Find a Football Team

Pepism is no longer the prevailing tactical template, with football and its innovator in a state of flux

The world is blasted, unfamiliar. Smoke swirls amid the gloom. Foul odours belch from the sulphurous earth. The landscape echoes to howls and grunts and screams. A great light has gone out and all that remains is confusion and fear. Everywhere coaches and managers, hunched under their doubts, scuttle hither and thither, desperately seeking a path through the wilderness.

From his very first season at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola’s way of playing football has been dominant. The effectiveness of his philosophy was so obvious and so pervasive that there is not an elite manager now who has not in some way been influenced by his philosophy, even if they are not, as many are, overt disciples.

Striker does the simple thing well and gives Mikel Arteta an alternative to the robot parcel delivery droids at his disposal

Control. Fixed planes of movement. Positive metrics. Data victory. Safety in order. Strength through no joy. This is all good stuff. This is a matrix for winning at sport. This is how Mikel Arteta has transformed Arsenal from a flapping bead curtain made up of fun guys and leftovers into a hugely impressive team. You can definitely come second in the league like this.

But then there are other things, the need for a little blood and a little risk. Attack ships off the shoulder of Orion. Very positive underlying numbers in the first half against Liverpool. All these moments will be lost if the moments are not also seized, if a little ragged edge doesn’t enter the programme too. Or in the case of this 3-0 defeat of Nottingham Forest, a little bit of unprocessed Gyökeres.

Fresh from taking the extraordinary step of calling for the people running their club to step down, perhaps the next move for West Ham’s official fan advisory board is to issue a vote of no confidence in their team’s defending. After all, nothing else seems to have made Graham Potter’s dreadful side realise that marking opponents at set-pieces is a good idea.

It was another shocker for West Ham, erasing any advances made during their victory over Nottingham Forest two weeks ago. They are languishing in 18th after conceding 11 goals from their first four matches and it was hard not to feel their latest humiliation in a London derby will only increase the yearning for the kind of boardroom bloodletting recently witnessed at Tottenham, who should probably keep in mind that there was no kinder start to life without Daniel Levy than by visiting the London Stadium.

Even if Enzo Maresca is blessed with one of the deepest squads in the Premier League, heavy rotation presented a risk factor for Chelsea. The Italian rolled the dice, and Chelsea duly dropped two points from a game they thought they had rescued.

Brentford, despite a change of personnel and manager, were motivated and highly dangerous. Keith Andrews’ team closely resembled the Thomas Frank era in their dedication and spirit. Despite Moisés Caicedo’s pile-driving goal, Chelsea’s second, they maintained a heavy threat. Robert Sánchez was asked to make a scrabbling save from Dango Ouattara’s snap shot but that would not be the last of it; in the 95th minute, Fábio Carvalho bundled home, Chelsea’s defenders allowing the substitute to tap in unmarked at the back post from a long throw.

Russell Martin will not resign despite Ibrox turning toxic towards him in the 2-0 defeat by Hearts which left Rangers without a win in their first five Premiership matches.

There were only nine minutes on the clock when Gers fans began to chant the name of Nicolas Raskin, the popular Belgium midfielder left out of the squad amid an ongoing dispute with the Rangers manager, who suffered abuse from his own supporters all afternoon.

• West Brom slip up with home defeat to Derby

• Stoke second after beating Birmingham

The substitute Sontje Hansen scored a stoppage-time equaliser three minutes after coming on to earn Middlesbrough, the leaders, a 2-2 draw at Preston. The 23-year-old came off the bench after Jordan Storey looked to have won it for Preston and provided the telling touch from close range after the hosts failed to clear their lines from a corner.

Lewis Dobbin put the visitors ahead with a sublime solo effort early on before the visitors got a deserved 72nd-minute leveller through Matt Targett. Storey put Preston back in front with an 88th-minute glancing header before the final twist in the tale.

Women’s Super League’s new £1m players at London City Lionesses and Chelsea have a tough act to follow after Smith’s stunning Arsenal opener

The women’s game’s first £1m signing, Olivia Smith, wasted no time at all in demonstrating her worth as she scored a goal‑of‑the‑season contender on her debut for Arsenal. As the Women’s Super League’s approaches its second weekend, the gauntlet has already been thrown down for the second and third players to arrive in the WSL for a seven-figure transfer fee to respond.

Chelsea’s new signing, Alyssa Thompson, and the newest arrival at London City Lionesses, Grace Geyoro, are in line for their debuts on Sunday. Chelsea travel to Aston Villa and London City host Manchester United at midday.

