Arsenal are nine points clear atop the Premier League with just seven games left but Manchester City are still chasing as the title race reaches its climax

Arsenal have a mere seven league matches remaining this season as they continue to lead the race for the Premier League title. Manchester City are still in contention but face a more challenging set of fixtures.

Mikel Arteta’s squad have grown used to playing the supporting role in the top tier, finishing as runners-up in each of the previous three seasons. However, this term, they’re within touching distance of the trophy and hold a nine-point lead at the top.

Pep Guardiola’s City are their sole remaining competitors, sitting in second place with a game in hand. They defeated the Gunners 2-0 in the Carabao Cup final, dashing any hopes of an Arsenal quadruple.

Both teams will clash once more during the Premier League home stretch but one has a smoother road to glory. Mirror Football assesses which of Arsenal and City face the tougher final few fixtures.

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If we utilise the Fixture Difficulty Rating (FDR) that Fantasy Premier League players use, it becomes clear which of the two title contenders faces an easier end to the season. This rating varies from 1 to 5, with the higher number indicating a more challenging match.

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League frontrunners Arsenal are set to host Bournemouth next, a match with an FDR of 3. Following this, they face City away (5), before welcoming Newcastle (3) and Fulham (2) to the Emirates.

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The Gunners conclude their season with a visit to West Ham (2), a home game against Burnley (1) and a trip to Crystal Palace (3). In contrast, City not only have an additional match to play but also face more challenging opponents.

Guardiola’s squad return from the international break to take on Chelsea (4) away, followed by a home match against Arsenal (4). They then hit the road to face Burnley (2) and Everton (3).

City will later host Brentford (3), before an away showdown with Bournemouth (3) and a home clash against Aston Villa (3). Additionally, there is still the match against Palace (3) at the Etihad to be rescheduled.

Given that City have an extra match, we can examine the averages of these final fixtures and deduce that they face a tougher run-in. Arsenal’s average FDR stands at 2.7, whilst City’s is 3.1. Despite besting their title rivals in the Carabao Cup, manager Guardiola doesn’t believe that trophy success will influence the league battle.

Following the victory at Wembley, he stated: “I would like to be nine points in front of Arsenal, but I don’t know if I’d change a trophy to fight for the Premier League.

“I don’t think it will have an impact, different competition and they will be more concerned when they come to the Etihad. That title will help us a lot for the [FA Cup] quarter-final against Liverpool at home with our people.

“Today all our side was fully Blue, I’m so happy being together and celebrating. Maybe it will help us for that game but the Premier League is in their hands, they punished us a lot.”

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Kim Jong Un observed a test of a high-thrust, solid-fuel engine for weapons, hailing it as a development to boost North Korea’s strategic military capability, state media reported. 

The test likely indicates Kim’s plans to expand and modernise an arsenal of missiles capable of reaching the US mainland.

The report on Sunday from Korean Central News Agency came days after a speech at North Korea’s parliament in which Kim pledged to irreversibly cement his country’s status as a nuclear power.

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He accused the US of global “state terrorism and aggression,” apparently referencing the war in the Middle East.

Kim observed the ground jet test of the newly upgraded engine using a composite carbon fibre material, KCNA reported.

The engine’s maximum thrust is 2,500 kilotons, up from around 1,971 kilotons reported in a similar solid fuel engine test in September, according to the agency.

A push to increase engine power is likely connected with efforts to place multiple warheads on a single missile to increase chances of defeating US defences, observers say.

KCNA did not report exactly where or when the test took place.

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The test is part of the nation’s five-year military escalation programme.

Objectives include upgrading “strategic strike means,” KCNA reported.

The reference is understood to mean nuclear-capable, intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the continental US.

Kim said the engine test had “great significance in putting the country’s strategic military muscle on the highest level,” KCNA reported.

In recent years, North Korea has test-fired a variety of ICBMs demonstrating the potential range to strike the US mainland, including missiles with solid propellants that make detection ahead of liftoff more difficult.

The country’s older liquid-fuel missiles must be fuelled before liftoffs and are not long-lasting.

Some foreign experts say North Korea still faces technological hurdles before it has a functioning ICBM, such as ensuring warheads survive atmospheric reentry.

But others dispute that assessment given the number of years the nation has spent on its nuclear and missile programmes.

