Following Arsenal’s 5-0 victory against Burnley this afternoon, Kai Havertz disclosed that the team puts in significant effort to maintain their form. Despite challenges from Liverpool and Manchester City, Arsenal continues to destroy opponents, with Burnley being the latest victim.

Watching Arsenal play has become a source of joy, as the team consistently displays a stylish performance in all their league matches since the beginning of the year. While the fans relish their victories, Havertz emphasised that achieving such results requires a substantial amount of hard work behind the scenes.

The German told Premier League Productions:

“I think we are in a good moment. Won all of the games so far this year. It feels good but behind all of that was hard work. There are many more hard games to come, the next one’s on Wednesday in another competition. 

“We have to continue that hard work. We wanted to start the game very well, we lacked that a bit at West Ham. The early goal was very important for us. We scored another couple of good goals and we’re happy with the win.”

Chris Sutton was impressed with Arsenal’s win against Burnley this evening and praised them for keeping the Premier League title open.

Liverpool had defeated Brentford earlier in the day to move five points clear of Mikel Arteta’s men, and the Gunners needed to win to remain close to the top.

Mikel Arteta’s men have been fantastic in 2024 and were understandably confident ahead of the game.

They made another quick start by scoring inside the first four minutes to show their intent, and Burnley never recovered from going behind that early.

Arsenal showed yet again that they are a team that everyone should respect as they went on to score four more goals, and Sutton said on BBC live:

Arsenal secured a 5-0 win against Burnley this afternoon, staying two points behind Liverpool and keeping their title hopes alive. The Gunners had scored nine goals in their previous two games before the match against the Clarets and started the game with full intent. They took the lead just four minutes into the match, marking yet another fast start from the lads, who cannot be stopped at the moment.

Burnley continued to struggle and received more yellow cards than clear-cut chances before Arsenal doubled their lead through a Bukayo Saka penalty. It was the perfect first half for Mikel Arteta’s men, who went into the break having to do very little defending against Burnley.

Two minutes after the restart, starboy Saka extended Arsenal’s lead with a delicious strike into the top corner. Burnley’s main attacking threat was Datro Fofana, who posed problems for Gabriel and William Saliba on some occasions with his physicality and speed, but Burnley did not look like the hosts.

The Clarets soon conceded a fourth from a well-worked Arsenal move finished off by Leandro Trossard. Despite substituting Saka, Trossard, and Ben White, Arsenal continued to dominate, and Kai Havertz put the icing on the cake with a fifth for Mikel Arteta’s men.

Arsenal won yet another game on the road in emphatic fashion, making Liverpool and Manchester City aware that this will be a very tight title race.

Arsenal embarks on a journey to Burnley with the aim of securing three crucial points to sustain their title challenge. Mikel Arteta has unveiled the lineup he believes can clinch the victory.

𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗠𝙉𝙀𝙒𝙎

Unchanged from last time out

COME ON YOU GUNNERS!! pic.twitter.com/6oo3HkXYdx

— Arsenal (@Arsenal) February 17, 2024

The divisive nature of football by Ben Dungate

More than ever, I am noticing the divisive nature of football and the effect it seems to have on ordinary people. The historical violence football has incited will long live in the memories of those that witnessed it first hand, or grew up during the era where barely a weekend went by where the news wasn’t filled with scenes of police battling with ‘fans’ in the street, with tear gas and Molotov cocktails passing in mid-air, both sides embroiled in a war neither partly really understood.

In today’s society, thankfully, outbreaks of this nature are very rare, at least in the West of Europe. However, despite the streets no longer being littered with the fall-out of such events, the seedy underbelly of fanatical football support still lives, only now it is mostly hidden away online in the comments sections of football forums and fan sites, where no one is safe even from their own fans. Dare to cast aspersions on a particular favourite and the metaphorical firebombs are instantly launched from all sides. Because in today’s ultra tolerant society, intolerance reigns supreme.

A differing opinion is met with scorn and sarcasm, and occasionally with a well-thought out erudite counter argument; but only very occasionally. Fans cannot and will not stand for a view that doesn’t align with their own and will die on a hill for their chosen one.

But it doesn’t need to be this way. What is wrong with considering how an opinion was arrived at before declaring it to the world? How about pausing before writing that reply – to really assess what you’re writing and why you’re writing it. By all means engage in polite debate with your fellow supporters, because when conducted appropriately and in the right manner fan forums are tremendous places where some truly insightful people share their deepest thoughts on the team, the players, and the game in general.

It’s matchday and Emirates will be bouncing! Arsenal Women v Manchester United WSL match kicks off at 12.30PM UK today, at a SOLD OUT Emirates Stadium.

A historic match for Arsenal Women – selling out the Emirates Stadium for the first time in their history – and a new WSL attendance record to boot!

Arsenal & Manchester United are as hungry as eachother, for the possible 3 WSL points up for grabs today, which should make for a magnificent game of football! I want to see our Gunners on fire today – I hope they come out with ALL GUNS BLAZING!

You can watch all the action live on SkySports Main Event or on the FA Player.

Here is Eidevall’s starting XI for this historic match:

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Raw sewage and runoff in the Tijuana River is exposing communities at the US-Mexico border to an unusual and noxious brew of pathogens and toxic chemicals, according to a report released this week.

Billions of gallons of sewage flow through the river, which winds north from Mexico through California and empties into the Pacific Ocean, containing a mix of carcinogenic chemicals including arsenic, as well as viruses, bacteria and parasites, according to public health researchers at San Diego State University, who published the report.

