The LA Galaxy will be looking for a second straight win when they take on the Seattle Sounders on Saturday, while Real Salt Lake's post-Mike Petke era continues at home against league leaders LAFC. Those games, plus an old-school rivalry game between the New York Red Bulls and the New England Revolution, feature in this weekend's MLS action.

Galaxy stabilize summer swoon at home

Needless to say, the road was quite unkind to the LA Galaxy, who lost all three games on their road trip and suddenly found themselves barely hovering above the playoff line after a 2-1 loss to D.C. United.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic's anger seemed to be rising every minute he was on the field, and his MLS record of most shots in a game without scoring is one he'll want to forget. But a funny thing happened on the way to the Galaxy's summer collapse: They returned home on Wednesday and beat FC Dallas thanks to Ibrahimovic's double.

The big Swede earned the headlines, but in the 90 minutes against the Texans it was the play of new arrival Cristian Pavon that made the difference. The former Boca Juniors man had a hand in the first goal and then drew the penalty for the second score of the night.

Ibrahimovic has played with and against the world's best and knows quality when he sees it, and he hailed the Argentine after Wednesday's affair. That on-field understanding will only get better with time, with Saturday's home date with the Seattle Sounders (10 p.m. ET, ESPN2) being the next chance. Seattle's defense is haemorrhaging goals at the moment -- nine in their past three -- so the chances will be there for the taking for Ibrahimovic and Pavon.

Rivalry in Red Bull Arena

There is nothing quite like the sports rivalry between the cities of Boston and New York. While Red Sox-Yankees acrimony, plus Patriots-Jets animosity, have dominated that landscape, the New York Red Bulls-New England Revolution rivalry in MLS has also enjoyed its fair share of moments.

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Among the more notable ones are the Revs winning the first contest between the two on a late own goal ("The Curse of Caricola"), New York's three-goal second-half comeback in 2003 in Tim Howard's last game before transferring to Manchester United and the Revs claiming the 2014 Eastern Conference final in Thierry Henry's career finale.

Yet for the first time in several years, these two teams will meet deep into the season with a lot of stake, with the Red Bulls and Revs sitting fifth and sixth in the conference standings, respectively, making Saturday's affair (7 p.m. ET, ESPN+) at Red Bull Arena a big one for both sides.

Of the two, New England was the more active in the transfer window in picking up Gustavo Bou and has catapulted itself up the table in the summer months. Meanwhile, for the Red Bulls, the 2019 season continues to be frustratingly inconsistent, and Kaku appears to be counting down the days until he can leave for Club America.

A win here for either side would help create a bit more elbow room in the jockeying for the postseason.

RSL find life after Petke

The news came down late Sunday that Real Salt Lake terminated the contract of coach Mike Petke, with assistant Freddy Juarez continuing as interim boss until the end of the season. The decision from RSL brass comes at a pivotal point of the season, with the club still above the playoff line, but just by four points over FC Dallas.

On the field, RSL is one of the best-equipped squads to handle a tumultuous moment. Goalkeeper Nick Rimando and midfielder Kyle Beckerman have seen and experienced just about everything in MLS, and listening to href="https://espn700sports.com/interviews/kyle-beckerman-comments-on-the-mike-petke-situation/" target="_blank">Beckerman's tone on the radio this week in the wake of Petke's departure suggests that locker room stability will be intact.

In addition, RSL have performed well under Juarez, with three wins and a draw, including a good-looking midweek 3-0 victory over Seattle after the Petke news came down. Truth be told, RSL have had a nice look to them since Juarez stepped into coaching duties, which gives an extra level of intrigue to Saturday's home clash with LAFC (10 p.m. ET, ESPN+). A win against the league leaders and Juarez could well be on his way to having his interim tag stripped away.

Scotland captain Kyle Coetzer has called for Euro T20 Slam organisers to show "a gesture" of good faith in order to restore confidence that the tournament will indeed go-ahead for 2020. Just two weeks before the start of the tournament, the organisers had cancelled the Euro T20 Slam.

Coetzer stated that the news, which was delivered to the Scotland squad in a team meeting on Wednesday before organisers sent out an official release to the general public, may leave Scotland players in a bind and many will now have to seek other ways to recoup the expected earnings from the tournament.

"Let's be honest, pretty much every one of the players was going to earn more in that space of time, to what they would earn in a full year playing cricket," Coetzer told ESPNcricinfo. "You have to look at the impact it may have on some guys and certainly there's a couple of boys that were potentially looking to go away at some time during the winter and now they probably need to get a job. It would have created giving guys an opportunity to feel an element of security in what we try and do."

