For the first time since 1970, the St. Louis Blues are playing for the Stanley Cup. For the ... well, we've lost count really, the San Jose Sharks are going home before the final round.

Here's what happened in the NHL last night (check out replays of every playoff game on ESPN+) and what to watch for in the days ahead, in today's edition of ESPN Stanley Cup Playoffs Daily:

Jump ahead: Last night's game | Three stars
Play of the night | Social post of the day

About last night ...

Game 6: St. Louis Blues 5, San Jose Sharks 1 (Blues win series 4-2)

The most deflating sight of the Western Conference finals was warm-ups for the Sharks in Game 6. You want best-on-best in the playoffs. You don't want "best-on-what's-left-of-best."

Erik Karlsson and Tomas Hertl were left home. Joe Pavelski traveled with the Sharks but wasn't close to playing, according to Peter DeBoer. So this diminished team took the ice against a buzz saw, one that outscored the Sharks 12-2 in its final three wins of the series to eliminate them. The Blues controlled play, scored early on David Perron's goal at 1:32 of the first, and then scored four more times. The win sends the Blues to their first Stanley Cup Final since 1970.

Play "Gloria."

Three stars

1. Jordan Binnington, G, St. Louis Blues. The Blues rookie allowed one goal against the Sharks and made 25 saves, including a few in the third period before his team put the game away. Of note: His glove save on a clear Logan Couture shot, and his point-blank stop on Evander Kane, keeping him goalless since Game 3 of the second round. Ouch.

2. David Perron, LW, St. Louis Blues. Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo joked after the game about the quality of the franchise considering how many times Perron has chosen to return to it. But after making the Stanley Cup Final with the Golden Knights last season, Perron helped the Blues get there this year with a goal and an assist in Game 6.

3. Dylan Gambrell, C, San Jose Sharks. Not a bad time to score your first career goal in the NHL, eh? Gambrell fired one past Binnington in the second period to cut the lead to 2-1, but the Sharks couldn't get the equalizer.

Play of the night

Tarasenk��! @tara9191>#StanleyCup>pic.twitter.com/bmq03fRF6u - NHL GIFs (@NHLGIFs) May 22, 2019

'Twas a time when Vladimir Tarasenko was considered a postseason underachiever. So it should be noted here that he had a point in every game of the Western Conference finals, including goals in three of the last four games. That included this critical tally to make it 2-1.

Dud of the night

Everyone not named Dylan Gambrell on the Sharks.

The team truly faced an unenviable task without Hertl, Pavelski and Karlsson in the lineup. This is undeniable. But the Sharks went out so meekly on the offensive end in these last three games. From Evander Kane's inability to find the back of the net to the inconsistency of Joe Thornton's line (on the scoresheet and in its composition) to the hex placed on Logan Couture's line, which didn't tally a point after that hand-pass controversy in overtime of Game 3.

"They're a great team over there. They play hard. They play tight. They have a great goalie. It was just not a lot out there," said defenseman Brent Burns, who had two assists in the series. "We had to work for everything. When we were working it seemed like we couldn't get that break. But I thought we had a lot of really good chances tonight, too. Missed opportunities. That's all it takes this time of year. The difference between winning and not winning is so close."

On the schedule

Game 1, Stanley Cup Final: St. Louis Blues vs. Boston Bruins, Monday, 8 p.m. ET

The Enterprise Center played "Shipping Up To Boston" after the Blues' Game 6 win, because who doesn't like a cliché? Expect copious amounts of "David Backes vs. the Blues" and "Jordan Binnington vs. Tuukka Rask" takes.

Social post of the day

Brayden Schenn has then cranking Gloria again pic.twitter.com/VcAHgUw52q - Adam Kimelman (@NHLAdamK) May 22, 2019

The Jacks in Philadelphia, where the "Play Gloria" tradition began, has become the unofficial home of the St. Louis Blues, as NHL.com's Adam Kimelman discovered on Tuesday.

Quotable

"No. No, nope." -- Sharks star Joe Thornton, when asked about his future

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Blues fans didn't start chanting "We want the Cup!" until there was a three-goal lead and just over four minutes left in Game 6 against the San Jose Sharks. Not a goal less. Not a moment sooner. They've known too much heartbreak to assume victory. They've experienced too much disillusionment to have that kind of faith.

But with that chant, they finally believed what they were seeing, which was a St. Louis Blues team advancing to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 1970 after eliminating the Sharks.

"I'm feeling excitement. This is as close as we've come in the last 50 years," said Dave Lamore, a longtime Blues season-ticket holder wearing a Bernie Federko jersey in the arena concourse. "And it's possible. This is a hell of a good team. It's solid. Four lines. Great goaltending. Team defense. We could do this!"

Optimism has a challenging relationship with St. Louis Blues fans. Take Eland Siddle, 34, born into Blues fandom and a die-hard for the past 20 years. He's been a believer before, and like many, he was burned for it. In 2014, he and his newlywed wife, Stephanie, postponed their honeymoon because they thought the Blues would go on a prolonged playoff run after a 111-point season.

They lost in the first round to the Blackhawks.

Should have just gone to the beach, in hindsight.

This year was different for Siddle and many Blues fans because optimism was annihilated not in the playoffs, but by New Year's Day. An active offseason seemingly positioned the Blues as a contender in the Western Conference. But things went horribly, horribly wrong: By the morning of Jan. 1, they were tied with the Ottawa Senators for fewest points in the NHL, with 34.

"Previously, you had high hopes each year. This year, by January, you didn't have hope at all," Siddle said.

Yet the relationship between the Blues fans and optimism is also a complicated one. Take, again, Eland Siddle. The Blues were in the basement. He was in Las Vegas. At 100-to-1 odds, and for no clear reason, he bet $25 on them to win the Stanley Cup. What looked like a donation to a sportsbook now looks like a shrewd investment -- not that Siddle was about to count his winnings yet.

