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Eddie Howe’s side hope the Champions League and smart additions can banish memories of a challenging summer

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 7th (NB: this is not necessarily Louise Taylor’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 5th

• Jhon Durán helps Mourinho’s side to 5-2 aggregate win

• Rangers advance to face Club Brugge in playoffs

José Mourinho is one round away from taking Fenerbahce back into the Champions League for the first time in 17 years.

The storied head coach’s team surged into the Champions League qualifying playoffs by overturning a two-goal deficit on aggregate Tuesday with a 5-2 qualifying round win against Robin van Persie’s Feyenoord.

This remains a new world for Bromley. Recent entrants to the Football League, this meeting with Ipswich was just their second Carabao Cup contest – now they have their first victory, delivered on penalties against a side who were in the top tier three months ago.

After Ben Johnson cancelled out Deji Elerewe’s first-half opener for Bromley, the game went to sudden death and the night belonged to Sam Long. He saved Ipswich’s first penalty, low to his right off George Hirst, and was required for another, denying Ali Al-Hamadi, once a Bromley player. Marcus Ifill slotted in for the final blow.

• Goalkeeper has been linked to Premier League move

• PSG sign Illia Zabarnyi from Bournemouth

Luis Enrique has opened the door to a Premier League move for Gianluigi Donnarumma after dropping him from Paris Saint-Germain’s squad for the Super Cup, saying he requires a goalkeeper with different qualities and leaving the Italy captain “disappointed and disheartened”.

Manchester City, Manchester United and Chelsea have all been linked with moves for Donnarumma, who shone in PSG’s triumphant Champions League run last season. The Ligue 1 winners appear to have signed his replacement in the highly-rated Lucas Chevalier, who joined from Lille last week. Luis Enrique emphasised that the decision to leave Donnarumma behind, and seemingly end his PSG career, had been a technical one.

• ‘It’s massive for me, honestly,’ says England winger

• Player targets regular football before World Cup

David Moyes believes Everton can provide a platform for Jack Grealish to showcase “the best version of himself”, with the midfielder targeting an England recall before the World Cup.

Grealish completed his move from Manchester City on Tuesday on a season’s loan that will cost Everton more than £12m in wages and fees. The 29-year-old had been marginalised at City by Pep Guardiola and was not included in his 27-man squad for the Club World Cup this summer.

• Madrid urge Spanish federation to withdraw request

• Uefa to begin procedure to obtain authorisation from Fifa

Real Madrid say they are opposed to plans by their bitter rivals Barcelona to play a league match in the US this season, saying the move “sets an unacceptable precedent”.

Barcelona and Villarreal are seeking permission from the football authorities to play in Miami in December. Fan groups of the clubs have already threatened legal action if the plan progresses, and now Real have expressed their opposition to the move.

Our cartoonist on the wacky plotlines and big characters to look out for as the new season begins

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• Tottenham coach: ‘The latest time was one too many’

• Midfielder’s north London future in doubt

Thomas Frank has flexed his muscles to Tottenham’s squad by excluding Yves Bissouma from the travelling party to face Paris Saint-Germain owing to persistent lateness.

Spurs make their Uefa Super Cup debut in Udine on Wednesday in a fiendish early test for their manager, who is overseeing his first pre-season since moving from Brentford in June. Frank has wasted no time pressing home his standards and explained he had opted against selecting Bissouma, the Mali international midfielder, because of multiple lapses.

• Liverpool also interested in Parma defender Leoni

• United may have to pay Brighton more than £72m

Liverpool are advancing in talks with Crystal Palace over Marc Guéhi and are considering a move for the Parma centre-half Giovanni Leoni as they attempt to increase Arne Slot’s defensive options.

Guéhi has been Liverpool’s main defensive target all summer and the club were encouraged to make an approach by an admission from the Palace chair, Steve Parish, that it would be better to sell the England international than lose him on a free next summer.

All the latest Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A deals and a club-by-club guide

• Women’s transfers summer 2025: all the moves

Every deal in the NWSL, WSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, Première Ligue and Serie A Femminile as well as a club-by-club guide

• Men’s transfers summer 2025: all the moves

Winger with millions of followers explains how the ‘female-first mentality’ at the Serie A minnows was a big draw

It is not difficult to understand why any Italian club would want to sign Alisha Lehmann: last season she helped Juventus win a league and cup double, she is an international winger who accumulated 19 goals and 10 assists in England’s Women’s Super League and, yes, there is the small matter of her 16.7m Instagram followers and 12m TikTok followers, an online presence that commands a commercial power vast for any athlete and pretty unique in women’s football.

