logo
Reading's Ahmed hopes side can 'build' on cup win

Reading's Ahmed hopes side can 'build' on cup win

BBC Newsa day ago
Reading defender Ashqar Ahmed hopes his side can take the momentum from winning in the first round of the Carabao Cup into their league form. The Royals have lost both of their opening League One matches but were able to get their first competitive victory of the season on Tuesday as they beat Portsmouth at Fratton Park.Goals from Andre Garcia and Kelvin Ehibhatiomhan were enough for Noel Hunt's side despite a late consolation by Olutayo Singerr in injury time."We're excited and hopefully we can build on this," Ahmed told BBC Radio Berkshire after the game. "We want to use the momentum from this and get our first league win."With the support that our home fans will give us I'm sure that we will perform with them on our back."
Reading take on AFC Wimbledon at the SCL Stadium on Saturday and will hope they are able to better last weekend's home defeat by Huddersfield Town.Academy graduate Ahmed has made just 13 senior appearances for the club and claimed one assist.The right-back has impressed for Reading across pre-season and caught the eye again on Tuesday with an assured performance. He lined-up against new Portsmouth player Yang Min-hyeok who is on loan from Tottenham Hotspur and limited him from having much of an impact on the game. "I studied him [Yang] before the game on video and knew what I was coming up against," he said."He's a tricky player but I got the better of him. It was a great game for me personally and the team."You can see the cohesion on the pitch and we are all together with the same mindset of getting the win for the team and go forward together."
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Man Utd ready to take £53m hit on Jadon Sancho with cut-price sale to Roma
Man Utd ready to take £53m hit on Jadon Sancho with cut-price sale to Roma

Telegraph

time29 minutes ago

  • Telegraph

Man Utd ready to take £53m hit on Jadon Sancho with cut-price sale to Roma

Jadon Sancho has been offered the opportunity to at last end his Manchester United nightmare with a move to AS Roma. United have loaned their £73m signing in the past two seasons and are now discussing a deal for him to move to Italy with the possibility of a £20m permanent transfer. The 25-year-old has proved to be one of the worst signings for United in recent years, arriving four years ago after a prolonged chase to land him from Borussia Dortmund. But they are now set to make a huge loss on their fourth-most expensive signing in their history, the winger having fallen out of favour under Erik ten Hag when he was first loaned back to Dortmund. Sancho will consider his options before deciding on whether to pursue a move to Serie A, where Roma have appointed coaching legend Gian Piero Gasperini and will play in the Europa League this season. He previously had options in Turkey but decided not to pursue a deal to link up with former United managers Jose Mourinho at Fenerbahce, or Ole Gunnar Solskjaer at Besiktas. Solskjaer was the manager who signed Sancho, in 2021, but was dismissed after three months of the season and the club's marquee signing of the summer struggled to settle at Old Trafford. Ten Hag sent him to train on his own in the Netherlands after physical and mental battles. But he also thrived by moving away from United and reached the Champions League final while on loan with Dortmund. Last season at Chelsea he played in the Europa Conference League final and added a winners' medal to his haul, but a permanent deal was not taken at the cost of a penalty fee. TAKE A BOW JADON SANCHO 🤩 What a finish from the on-loan winger, as he cuts inside and fires expertly into the far corner to give Chelsea a 2-goal lead - is that the game for the Blues...? 🏆 📺 @tntsports & @discoveryplusUK — Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) May 28, 2025 Roma have been looking at wide players and have opened talks over a deal for Aston Villa's Leon Bailey, with Sancho now also in their sights. Only Paul Pogba, Harry Maguire and Antony have been more expensive signings than Sancho in United's history. United also want to offload Antony this summer. Real Betis would take the Brazil forward back after a successful loan last season. Alejandro Garnacho is also allowed to leave and is waiting to discuss terms with Chelsea, if a deal can be struck with United.