The researchers have called the situation “a pressing public health crisis.”

Wastewater flowing into the ocean has resulted in more than 700 consecutive days of beach closures in San Diego county, but the contamination isn’t limited to the water. Pollutants and pathogens contained in sewage have also been detected in the local air and soil—exposing even those who live miles away from the water.

Earlier this week, Meta decided to create the grandest of Gordian knots for itself when Adam Mosseri, its executive in charge of Instagram and Threads, announced that the company doesn’t want Threads to “proactively amplify political content from accounts you don’t follow”—in effect, announcing the company hopes to limit how “political” content is spread and shared. 

Given the boundless and ill-defined nature of politics, his plan seems nearly impossible to implement. Mosseri did not say the plan was to tone down “content involving electoral politics,” or even something as vague as “turning the volume down on toxic politics.” He referred only to leashing the vast but vague category of  “political content.”

Billionaire Mark Cuban did ask Mosseri on threads what Meta means when it says “political content.” But Mosseri never replied. When CNN’s Oliver Darcy pressed the company, he received a written reply: “Informed by research, our definition of political content is content likely to be about topics related to government or elections; for example, posts about laws, elections, or social topics,” with the caveat that “global issues are complex and dynamic, which means this definition will evolve.” 

In effect, Mosseri was asking users of Threads to stick to dumb posts—nothing that would, actually, have to be moderated. It reminded me of the edict at the old Deadspin to “stick to sports.” Jim Spanfeller, the CEO of the blog’s new parent company, demanded that of staff, telling them to not write about politics. Apart from bad business, it quickly didn’t make any sense. Sure, you can write a story about Tiger Woods without contextualizing what it means for a Black man to dominate the whitest sport, but it would be stupid. And the only way to avoid politics in writing about the scandal that ensued when the then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey tweeted in support of the Hong Kong protests would be not to write about it at all.

The cynical read is that politics being ill-defined is the point. Anything annoying for them to deal with, that could even tenuously be described as “political,” can be contained by limiting its algorithmic boost.

“Let’s keep in touch,” reads an inscription on a pink ceramic vessel by Cape Town–based sculptor Githan Coopoo that has been placed near the entrance to the Investec Cape Town Art Fair. Coopoo’s optimistic sentiment was palpable in the Cape Town International Convention Centre during the VIP preview on Thursday for the fair’s 11th edition, which includes more than 100 exhibitors from 24 countries. The energy had actually started a few days earlier as the Mother City’s annual art week kicked off with exhibitions, performances, and talks across the breezy ocean town.

The vernissage saw a crowd of around 5,000 attendees which included largely local collectors taking an early look at 400 works mainly by African artists and artists its diasporas. Key local market heavyweights like Goodman Gallery, Stevenson, SMAC Gallery, WHATIFTHEWORLD, and Southern Guild, which will open a Los Angeles outpost later this month, showed alongside Kenya’s Circle Art, Galerie Cécile Fakhoury from Côte d’Ivoire, A.Gorgi from Tunisia, Botswana-based Ora Loapi, and Borna Soglo Gallery from Benin. Several  Italian exhibitors, such as Galleria Giovanni Bonelli, Galleria Anna Marra and Shazar Gallery,  were also on hand, likely due to the fair’s Milanese owner company Fiera Milano.

Laura Vincenti, the fair’s director, described the last decade as “a learning curve” to ARTnews. In that time, she has focused on bringing “galleries with content that communicates with the local scene,” she said. “I have learned that not all galleries are prepared to show in Cape Town.”

In addition to the main gallery section, Investec also includes eight curated sections like Generations, which is new to the fair this year. (Exhibitors can participate in multiple sections.) Organized by Natasha Becker and Amogelang Maledu, Generations pairs young artists with established names to show parallels between artists’ work across decades. The section’s cash prize of $80,000 South African Rand (around $4,200) was awarded to Johannesburg-based painter Boemo Diale, who exhibited with South African gallery Kalashnikovv Gallery.

“The goal is to create fresh perspective on historical figures through the lens of contemporary artists who are in dialogue with the past,” Becker told ARTnews.

Yuga Labs, the web3 and lifestyle company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club, recently announced it had acquired rival non-fungible token creator Proof.

Proof is best known for Moonbirds, a collection of NFT profile pics known as PFPs. The Proof acquisition includes its team, intellectual property, and artistic portfolio, including the Oddities NFTs, Mythics PFPs, and Grails exhibition series.

In addition to Bored Ape Yacht Club, Yuga Labs is known creating the metaverse game Otherside, blockchain art series TwelveFold, and ownership of NFT brands Meebits, CryptoPunks, and 10KTF. Yuga Labs acquired Meebits and CryptoPunks from Larva Labs in March 2022.

“As a company committed to championing art, culture, and community on the blockchain, we’re excited to have PROOF join the Yuga ecosystem,” Yuga Labs CEO Daniel Alegre said in a press statement. “Moonbirds is a collection with great potential and many unifying brand elements with Otherside. We look forward to PROOF Collective becoming an important part of our ongoing art and community engagement efforts.”

Last year, Proof collaborated with Pace Verso, Pace Gallery’s arm for web3 projects, on the NFT project “Archive of Feelings” by multidisciplinary artist Mika Tajima. The project was based on an existing series of large-scale installations by the artist.