It took until the 94th minute of the fourth game of the season but Fulham have their first win. A spectacular goal it was too – “one in 10,000” – that settled a largely excitement-free affair and it didn’t come from a home player but Marco Silva couldn’t care a jot. You couldn’t say the same for Leeds’ Daniel Farke and, in particular, Gabriel Gudmundsson.

Just when it seemed as if both sides had settled for a point, Kevin, the Brazilian winger signed by Fulham on deadline day, brought the energy that Silva had seen at Shakhtar Donetsk and convinced him to pay £34.6m. His turn and shot produced a flying fingertip save from Karl Darlow. Such were the slim pickings, that in itself was one of the game’s highlights.

• Napoli stay stop after Højlund scores in win at Fiorentina

• Mbappé helps 10-man Madrid win; Kane double for Bayern

Juventus snatched a dramatic 4-3 win at home to Inter, with Vasilije Adzic netting a stunning added-time winner in a game in which a Thuram brother scored for each side, but Napoli stayed top with a 3-1 win at Fiorentina.

In Turin, Juventus took the lead in the 14th minute through Lloyd Kelly. Inter equalised on the half-hour mark with Hakan Calhanoglu’s strike but Juventus were back in front thanks to Kenan Yildiz eight minutes later.

Pompey midfielder considers playing in first South Coast derby league meeting in 13 years bucket-list worthy

Inside a blue and white dugout at Portsmouth’s training ground John Swift is reliving the childhood he spent a few miles away, across the harbour in Gosport. He maps out the view he had from his front door on Dukes Road and the Forton park sports court that was his playground. It was while enjoying a kickabout there with friends, approaching his 11th birthday, that his mother, Pauline, called him in to advise he was being released by Pompey. “I remember, quite vividly, sitting on the sofa as my mum read me the letter,” he says. “And then I was almost just like: ‘Can I go back out and play?’”

At that age it was hard to comprehend what it really meant and a couple of weeks later he was representing Pace Youth, a team in Totton, the other side of Southampton. As Portsmouth prepare to face Southampton in the Championship on Sunday, the first league match between fierce rivals in 13 and a half years, the rivalry is not lost on Swift. The last meeting came in the Carabao Cup third round in 2019, when Saints ran out 4-0 winners. Then, Southampton were in the Premier League, 51 places above third-tier Pompey. Now they are equals in the Championship.

Portugal star will hand Gianni Infantino the perfect publicity coup if he does play in America for the first time in more than 10 years, having already begun cosying up to Donald Trump

Is it still safe to stage the World Cup in the United States? After more headline evidence this week of the extreme nature of American gun violence, some may conclude that the answer is no. Nine months out from the opening game, it is now almost impossible to ignore this. But believe it or not statistics suggest more than 300 people will have been shot in America last Wednesday alone.

The same number will also be shot on Friday, Saturday, every day next week, and every day of World Cup year. On average 127 of these unnamed, largely non-famous people not called things such as the superstar influencer Charlie Kirk will die each day. Within this, youth gun deaths will be both alarmingly high and a register of social injustice: a disproportionate 46% of all young people shot will be black.

Here’s how to follow along with our coverage – the finest writing and up-to-the-minute reports

Is it a crisis? That seems a bit extreme, but undoubtedly Aston Villa’s season has begun tepidly. Their quest to become the 162nd and final team in England’s top seven divisions to score in 2025-26 fell flat in their goalless draw at Everton.

More worrying for Unai Emery, though, was the missing zip and intensity present during much of Villa’s recent relative success. The only moment of breath-holding for Everton supporters was Emi Buendía’s second-half effort that deflected off James Tarkowski and, with Jordan Pickford flailing, went wide.

• Manager targets midweek Carabao Cup tie after Arsenal loss

• ‘My job is to get us to where I want us as quickly as possible’

Ange Postecoglou insisted that his Nottingham Forest would begin to take shape on Wednesday in the Carabao Cup at Swansea after he suffered a bruising first game in charge, losing 3-0 at Arsenal.

The manager, who was appointed on Tuesday as Nuno Espírito Santo’s successor, watched his team go down to a pair of Martín Zubimendi goals and one from Viktor Gyökeres. Forest barely threatened and it was a comfortable way for Arsenal to respond to their 1-0 defeat at Liverpool before the international break.

Antoine Semenyo scored one goal and set up the other as Bournemouth beat Brighton 2-1. Alex Scott netted his first league goal since December 2023, with Kaoru Mitoma equalising for the visitors.

The Cherries handed a surprise top-flight debut to Veljko Milosavljevic, their 18-year-old transfer deadline day signing, with the centre-back Bafodé Diakité injured. At the other end of the age spectrum, the 39-year-old James Milner replaced Carlos Baleba in Brighton’s starting lineup.