Meet the Brit who's the face of the Premier League — in America
Meet the Brit who's the face of the Premier League — in America

Times

time29 minutes ago

  • Times

Meet the Brit who's the face of the Premier League — in America

It's late July when the NBC football presenter Rebecca Lowe pops up on my laptop screen from a hotel room in Chicago to discuss the return of the Premier League. She has already been on the road, covering a series of friendlies, for weeks. There are clothes scattered on the floor behind her and a suitcase is flung open. Lowe, 44, wearing workout gear, looks like she's just come from the gym — or is on her way there. Born and raised in London, Lowe still sounds very English as she races through her career covering the Premier League for 12 years in America. But as she talks about the game, interchangeably calling it 'football' and 'soccer', it's clear the US has left its mark. 'I said 'football' for years,' Lowe said. 'Then I had a child who now plays soccer. So now I say 'soccer' at home, which has bled into my actual work. I was recently on air and referred to the Premier League as the 'most popular soccer league in the world'. 'I thought to myself: 'You've changed.'' This change has been warmly welcomed in America, where Lowe has established herself as the face of 'soccer' thanks to her work at NBC. Since becoming lead studio host in 2013, she has won universal praise for her work — to the point where she is stopped in the street nearly every week by fans 'who just want to talk about football', she said with a smile. Though she may not be massively famous in the UK, over here she's a star. More people watch her programme than the National Hockey League, which averaged 440,000 viewers per game last season. From 2024 to 2025, her NBC show has attracted about 510,000 viewers per episode — double the audience from when the network acquired the US Premier League rights 12 years ago. And with the World Cup set to kick off in America next summer, Lowe said she believed the Premier League was 'going to become even more mainstream' in the US. 'The next generation — my son's generation — are just soccer-obsessed. All of them. You see kids, they're all in Premier League shirts everywhere. At school, when I drop them off. Then the dads are in Premier League shirts. It's so different even from five years ago. So the pace is so, so quick. The World Cup is going to help even more.' (The recent Women's Euros final drew 1.35 million viewers in America, double the previous final in 2022.) It could have been a very different story for Lowe. Before moving Stateside, she worked for BBC Sport and ESPN, but had grown disillusioned with her industry and was close to quitting, worn down by the 'thankless' slog of pitchside reporting and the sexist abuse she received from football fans. 'That's all I got for ten years,' she says. 'I hated it.' But since NBC tapped her to be the lead host of their Premier League coverage in America, forcing her to relocate to the US, she said she had experienced none of that. 'I've never had a problem — not once — with people questioning me and my role, which is why I love it so much here.' As a young girl, Lowe wanted to become an actress. But football — and journalism — is in her blood. Her dad, the former BBC News presenter Chris Lowe, used to take her and her brother, Alex, a rugby journalist for The Times, to Selhurst Park to watch Crystal Palace for most home games. The first match Lowe saw was Crystal Palace versus Everton in the 1989-90 season. It was 'no place for a nine-year-old girl', she said — but still, she was hooked. Of the fans' passion and the rush that always followed a goal, she said 'there is nothing better'. Still, Lowe went on to study drama at university, and did not consider sports journalism until she was graduating in 2002, when she entered — and won — a BBC Talent Search for a football reporter. (She chose not to mention that her dad was a BBC presenter in her application.) But she was so nervous before her first live report for BBC Final Score, covering a match between Nottingham Forest and Reading, that she did not eat for two days. 'I remember walking to the press room and the whole room turning around to look at me because I was the only woman,' she said. 'I had to go to the women's toilets — which took a while to find — and give myself a pep talk. I didn't believe I could do it.' Lowe felt more relaxed conducting player interviews. One of her earliest was with the former England international Peter Crouch. At the time he was playing for Southampton but Lowe knew him from her youth when she and friends would walk to school and exchange 'eye contact, but nothing more' with Crouch and his mates. 'There was whispering and all of that. But no one ever spoke to anybody. It was hilarious. Valentine's Day cards were even swapped — though I never sent one to Peter. This went on for about six years,' she says, laughing. 'We laughed about it when I went down to Southampton's training ground.' From 2009 to 2013, Lowe worked as a reporter for ESPN until NBC tapped her as their lead host — a dream position, although it meant she had to film at the network's Connecticut studio. At the time, her boyfriend Paul Buckle was the manager of Luton Town, which he had just taken to the Conference Premier play-off final at Wembley. But he agreed to give up the job to support Lowe's career. They married and moved to Connecticut in 2013. 'I'm not sure there's a lot of men who would do that,' she said. Two years later, Paul was offered a job as head coach of Sacramento Republic FC, a club in the USL Championship, one tier below MLS. This time it was Lowe's turn to support him, so they moved to near Lake Tahoe, California, so he could take the job — nearly 3,000 miles away from Connecticut. Pregnant with their son at the time, Lowe thought: 'Well, if he can move to America for me, I can move to California.' Lowe has been based on the West Coast ever since. Every weekend, she makes the gruelling cross-country journey to Connecticut to cover the Premier League alongside a range of hosts, including the ex-Jamaica international Robbie Earle and the former US goalkeeper Tim Howard. On Friday mornings, she drops her nine-year-old boy off at school, then races to San Francisco to catch a flight to New York, before finally checking into a hotel near NBC's Connecticut studio. Then she is up at 3.30am on Saturdays to start the show at 7am. After broadcasting again on Sunday mornings, she flies back to California that night. 'I never adjust to the times, but everything is incredibly regimented,' she said. Lowe believes her network's coverage has helped to grow the game in the US, where 14.1 million people aged six or older play soccer, up 23 per cent since 2018. She is also proud of how her adopted nation has come to embrace the sport. Football was less tribal and 'angry' in the US, largely because it is treated as entertainment, not a religion, she said. 'The flip side of that is you don't always get the atmosphere, but then it's a really nice place to take your kids,' Lowe adds. When asked if she'll ever return to the UK, Lowe replied 'never say never'. But she admitted it would be difficult after more than a decade in a country where she said success is openly celebrated. 'Americans like success for themselves, for other people, for the country. I don't know if English people are the same,' she says. 'I think I would find England quite difficult now, because this is a very safe space for me. People just lift one another up a lot here.' A return home could mean she could rival her brother, Alex, as one of the major voices in British sport, I suggest. But, I ask her, who's the better journalist? 'Alex, definitely,' she said, laughing. 'I'm just winging it over here.'

