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Pochettino’s Struggling Chelsea Faces Another Test at Fulham 

Chelsea's Argentinian head coach Mauricio Pochettino looks on during the English Premier League football match between Chelsea and Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge in London on September 24, 2023. (AFP)
Chelsea's Argentinian head coach Mauricio Pochettino looks on during the English Premier League football match between Chelsea and Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge in London on September 24, 2023. (AFP)
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Pochettino’s Struggling Chelsea Faces Another Test at Fulham 

Chelsea's Argentinian head coach Mauricio Pochettino looks on during the English Premier League football match between Chelsea and Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge in London on September 24, 2023. (AFP)
Chelsea's Argentinian head coach Mauricio Pochettino looks on during the English Premier League football match between Chelsea and Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge in London on September 24, 2023. (AFP)

A look at what’s happening in European football on Monday:

ENGLAND

Struggling Chelsea plays at Fulham and is looking for only its second win in the Premier League this season. Despite hiring a new manager in Mauricio Pochettino and signing a host of players in the off-season, the 2021 Champions League winners continue to struggle on the field. Chelsea endured a miserable campaign last season as it missed out on the Champions League and finished in the bottom half of the table. Its only win in the league this season was against newly promoted Luton, but it goes into the game against Fulham having beaten Brighton midweek in the English League Cup. Fulham has won two, drawn two and lost two so far in the league.

ITALY

Fiorentina will be confident of moving level on points with third-place Napoli with a win over bottom club Cagliari in Serie A. Fiorentina has lost just one match — to league leader Inter Milan — while Claudio Ranieri’s Cagliari is still looking for its first win back in Serie A and has just two points from six matches. Sassuolo is two points behind Fiorentina and will be full of confidence after beating Juventus and Inter in its last two matches. It hosts Monza on Monday. Torino hosts Hellas Verona with both teams looking to bounce back from defeats.

SPAIN

Las Palmas hosts Celta Vigo with both teams hoping for their second victory in the Spanish league this season. Both teams have five points from seven games. Promoted Las Palmas’ only win so far came against Granada two rounds ago. Celta won four rounds back at last-place Almeria. Las Palmas is unbeaten in three games at home this season. Celta has won three in a row against Las Palmas in the league.

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Al Rajhi Takes over Dakar Rally Lead after Miserable Stage for Lategan

Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
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Al Rajhi Takes over Dakar Rally Lead after Miserable Stage for Lategan

Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)
Driver Yazeed Al Rajhi and co-driver Timo Gottschalk compete during the ninth stage of the Dakar Rally between Riyadh and Haradh, Saudi Arabia, Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025. (AP)

Local driver Yazeed Al Rajhi took advantage of a miserable stage by South Africa's Henk Lategan to grab the Dakar Rally lead in the Saudi Arabia desert on Tuesday.

Lategan led the Dakar for the past week, but errors and bad luck on the 357-kilometer ninth stage from Riyadh south-east to Haradh turned his overall lead of more than five minutes over Al Rajhi into a potentially decisive seven-minute deficit.

The rally has effectively two days and 400 kilometers remaining in the dunes of the Empty Quarter. The last day, Friday, is a ceremonial drive to the finish line in Shubaytah.

Al Rajhi, like Lategan, has never won the Dakar. This is the Saudi's 11th attempt with a best finish of third in 2022. He'd been lying second since last Wednesday. The title race appears to be between only them.

Third-placed Mattias Ekström of Sweden and five-time champion Nasser Al-Attiyah of Qatar were about 25 minutes behind.

“It's a bit of disaster to be honest,” Lategan said. “About 13 kilometers in we got lost. We thought we missed the waypoint but we actually had it. When we got lost we got one puncture and then towards the end we got another one and the wheel is actually flat. So, it was a messy, messy, messy day for us but it's not the end of the world, we're still in it.”

Lategan and navigator Brett Cummings were 11th on the stage and Al Rajhi and Timo Gottschalk third.

“We did a great job like we planned to,” Al Rajhi said. “We pushed well. We enjoyed it, that's the most important. I hope everything goes well the next two or three days to win the Dakar ... I will fight to win. It won't be easy.”

Al-Attiyah won the stage ahead of Belgium’s Guillaume de Mévius in under three hours to rise to one minute off third place overall.

His 49th car stage win, and first in the Dakar for Romanian manufacturer Dacia, lifted him to only one behind the record jointly held by Finland's Ari Vatanen and France's Stephane Peterhansel.

Sanders cushions motorbike lead Australian rider Daniel Sanders bolstered his motorbike lead to nearly 15 minutes when closest challenger, Spain's Tosha Schareina, crashed early.

The back wheel of Schareina's Honda hit a rock and sent him flying only 20 kilometers in. He resumed racing but the nearly four minutes he finished behind Sanders dropped him in the general standings.

Schareina's teammate Adrien van Beveren of France remained third, more than 20 minutes behind, while Sanders' KTM teammate Luciano Benavides of Argentina strengthened his position in fourth place by winning his second successive stage.

Benavides, thanks to collecting time bonuses of nearly five minutes by opening the way, beat Van Beveren by nearly two minutes, and repeated his win into Haradh two years ago. Sanders was third after leading until about 70 kilometers from the end.

“I only got lost a couple of times ... and lost a little bit of time,” Sanders said. “I could have pushed and made some more (time) but it's not too bad.”