Sport

The Morning Sports Briefing

Louis van Gaal sacked with Jose set to take over, McGuinness questions Derry tactics and what to watch out for

Jose Mourinho’s long-anticipated arrival at Old Trafford finally looks to be here, but he is set to take over a team still in considerable flux after two unconvincing years of Louis van Gaal’s stewardship. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
Jose Mourinho’s long-anticipated arrival at Old Trafford finally looks to be here, but he is set to take over a team still in considerable flux after two unconvincing years of Louis van Gaal’s stewardship. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
Tue May 24 2016 - 08:36

Soccer

Manchester United last night finally confirmed the worst kept secret in football over recent days - Louis van Gaal has been sacked as club manager, with a replacement to be announced in the coming days.

That replacement, according to the same reports which announced van Gaal’s departure three days ago, will be the divisive ex-Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho.

The outgoing Dutch manager is believed to be receiving all of his final year’s salary of £6m to fly out of Manchester - still though expressing disappointment with the club’ decision to end his three year term a year premature, in his farewell statement.

READ MORE

The Irish squad resumed their Euro 2016 preparations in Abbotstown yesterday - with manager Martin O’Neill announcing that four of his 35-man training squad had been put on standby, also revealing that Marc Wilson’s ongoing knee injury had ruled him out of contention for the final 23 man squad.

Set to benefit from Wilson's misfortune is Blackburn centre back Shane Duffy after impressing the manager during his appearance in the Switzerland friendly a couple of months ago - O'Neill says: "I don't want to heap an awful lot of expectation on him but I think he's done fine."

Rugby

Gerry Thornley believes that the Pro12 have missed a sitter by not having the weekend's final in Dublin - flights to Edinburgh were already bumped up with the fixture coinciding with the Edinburgh marathon. Now though hoteliers have bumped up their prices further.

GAA

Meanwhile Jim McGuinness in his column this morning feels Derry played into Tyrone's hands in last Sunday's Ulster championship defeat - "Derry took the ball into contact so many times which gave Tyrone the opportunity to create turnovers."

Boxing

Katie Taylor's warlike habits were reined in yesterday evening as she danced her way into the world championships quarter-finals - now just one win from a place in Rio. Argentinian Dayana Sanchez was dismissed 3-0, next up is Mexico's Victoria Torres while Grainne Walsh and Kellie Harrington also fight for World Championship medals today.

What to watch out for

The Paris French Open continues today with Serena Williams, Novak Djokovic and Rafa Nadal all in action.

Eurosport, 9.30am-8.30pm

Setanta, 10am-8pm

ITV4, 9.30am-9pm

The Women's World boxing Championships continues in Astana today with RTE joining our own Johnny Watterson in Kazakhstan for the quarter-finals.

RTE 1, 2pm-3.10pm

RTE 2, 7.30pm-8pm