"Let's just get tonight and I can believe," he said before Game 6. "After years and years of losing and losing, it's weird. It's surreal that this might actually happen."

It's happening, St. Louis.

Play "Gloria."

Every championship team seems to have its quirky bits of voodoo and backstory. The Blues' adoption of the late Laura Branigan's 1980s pop anthem "Gloria" as their victory song is a prominent one for them. As the story goes, a few players were watching an NFC playoff game in a bar in Philadelphia that kept on playing "Gloria" during commercial breaks in the game. The earworm festered in their minds, and "Gloria" was introduced as the team's jam of triumph.

But it's just one of the delightfully weird and undeniably heartfelt narratives orbiting this Blues team that just makes it feel different from previous editions. Stories like:

• Laila Anderson, the young girl with a rare disease called HLH, which only 15 other children in the world have been diagnosed with. For four months, she could only travel from her home to St. Louis Children's Hospital for treatment. Before Game 3 of the Western Conference finals, her mother surprised her with tickets to see her favorite team. She's been a fixture since.

• Charles Glenn, the team's vibrant anthem singer, who was stepping away from his job after 20 years due to challenges presented by multiple sclerosis. He made the decision to step away when the Blues were in last place. Now, the longer they play, the more Glenn sings.

• Jordan Binnington, the 25-year-old rookie goalie, who was called up midseason and given the chance he'd been waiting for while getting buried on the franchise's depth chart. He won 24 out of 32 appearances with a 1.89 goals-against average, the best in the NHL and worthy of a Rookie of the Year finalist nomination. Oh, and he's one of the most low-key swaggering athletes in the city, what with his "Do I look nervous?" retort in the first round.

• Patrick Maroon, the St. Louis native who took less money as a free agent to come home and live closer to his son. The same son that was weeping openly when Maroon scored the series-clinching goal in overtime of Game 7 against the Dallas Stars. In the dressing room, they hugged and both wept. "I taught him a few things," his son, Anthony, said. "I'm so proud of him.

• The fact that this team was in the literal basement just over five months ago and is now playing for the Stanley Cup, only the fourth team in the expansion era to have reached the Cup Final after ranking among the bottom three in the standings at any point after their 20th game. Which is a long-winded way of saying that what the Blues have done here is indeed rare.

Forward Oskar Sundqvist had dinner with defenseman Colton Parayko on Monday, eating turkey burgers and reminiscing about something that used to cause them indigestion: the horrible first few months of the season, which cost coach Mike Yeo his job and reportedly had GM Doug Armstrong contemplating an "everything must go" solution for a last-place team. "We were talking about how crazy it is, to go from where we were then to where we are now," Sundqvist said, "and how great everyone in this room came together and started working for each other."

That's the recurring theme in the Blues' room: togetherness. The chemistry that grew among them on and off the ice this season was the actual remedy for their early-season failings.

"I've never been part of a team like this. It sort of reminds me of my rookie year. The team was really tight, just like this. But there's something special about this team, and I think it carries over to the ice," said defenseman Joel Edmundson, who entered the league in 2015. "When you're tight with each other off the ice, when you have a good time off the ice, you're going to play for each other on the ice. That's what it takes to win in this league."

But perhaps more than anything, this team is defined by a connection to the past during its pursuit of the Cup.

Like Brett Hull. Like Chris Pronger. Like Kelly Chase. Like Bob Plager. Like all the former Blues who are still around the team and were in the building during Game 6 and were seen embracing and weeping after the 2019 edition captured the West.

"I saw Chaser in the hallway crying after the game. You know, it's almost making us cry too. It's unbelievable to see these guys happy. It gives us goosebumps," said forward Vladimir Tarasenko. "When you see those guys crying, it means a lot for us too. They're probably more excited than us. It gives us really huge support, too."

Bob Plager wants his parade.

He said as much last August, when the Blues unveiled their new third jerseys. He handed one to O'Reilly, who had yet to play a game for St. Louis after being acquired from Buffalo. Plager recalled whispering to him: "You know, I need my parade."

He said O'Reilly responded, "Well, we're going to get you one."

Plager isn't a household name in the NHL, but he's as synonymous with the St. Louis Blues as The Note. A defensive defenseman, he's a St. Louis lifer: an original Blues player in 1967, he played with them through 1977 and then joined their front office. He appeared on three straight Blues teams that made the Stanley Cup Final from 1968 through 1970, when NHL expansion divvied up teams in an Original Six group of death and an expansion conference from which the Blues emerged three times. The Blues are the only team in NHL history to appear in multiple Stanley Cup Finals and not win a single game.

Off the ice, Plager has been a ubiquitous presence in the community for decades. And this season, his gloves were a presence in the Blues' dressing room.

A pair of his hockey gloves from the 1960s were used as the "player of the game" trinket in the Blues' postgame celebrations this season. "It's just a tribute to guys who built this thing to get us where we are," Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said. "I think we all know what Bobby stands for in this organization and this city, so it's fun for us to get him to be part of our group in some way. Nobody loves this organization more than Bobby, especially with the effort and time he gives. And he loves wins more than anyone else."

He was there when the Blues won their first game of the season, walking over and placing a game puck in a cabinet that houses each one from their victories this season. "I told them I want to put the [final] one on up there too. The first puck and the last puck," Plager said after Game 6, his eyes still watery from the emotional win.

Pietrangelo said that his teammates are playing not only for themselves, but for the Blues who came before them. "Those guys have built the foundation of this organization, and they represent the Blue Note pretty well. We try and carry that on," he said.