What is perhaps not so immediately obvious is why, aged 26 and with her peak football years probably ahead, she would opt to join a club that finished in the bottom half of Serie A last season and cannot yet offer European football. However, the Switzerland forward’s reasons for signing a three-year deal with FC Como Women, she says, have a deeper meaning.

Ruben Amorim has to turn the ailing club around this season, after £200m on a new forward line, or he could be the next to pay the price

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 9th (NB: this is not necessarily Will Unwin’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 15th

Squad will need to adapt quickly to Pep Guardiola’s evolutionary tactics, while a battle looms between James Trafford and Ederson for the No 1 jersey

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 3rd (NB: this is not necessarily Will Unwin’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season: 3rd

Big-money signings have shown the champions’ ambition but the death of Diogo Jota cast a shadow over the summer

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 1st (NB: this is not necessarily Andy Hunter’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 1st

Club appears to have done shrewd transfer business, but they are still in the market for forwards as they try to avoid a quick Championship return

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 17th (NB: this is not necessarily Louise Taylor’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season: 1st in the Championship

Supporters will hope inactivity in the transfer market this summer will not lead to the club treading water

Guardian writers’ predicted position: 11th (NB: this is not necessarily John Brewin’s prediction but the average of our writers’ tips)

Last season’s position: 11th

• Viewers can watch up to four games at once this season

• Broadcaster will show minimum of 215 matches

Sky Sports is to give its viewers the opportunity to watch four Premier League games at once this season, introducing a “multiview” feature to accompany a record number of live matches in the top flight.

The initiative, which echoes the NFL’s RedZone where coverage shifts to where the action is, forms part of an expanded offering by Sky as the broadcaster seeks to hold off the challenges of piracy and adapt to a changing media environment.

• Club refer to ‘poorly conceived regulations’

• Claim some clubs have ‘unique privilege and power’

Crystal Palace have called on Uefa to scrap its rules on multi-club ­ownership (MCO) and questioned whether they received a fair hearing at the court of arbitration of sport after their appeal against demotion from the Europa League was rejected.

Cas confirmed on Monday it had upheld Uefa’s decision to demote the FA Cup winners to the Conference League after it decided John Textor held shares and had a decisive influence in Palace and Lyon, who also qualified for the Europa League. ­Textor has since sold his 44.9% stake in the club to another US businessman, Woody Johnson.

• Arsenal need to make sales first

• Spurs unlikely to meet £68m release clause

Tottenham have opened talks over a move for Eberechi Eze, whose £68m release clause expires on Friday, and are pushing to beat Arsenal to the Crystal Palace attacker. Arsenal have indicated they need to make sales in attack before pressing ahead with their pursuit of the England international.

The delay from Arsenal, who are looking for buyers for Leandro Trossard, has opened the door for Spurs to act on their longstanding interest. Thomas Frank, the new Spurs manager, needs attacking additions after losing James Maddison to a long-term knee injury and missing out on the signing of Nottingham Forest’s Morgan Gibbs-White. They can offer Champions League football to Eze after winning the Europa League last season.

• 600 apartments and houses would be built behind stand

• Former club chair calls proposed development ‘shameful’

Sunderland are preparing a formal objection over council plans to build housing within 23 metres of the Stadium of Light. The club fear the scheme would leave the stadium landlocked, preventing any future capacity increase.

Sunderland city council is expected to submit plans this week for 600 apartments and townhouses to be built behind the South Stand of the 49,000-seat stadium, on a former industrial estate.

The South Korean superstar is one of the most beloved players on his home continent, giving MLS a valuable chance to raise its profile

South Korean baseball fans have long been accustomed to organizing their weekends around MLB schedules – now it is time for the country’s soccer supporters to do the same with MLS.

Son Heung-min has started his two-year contract with Los Angeles FC, coming just after the attacker helped Tottenham Hotspur become the biggest club in his homeland (even if claims of close to 13 million fans are surely wildly overexaggerated) and one of the biggest in his home continent. Now it is the time to see what he can do in Los Angeles on the field and what the club can do off it.

The Guardian’s fans network looks ahead to the new season: fresh talent, weak links, and who will be sacked first

Optimism abounds in London N5. I had some doubts about Arteta’s ability to keep motivating this group, but this summer’s heavy spend should fix that, reinvigorating the squad. Only time will tell whether the new faces can gel and develop chemistry, but it’s a relief to have the clamour for a centre-forward answered at last. Hopefully come May we’ll be lauding Victor’s veni, vidi, vici Premier League triumph.

