AC Milan sacked coach Marco Giampaolo after the team lost four of their first seven Serie A games of the season, the club said yesterday. Giampaolo was appointed in June and tasked with trying to end the club’s eight-year trophy drought and take them back to the Champions League after a six-season absence.
Yet his tenure got off to a terrible start and he was ousted despite the club ending a three-match losing streak with victory over Genoa on Saturday. “AC Milan announces it has relieved Mr. Marco Giampaolo from his position as coach of the First Team. The Club is grateful to Marco for the work carried out and wishes him all the best to come in his professional career,” the club said in a statement.
Italian sports daily La 
Gazzetta dello Sport reported that Giampaolo would be replaced by former Lazio and Inter Milan coach Stefano Pioli. Pioli’s last job was at Fiorentina, whom he left in April during his second season in charge. Seven-times European champions AC Milan won the last of their 18 Serie A titles in 2011.


I was right to swap Madrid for Arsenal, 
says Ceballos
Arsenal midfielder Dani Ceballos believes he was right to join the club on loan from Real Madrid, where he had not been enjoying his football. Ceballos has played 11 times for the Gunners in all competitions, scoring one goal and assisting two others, earning himself a call-up to the Spanish national team.
Moreno has selected the midfielder in the squad to face Norway and Sweden in Euro 2020 qualifying fixtures on Sep. 12 and 15 respectively. “I’m at Arsenal right now and I feel very good,” Ceballos told reporters in Madrid, where the Spanish team are training.
“I knew I definitely wanted to leave (and) I was right to leave Madrid. Right now I’m where I want to be, and I am very happy. My idea was to leave, play and enjoy football. Over the past two years I have not done that. I was right to go seeing as I’m in the Spain squad.”
Ceballos joined Real Madrid from Real Betis in 2017, but he failed to establish himself as a key player under Zinedine Zidane in his first spell at the club. When the French coach returned in March, Ceballos was again surplus to requirements and moved to Arsenal on loan in July.


Griezmann all smiles at Barcelona: Lenglet
Antoine Griezmann is just as happy playing for Barcelona as he is for France despite rumours of dressing room unrest amid an underwhelming start at the Catalan giants, his club and national side teammate Clement Lenglet said yesterday
“I am with him at the club and he is very happy there too. He’s someone who is smiling every day and that doesn’t change when he arrives in the French team,” Lenglet told reporters ahead of France’s Euro 2020 qualifiers against Iceland and Turkey. “He makes the most of everything, he loves making jokes and he doesn’t change whether he’s with the French team or Barcelona.”
Griezmann was left on the bench for Barca’s 4-0 drubbing of Sevilla on Sunday after failing to live up to his 120 million-euro price tag in the opening weeks of the season, scoring three goals in nine games. Lionel Messi has also denied suggestions of a rift between him and the Frenchman, who joined from Atletico Madrid in July, as he struggles to find a settled position in Ernesto Valverde’s three-man forward line. Griezmann was replaced in Barca’s starting line-up against Sevilla by another French forward, Ousmane Dembele, who scored before being sent off for dissent late on.