The Blues are a family. That's been the selling point for the franchise for decades, as former players remain a part of the franchise and the city. After Game 6, Pietrangelo goofed on David Perron having multiple stints with the Blues, but there's a reason he keeps coming back. It's the same reason Bob Plager has stuck around. It's about the community.

"You look at the fans when we scored that [empty net] goal, and it's like I said before: This city, and what's gone on here ... you see the baseball players here at the game with their Blues sweaters on. We went to the Finals three times. We didn't see any Cardinals at our games," said Plager.

But this season's different.

Ryan O'Reilly hears "Gloria" playing in his head.

It's something he admitted before Game 6. That sometimes, after a win on the road, he'll climb on board the Blues' team charter and have their victory song pumping through his mind. "It's our anthem here," he said. "It's so cool how it's brought the team and the fans that much closer."

He's sensed that connection growing for the past few months. The car flag population has grown. So have the number of cars blaring "Gloria" at traffic stops. O'Reilly said that when he's shopping at Whole Foods, fans are coming up to him to offer him fist bumps of encouragement. "It's so cool that people are a part of this. That's what this is all about. It's not just the guys in here. It's a city that's together. We're all trying to win."

The city's been on this journey, too. Edmundson recalled the awkwardness of conversations with friends back in January. "The first half of the year, the conversations were like, 'We still believe in you. Rough year, but you'll get 'em next year,'" he said. "Now the conversations are like, 'Let's go get the Cup. Play 'Gloria.' It's definitely changed, and for the better."

So it's never "Don't screw this up?"

Edmundson laughs. "No ... no. I don't want to hear that," he said. "But there's a buzz around this city."

That buzz? It's saying that this time, it's different.

"I'm kind of an optimist anyway. Maybe I'm a little bit too high on this one. But there's something magical here. There really is," said Lamore, the Bernie Federko fan.

What comes into focus the more time one spends around this team and in this community is that there are generations of Blues fans who weren't sure if they'd see this opportunity come around, which is a reality that might not be perceived by those outside of that community.

Think of the most infamous championship droughts in the NHL.

The New York Rangers, going 54 years without a Cup. The Washington Capitals, who went from 1974 until last season without one, shattering their fans' championship dreams in increasingly gruesome ways. The Sharks, who are basically "Capitals West" when it comes to dashed expectations. Teams like the Philadelphia Flyers (1975) and the Toronto Maple Leafs (1967), whose detractors bring up their postseason ineptitude with the frequency that many of us discuss the weather.

But the St. Louis Blues? They're the NHL's wallpaper, always there and rarely commented on.

Perhaps that's because they've only missed the playoffs nine times since coming into the league in 1967. Yet they've been searching for the Cup as long as the Leafs have, without any of their Original Six laurels on which to rest, and they're rarely listed among the NHL's prominent championship famines.

"I've noticed that, too," said Edmundson. "Hopefully this year we can change that. And then never talk about it anymore."

Since 1967, the Blues have searched for this moment, when the drought ends and the Stanley Cup celebration begins. For this moment when the team and its alumni and its fans aren't just four wins away from it, but this moment when there's a belief they could earn those four wins, without burdens of pessimism and history clouding it.

"Maybe I will get my parade," said Plager.

LONDON -- Maurizio Sarri has said he would rather quit Chelsea if the club base their decision on his future solely on the result of the Europa League final.

Chelsea take on Arsenal in Baku next Wednesday already assured of a place in next season's Champions League thanks to a third place finish in the Premier League, but Sarri's future at the club remains the subject of intense speculation.

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Sources have told ESPN FC that Chelsea are not looking to sack Sarri even if he fails to secure a first major trophy of his coaching career,, and the Italian believes he should be judged on his first season as a whole.

Asked how he would feel if Chelsea decided to dismiss him for losing the Europa League final, Sarri replied: "If the situation is like this I want to go immediately.

"You cannot [do] 10 months of work, and then I have to play everything in 90 minutes? It's not right. It's not the right way. You're either happy about my work or you're not happy."

Sarri said he spoke to Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich after the club's friendly against New England Revolution last week, but "only for one minute" and solely regarding Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who ruptured his Achilles' tendon during the second half of the match.

Chelsea have set no firm timeframe for Loftus-Cheek's return, but Sarri said that the 23-year-old could return to training in four to six months.

"The injury is very similar to Callum's injury -- not the same, but really very similar," he said. "So the time for the recovery is almost the same."

Sarri batted away questions about reported interest from Juventus in appointing him as their new coach this summer, and would not be drawn on when -- or if -- he will sit down with the Chelsea hierarchy to discuss his future at the club.

"About the meeting, I don't know the date," he said. "If there will be a meeting, even.

"The situation is clear: I have a contract. In my opinion, it would be better to speak about the season, but the situation is clear."

Sarri said his focus remains solely on the Europa League final, and he conceded that Arsenal's need to triumph in order to qualify for next season's Champions League could make them more dangerous opponents.

"In this moment, we risk to have less motivation than the opponents, but probably they have more pressure on them than we do," Sarri said. "So there is a positive side and a negative side in both.

"But we didn't want to play this final for a Champions League place. As I said two months ago, we wanted the Champions League through the Premier League. Then we wanted to win a trophy. So the final is very important for us. We aren't playing for Champions League, but we feel we deserve to win a trophy."

Chelsea may be without Loftus-Cheek in Baku, but Sarri has received a timely boost with N'Golo Kante's return to training this week as the France international steps up his recovery from a hamstring injury.

"He had a part of the training yesterday with the group, so we are optimistic," Sarri said of Kante. "I think he will be able to play the final."

The United States men's national team has announced its training and roster plans ahead of this summer's Gold Cup.

U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter will hold a combined preparation camp in Annapolis, Maryland from May 26 until June 2. The initial contingent of 21 players will be comprised of available senior team performers on the Gold Cup provisional roster, players eligible for the U.S. under-23 team, as well as other select players.