The players from the three host countries were all due to earn between USD 10,000 and USD 35,000 in three salary tiers for Associate players in the three-week competition. Coetzer was due to receive USD 40,000 as all three T20 captains from the host countries - Ireland's Gary Wilson and the Netherlands' Pieter Seelaar - were stipulated to receive a USD 5000 bonus payment. In addition to the exposure of playing against world-class players, the financial lift to help professionalise players has now disappeared - which is significant.

"It's always hard enough,"Coetzer said. "You're just getting by and no one complains because we all love playing for Scotland and we're all heading towards the same goal but it's gonna make things harder. It would have just given guys, even if it was a year of breathing space, just to let them ease their minds a little bit, just go and play cricket, show the passion, which we always show anyway. But it would have taken a bit of a weight off some of the guys' shoulders financially. That's gonna be tough for guys to take."

Coetzer had returned just days earlier from the Global T20 Canada, where his Montreal Tigers squad was involved in a player protest along with Toronto Nationals as players refused to take the field until overdue salary disbursements were paid out. The Scotland captain said that organizers, who are in charge of both events, need to consider a make-good financial gesture to restore the confidence and credibility in the eyes of players and fans.

"It's reasonably well documented that something happened in Canada," Coetzer said. "I think all the players felt as if they would be getting paid. Part of it was there was a structure within the contract that says certain amounts should be paid within certain dates and that's where the issue was. I feel if they hold onto those agreements when they agree to them, then there would be no issue."

"What they may need to do to convince people for the Slam would be possibly a kind gesture towards some of the players to say, 'Look, we apologize for this but it will go ahead next year.' They probably need to show some kind of sign that they're willing to do that because we need the people to believe that it will still go ahead next year. The international players, the marquee players, they still need to have confidence that they won't miss out on something else if they come to the Slam. A number of our guys didn't put their names in other competitions."

Scotland coach Shane Burger also felt that the news influenced his players mentally prior to taking the field in their first Cricket World Cup League Two ODI against Oman, a match in which they were bowled out for 168. But he hopes they'll be able to bounce back over the next three matches in Aberdeen against Oman and Papua New Guinea.

"I have no doubt that there was an impact," Burger said. "I think if there wasn't an impact because of that, then I'd be surprised. There was a massive disappointment when the news was heard. However, in saying all of that, this is a professional cricket team that needs to make sure that they can switch on and off when they need to. It's not gonna be the first time they get given bad news.

"This team has had to deal with a lot this season, people passing away, Euro Slam news, all of it. I believe the team has come a long way in terms of maturity and they should have been able to deal with the news, as tough as it is to handle. I don't think that played a role in us losing the game today. I just think they outplayed us."

Liverpool are facing a goalkeeping crisis ahead of the Premier League trip to Southampton after Adrian was injured by a supporter during the UEFA Super Cup celebrations in midweek.

The Spaniard, who was a hero in the 5-4 penalty shootout victory over Chelsea after saving Tammy Abraham's penalty to clinch the win, has a swollen ankle caused by the fan sliding into him after trying to evade security at Vodafone Park in Istanbul.

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Jurgen Klopp, who is already without first-choice goalkeeper Alisson due to a calf issue, revealed it is not "100 percent clear" whether Adrian can feature at St Mary's.

"When we were all together, a supporter jumped over, was chased by some security guys, slipped and kicked his ankle," Klopp told a news conference. "Crazy! Yesterday it was swollen and today I spoke to him and he said it's much better, but we have to see.

"He couldn't have played directly after we landed in Liverpool, but I saw him now he's better."

Adrian was unexpectedly drafted into action during the first half of the 4-1 win over Norwich on the opening day of the Premier League season after Alisson limped off.

The former West Ham keeper -- recruited as a free agent on Aug. 5 -- wasn't afforded time to settle before featuring, but Klopp saluted the player's "big personality."

Andy Lonergan, who trained with Liverpool during their preseason tour of the United States, was signed on a short-term deal as experienced cover earlier this week with highly rated young keeper Caoimhin Kelleher shaking off a wrist injury.

Asked if Lonergan or the 20-year-old could start against Southampton, Klopp said: "If we have to make a decision, then we make a decision.

"Caoimhin is a boy we are all excited about. He's now in training, but not 100 percent yet. He has to be in training today, then we will see."

Meanwhile, Naby Keita will sit out the game due to a hip muscle injury, which Klopp labelled minor but could not put a time frame on the midfielder's return.

MANCHESTER, England -- Ole Gunnar Solskjaer has backed Alexis Sanchez to play a key role at Manchester United this season despite continued speculation he could still leave Old Trafford.

The Chile international has been linked with a move to Italy before the European transfer deadline on Sept. 2 but Solskjaer has suggested he is ready to hand the 30-year-old a central role in his squad following the departure of Romelu Lukaku to Inter Milan.

