The Times

Police in South Korea have arrested a woman on suspicion of blackmailing the Tottenham Hotspur captain Son Heung-min, after falsely claiming that she was pregnant with his child.

The woman, named in South Korean media only as A, and reported to be in her twenties, was charged at the Gangnam police station in Seoul, along with a male accomplice in his forties.

“As the police are currently investigating, we will inform you as soon as the results are available,” the footballer’s agency, Son & Football, said in a statement. “We will take strong legal action against those who have threatened him with clear falsehoods, and we emphasise that Son Heung-min is a clear victim in this incident.”

Son, 32, who also captains the South Korea

In the nine days before the Europa League final, Ange Postecoglou will be drumming one message into his players more than any other: win a European trophy for Tottenham Hotspur and you will never be forgotten.

Postecoglou is aware of the narrative that could easily develop as the showpiece in Bilbao draws closer, given Manchester United — even through the club’s era of chaos — have won ten trophies since Spurs last lifted one. Tottenham have tended to blink in the big moments. If history repeats, United will find a way.

Yet Postecoglou wants to frame it differently to his players in the coming days: as the final that matters more to them. If Ruben Amorim has downplayed the impact of Manchester United winning the

Aston Villa have criticised the Premier League’s decision to bring forward their game against Tottenham Hotspur by two days to aid Spurs’ preparation for a potential Europa League final.

The match, originally scheduled for Sunday, May 18, will now instead be played at 7.30pm on Friday, May 16. Villa had already objected to a request to move the game to next Thursday evening (May 15), made to the Premier League before the first leg of Tottenham’s semi-final against Bodo/Glimt, and fans are annoyed that the league has now agreed to move their final home fixture of the season at such short notice.

Monchi, Villa’s president of football operations, took to social media to vent his frustration after the decision was communicated to fans on Tuesday.

There has been a lot of back-door chat of late — as in Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United could qualify for the Champions League through the back door.

This was somewhat inevitable given just how dreadful both clubs have been week in and week out in the Premier League this season. Spurs have lost 19 matches and United have lost 15. They are nowhere near the battle for a top-five finish and in many respects their domestic campaigns have been an embarrassment given the size, status and stature of both. And yet one of them could very easily soon be distributing travel guides for Barcelona and Paris to their staff.

It hardly seems fair, really, that the prize for winning the Europa League is a

Atletico Madrid are interested in signing Rodrigo Bentancur and Cristian Romero from Tottenham Hotspur this summer.

Romero, the Argentina centre back, expressed his desire to try “new places” and to play in La Liga during an interview last week but Tottenham also face a fight to hold on to Bentancur, the Uruguay midfielder who has only one year left on his contract.

Spurs want Bentancur to sign a new deal and have opened talks with the 27-year-old’s representatives but Atletico are one of a handful of European teams ready to capitalise if no agreement is reached. Tottenham signed Bentancur in a deal worth about £21million from Juventus in 2022 and he has made more than 100 appearances for the club. Spurs want to extend his

Cristian Romero has suggested he wants to leave Tottenham Hotspur this summer by revealing his desire to play in Spain.

In an interview with an Argentinian journalist conducted after Tottenham’s Europa League win over Eintracht Frankfurt on Thursday night, Romero circled La Liga as the one league he would “love to play in” and said he was keen to go to “new places”.

Spurs were aware of the interview, which took place at Tottenham’s training ground, but it was organised by Romero with the Argentinian reporter, Gaston Edul. The club will not be taking any disciplinary action against Romero. The posted clips appear to have been edited, with the full version yet to be published.

Asked what motivates him, Romero said: “I try above all

It began half a century ago on the windswept terraces of Middle Park stadium, on the southern edge of the world, where the coastal breeze would carry the wafting scent of souvlaki: a life in football that eventually would take Ange Postecoglou back to the continent he left as a child. What looms on Thursday, in a stadium encircled by a German forest, may well be the biggest game of that life. Win in Frankfurt, pull off the result of the season, and Tottenham Hotspur can still aspire to the trophy that may earn Postecoglou a third season. Lose, and the defining job of his coaching career is doomed to end in failure.

The stakes are immense. It took Postecoglou 30 years of hard, patient

Ange Postecoglou has accused Tottenham Hotspur’s critics of “turning gold into crap” but admitted that the “general sentiment” is that he will not be in charge next season.

The Spurs head coach spoke for ten minutes during a terse press conference to preview his team’s Europa League quarter-final first leg with Eintracht Frankfurt. He was irked by questions on Brennan Johnson and Mathys Tel’s penalty dispute against Southampton on Sunday, and Arsenal fans chanting “Are you Tottenham in disguise?” at Real Madrid during their 3-0 Champions League victory on Tuesday night.

“We scored, we won. [I’m] delighted. It’s incredible, it’s just . . . literally turning gold into crap when it’s Tottenham,” he said, referring to the 3-1 win over Southampton, when Johnson was

If VAR denied Tottenham Hotspur a dramatic equaliser in what was another pulsating duel with Chelsea, not even the technology could scrub Ange Postecoglou’s bold and bullish reaction when Pape Matar Sarr’s shot hit the net.

As the Tottenham fans celebrated in the far corner at Stamford Bridge, Postecoglou instinctively turned towards them and cupped his left hand behind his ear. Five minutes earlier, he had brought Sarr on for Lucas Bergvall and many Spurs supporters had booed the decision while some even openly taunted their head coach with chants of “You don’t know what you’re doing”.

Postecoglou clearly felt vindicated, although the wisdom of baiting his own fans at this point in Tottenham’s season, and at this precarious moment in his tenure, was certainly

The Tottenham Hotspur chairman, Daniel Levy, has hit back at criticism of their lack of spending and told fans he will never risk the financial stability of the club.

Levy defended Tottenham’s recruitment strategy after the club published their latest financial results on Monday, which also showed that Levy received £3.728million last season, meaning he remains the highest-paid executive in the Premier League.

Tottenham have spent almost £600million net on transfers in the past ten years, which is about £160million less than Arsenal and £300million less than Chelsea, while they have fallen even further behind the top teams when it comes to spending on wages.

Tottenham’s results for 2023-24 show their wage bill dropped from £251million to £222million last season — considerably less than their