Bernard Azulay onlinegooner.com; @GoonerN5

Jonathan Pritchard (With thanks to Ozzy and all the Holte Enders in the Sky.)

From a Saturday Night Fever-inspired video to a bizarre Lionel Richie-theme, it has been a creative time for signings

Sometimes it’s best not to overcomplicate things. The former Atalanta playmaker Alejandro “Papu” Gómez loves a dance (his hit single Dance Like the Papu went viral in 2017) and Padua is an absolutely gorgeous city in northern Italy, so this Saturday Night Fever-inspired transfer announcement video for the Argentinian that showcases both works a charm. In what feels like a high-quality production, the 2022 World Cup winner struts around the city in 1970s clobber: a leather jacket, an enormously lappelled shirt and a vintage pair of Copa Mundials, all to the sound of the Bee Gees’ Stayin’ Alive. The context of this transfer to the Serie B side is that Gómez is finishing a two-year doping ban after taking a banned substance, which the now 37-year-old claimed came from his son’s cough medicine. Gómez, fifth on the all-time list of Serie A assists, continues to train independently but can start training with his new Padova teammates on 19 August.

Ruben Amorim’s side still a work in progress after Fiorentina friendly but hopes are high for moment when Benjamin Sesko joins attacking newcomers on the pitch

David de Gea’s appearance between the sticks at Old Trafford was a moment of nostalgia for Manchester United fans, a reminder of better times. The goalkeeper’s departure at the end of the 2022-2023 season epitomises the club’s self-inflicted problems, the sort of business ineptitude that has scarred United and Sir Jim Ratcliffe will demand is a thing of the past.

When André Onana, a goalkeeper well-known to the then manager Erik ten Hag, was available for nothing, United allowed De Gea to run down his contract and then spent £40m on the Cameroonian a year later. The logic was lost on everyone, missing out on a fee for the Spaniard, despite a subpar final season, and then splashing out on an inferior replacement.

After marvelling at Lionesses, Lions, Alcaraz and McIlroy, attention returns to English football and its cynicism

The Community Shield marks beginnings and ends. Here come nine months of Premier League hopes and fears. Even if the eventual fate awaiting a team can become crystal clear as early as the opening weekend, there can be no backward glances. This means more, as the modern cliche goes. Many are happy to live by those words.

Regrettably, club football’s return also means the sun setting on a brilliant summer of sport, the closing of an ever-narrower window. Only the truly afflicted are not glad of the respite. The close season, as it was previously termed, lowers the cortisol, regulates the serotonin levels until it’s time to go again. The Club World Cup was not too much of a diversion, despite Gianni Infantino’s best efforts and corralling of Donald Trump, a month of unlovable fare that desperately searched for authenticity via its blaring, high-contrast cocktail of celebrity and Saudi Arabian money.

Portuguese club kept Luuk de Jong’s move under wraps, stunning their fans and making André Villas-Boas happy

Transfer news spreads like wildfire in this day and age. Leaks have become not only common but expected, by clubs, journalists and agents. So when Porto unveiled Luuk de Jong, it stunned the football world. Not even employees and teammates knew until moments before his presentation at a friendly against Atlético Madrid. So how did they pull it off?

What unfolded was a story with the intrigue of a spy thriller. The striker was the last to board the plane he took from the Netherlands to Porto last Sunday and timed his arrival on matchday to avoid crossing paths with anyone. Upon landing, he was the first off the plane and ushered into a van with tinted windows that drove him to the stadium. His entourage – anonymous to fans – collected his luggage.

Its young, diverse and passionate fanbase offers a huge opportunity, but too many clubs are only scratching the surface

The Lionesses are simply the most successful England football team in history, winning back-to-back European Championships and becoming the first England senior team to win a major tournament on foreign soil. It is an incredible achievement and one that will reverberate through the women’s game for many years to come.

The head coach, Sarina Wiegman, is simply world class; it’s an overused phrase but absolutely fitting in this case. To reach five major finals in a row (including a European Championship win and a World Cup final with the Netherlands before joining England) is a record that may never be surpassed. She was an inspired choice by Kay Cossington, the former Football Association technical director who targeted her for her ability to build a strong culture and sense of team as much as her obvious tactical acumen.