Packers coach on QB Jordan Love: 'Surgery went well'
Packers coach on QB Jordan Love: 'Surgery went well'

Reuters

time29 minutes ago

  • Reuters

Packers coach on QB Jordan Love: 'Surgery went well'

August 14 - Green Bay Packers quarterback Jordan Love was back on the practice field Thursday, casually wearing a red jersey draped over his head and a cast around his surgically repaired left thumb. Sure, Love didn't participate in the joint practice with the Colts in Indianapolis, but his presence served as a positive for head coach Matt LaFleur and the rest of the Packers. "Surgery went well," LaFleur said. "He's in great spirits and he's here with us. So, now it's just about putting in the work to get the thumb rehabbed." LaFleur added that Love is expected to start throwing very soon. "I wouldn't say right away, but we anticipate there will be some sort of participation next week," LaFleur said. Love hit his hand on a helmet when he was sacked by Jay Tufele in the Packers' 30-10 loss in their preseason opener against the New York Jets on Saturday. Malik Willis will be under center in the interim for the Packers, who open their regular season on Sept. 7 at home against NFC North rival Detroit. Love, 26, passed for 3,389 yards and 25 touchdowns against 11 interceptions in 15 games (all starts) last season. He has completed 63.5 percent of his passes for 8,154 yards with 60 touchdowns and 25 picks in 42 career games (33 starts) since being selected by the Packers with the 26th overall pick of the 2020 NFL Draft. Love is 18-15 as a starter in his career. --Field Level Media

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store