goals

In the space of a week Falkirk have beaten defending champions Celtic and become the first team to get the better of Hearts in a Scottish Premiership match at Tynecastle in 19 months, scoring a combined seven goals in the process.

The 5-2 success in Edinburgh was their fifth successive victory and takes John McGlynn’s side up to third place.

A month ago, the concession of an added time goal to Dundee left them 11th, only a point off the bottom of the table.

“It’s striking a balance without getting carried away and not playing it down too much,” McGlynn told BBC Scotland.

“Winning five games in a row, you’ve obviously got something about you. We want it to continue because we’re enjoying this.

“But we’re only 13 games in. There’s a long way to go, so we’ve got to keep our feet on the ground and enjoy seeing our team third in the league.”

The 64-year-old earned plaudits aplenty last season for guiding Falkirk to sixth on their return to the top flight after overseeing consecutive promotions.

Liam Henderson, who scored the sublime fourth goal against Hearts, was with the Bairns in those League One days, as were Brad Spencer and Ethan Ross.

Unused substitutes Finn Yeats and Ross MacIver have been on the journey with McGlynn too, as has Leon McCann, who missed out through injury.

“We’ve got a good team spirit, a togetherness, and a will to work hard for your team-mates,” said centre-half Henderson. “We now have a ruthlessness up front as well.

“The manager is massive to us. His knowledge, his detail. He is so detailed in everything he does.

“We’re breaking records this season and creating some history. A lot of pundits and fans were saying that we weren’t the team we were last year.”

There is truth to that. While some of the old guard remain, there was a huge squad turnover in the summer.

Calvin Miller went to Hearts, Dylan Tait is now the skipper at Dundee United and Barney Stewart, who scored 10 goals between January and May, was sold to West Bromwich Albion for a club record fee.

Loan players Filip Lissah, Ben Broggio, Henry Cartwright, Kyrell Wilson, Ethan Williams and Louie Marsh said their goodbyes.

No Premier League side has lost more home games in 2026 than Newcastle (7), while they have now lost 16 of their past 18 league games when conceding first.

The Magpies have failed to keep a clean sheet in each of their past 14 home league games – the longest run in their league history.

It all points to worrying times, with Jaissle just three months into a four-year contract.

“I fear a little for Newcastle,” former Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher said on Sky Sports.

“They have a young manager and young players. You are always going to question the manager when the team is not winning.

“I think it is going to be a tough season. At home, especially, it feels flat and boring, and I never expected to say about Jaissle’s Newcastle. You expected it to be front-footed and exciting, coming from the Red Bull model.”

Newcastle are in the bottom half of the table, with 11 points from nine games.

It was always going to be a period of transition following Eddie Howe’s exit, after five years in charge, and the arrival of 38-year-old Jaissle, after successful spells in Saudi Arabia and Austria.

In addition, Newcastle lost a number of key players in the summer including Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes.

At the start of the year, Newcastle United‘s chief executive David Hopkinson said he could put them “in the debate about being the top club in the world” by 2030.

That now seems a long way off amid suggestions the ambitions of the club’s Saudi Arabian owners, the Public Investment Fund, are running out of steam.

Jaissle was not helped on Monday by his goalkeeper, with Hornicek allowing a routine shot to squirm under his body for Thierno Barry to tap home the winner.

The Newcastle boss claimed Barry’s winner should have been disallowed for a foul on Fabian Schar in the build-up, but he conceded his players had struggled to show the bravery required to get back in the game.

“It’s almost like a negative spiral,” he said. “I’m not happy with the referee decision.

“Unfortunately we couldn’t deliver actually over the whole 90 minutes. It was not our game and our style of playing.

“That is something we are very frustrated and disappointed about. If you cannot deliver when it counts then you don’t deserve to win.

“We were not brave enough in possession, too many long balls.”

Jaissle admitted Newcastle are lacking belief in the midst of their miserable run.

“There are certain moments with not too much confidence, not only with the young lads but also with the more experienced ones,” he said.

“It’s a difficult period. We also know you can only overcome that as a unit. We worked hard and it looked good but unfortunately we couldn’t deliver.

“We will analyse in detail and try and make things better against Fulham.”

Ever since Uefa announced its plans to alter the format of the Champions League in 2021, the impact on matches has been a hot topic. Scrutiny has only increased since the changes were implemented in time for the 2024-25 season.

After beginning life as a six-team invitational tournament in 1955-56 before growing to a 32-team knockout tournament in 1967, the Champions League as we know it began in 1992.

A group stage was added, with the last 16 entering a knockout phase. There was a brief spell with two group stages, but this was reverted back to the single group-stage format for the 2003-04 tournament.

The group stage previously featured 32 teams in eight groups of four, with the top two sides from each of those groups qualifying for the last 16.

For the start of the 2024-25 season, the group stage was replaced with a 36-team league phase, with each side playing eight one-off fixtures instead of six games against three teams.

The top eight finishers qualify directly for the knockout stages, with those placed ninth to 24th entering a two-legged play-off stage.

The bottom eight are eliminated, meaning that after eight matches, 24 sides are still in the competition. Some argue that that creates a lack of jeopardy, which encourages teams to play more expansively.

But do more goals equal better quality?

“I think the entertainment has gone up, although I’m not sure the quality has gone up,” The Times football writer Tom Arnott told BBC Radio 5 Live.

“If I’m looking at the games it’s brilliant to watch and thrilling because the football itself is fantastic – but what do they mean?

“The lack of jeopardy, why would PSG and Barcelona play for a draw, why not go for it? If you need five wins from the eight games you know you’ve got some margin there. If you lose it’s OK. I think the format allows all the teams to loosen up.

“The entertainment value is there but I think you come away from these matches sometimes and still think ‘what does it all mean?’. The lack of jeopardy early on does deliver entertainment.”