Leicester City Women have sacked manager Willie Kirk after an investigation into an alleged relationship with a player. Read Suzanne Wrack’s exclusive.

With Arsenal primed to take on Manchester City at the Etihad in a potential title decider, the stage is certainly set for a certain Brazilian to hijack the occasion. As the clock ticks down to kick-off on Sunday, you can be sure commentators tasked with covering the game will have spent long evenings working diligently on their painstakingly scripted “ad-libs”, fervently hoping Arsenal’s No 9 will score the winning goal. Ideally, a strike that finishes a most unlikely comeback for his team. Suffice to say that Football Daily has got its Peter Drury bingo card ready and phrases such as “divine intervention”, “back from the dead” and the rather snappy “Arsenal looked doomed on their Etihad Calvary but Jesus has resurrected their title hopes on this Easter Sunday!” all feature.

The game is certainly a hard one to call and while Jesus seems unlikely to start against his former side, having just emerged from a long battle with assorted knack (as opposed to actual crucifixion at the hands of the Romans), he wouldn’t be the first Brazilian to come off the bench after a lengthy absence and snatch the points for Arsenal against City this season if everything goes according to the biblical script. In October, Gabriel Martinelli bagged the winner four minutes from the end of a hugely disappointing game that failed dismally to live up to pre-match hype, although his shot needed a spawny deflection off Nathan Aké to beat Ederson. But away from home, Arsenal’s form against City could scarcely be more dismal and they haven’t even managed a draw at the Etihad since Gunnersaurus was knee-high to a Microraptor.

With 10 games of the season to go and just one point separating the two sides positioned above and below Liverpool in the table, defeat would be far from a catastrophe for either side … even if the prevailing wisdom is that it would be quite the kick in the swingers for an Arsenal team whose backbone, mental strength and various other shortcomings that fall under the umbrella of their “inherent Arsenalness” continue to be raised, perhaps unfairly, as potential red flags in their quest for a first title in 20 years. Whether they win or lose on Sunday, let’s just say nobody will be hugely surprised if they come a cropper when they host Luton next Wednesday night.

Currently on a four-game goal drought for club and country, Erling Haaland looks set to be a key figure for City and the Norse cyborg will hope to improve on his virtually anonymous display against the Gunners last time out. In this fixture last season, the 23-year-old gave it the full Timotei by unleashing his golden mane shortly after losing his scrunchie before scoring to cap a virtuoso performance in City’s 4-1 destruction of the visitors. City fans will be hoping to see their pagan Norse God let his hair down once again on Sunday, especially if it helps them rain on Jesus’s Easter parade.

Join Sarah Rendell from 5.45pm GMT for Women’s Big Cup updates from Barcelona 4-0 Brann (agg: 6-1) in the second leg of their quarter-final.

“After the [court] judgment, [Manchester United] absolutely wanted me to speak to the press. I didn’t want to but they said it’s important you have to speak to the press. So I said, OK I will speak to the press, in the sense that they want me to speak – I’ll say any old thing. They wanted me to speak, I spoke. It just came out and then I left. And the press, they all tried to find a sense to it and make it all philosophical. You know, it just came out like that; maybe it came from my subconscious and maybe unconsciously it created a sense, but the best sense of it was, you make me speak, I speak and who cares whether the words make sense” – Eric Cantona ends almost three decades of speculation as to the meaning of those “seagulls” and “sardines” remarks with an explanation Football Daily can properly get behind.

Interesting reading the ‘Paul Bodin moment for the modern age’ (yesterday’s Football Daily). As we Swindon Town fans all know and cherish, the Paul Bodin moment for all time happened on 31 May 1993 at Wembley when his penalty took us to a 4-3 win in the playoff final v Leicester and promotion for our one and only (so far) season in the Premier League. Many happy conversations with Paul at the County Ground directors’ box on match days. Forever the Paul Bodin moment for all time!” – David J Waldron.