The goal of the initial camp is to get those players unfamiliar with Berhalter's system up to speed, as well as maintain fitness after long club seasons.

Among the Gold Cup-eligible players taking part are Tottenham Hotspur defender Cameron Carter-Vickers, Club Atlas defender Omar Gonzalez, Chelsea defender Matt Miazga, and Werder Bremen forward Josh Sargent.

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The players eligible for the U23 camp include New York City FC midfielder Keaton Parks, Portland Timbers midfielder Eryk Williamson and Schalke forward Haji Wright. All told, 13 of the players named to the preparation camp roster are age-eligible for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, while 11 have been named to the Gold Cup provisional roster.

Following the slate of MLS matches on the weekend of June 1, those players based in Europe and Major League Soccer who are on the Gold Cup provisional roster will join up with the team. This second group will contain the likes of Chelsea midfielder Christian Pulisic, Schalke midfielder Weston McKennie and Toronto FC midfielder Michael Bradley.

The complete list of players taking part in the training camp's second phase -- which will total around 26 players -- will be finalized on May 31, ahead of the June 5 friendly against Jamaica at Washington, D.C.'s Audi Field.

"Bringing together senior team players with several of the under-23 internationals gives us a fantastic opportunity to continue to instill our culture and style of play across the national team programs," Berhalter said.

"We expect it to be a very productive week, and then we look forward to bringing in our full group before the game against Jamaica as we narrow in on the final selections for the Gold Cup roster."

Once the second group arrives for camp, those players not on the Gold Cup provisional roster will depart, with the U23s slated to participate in their own training camp from June 10-16 in Salt Lake City.

The U.S. team's final 23-player roster for the Gold Cup must be submitted by midnight on the night of June 5. The U.S will play a second friendly against Venezuela on June 9 at Cincinnati's Nippert Stadium.

The U.S. team's group at the Gold Cup includes Guyana, Panama and Trinidad & Tobago. It begins on June 18 at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota.

U.S. COMBINED CAMP ROSTER

Players eligible for the Gold Cup roster are bolded.

GOALKEEPERS: JT Marcinkowski (San Jose Earthquakes; 0/0), Andrew Thomas (Stanford; 0/0), Justin Vom Steeg (LA Galaxy; 0/0)

DEFENDERS: Kyle Duncan (New York Red Bulls; 0/0), Cameron Carter-Vickers (Tottenham Hotspur/ENG; 7/0), Marlon Fossey (Fulham/ENG; 0/0), Omar Gonzalez (Atlas/MEX; 49/3), Andrew Gutman (Charlotte independence; 0/0), Matt Miazga (Chelsea/ENG; 12/1), Tim Ream (Fulham; 28/1), Antonee Robinson (Everton/ENG; 6/0)

MIDFIELDERS: Duane Holmes (Derby County/ENG; 0/0), Emerson Hyndman (Bournemouth/ENG; 2/0), Keaton Parks(New York City FC; 1/0), Eryk Williamson (Portland Timbers; 0/0)

FORWARDS: Jonathan Amon (Nordsjælland/DEN; 1/0), Luca de la Torre (Fulham/ENG; 1/0), Joe Gyau (Duisburg/GER; 2/0), Josh Perez (LAFC; 0/0), Josh Sargent (Werder Bremen/GER; 6/2); Haji Wright (Schalke/GER; 0/0)

Manchester United will pursue alternative targets to bolster their attacking options this summer after ruling out an £80 million move for Borussia Dortmund winger Jadon Sancho, sources have told ESPN FC.

Former Manchester City youngster Sancho, 19, has been a long-term United target, with the club's scouting department identifying him as a potential signing prior to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer's arrival as the replacement for the sacked Jose Mourinho in December 2018.

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But while Solskjaer and assistant manager Mike Phelan have encouraged the club's interest in the teenager, who made his England debut against Croatia in October 2018, United have been unable to engage Dortmund in constructive discussions about a deal for him.

Enquiries by United about Sancho's availability have been rebuffed by Dortmund, who have made it clear that they have no desire to sell the player this summer, having already offloaded United States international forward Christian Pulisic to Chelsea.

Sources said United have been made aware that it would require an offer in the region of £80-90 million to even prompt Dortmund to consider selling Sancho, and with Solskjaer determined to press on with his summer recruitment plans, they have now chosen to look elsewhere due to what they perceive to be an overinflated valuation of a player who has just two full seasons of senior football under his belt.

Sancho remains a player of interest to United, but not at the level of outlay it would require to persuade Dortmund to sell, sources said.

Plans are already in place to make moves for Swansea City winger Daniel James and Newcastle United midfielder Sean Longstaff. United are also interested in Atletico Madrid midfielder Saul Niguez.

A central defender is also high on Solskjaer's wanted list, with Leicester City's Harry Maguire and Napoli's Kalidou Koulibaly the preferred options with Ajax defender Matthijs de Ligt expected to reject United's interest in order to move to Barcelona.

Little known fact: When Beyonce sang, "I'll have another you by tomorrow, so don't you ever for a second get to thinking you're irreplaceable," she wasn't talking about Lionel Messi or Virgil van Dijk or anyone else on this list for that matter.

With what promises to be a busy summer transfer window, we decided to take a look at the "Mr. Indispensable" at 12 of the best (or biggest) clubs in the world. Who are the guys that make the biggest impact for their sides when they're on the field?

Barcelona: Lionel Messi

He leads the team in chances created, shots, assists, goals, successful through balls and dribbles completed. None of the runners-up are particularly close. Also: He's Lionel Messi. Next.

