1. THE NIGERIAN

Tosin Adarabioyo. Chelsea. Centre-back. Played every round of the FA Cup run. Arrived at Wembley with a hamstring problem. Still has not chosen between England and Nigeria.

He played every round. Third round, fourth round, fifth round, quarter-final, semi-final. He started the semi-final against Leeds when the manager left out Jorrel Hato. It surprised people given Hato’s form. He put in a performance that made the decision look correct. Chelsea fans came out of that semi-final wanting to keep him. He had been the player the back line organised around when it mattered.

Then he picked up a hamstring injury in training this week.

He was a doubt for today. He may not have started. The final may have been something he watched from the bench or from a seat too close to the action to feel far enough away.

Tosin Adarabioyo is twenty-eight years old. His father is from Lagos State. His mother is from Ekiti. He was born in London, came through the Manchester City academy, made his name at Blackburn and Fulham, joined Chelsea on a free transfer. He has represented England at every youth level from under-sixteen to under-nineteen. He has not been capped at senior level. England have not called him. Nigeria have been watching.

His international future is still unresolved.

The Nigeria Football Federation wants him. The Nigerian manager has been monitoring him. Tosin is reportedly in favour of England. But England have not confirmed that favour by picking him. And that silence has a cost. Every month that passes without a senior England call-up is a month the Nigeria option stays open and the question stays live.

Today Chelsea lost 1-0. Semenyo scored from a Haaland cross. A back-heel flick. Unrepeatable. The kind of goal that ends ninety minutes of defensive organisation with one touch. Chelsea had spells. Chelsea did not score.

The cup run is over.

The international question is not.

He is twenty-eight. He has shown, across six rounds of a cup competition, that he is good enough to be in these games. England have watched all of it. Nigeria have watched all of it.

Someone will call him this summer. The question is which federation decides his silence has gone on long enough.

2. THE MOMENT

Manchester City have reached four consecutive FA Cup finals and today won the third of them.

No team had ever reached four straight finals before City. They got to 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026. Consecutive, unbroken, a record in the oldest cup competition in world football. They lost to Manchester United in 2024. They lost to Crystal Palace in 2025. Today they beat Chelsea 1-0 and the record books will note it.

And yet the full-time whistle at Wembley was greeted by something more complicated than simple celebration from the blue half of Manchester.

City fans are not just thinking about the FA Cup. They are thinking about the league.

Arsenal lead by two points with two games each remaining. Arsenal on 79 points. City on 77. But City's goal difference is +43. Arsenal's is +42. City are ahead on goal difference. Which means if both clubs win their remaining two games, City win the Premier League title without Arsenal losing a match. Arsenal need to win both and outscore City. Or win both and hope City drop points.

Here are the fixtures.

Arsenal play Burnley at home on Monday. Burnley are relegated. Then Crystal Palace away on the final day, Saturday 24 May. Palace are mid-table with nothing to play for except pride and Eberechi Eze returning to Selhurst Park as an Arsenal player. That game will not be a formality.

City play Bournemouth away on Tuesday. Then they host Aston Villa on the final day. Villa beat Liverpool 4-2 on Friday night and have confirmed Champions League football for next season. They arrive at the Etihad on the final day with nothing to lose and everything to enjoy.

The Opta supercomputer gives Arsenal an 87.2% chance of winning the title. A separate simulation has both clubs finishing on 83 points with Arsenal edging the title on goal difference by a single goal. The machine says Arsenal. But the machine also knows the goal difference is City's.

The FA Cup is a trophy. It is a historic trophy. City just made a record inside it.

The Premier League title is the thing they actually want. And tonight, that is what they are thinking about.

3. EUROPE

Arsenal are in the Champions League final.

That sentence has not been available for twenty years. The last time Arsenal were in a Champions League final, Thierry Henry was still at the club, José Antonio Reyes was on the pitch, and they lost to Barcelona in Paris. That was 2006. The generation of fans who watched it is now in their late thirties. A significant number of Arsenal supporters have never seen their club in a European final.

They will see one on 30 May at the Puskás Aréna in Budapest.

The team they beat to get there was Atletico Madrid. Two legs, one goal on aggregate. Mikel Arteta's Arsenal went to the Metropolitano for the first leg and came back with a draw. They came home, won 1-0, and went through. It was not beautiful. It was not the kind of football that produces European mythology. It was defensive, disciplined, and exactly what the occasion required.

Paris Saint-Germain got there a different way.

PSG beat Liverpool 4-0 on aggregate in the quarter-finals. They beat Bayern Munich 6-5 on aggregate in the semi-finals. Nine goals across two legs. It ended with PSG hanging on in Munich after a 5-4 first leg in Paris. They have been extravagant and occasionally chaotic and they are in the final regardless.

Two completely different versions of European football will meet in Budapest.

Arsenal's version says defensive structure is the ceiling. That the team that concedes least travels furthest. That Arteta's system is the right system for this competition, now, at this level, in this era.

PSG's version says the ceiling is whatever you can score. That Dembélé and Doué and Luis Enrique's willingness to play with the handbrake off will undo the structure eventually.

One of them is right. The other goes home.

Arsenal have not won this competition. PSG have not won this competition. One of them will, on 30 May, for the first time.

That is the most interesting football question remaining on the European calendar. Not who is better. Which version of the game is better right now.

The answer is fourteen days away.