Familiar tones of rage, pain and betrayal that envelop men’s football were missing during England’s joyful run to glory

“You can’t stand their voices? ALL women’s voices?” “Yes.” “Are you married to a woman?” “I am. And she feels the same.” Hmm. To be fair to Dave from Egham, whose name has been changed to protect the confused, the whole setup here was pretty bleak. It was Dave’s destiny a week on from England’s victory at Euro 2025 to find himself going viral after an appearance on LBC radio.

In the clip Dave objects to the sound of all women’s voices, even if they’re Adele or Billie Holiday. Specifically he objects to women talking about women’s sport, which Dave hates because it is being thrown down his throat, and thrown down his throat to the extent he has to ring up a radio station and talk about the women talking about the women’s sport, simply to disentangle its tendrils from his throat, to steal a few gargling, sputtering final breaths.

Choosing the best matches from Switzerland provokes plenty of debate along with the outstanding players and the pick of the goals

England seemed to have lost it once, twice, three times against Sweden on a night of nail-shredding drama that sharpened the sense that destiny had rich bounty in store for Sarina Wiegman’s side. It was also the first match, no doubt of many over the coming years, that made a hero of Michelle Agyemang. Nick Ames

• England will host China at Wembley on 29 November

• Prize fund for Women’s FA Cup frozen for another year

England will play China in a friendly at Wembley on 29 November, their first confirmed fixture following the Lionesses’ Euros triumph at the weekend.

The match will be the third of four friendlies for Sarina Wiegman’s victorious team across the autumn, with the first two, in October, still to be announced, and pits the Asian champions against their European counterparts. It will also be the Lionesses’ third Wembley fixture of 2025, following victories over Spain in February and Portugal in May.

Former third-tier club with no financial muscle from remote municipality of 14,000 inhabitants lead country’s top flight

For Mjällby’s opponents, a trip to the far south of Sweden feels like a journey to the Earth’s end. “When teams come on here on the bus they drive and drive, through the farms, past the fishing harbours,” says Hasse Larsson. “They keep driving and then, when they can’t drive any further, they find our stadium.”

They discover an institution whose heart and soul are rooted in Sölvesborg, a remote municipality of 14,000 inhabitants. Nowadays they find a club front and centre of an extraordinary story unfolding in Allsvenskan, the country’s top flight. Mjällby are four points clear at the top with 12 games left; they have lost once and, should they escape intact from a visit to the champions Malmö on Saturday, the unlikeliest of dreams will become vivid.

The businessman is continuing his involvement in football despite a trail of misery, including at Mouscron and Bordeaux

Boavista fans would have thought things could not possibly get worse. In early July, a month away from celebrating their 123rd anniversary, the former champions of Portugal, faced with liquidation, announced that the “special revitalisation plan” they had put together last November had been rejected by the Portuguese football federation: they had failed to provide the necessary tax and social security certificates and guarantees in time.

Riddled with debt (they owed €7m (£6.1m) to the construction company entrusted with the development of their stadium), they were so short of money that electricity had been cut off at their Estádio de Bessa in April after they failed to pay their bill. Players waited months to receive their salary. One of them, the US defender Reggie Cannon, whose pay was late in 28 of the 29 months he spent at Boavista, terminated his contract in the summer of 2023 and joined Queens Park Rangers. After an appeal at the court of arbitration for sport, it was announced last month that Boavista will have to compensate him to the tune of €400,000.

He has not always been fit or available for the team, but Neymar’s time back at Santos has certainly not been boring

“Eu vou mas, eu volto!” Those are the words that Neymar famously scrawled on a wall in the home changing room of the Vila Belmiro in 2013 before he crossed the Atlantic to join Barcelona. His message to the Santos fans was clear: “I’m going but I’ll come back!”

Great things were expected of the prodigious 21-year-old who had been reared at the academy that produced Pelé. Brazilians hoped he would lead them to their first World Cup on home soil in 2014, erasing the hurt of 1950, and go on to become their first Ballon d’Or winner since Kaká in 2007. As we now know, these conquests did not come to pass.

• Melbourne club plans to appeal against ‘bitterly disappointing’ decision

• Independent board finds club failed to meet FA licensing requirements

Financially beleaguered club Western United has had its licence withdrawn as part of Football Australia’s regulatory processes, a step which threatens the outfit’s existence just three years after it won the A-League Men championship.

An independent board set up to assess each club against the licensing criteria decided on Thursday Western United has not met its requirements. It means the club – which is adamant the sale to US investors is imminent – is blocked from competing in FA-sanctioned competitions, including the A-Leagues.