Manchester City: Fernandinho

The year is 2550. The scarcity of water has made it three times as valuable as gold. Borders have disappeared. Facebook, Google, Apple, Amazon and Microsoft are the only remaining global institutions, and pundits are still wondering how Manchester City will cope with Fernandinho's eventual retirement.

Since turning 30, he's played an average of 2,687 minutes -- of a possible 3,420 -- over the past four Premier League seasons. He is both City's anchor and their ignition; among regular starters this past season, he led the team in tackles and interceptions and led all non-defenders in forward passes per 90 minutes. His ability to win the ball and then get it to Man City's endless supply of playmakers all by himself is what allows Pep Guardiola to cram extra attackers into the midfielder under the guise of calling them "free eights."

The Brazilian struggled with injuries this year and played his fewest minutes in the league since 2014-15, but he still started 28 games and two of City's four league losses came without him on the field. He just turned 34.

This can't last forever ... right?

Liverpool: Virgil van Dijk

Paolo Maldini, the legendary Italian defender (and failed amateur tennis player), once said "if I have to make a tackle, then I have already made a mistake." If Maldini's cool-under-pressure has a modern, more athletic heir, it would be Liverpool's Dutch center-back.

In 49 games this year in the Premier and Champions Leagues, he's attempted just 49 tackles -- without losing a single one. What that means is no attacker -- not Neymar, Kylian Mbappe, Eden Hazard or Lionel Messi -- has successfully dribbled by him this year. But perhaps this is even more representative of Van Dijk's team-wide effect in transforming Liverpool's defense from a source of chaos and anxiety to a source of strength.

In Jurgen Klopp's first two seasons with the club, they committed 21 errors that led directly to goals. Over the past two years: just eight. In Liverpool's last full Premier League season without VVD, they conceded 42 goals. In their first full year with him, that number dropped to 22.

Manchester United: Paul Pogba

Although his goal-scoring numbers were inflated by seven penalties and although he was benched at the tail end of Jose Mourinho's tenure, Paul Pogba still managed to be United's most impactful player in what was essentially a lost season for the club. Per Impect, the 26-year-old bypassed more defenders per game with his passes than any other United player, and the passes he received bypassed more opponents than any United player, too. Oh, and he also scored more goals, registered more assists and completed more dribbles per 90 minutes than anyone else on the team.

Despite managing to be the central figure in both the team's build-up play and their goal creation, Pogba doesn't have what you would call a, um, "100-percent approval rating" among the United faithful. If he leaves the club this summer, maybe his detractors will finally come to appreciate him next season... once they see what the team looks like without him.

Bayern Munich: Thiago

In the simplest of terms, the job of the modern midfielder is to move the ball up to the attackers and prevent the ball from going the other way. No one in the Bundesliga is better at either of those things than Thiago.

The German company Impect, which was founded by former Bundesliga players Stefan Reinartz and Jens Hegeler, collects data for a number of on-field actions and then quantifies how many players those actions remove from the flow of play. In other words: How many opposing players get bypassed with a pass or a dribble and how many get stranded behind the ball after an interception? Thiago leads all midfielders in Germany with an average of 66 opponents removed per game with his passes and 31 removed with his interceptions.

He's missed four Bundesliga games this season; Bayern drew two and lost both of the others. His presence was the difference between another easy stroll to first and a down-to-the-final-weekend title race.

Real Madrid: Casemiro

The following statement sums up just how weird Real's first season post-Cristiano Ronaldo has been: Karim Benzema was probably Madrid's best player this term, as he led the team in goals and tied for the lead in assists. However, it feels like a stretch to call a 31-year-old striker who scored five goals a year ago "indispensable" so it's the underheralded 27-year-old Brazilian who gets the designation instead.

As the entire squad declined around him this season, Casemiro was left to put out fires left and right and above: He led the team in combined tackles plus interceptions per 90 minutes and aerial duels won per 90 minutes.

How did Real Madrid win three Champions League titles in a row with a team that barely got any defensive contributions from its three attackers, two-thirds of its midfield and one of its fullbacks? Casemiro did most of the work for them.

Paris Saint-Germain: Kylian Mbappe

Raw goals and assist totals can play tricks on you because they don't account for playing time and they don't discriminate against penalties. Would you rather have the striker with 10 goals (nine on penalties) in 1,500 minutes or the one with eight goals (all from open play) in 800 minutes?

Let's strip out penalties and take a look at the per-90-minute averages among all players in Europe's Big Five leagues who have played at least half of the available minutes. Within that subset, only two players averaged at least 1.0 non-penalty goal-plus-assist per 90. There's the 31-year-old Messi at 1.48, and there's the 20-year-old Mbappe at 1.50.

One of the faces has changed but the story remains the same: right now, there's a pair of soccer players who are way better than everyone else on the planet.

Chelsea: Eden Hazard

This is awkward. There might not be a single player in Europe who's more important to his team than Hazard. He reportedly wants to leave... and his team are, pending appeal, banned from signing new players until the summer of 2020. In 2018-19, Hazard basically did the job of four different players at once. He led the team with 16 goals; no-one else had more than eight. He led the team with 15 assists; no-one else had more than six. He completed 138 dribbles; no-one else had more than 45. And he took 240 touches in the opposition penalty area; no-one else had more than 113.

It's not just that Hazard was the team's leading scorer, creator, ball-mover and target man. No, it's that he was at least 100-percent more productive in all of those areas than any of his teammates. If Hazard skips town, Chelsea will likely need to sign multiple players to replace all of that. Unfortunately, they might not even be able to sign one.

Atletico Madrid: Jan Oblak

Atletico are the one elite modern team that have built their success around a ferocious, rock-solid defense and not controlling the ball. Among the Big Five European leagues, there are 50 teams who average more possession than Diego Simeone's side. A byproduct of that is that Atletico also concede a relatively high number of shots per game -- 11.2, 21st-fewest in Europe -- for a team with annual designs on making a deep run in the Champions League.