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"Alexis is such a pro and he comes in working every single day really hard and wants to be a part of this," Solskjaer told a news conference on Friday. "It's these stories he's been put in the reserves -- of course he hasn't.

"He's had three weeks [training] now, he's a few weeks behind the rest but is close to being ready."

The trip to Wolves on Monday may come too soon for Sanchez, who returned late to training after picking up a hamstring injury playing for Chile at this summer's Copa America.

Lukaku's exit has left Solskjaer short of attacking options but the Norwegian has backed the former Arsenal man -- who hasn't scored a goal for United since January -- to come good.

"We don't have the biggest forward line in terms of numbers so Alexis might end up playing a lot more games than you expect," Solskjaer said. "We expect him to come good at this club. He's quality.

"We've had a behind-closed-doors game, he's training and he's done a little bit of extras.

"He'll be gradually integrated into more playing time, but we'll have more behind closed doors games and one game a week it's hard to keep players ticking."

The Premier League is back and this weekend has plenty of talking points. Nick Miller runs us through some of the biggest storylines.

Eriksen indispensable for Spurs

In the end a 3-1 victory over Aston Villa last Saturday was perfectly satisfactory for Tottenham, on the face of things: three points, their big new signing Tanguy Ndombele excelled and Harry Kane notched up a pair of goals. Job well done, congratulations lads.

But there were things to concern Spurs fans, most specifically the curious omission of the apparently un-injured Jan Vertonghen from not just the starting XI but the match day squad, and the absence of Christian Eriksen. For the 64 minutes that the Dane remained on the bench against Villa, Spurs looked ponderous, occasionally devoid of ideas about how to unlock a stout defence, even leaden. As soon as he came on, that all changed and they scored three goals.

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In the short-term the situation is rectified easily enough -- he will surely start in this weekend's big game against Manchester City -- but looking further down the line it might be concerning that Spurs are seemingly so reliant for creativity on a player who, unless something significant changes in the coming months, won't be around this time next year.

Of course, Giovani Lo Celso could turn out to be brilliant and Ndombele could pick up some of the slack and Dele Alli isn't fit yet and so on and so forth, but it's a little uncomfortable for Spurs that they apparently need Eriksen so much.

Who will play for Manchester City?

Pep Guardiola has a slightly different problem to Mauricio Pochettino. After their frankly fairly tedious, routine evisceration of West Ham last weekend, Guardiola essentially admitted that he had picked Riyad Mahrez and Gabriel Jesus for that game to ensure that Bernardo Silva and Sergio Aguero don't get complacent. It was almost a pleasing bonus that both men played superbly, Mahrez in particular instrumental in most good things City did.

So the question for Guardiola is: who will he select for a rather stiffer task than the Hammers on a Saturday lunchtime? Will he go for the tried and trusted Aguero and Silva, or the hungrier duo of Mahrez and Jesus? To a point, it doesn't really matter that much, as City's options are now of such high quality that it barely makes any difference who the individual bricks in the wall are, it only matters that they perform. And, going on the basis of last weekend (not forgetting Kevin De Bruyne, looking back to his best after last year's injury issues), everyone is performing to an incredibly high standard.

Whoever Guardiola picks: good luck, Tottenham.

Adrian's remarkable story enters the prosaic period

It was barely a couple of weeks ago that Adrian didn't have a club, released after spending a season on West Ham's bench. He was training with Union Deportiva Pilas, a team from the outskirts of his hometown Seville, who play in the Spanish sixth tier. Then Simon Mignolet went to Club Brugge, Liverpool needed a goalkeeper quickly, Alisson did something nasty to his calf and suddenly Adrian is saving the winning penalty in the European Super Cup.

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These are the odd, hazy days in a story like this, where strange things are possible, but soon enough Adrian will be deep in the weeds, and he'll have to deal with the more prosaic business of keeping goal for Liverpool over the next few weeks. He'll be doing that at Southampton this weekend, where his new team were given an awful fright last season as they chased the title, and when the slightly surreal afterglow of Istanbul fades, it will be interesting to see how Adrian fits in with Liverpool's defence for a longer period of time.

Chelsea must turn good performances into a result

The broad consensus has been that Frank Lampard's Chelsea have played well in both of their games so far this season, even if they won neither and lost the first handsomely. Little bits of luck in both the Premier League opener against Manchester United and the Super Cup loss against Liverpool would have made the difference to both results, and Lampard would be striding into this weekend's game against Leicester with a big smile on his face.

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He probably doesn't need to worry too much. Chelsea have arguably performed above expectations so far, which seems odd given they lost one game 4-0 and threw away a lead in the other before going down on penalties, but given the broader circumstances, with an already inexperienced squad impacted by injuries, Lampard will probably be quite pleased.