Poised for a move to Al-Hilal, the striker will depart in the affections of many despite a hit and miss time at Anfield

It started with a goal to clinch the Community Shield against Manchester City on his Liverpool debut and a red card for a head-butt on his Anfield bow. There were glaring misses, falling-outs and some telling contributions in between, before it ended with Liverpool taking a rare financial hit on a one-time club record signing. Darwin Núñez never reached the heights Jürgen Klopp predicted he would, but it was an eventful three-year ride that ensures the striker is poised to depart in the affections of many at Liverpool.

Klopp led the signing of Núñez before and especially after his two appearances for Benfica against Liverpool in the 2021-22 Champions League. But he was not the only Liverpool coach to be sold on the Uruguay international’s talents, become frustrated by attempts to accommodate the forward and ultimately sideline him. Arne Slot followed an identical path with the mercurial 26-year-old.

A summer without a sporting director and failure to keep Alexander Isak happy has left the club with an almost dysfunctional feel

“If you want to understand Newcastle you first need to understand its place in the world – that is, a very long way from anywhere. The next major city is Leeds, two hours drive to the south … London feels very far away.”

If Eddie Howe can only hope his prospective signings do not stumble across the Rough Guides introduction to England’s northern cities, Newcastle’s manager may also reflect that it was not supposed to be like this.

Manchester City manager may still relish a title chase but, as the declines of Mourinho and Wenger prove, nothing lasts for ever

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the interview Pep Guardiola gave to GQ was how tired he sounded. The headlines that he was contemplating a 15-year break from the game didn’t entirely reflect what he said – “I don’t know how long I’ll stop for: a year, two years, three years, five, 10, 15, I don’t know. But I will leave after this spell with City because I need to stop and focus on myself, on my body” – but his weariness was clear.

To an extent it is not a surprise. Jürgen Klopp was exhausted (and self-aware) enough after almost 15 seasons at Dortmund and Liverpool (plus seven at Mainz) to quit last summer. There were times last season, particularly in that four-month spell either side of Christmas when City’s form dipped alarmingly, that Guardiola seemed shattered. By his own admission, his decision last November to sign a contract extension to summer 2027 was motivated in part by guilt at the downturn. “The problems we had in the last month, I felt now was not the right time to leave,” he said. The problems got much worse.

Our cartoonist looks at how the Lionesses retained their crown as European champions

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A group of leading experts anonymously give the lowdown on how players are bought and sold, including the transfer market’s peculiar quirks

The whole system is lubricated by agents: how they work and how they make things work. At my club, we have closed the door to that now. We used to say we were open to what agents sent our way but in our experience only around one in 100 suggestions were useful, let alone successful.

With protests planned for the start of the season, the FSA chair believes only fan consultation will help address grievances

“I’m a bit younger, so this is all I’ve known,” says Nick Clarke, “but something that defines this moment is the feeling that it’s our last chance. You know that phrase: ‘The game’s gone’? I think the game is genuinely going away. It’s excluding traditional supporters and the communities that built the clubs in the first place.”

Clarke has just celebrated his 30th birthday and is coming off the back of a big season. As one of the four season-ticket holders behind the MCFC Fans Foodbank Support, Clarke has been active among the Manchester City fanbase and in the community since the pandemic. With the growing concern over the pricing and provision of tickets at his club last year, he helped coordinate protests by fans whose rivalries go back generations, but whose problems are increasingly shared. Supporters of Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United and others joined City fans under the banner “Stop Exploiting Loyalty” and in doing so became part of a new wave of supporter activism.

In an extract from a new book, the former Portsmouth, Leeds and Exeter defender talks about the day his life changed for ever in 2015 and his healing process

Noel Blake walked through Trentham Gardens on the outskirts of Stoke-on-Trent staring up at the trees and making a mental note of those with the sturdiest branches. What he was trying to get clear in his head in those fleeting moments only he could really know.

There comes a time in most stroke healing – or the lack of hope for it – when the victim reflects on the dark side. For professional athletes to be robbed of that they cherished most – their athleticism – must be the hardest cut of all.

Veteran manager tells Donald McRae about his 45-year-career, upcoming tour and missing out on Virgil van Dijk

‘I was at Crystal Palace and I wanted a centre-half,” Neil Warnock says as, after 45 years as a manager, he describes how football has changed since his rise from non-league to the Premier League. “I sent Ronnie Jepson, my assistant, to Scotland to watch a centre-half. And he came back and said he would cost us around £4m, but he was very good. So I told the people at Crystal Palace.”

