Ruben Amorim is fresh off the biggest win of his Manchester United reign. The team’s 2-1 victory over Liverpool on Sunday was the first time the Portuguese coach has managed back-to-back Premier League wins since his appointment nearly a year ago. It also made him the first United boss to win at Anfield since 2016.

There is, though, an argument that Brighton‘s visit to Old Trafford on Saturday is even more significant. Amid all the problems Amorim’s faced since taking the job a little under a year ago in November 2024, United’s record against the rest of the so-called Big Six has been respectable. In 11 Premier League games against those teams (Liverpool, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur), Amorim has recorded three wins, three draws and five defeats. Victory over Liverpool served to reinforce a point the 40-year-old made after the narrow defeat to Arsenal on the opening weekend of the season: that United “can win any game in the Premier League.”

Amorim’s record against newly promoted teams is also good — five wins, one draw in six matches against Ipswich Town, Southampton and Leicester City last season, and Burnley and Sunderland in 2025-26. For a while, it looked like his players were only capable of beating sides not long removed from the Championship. But in games against the other 11 teams (Brighton, Bournemouth, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Everton, Crystal Palace, Brentford, Fulham, Nottingham Forest, West Ham United and Wolves) his record drops to just three wins, three draws and 12 defeats from 18 games.

United’s biggest problem isn’t in games against Liverpool and Manchester City, or Southampton, Sunderland and Burnley. The issue, rather, is when they play anyone else.

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Against the Big Six, Amorim has a win percentage of 27.7% and has earned 1.09 points per game (PPG). For newly promoted teams, it’s a 83.3% win rate and 2.67 PPG. Against everyone else, however, Amorim’s win percentage is just 16.67%, with a miserable 0.67 points earned per game.

The match against Liverpool was a big result, but there’s a case to be made that victory over Brighton this weekend would represent a far better yardstick of United’s progress.

For Amorim, the issue around games against teams like Brighton is about pressure. There’s naturally extra pressure around a game United should win; beyond that, there’s an additional pressure to win in a certain way. Amorim touched on it himself before the trip to Anfield when he was asked why his team have fared better against bigger teams.

“Maybe the expectations,” he said. “When you have to win, it’s so much harder to play like that. That’s why when you play in big clubs, you need to win every match, especially when people are expecting you to win. We have some difficulties sometimes to deal with that. When people expect Manchester United to win that game, maybe it’s easier for the players to perform, and we need to change that.”

To a certain degree, what happened against Liverpool played into that. Despite Arne Slot’s team heading into the game on the back of three straight defeats, Liverpool were still heavy favorites. Against Brighton, United will be expected to win.

It was perhaps what drove Amorim to attempt to control the view of his team after beating Liverpool. “I want you guys [the media] to continue with the narrative you are,” he said. “Don’t change that. That is best for me.”

The one thing Amorim can control is how United play, and that in itself has caused him problems. It’s also something he predicted before he even arrived in Manchester. When Amorim’s Sporting CP thrashed Manchester City during his long goodbye in Portugal, he was quick to explain why United fans shouldn’t get too carried away. Sporting won 4-1 despite having only 27.3% possession and nine shots, compared with City’s 72.7% possession and 20 shots.

Asked afterward if he realized how excited United fans would be after the result, Amorim played it down. “It doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Manchester United can’t play that defensively.”

It’s something he has battled with throughout his time at Old Trafford. After beating Ipswich 3-2 in February with 10 men following Patrick Dorgu’s first-half red card, Amorim acknowledged that his team was having more success when forced to play on the back foot.

“I think that is clear, and it is hard for me,” he said. “If we have players like Harry Maguire and [Matthijs] de Ligt defending the box, they are really strong, but then when they have to cover a lot of space, the game changes for them. … It is really hard for me to play like we play in the second half. But I feel the players are more comfortable sometimes defending in the low block.”

Not only did United not have expectations weighing them down at Anfield, Amorim also felt comfortable employing tactics that irked Slot. “It is always difficult to play against a team that defends in a low block and mainly plays the long ball,” the Liverpool manager said after watching his team have the majority of possession, more shots and more shots on target.

Brighton at home is a different game than Liverpool away. Fabian Hurzeler’s side won 3-1 at Old Trafford in January despite having less than 50% possession and only three shots on target. Seven days after facing Brighton, United will travel to Nottingham Forest, where they lost 1-0 in April despite having 62.8% possession and 23 shots. Forest had 31.8% possession and just two shots on targets, but won thanks to a clinical early counterattack finished off by Anthony Elanga.

In short, Brighton and Forest offer Amorim a different problem to the one he faced at Anfield. It’s one that, so far, he has struggled to solve. Amorim called the result at Liverpool “the biggest win in my time at Manchester United,” and it’s easy to understand why. It was a statement victory in a big game against a fierce rival.