Despite all those attempts, though, Atletico have still allowed fewer goals per game this year than all but Manchester City and Liverpool. Why? They have the best goalkeeper in the world. According to research from the data company STATS, the 26-year-old Jan Oblak has saved a European-best 0.67 goals above average per game(!) this season. Without an elite shot-stopper, Simeone's style wouldn't be so successful. Fortunately, he might have the best one there is.

Juventus: Joao Cancelo

It's not Cristiano Ronaldo. Seriously. With Gonzalo Higuain leading the line last year, Juventus made the Champions League quarterfinals and averaged 2.5 points per game in Serie A. With Ronaldo in his place this season, Juventus made the Champions League quarterfinals and are averaging 2.47 points per game in Serie A. Ronaldo's per-90, non-penalty goals-plus-assist numbers are still very good (0.83), but he's 34 and a team with Juve's resources can find "very good" striker-production elsewhere.

Instead: yes, we're going with Joao Cancelo. Juventus really struggled to get in behind opposing defenses -- a downside of starting two strikers well into their 30s -- and the team as a whole has somehow completed just 13 through-balls all season. (For reference, Chelsea's Jorginho completed 13 by himself. Messi led all players with 40.) Cancelo led the team in take-ons completed per 90, and according to the site Football Whispers, he was the only Juventus player to complete more than one cut-back pass in the box all season.

The game just didn't seem as hard for Juve with Cancelo in the lineup; call him their "No-Stats All-Star." In Serie A matches he started at full-back, the team won 14 games and drew four. And in the disappointing second-leg loss against Ajax? He started on the bench.

Tottenham: Christian Eriksen

In Tottenham's dualist season from heaven/hell that saw them suffer a countless string of injuries to key players, win just 10 points from their final nine Premier League matches and still manage to finish top four while also reaching the Champions League finals, there have been two constants: Christian Eriksen and Toby Alderweireld, the only outfield players to reach at least 2,500 minutes of domestic gametime. However, we've already seen Spurs tick along without Alderweireld, as he featured in just 14 games last season. Not so with Eriksen, who's played in 179 of the 190 Premier League games for the club since Mauricio Pochettino became manager.

The 27-year-old Dane led Spurs in chances created and assists this year, and his ability to function at the tip or the base of a midfield gave Pochettino some much needed tactical flexibility despite an increasingly limited number of players to start around him.

Arsenal: Aaron Ramsey

In October of last year, a group of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University published a paper in which they devised a method for determining basketball-like plus-minus ratings for Premier League players. The issue with devising a similar statistic for soccer is that there aren't many subs, so groups of players will spend the majority of their time on the field together, making it hard to divvy up credit for a team's performance. The authors of the paper devised a workaround: using ratings from the video game FIFA to roughly determine how much each player contributed.

Two of the researchers, Lee Richardson and Francesca Matano, ran the numbers for the 2018-19 season for me and the Arsenal player who had the largest positive effect on the team's performance was Aaron Ramsey. That was true whether or not they made the FIFA adjustment, too. Although he's a midfielder and only made 14 starts this year, Ramsey produced a better non-penalty-goals-plus-assists rate this season than Sadio Mane, who won a share of the Premier League Golden Boot.

Put another way: Ramsey is the exact kind of player you wouldn't want to lose to Juventus on a free transfer. Oh, right.

Somerset 209 (Hannon-Dalby 5-18) and 164 (Norwell 7-41) beat Warwickshire 135 (Overton 5-31) and 189 (Hain 92*) by 49 runs

Somerset's thoughts are firmly on the Royal London Cup final at Lord's on Saturday, and the prospect of their first limited-overs trophy for 14 years, but once their fate is known attention will turn again to what has become a perennial question: is this the year they can win the County Championship for the first time?

In fact, that's a conservative assessment. Tom Abell, Somerset's captain, was asked after victory over Warwickshire if they could win the treble. With the first trophy not even gathered in yet, Young Mr Abell treated the assembled media to his most bristly, firm-jawed expression he could muster and pronounced something ultra-responsible about not looking too far ahead. Quite.

Warwickshire took some chiselling out on the third morning with Somerset needing a delayed lunch to complete a 49-run victory. The chief obstacle was Sam Hain, who extended his overnight 43 to 92 not out. He registered the only half-century of the match and played with a sobriety while so many others were throwing back tequila slammers.

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With Liam Norwell's seven-for on debut also in mind, Warwickshire's head coach Jim Troughton reflected: "We had the game's outstanding batsman and bowler, but still lost the game. But we went toe to toe with Somerset who are the in-form side in the country." Nevertheless, Somerset remain top, Warwickshire bottom, and they will be grateful that only one county goes down this season to accommodate a divisional restructuring.

Not too many conclusions can be drawn from such a fast-on-the-draw encounter on a skittish pitch, but Somerset's Championship challenge can last deep into the season, especially as an outstanding side has yet to announce itself. Jack Brookes' return to fitness will supplement their pace bowling stocks and the fact that they have loaned out players with as much ability as Jamie Overton and Dom Bess tells of the quality at their disposal. If they lack anything, it is one more batsmen with an old-fashioned desire to bat long, a Sam Hain in other words.

Victory just after one o'clock on the third day gives Somerset ample time to prepare for a Lord's final that is somewhat devalued by the absence of Hampshire's England do, but Abell knows that Somerset's weakest performance over 50 overs was against a below-strength Middlesex side so remains wary of over confidence.

Jason Kerr, Somerset's coach, played down suggestions that a green surface had been prepared with an early finish in mind. He was wise to say nothing to vex the pitch inspectors, and if Somerset pushed things a little, they remained within acceptable limits.