Warnock resists identifying Steve Parish, Palace’s chairman, by name for he is deep in a story that illustrates how data analytics is not always infallible. “He asked for 24 hours and went to the data people. The next day he said: ‘We don’t want to go ahead.’ I asked him why and he said they don’t think he’s quick enough. I said: ‘He might not look quick enough, but he’s in second gear in Scotland. If he had to sprint, he’d sprint.’”

It was only the Community Shield, but issues from pre-season popped up again for Arne Slot in Liverpool’s loss on penalties to Crystal Palace

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It was the Community Shield, and that should not be forgotten. There isn’t anybody who has been watching English football for any period of time who hasn’t made the mistake of taking too seriously a conclusion drawn in the midst of the traditional curtain-raiser, giddy on the sight of Wembley in its pomp and the return of competitive club football from the summer wilderness.

Any analysis has to be tempered. Teams are always works in progress, evolving and developing, but that is never truer than in early August with new signings adapting to their teammates and surroundings, and others shaking the summer from their legs. Things will change. But after Liverpool’s 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace and subsequent defeat on penalties in the Community Shield, it can be said with a degree of certainty that their new signings have gelled better at the front of the pitch than the back.

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Though rumours abound that, somewhere in the USA USA USA, the Copa Gianni continues in perpetuity, Donald Trump cavorting with Infantino in front of a rapt crowd of -67, back in England, the new season is well under way. Somehow, the Community Shield – or, to give it its proper name, The Annual Curtain-Raiser – has negotiated the logistical nightmare that is a transfer window yet to slam shut, revealing a game that, in a shocking turn of events, did not encourage one to pretend that football does not and has never existed.

After 10 goals in 12 league games earned West Ham player a rising star award she talks dogs, sleep and her football dream

Shekiera Martinez’s family were sceptical when she told them, aged eight, she wanted to start playing football. She was one of four girls and a boy in her family, growing up in Germany, and one of her older sisters had by then given up the game. “I wanted to start but when I told my mum, she firstly said: ‘No, you won’t play for long, you’ll be like your sister,’” Martinez recalls. “And so then I gave her a promise that I would play for longer than my sister.”

Sixteen years later, the West Ham striker has certainly kept that promise. After progressing through her local boys’ team, playing for Eintracht Frankfurt for six years and thriving at youth level for Germany, Martinez most recently collected the Women’s Super League’s Rising Star award for the 2024-25 season after a breakthrough second half of the campaign in which she scored 10 times in 12 WSL games.

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Today’s rumours quibbles with their valuation

Pep Guardiola is the foremost football genius of his generation, revolutionising the game with imaginative tactics such as having the best players and the most money. But he has a particular expertise when it comes to wingers: consider Jack Grealish, now binned to Everton; Savinho, in the process of being binned to Spurs; Jérémy Doku, once fun, now ineffective; Julián Alvarez, binned to be brilliant at Atlético Madrid; Ferran Torres, binned after two seasons; Nolito, binned to Sevilla after a season; all acquired for a combined total of roughly £234.4m.

Consequently, one can only imagine Rodrygo’s excitement at the prospect of joining Manchester City from Real Madrid, who have decided that, though he offers goals, assists, energy, effort, experience, selflessness, variety, balance and big-game performances, he simply isn’t famous enough or attention-seeking enough to remain part of their squad. They value him at £87m – or, if he moves to the Etihad, £29.99 in two years’ time.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Ali Maxwell and George Elek as Crystal Palace get the better of Liverpool at Wembley and the Championship gets under way

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On the podcast today: Crystal Palace beat Liverpool on penalties in the Community Shield … Dean Henderson doffing his cap, impressive debuts for Hugo Ekitike, Florian Wirtz and Jeremie Frimpong … not bad for a glorified pre-season friendly.

Plus: offside goalkeepers, long-distance English away-days and the Charity Shield curse

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Port Vale have played Everton at Priory Road, Anfield, Goodison Park and now the Hill Dickinson Stadium,” notes Kevin Doran. “Is there an example of any other team having played another team at four or more home grounds?”

Philip Davis starts us off with a likely potential host: “Brighton & Hove Albion have had four home grounds since 1902. After the Goldstone Ground (1902-97), the Seagulls ground-shared at Gillingham’s Priestfield home in 1997-98 and 1998-99 (both seasons spent in the fourth tier). After 12 years at the Withdean Stadium (1999-2011), they moved to the purpose-built Amex Stadium.