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Kim Jong Un unveils ‘most powerful’ missile

North Korea has made a big push to expand its nuclear arsenal since Kim’s high-stakes diplomacy with Donald Trump collapsed in 2019.

In a ruling Workers’ Party congress in February, Kim left open the door for discussions with the US president but urged Washington to drop demands for the North’s nuclear disarmament as a precondition for talks.

Before that crash, the win looked to be between Piastri and Russell.

Antonelli made a slow start and dropped to the back of the top six as Piastri swept into the lead, and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and McLaren’s Lando Norris also passed Russell.

Piastri held the lead confidently as Russell moved past Norris and Leclerc into second place by lap four.

Russell tracked Piastri within a second for several laps and then overtook him into the chicane on lap eight, only for the McLaren to move back past down the pit straight at the start of the following lap.

Russell was never as close again and Piastri’s confidence began to build, and he got on to the radio to his team to say he felt that he could hold on to the win if they could keep him in the lead through the pit stops.

Leclerc started the pit stop period on lap 17, Piastri following him in a lap later and Russell three laps after that.

Piastri was proved right as Russell came out of the pits behind the McLaren. Meanwhile, Antonelli – who had moved past Hamilton but no further after the start – cycled up into the lead.

Bearman’s crash happened almost straight afterwards and Russell immediately knew the consequences as he saw the safety car signs alight around the track.

Piastri lost out, too, on what could have been a victory had he managed to hold on ahead of Russell, as the rest of the race suggested he would have.

But a second place finally gets the Australian’s season off the ground, and gives McLaren their first 2026 podium, after he had failed to start the first two races.

“Turns out we’re all right when we actually get to start,” Piastri said.

“A shame we never got to see what would have happened, but for us at this point to be disappointed about finishing second is a pretty good place to be.”

Manchester City midfielder Rodri suggested he would be open to returning to La Liga before the end of his career

Manchester City midfielder Rodri has urged fans to listen to his full interview from earlier this week after he said he would be open to returning to La Liga before the end of his career. After winning the Carabao Cup, the 29-year-old joined up with the Spanish national team for the final international break of the campaign.

During an interview with Spanish media, Rodri was asked about the prospect of playing for Real Madrid, despite previously representing Atletico, and returning to La Liga. He replied: “There have been many players who have gone down that path, right?

“And especially not directly, but over time. I mean, for me, you can’t turn down the best clubs in the world. They have a fanbase that really goes all out for them, and for me, the Bernabeu is always incredible, a stadium that’s very imposing.” He then added: “I’d like to return [to Spain], yes, obviously.”

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Rodri’s contract expires in 2027 and his words led to concerns he might push for a City exit either this summer or at the end of his current deal. But the midfielder has now spoken again about the fallout from the interview, insisting that context was missing.

“I’m used to it,” he explained in response to that interview. “If, out of a 50-minute interview, they cut out whatever they want… in the end, I don’t have much more to say.

“I’m a person who speaks directly. The interview is there if you want to listen to it in its entirety… and not just certain snippets.”

Despite his admiration for La Liga and admitting he still follows the division, Rodri was also complimentary about the Premier League in that initial interview. “I think it’s a thrilling league but at the same time very demanding, meaning it pushes you to the limit,” he said.

“I’ve been there for seven years now, and I’m noticing the passage of time, but for the moment I’m very happy there. I’m currently recovering from an injury, and what worries me right now is my feeling, my level, how to get back to my previous level.

“Not the contract issue, that will come, especially with a World Cup coming up, which is crucial for reaching my level. Right now, I’m free, well, obviously I have a year left on my contract.

“Obviously, there will be a point where we’ll have to sit down and talk, have a conversation.” Rodri is due to return to City after Tuesday’s international friendly against Egypt, ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final vs Liverpool.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For several hours Friday, in the stillness before dawn, the Senate appeared to have finally figured out how to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security before it faced the longest partial shutdown in U.S. history.

Senators handed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., their deal and headed for the airports, seemingly confident of success.

Then it collapsed. Spectacularly.

An incensed Johnson marched out of his office Friday afternoon. He angrily rebuked the plan that the Senate had unanimously agreed to as a “joke.”

“I have to protect the House, and I have to protect the American people,” Johnson told reporters.

It was a dramatic denunciation of a deal that his counterpart, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., had negotiated after weeks of effort, and was the latest abrupt turn in a funding saga that has bedeviled top Republicans for much of the year.