"It is not an exact science what the surface is going to do," Kerr said. "We wanted a little bit more pace in the surface than the match against Surrey. There were only two days between the games and preparation time was limited. I don't think anybody anticipated the cricket to be as quick or as action packed as it has been.

"I encourage the cricketers to adapt themselves but there's no doubt we need to adapt as well. There is always a fine line. I am still not comfortable at the minute. There are too many soft dismissals. But the way we are operating as a bowling unit is arguably getting us out of a little bit of trouble with the bat."

Warwickshire began the morning on 103 for 6, needing a further 136 to win on a pitch that had assisted the seamers and, to a lesser degree the spinners, throughout the game. Three wickets fell in the first hour: Henry Brookes poking at Liam Gregory's wide outswinger; Jeetan Patel bowled leg stump by one that came back sharply; and Norwell, Warwickshire's hero with the ball, caught at the wicket against Tim Groenewald, trying to force off the back foot.

An early finish appeared to be on the cards. The Somerset members who had grumbled about free admission ("what do we get in return then?") were probably looking at the ne'er -do-wells and thinking it was a good thing too.

But Hain was dropped on 49 by Davies after getting an inside edge to a ball from Gregory and the resulting single brought up the game's only half-century, some reward for his technical excellence and determined mindset.

Norwell survived a tough caught and bowled chance to Groenewald in the same over before edging a back-foot force to the keeper in the bowler's next over. With 99 needed from the last pair, there was minimal tension, but Oliver Hannon-Dalby provided wholehearted support.

On 84, Hain was given another life when Groenewald misjudged a top-edged hook off Gregory at fine-leg and allowed the ball to drop over his head before bouncing over the rope. With lunch delayed, the last-wicket stand grew to 49 before Hannon-Dalby steered a wide ball from Gregory to Overton (who had an excellent all-round match) at gully. "We were getting a bit twitchy," Abell admitted. But victory had been logged and it was preparation time for the Lord's final to begin in earnest.

In a Scotland batting unit featuring the reigning ICC Associate Player of the Year, Calum MacLeod, and a captain who earlier in the month had became the fastest Associate cricketer to 2000 ODI runs, Kyle Coetzer (in 49 innings), the most menacing threat to opposition bowling attacks might actually sit a bit lower down the order. George Munsey's destructive batting has had him firmly entrenched in the opening slot in T20 cricket for Scotland, but in ODIs he slots in lower down as a finisher.

On Tuesday against Sri Lanka at the Grange, the scene was set for Munsey to showcase his rapidly growing reputation as a power-hitter. A flurry of sweeps and reverse sweeps had taken him to 23 off 24 balls before rain transformed Scotland's equation from 191 off 138 balls (8.30 per over), to 103 off 42 (14.71). Yet, Munsey says the situation was well within Scotland's grasp in a match that eventually ended in Sri Lanka winning by 35 runs.

"I was really positive actually," Munsey told ESPNcricinfo after the match, when asked about Scotland's chances as he walked out for the resumption of the chase. "I think with our firepower at the back end, these totals are not un-gettable.

"We've got quite a strong hitting line-up at the tail and the belief in the team was we really have a great chance of getting this, especially if we have a good start and really go hard from ball one. We almost did that. One more over early on with a good over would have really put us in a great place. We lost a few too many wickets in the end but we weren't far off chasing it down."

Scotland got that good over straight after the restart. Munsey struck Thisara Perera's first ball for six over the leg side before clipping two more boundaries in a 19-run 28th over to keep the equation in check. A six off Suranga Lakmal as part of an 18-run 31st over brought up a 37-ball half-century. Scotland needed 50 off 18 balls, gettable in 2019 as proven by the latter stages of T20 chases on flat wickets like the Grange.

But Nuwan Pradeep, bowling a match-winning spell of death bowling, yorked Munsey for 61 off 42 balls in the 32nd over. Even though he had passed his previous ODI best of 55, made last summer against England, Munsey was left despondent. More than 90 minutes after the final wicket had been taken by Sri Lanka, he still hadn't taken off his pads.

"I'm pretty gutted, to be honest," Munsey said. "I felt like it's one of my strengths, targeting bowlers. I started well and I felt like I could have seen the team over the line. So it was pretty gutting to be walking off knowing that I still had more to give out there and I felt like I could have steadied the ship home."

Munsey's wicket was the first in a sequence of three in five balls taken by Sri Lanka as Pradeep and Thisara submarined Scotland's chase. Munsey gave plaudits to Sri Lanka's bowlers for maintaining their death-bowling accuracy in spite of challenging conditions with a wet ball that needed to be replaced at one stage.

"When you lose a cluster of wickets, you're gonna struggle no matter what the situation is," Munsey said. "To be fair to the Sri Lankans, they bowled really well. They hit their wide yorkers, they hit the boot. They only bowled a few wides. That was real tough to put away. Any length they gave us, we put away. We didn't miss many length opportunities. But credit where credit is due, they smashed their yorkers."

Sent in to bat, Sri Lanka made a below-par 322 for 8, a total Munsey believes Scotland did well to hold them down to, given that they had been 203 for 1 after 33 overs. Scotland uncharacteristically dropped three chances, including one each off Dimuth Karunaratne on 13 and Avishka Fernando on 22; they went on to make 77 and 74 respectively. Munsey believes the missed chances cost Scotland in the end.

"We were a fair bit behind the rate as far as DL (Duckworth-Lewis) is concerned when we came off, but in the appearance of the game we were doing quite well," Munsey said. "So I think had the game gone the distance, I truly believe it would have been a different outcome. It's hard to play devil's advocate with DL because there's so many different aspects to it. We did a good job but we weren't quite on top of our game fielding and that's what cost us.