George Kirk’s puzzlement about Kobbie Mainoo’s playing position (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) supports my own perplexity. I’m a strong believer that a team should wear the numbers 1-11 whenever they play. So the sum total of the perfect team’s numbers would be 66. Any deviation, or excess, since it can’t be lower, from this should be frowned upon. In the recent Manchester United v Liverpool FA Cup semi-final the clubs had shirt totals of 216 v 220, respectively. Whenever I have no explicit reason for supporting a side in a match, I will often go with the team with the lower shirt total. My backup protocol (in the unlikely event that shirt totals might be equal) is to support whichever side is farther north. So in that particular FA Cup tie, United had the marginally lower shirt total … and the centre spot at Old Trafford is a meagre 0.033° further north than at Anfield. No wonder Erik ten Hag’s Specials came out on top” – Ken Muir.

In response to George’s query, a No 6 usually means a defensive midfielder (or No 5 if you’re South American) and a No 8 is now shorthand for a box-to-box midfielder. Also, No 10 normally means a support striker or attacking midfielder who sits off the main centre-forward, but that’s more obvious. And don’t get me started on these false 9s, 9-and-a-halves, etc” – Dale Godfrey.

Send letters to [email protected]. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Ken Muir.

Big Euros news, with it emerging that travelling Scotland and England fans have been alerted by the Foreign Office about … the strength of German Tin. Yes, official guidance published by the FCDO is urging supporters to watch what they drink if they visit the tournament. “Beer can be stronger than in the UK, so drink responsibly, know your limits and respect local laws,” it bugled. “You may not be let into the stadium if you drink too much.” Drinkaware claims the average strength of lager and ale in the UK is 4.4%, but up to 5.4% in Germany.

You Euro 2024 power rankings!

Larry Lloyd, a double European Cup winner with Nottingham Forest, has died at the age of 75. Lloyd, who also won the First Division title and Uefa Cup with Liverpool, was a key player in the Forest side which claimed glory in 1979 and 1980 under Brian Clough.

Newcastle midfielder Sandro Tonali, already serving a 10-month worldwide ban for betting offences while playing in Italy, has now been charged with misconduct by the FA in relation to 50 alleged breaches of its betting rules.

Court documents have revealed that Luis Rubiales could face a prison sentence of two and a half years if convicted of kissing Jenni Hermoso against her will.

Manchester City’s Steph Houghton, owner of 121 England caps and the first female player to grace the cover of Shoot magazine, will retire at the end of the season. “I thank the trailblazers that came before me … and I hope I leave the game in a better place than when I started,” she said. There’s no doubt about that.

We’re only 11 weeks from Euro 2024, but coaches are keen to ensure that Uefa allows 26-man squads – and that includes England’s Gareth Southgate. “We’ve got to make the best decisions [regarding selection] with what we know and some of those currently are going to be medical decisions,” he tooted. “We’ve been able to give people time. But with 23 that’s definitely more difficult.”

And while Aberdeen remain managerless, chief suit Alan Burrows insists the Scottish Premiership strugglers are right to take their time. “Obviously, we said a couple of weeks ago that we hoped to appoint during the international break,” he cooed. “It looks unlikely, unfortunately, that this is going to happen … The key focus for us is to ensure the accuracy of the appointment.”

The Dominican Republic have their sights set on much more success after their W Gold Cup appearance made them the first senior side to represent the country at a major tournament. Eduardo Tansley talks to their players and Federation president in this extract from our sister email’s latest edition, as they set their sights on “competing with the big dogs”.

The further Ukraine go at the Euros, the louder they can shout about their country’s plight – a fact they are well aware of. Jonathan Liew reports.

As the dust settles on the international window, it’s time to process another round of Southgate-speak. And as David Hytner explains, for Marcus Rashford in particular, it doesn’t sound wholly encouraging.

Goal machine v false 9: Karen Carney picks out the Haaland-Havertz subplot before Sunday’s showdown.

It’s business, it’s business time … and Ben McAleer picks out which Premier League players are bang in form.

David Squires honours the flamin’ magical left foot of Craig Goodwin.

And slightly off the beaten path, here’s DJ Gilles Peterson on why lessons from German football can help save British nightlife.

Back to Oktoberfest 2013 and Bayern manager Pep Guardiola is getting his [5.4%? – Football Daily Ed] stein on in Munich. Speaking of which …