The collapse of the deal leaves Congress, now on a two-week spring break, with no easy way out of the impasse that has put DHS into a shutdown since mid-February. It also has exposed a rare rupture between the two Republican leaders in Congress, testing their alliances as they labor to move another set of President Donald Trump’s priorities into law before the November elections.

Nothing ahead is likely to be easy.

How the deal collapsed

Thune had negotiated for weeks with Democratic senators on their demands for new restrictions on the department’s immigration enforcement work. Offers were traded several times. The talks moved along at a stop-start pace. Votes failed again and again.

But as Trump made it clear Thursday that he would sign an executive action to pay Transportation Security Administration workers, Thune and Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York settled on a deal: It would not include funding for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and for U.S. Border Patrol, and would set aside Democratic demands for new limits on the agencies.

Thune pointed out that Congress had allotted money for immigration enforcement and he told reporters that “we can get at least a lot of the government opened up again and then we’ll go from there.”

Asked if he had cleared the compromise with Johnson, Thune said the two had texted.

“I don’t know what the House will do,” the senator said early Friday as the deal came together.

But as House Republicans woke up to the news, their outrage was swift.

Rep. Nick LaLota, R-N.Y., said that on a GOP conference call that morning to discuss their path forward, a few dozen members ranging from moderates to hard-line conservatives spoke in opposition to what the Senate had done.

“The Senate chickened out,” he said. “The cowards there, only a few of them in the middle of the night with I think only three to five senators present on the floor, chickened out because they wanted to go home for two weeks. We need to raise the bar.”

What’s next for Republicans?

The bitter split threatens to make the job for Republican leaders more difficult as they try to advance their priorities while they still have guaranteed control of both chambers. Trump has said that legislation to impose strict new proof of citizenship requirements on voting is his top priority, but there is no real path for that plan in the Senate with its 60-vote threshold for advancing legislation.

Some Republicans have pushed instead for a budget package that could potentially put some parts of the voter ID law in place. Republicans are also contemplating how to pass an expected request from the White House to fund the war with Iran that could total more than $200 billion, among other priorities.

Meanwhile, the flop of the funding deal has given Democrats another chance to pin the partial shutdown on House Republicans.

“They know this is a continuation of the shutdown because the Senate is gone,” said Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, the No. 2 Democratic leader. “So they know fully well what they’re doing.”

It is not clear what the Senate will do next. A quick resumption of talks is unlikely. Negotiations ended acrimoniously on both sides, with each blaming the other for moving the goalposts along the way.

Schumer said he was proud of his caucus for “holding the line.” But Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, who leads the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Democrats were “intransigent and unreasonable.”

Thune said he believed that Democrats never wanted a deal and would not vote for ICE funding under any circumstances.

“I felt like from the beginning, they just didn’t want to get to ‘yes,’” Thune said after the vote.

The dynamic left senators convinced that the deal was the only way to move past their disagreements and reopen DHS.

But House Republicans on Friday night seemed to revel in the fact they had defied the wishes of the Senate. GOP members said that they work from a perspective that is closer to the will of their constituents.

To Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., the Senate’s proposal was “nothing more than unconditional surrender masquerading as a solution.” She said the House ”will not bend itself into submission by acquiescing.”

Those searching for a way out of the shutdown seemed discouraged.

“This takes two chambers to get the job done,” said Pennsylvania Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a moderate Republican. “Apparently, there’s not enough communication between those chambers.”

___

Associated Press writer Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

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Train Disruptions

Buses replace trains between York and Newcastle this weekend

Buses will replace trains between York and Newcastle on Saturday, March 28 and Sunday, March 29.

Engineering work is taking place between Northallerton and Newcastle, closing all lines.

Rail replacement buses will operate between York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle.

What will the weather be like in the North East this weekend?

Darlington and County Durham are set for a mixed weekend, with Sunday bringing a wet and windy day with showers later expected later.

The Met Office says Sunday will begin with temperatures of around 5C at dawn under partly cloudy skies.

Are there any roadworks in Darlington?

Drivers in Darlington are being warned to expect delays this weekend, with a series of road closures and lane restrictions in place across the town and surrounding areas between March 28 and 29.

Motorists are being urged to plan ahead, allow extra time for journeys and follow diversion signs.