"We have a very good fielding team and that was slightly out of character for us today to drop so many catches in one game. From overs 0-20, we weren't that great as a unit in the field but then we turned it around and we stopped them getting a 350 score and brought them back closer to a 300-mark. That was down to the bowling and fielding, holding catches. We saw two different fairy-tales in one innings of fielding."

At the age of 34, and with more wickets since the 2015 World Cup than any other England fast bowler, Liam Plunkett probably knew deep down that he had both the experience and the statistics to justify his retention in England's 15-man squad for the tournament starting next week.

But nevertheless, Plunkett still found himself "pacing up and down" in anticipation of his confirmatory phone-call from the national selector, Ed Smith - with his wife Emeleah choosing to keep schtum about some good work-related news of her own - as the battle for England's final fast-bowling slots went right down to the wire.

In the end, England chose to back Plunkett's proven abilities as a deck-hitting middle-innings enforcer - a role in which he has claimed 85 wickets at 28.43 in 53 matches since 2015 - and instead it was the left-armer David Willey who missed the cut, a decision that Eoin Morgan, England's captain, said had been the toughest of his career.

"You always have that slight doubt in your mind," Plunkett said at the New Balance England kit launch in East London. "Are they going down this route or that route? I felt like I deserved to be in that squad, but you just don't know what they're thinking."

To pass the time and to alleviate his nerves, Plunkett went back to basics, hitting the gym with a vengeance and topping up the fitness levels that will be crucial in retaining his edge as a fast bowler, after a dip in his average speed in the early part of the year appeared to have undermined his status in the side.

"I think I did about 12 hill-sprints, and kettle bells, and bikes, pacing up and down," he said. And all the while, Plunkett's wife had been sitting on her own announcement - that, as a high-flying financial analyst in the USA, she had just been promoted to director at her company.

"She didn't tell me, she kept that quiet until I found out," Plunkett said. "[We had a] fairly quiet [celebration], she's worked just as hard to get there, so it was good to hear that news as well."

With that initial selection hurdle now out of the way, Plunkett can settle down to prepare for his role in what promises to be a gruelling six-week campaign. But with the average score in the recent England v Pakistan series pushing 350, he admitted it can be increasingly hard for a bowler in the modern one-day game to work out what exactly constitutes a good day at the office.

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"Ideally you want to go for 20 [runs], but realistically, bowlers will take 2 for late-40s, 2 for 50 now, especially when there's a score like that, and people are going for 60, 70 [in their ten overs]," he said.

In fact, Plunkett found himself passing the time with Chris Woakes during their twelfth-man duties in the Pakistan series, trying to compare batting and bowling landmarks in the modern landscape.

"I was speaking to Woakesy on the bench the other day, trying to relate what a fifty would be like in bowling figures, and what a hundred is like," he said. "We couldn't work out what it would be. Ten overs, 2 for 20 would be like a double-hundred or something. It's tricky, a tricky period to bowl in."

Plunkett has been around for so long, he can remember the days when feats that can seem common-place in the current climate still seemed extraordinary - such as England's thrashing by Sri Lanka at Headingley in 2006, when Sanath Jayasuriya led an assault on England's target of 322 inside 40 overs.

"I remember going for 50-odd off nine and I was devastated," he said (it was actually 46 off five, if the above game was the one he was recalling). "Worst day of my life, but it's changed a lot now. If you're picking up 2 or 3 for 50, I'll snap someone's hand off, especially in that middle part when you're breaking the game up, and getting two or three of their main batsmen out."

That middle period remains Plunkett's point-of-difference in the England set-up. His ability, alongside the legspin of Adil Rashid, to disrupt well-set batsmen and prise openings in an opposition innings, remains a valuable option for England to have in their armoury, even if the arrival of Jofra Archer could provide Morgan with an alternative go-to bowler.

"Jofra's an amazing talent," Plunkett said. "It's great to have him in the squad as someone who can rock up and bowl at 93mph consistently, and he can bowl in any part of the game also, so that just adds a bit more variation in the middle. If I'm not picking up, or Rash is not picking up, he can come in and I can work well with Jofra, or Rash can work well with Jofra. It's good to have that versatility in the middle.

"You get compared a lot," he said, when asked to weigh up the merits of England's various seam options. "I've been through a lot since the World Cup in 2007, and whatever squad you're in, there's someone chasing your tail. Whether it be Bally [Jake Ball], or the Overtons, or Lewis Gregory. Or whoever's in the county circuit. You always get compared to someone

"But I feel like I do a different role to the other guys. I think that's what I've done well, and been successful at, and I don't think they want me doing anything different.

"You're always working on your game, I've worked on my death bowling because every bowler has to be able to do all. Some people are better at stuff than other people, but if called upon, you want to be able to step up and do what you're asked to do."

Usman Khawaja has sent a scare through the Australia World Cup camp after being struck on the helmet while batting against West Indies in a warm-up match at Southampton.

Khawaja went to hospital for scans on his jaw after suffering a nasty blow from an Andre Russell bouncer during the unofficial warm-up match at Southampton's Nursery Ground.

The opener retired hurt and looked to be in some discomfort, indicating an area on the right side of his head as he walked off the field accompanied by Australian team doctor Richard Saw. He is not expected to take any further part in the match.

Khawaja's presence at the top of the order had meant David Warner moved down to No. 3, but if Khawaja is ruled out for any length of time as a result of the injury, it could pave the way for Warner to return to the opening spot he held before serving a year-long ban for his part in the ball tampering scandal in South Africa. Khawaja was on 5 when he retired hurt and Warner made 12 before he was out to Oshane Thomas.

West Indies were bowled out for 229 with Australia 103 for 2 after 18 overs in reply. Aaron Finch was the other batsman out, having scored 42 off 48 balls.

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