However, being pleased is all very well, but they do need to turn that into something tangible. If they don't beat Leicester it probably won't mean much in the general context of the season, but a win would serve as some sort of affirmation that they are doing something right, and thus give them something off which to propel into the rest of the season.

Will the promoted trio continue to be positive?

It's a similar story with the three promoted clubs, after appearing in their first games back in the big boys' league. Sheffield United grabbed a good point at Bournemouth, Aston Villa had Tottenham sweating and while Norwich's defence was weak against Liverpool, the way they attacked at Anfield was at least encouraging for the season ahead.

Which is great, and congratulations to them all, but now all three have games at home against teams that should not, to say the least, put the fear of God into them. Sheffield United have Crystal Palace, Villa host Bournemouth and Norwich welcome Newcastle.

If there was one theme that ran through the three newbies' opening day performances then it was positivity: to different extents, all three played their own games with conviction, and weren't cowed by the prospect of facing established top flight teams. That will hopefully give them confidence that their approaches can work in the Premier League, and that they will continue in this vein.

India are gearing up to announce their next head coach. The BCCI is conducting meetings with six candidates, including the incumbent Ravi Shastri, and is expecting to make a final call on Friday evening.

Three of the candidates were scheduled to make their presentations to the Cricket Advisory Committee led by Kapil Dev in person: Mike Hesson, the former New Zealand coach who took the team to the 2015 final, Robin Singh, part of four-time IPL champions Mumbai Indians and Lalchand Rajput, manager when India won the inaugural World T20 in 2007.

Shastri, who has been coaching India since the end of the 2017 Champions Trophy, Tom Moody, formerly with Sri Lanka and Sunrisers Hyderabad and Phil Simmons, who helped West Indies win the World T20 in 2016, would be joining in via teleconference.

The contracts of Shastri and his support staff were meant to expire at the end of the 2019 World Cup but they were given a 45-day extension keeping in mind the West Indies tour. Ahead of his departure, India captain Virat Kohli made a clear and public announcement that he would prefer if Shastri was to continue as head coach.

More to follow

Andy Murray says Nick Kyrgios' behaviour in his Cincinnati Masters defeat by Karen Khachanov was "not good" for tennis.

Murray spoke to Kyrgios after the match in which the Australian abused and swore at Fergus Murphy and called him the worst umpire in the game.

He was fined $113,000 (£93,254) for five separate offences.

"It wasn't good, and I felt for Fergus as he shouldn't have to put up with that," Murray told BBC Sport.

Kyrgios, 24, smashed two racquets in a corridor by the side of the court and called Murphy a "tool" in Wednesday's second-round match.

"I chatted to him a little bit last night after the match," said Murray, who has developed a strong bond with Kyrgios.

"It's obviously up to him, and I think for the most part a couple of weeks ago in Washington [where he won his sixth ATP title], he did a good job of helping himself and using the crowd.

"But obviously this week, he went back to what he was doing before. You just hope he will figure it out, because a week like in Washington is really good for tennis, but last night isn't. Hopefully he gets it figured out."

Kyrgios is now waiting to discover whether the ATP thinks he has committed a "major offence" under the player code. If so, he could face a further fine or even suspension from the tour.

The Australian took part in a light-hearted practice session late on Thursday afternoon before heading to court three to watch Murray and Feliciano Lopez beat Ryan Harrison and Jack Sock in the doubles.

That match was also officiated by Fergus Murphy.

Seven-time winner Roger Federer lost in straight sets to 21-year-old Russian qualifier Andrey Rublev in the third round of the Cincinnati Masters.

The world number 70 won 6-3 6-4 in just over an hour to set up a quarter-final against compatriot Daniil Medvedev.

Swiss 20-time Grand Slam champion Federer, ranked third, plans to compete at the US Open later this month.

Defeat means he will have played just two matches in preparation, after an opening win over Juan Ignacio Londero.

On Rublev, Federer said: "He was excellent today. He didn't give me anything. It was tough for me but an excellent match for him. I was impressed.

"I just would have hoped for an overall better performance. He was mixing it up nicely on the serve and on the return he was really consistent."

In a first meeting between the pair, Federer initially broke back at 2-0 down in the first set but Rublev established a 4-1 lead from which the Swiss could not recover. He again had no answers as the Russian made the decisive break to lead 4-3 in the second.

After his biggest career win to date, Rublev said: "It is such an amazing feeling when you're playing a legend like Roger and all these people supporting him until the end. One day I hope I'm going to feel the same.

"Today I was just trying to do my best and was thinking in my head that I need to play every point until the end no matter what."