But the true measure of where his team is at will come this weekend. Amorim acknowledged that in the media room at Anfield on Sunday. “It has been a good day,” he said. “Now we must focus on Brighton. We will see after Brighton.”

Brighton at Old Trafford perhaps doesn’t come with the hype and glamor of playing Liverpool at Anfield. For Amorim, however, it has taken on an even greater importance.

Ali Tareen, owner of the Pakistan Super League (PSL) franchise Multan Sultans, has issued a sharply sarcastic “apology” after receiving a legal notice from the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB). 

Framed as contrition but delivered with barbed asides, his response took aim at the league’s stewardship while acknowledging the board’s grievances over alleged breaches of the 10-year franchise contract.

According to the notice, the PCB accused Tareen of violating multiple clauses of the PSL franchise agreement and demanded both a public apology and a retraction of his critical remarks. It warned that failure to comply could trigger termination of Multan Sultans’ contract and see Tareen blacklisted from the league—an ultimatum that significantly raised the stakes of the dispute.

Posting a video on his X account, Tareen appeared to comply in form while contesting the substance, using sarcastic language to question the PSL’s management and decision-making. 

Tareen began by outlining the PCB’s ultimatum before questioning the board’s approach to conflict. He expressed frustration over the lack of direct communication, stating that he never received “a single call, message, email, or invitation asking to meet and resolve these issues together.”

“Instead, I was served a legal notice,” he said. “If you were more competent, you would know these matters aren’t handled this way.” He accused the management of being surrounded by “yes-men” and unable to accept criticism, asserting that the league “belongs to the fans and to all of Pakistan, not to the handful of people currently running it.”

While stating his legal team saw no need for an apology, Tareen proceeded to offer one “because I want the PSL to improve.” His apology, however, served to reiterate all his previous complaints.

He apologised for expressing frustration when he noticed issues and for his critical remarks about what he perceived as a lack of professionalism.

He apologised for “criticising the opening ceremony,” sarcastically praising the “amazing” act of having “national stars… lip-sync.” He conceded that wanting the ceremony to “start on time, finish on time, and that the mic should work properly” was going “too far.”

He addressed minor grievances mentioned in the notice, offering a sincere apology for being “10 minutes late” to a Zoom meeting and for claiming the “PSL would not have bugs,” while sarcastically noting the flawless logistics that saw “half of your team in one hotel, and the other half in another.”

Striking a conciliatory note amid the sarcasm, Tareen proposed a simple solution: “call me over, offer me a cup of tea and a few biscuits, and let’s sit together and talk.” He suggested they could agree to end public criticism and work together to improve the league.

The video concluded with Tareen tearing up the legal notice, a final act of defiance following his “apology.” He ended his statement with, “So, I hope you like my apology video.”

Former 11-year NBA player Damon Jones was arrested Thursday amid charges that he allegedly disclosed privileged injury information about a “prominent” basketball player to facilitate illegal sports betting, authorities announced.

LeBron James was the prominent player, a source close to James told ESPN.

James was not accused of wrongdoing in the indictment.

Jones was one of 34 people arrested, along with Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, as part of a yearslong investigation spanning nearly a dozen states and involving tens of millions of dollars, FBI director Kash Patel said.

The investigation outlined two separate cases — one on illegal sports betting and another on rigged poker games involving the Mafia, authorities announced.

Jones was an unofficial, unpaid part of former Los Angeles Lakers coach Darvin Ham’s staff and is no longer with the team under current Lakers coach JJ Redick. Ham invited Jones to be a part of team activities after James spent the summer of 2022 with Jones present for many of his offseason workouts.

James was unaware that Jones, his former teammate and assistant coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers, was involved in gambling activity when Jones spent time around James and the Lakers during the 2022-23 season, the source said. The federal indictment alleges that before a Lakers game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Feb. 9, 2023, Jones texted a co-conspirator to “get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight” because James was going to be out.

James, who passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer in the previous game on Feb. 7, 2023, would go on to miss three straight games because of soreness in his left ankle.

Jones allegedly added via text: “Bet enough so Djones can eat [too] now!!!”

Without James, Milwaukee beat the Lakers 115-106.

Additionally, the indictment alleges that the following season Jones provided nonpublic information to a co-conspirator in connection to the Lakers’ game against the Oklahoma City Thunder on Jan. 15, 2024.

The Lakers had no comment on the allegations against Jones when reached by ESPN on Thursday morning.

Speaking after practice on Thursday, Redick said the league’s anti-gambling rules have been reiterated to his team this season — independent of the FBI’s investigation.

“We’ve had two meetings on it already,” Redick said. “It’s obviously on the front of everyone’s awareness given the last two years, but other than that, there’s no other comment.”