23) and the Super Cup (2019-20).

He has managed 18 or more Premier League goals in every season for Liverpool while notching 10 or more assists in league play five times, emerging as one of the most clinical finishers and feared attackers in European club football.

But Liverpool may be moving onto a new era after former manager Jürgen Klopp stepped down in the offseason, with both Virgil van Dijk and Trent Alexander-Arnold also in the final year of their contracts. The Reds could have quite the new look for the 2025-26 campaign.

AFC Bournemouth announced Tuesday a "groundbreaking collaboration" with 2K for WWE 2K24.

"Partnering with WWE 2K is a fantastic opportunity for us to engage with our supporters in a new and innovative way," commercial director Rob Mitchell said. "This collaboration will combine the thrill of WWE 2K's gameplay, with the dynamic world of Premier League football."

The specifics of the partnership are unclear. The Premier League club said that "AFC Bournemouth-themed content will be available in the coming weeks."

For WWE, this represents another foray into mainstream sports. Last fall, the company worked with the Big 12 ahead of the conference's championship football game, and the partnership extended beyond that.

Now, WWE has made in-roads with one of the most popular competitions in all of sports.

Bournemouth was promoted back to the Premier League for the 2022-23 season and stayed up with a 15th-place finish. While the Cherries started slowly under manager Andoni Iraola in 2023-24, they eventually found their form and ended the campaign in 12th.

Bournemouth drew its opener with Nottingham Forest 1-1 thanks to a late goal from Antoine Semenyo.

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