Anonymity and Nick Woltemade were already well on the way to becoming strangers but, after this, there seems zero chance of the Germany striker ever being able to blend seamlessly into the background on Tyneside.

Given that Woltemade’s awkwardly angular 6ft 6in frame is topped by a curly mop of bright blond hair and his distinctive moustache screams 1970s rock star – or perhaps a shambolic yet brilliant television detective of the sort ideally suited to Death in Paradise – he was already hard to miss.

First the positive news for Crystal Palace. Oliver Glasner’s side are now 15 matches unbeaten in a run that stretches back to their 5-0 thrashing by Newcastle in mid-April. But having endured a dramatic end to the transfer window that saw chair Steve Parish pull the plug on captain Marc Guéhi’s move to Liverpool, Glasner was hoping for more from this meeting with promoted Sunderland.

While Guéhi was barely troubled as he eased back into his role on the left side of Palace’s three-man defence with the minimum of fuss, they deservedly left with a point after thriving in the role of spoilers.

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

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

Ruben Amorim inherited a mess but his position being under threat so early is simply life in football’s hottest seat

Soap opera, wall-to‑wall media coverage, a sporting Truman Show and real-life panopticon. Ruben Amorim, like those before him, blinks in the glare of the endless fascination with Manchester United’s leading man, and may wonder whether this is the impossible job.

Three games into a first full campaign the 40-year-old seemed to believe so. The desultory 12-11 Carabao Cup penalty shootout defeat at Grimsby followed a 1-0 loss to Arsenal and 1-1 draw at Fulham. Three matches, zero wins, and the executioner’s song began to wail for the Portuguese’s job security.

Two of the summer’s biggest transfer moves from Germany to the Premier League are starkly contrasting prospects

What must a footballer who costs €80m, €100m or more be able to do and prove? He should be a promising prospect at the age of 17 to 20; occupy a clear position on the pitch; be one of the five most important players in a team; perform consistently over many years; prove himself in international competition; and be physically strong. This applies to virtually all those players in this price range: Kylian Mbappé, Neymar, Ronaldo, Erling Haaland, Jude Bellingham and Ousmane Dembélé.

Two German footballers moved to the Premier League for such a sum in the summer. One of them meets these criteria. Florian Wirtz’s career has been impressive. He caught the football’s attention as a teenager. It was only a matter of time before he made his breakthrough.

Before Saturday’s derby, fans wonder if it would be so bad to have a chair delivering occasional success on and off the pitch

It will not only be fans of Tottenham looking on with interest when the architects of one of English football’s most astonishing acts of corporate brutality watch life after Daniel Levy begin with a game against rivals where most supporters are waiting for something similar to happen at their club.

The small talk should be fascinating when the owners of West Ham welcome members of the Lewis family into the directors’ box at the London Stadium on Saturday afternoon. And how was your international break? Get up to much? And just when did you decide that it was time for Daniel to step down as chair?

Former Spurs manager had his 60th birthday plans upended by job offer but feels ‘things happen for a reason’

Ange Postecoglou walked out of the City Ground tunnel, which is decorated with famous images from yesteryear, and surveyed the scene. Just like that, the new Nottingham Forest head coach, in a blue suit, open‑neck white shirt and Paul Smith trainers – the designer is a son of the city – was back in business. He posed with the garibaldi red shirt and before long was explaining how Forest’s move interrupted his belated 60th birthday celebrations last weekend. “We had this whole thing planned, The Hangover-style, but we were in bed by 10pm as we realised our age,” Postecoglou said.

It was in May, when the Europa League trophy parade halted outside the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, that Postecoglou provided a memorable mic-drop moment: declaring that season three always eclipses season two in the best TV series. Four months after being sacked, replacing Nuno Espírito Santo three games into the Premier League season, provided quite the plot twist.

Exiles from the Taliban in England and Australia are using the sport to battle prejudice and give a voice to women and girls in Afghanistan

“I felt quite lost,” says the goalkeeper Elaha Safdari. “I didn’t know anyone, but little by little football gave me the strength and power to start again, to start from zero, to build, to keep going and to keep pushing myself forward.”

It is four years since a 17-year-old Safdari arrived in England, part of the Afghanistan women’s development team evacuated first to Pakistan then to the UK after the US withdrawal of troops and the concession of power to the Taliban.

What goes on tour, stays on tour as Uefa meets to discuss La Liga’s and Serie A’s request to play competitive matches abroad

The caramel-coloured tiles on the facade are long gone, and the name changed eight years ago, and there are now wraparound LED screens and an “immersive” museum experience and a lot more bright yellow than you would ideally want. And it’s harder to park right next to the ground like you used to, and many of the locals still insist on calling it El Madrigal. But still they come every other weekend, and buy horchata from the stalls out the front, and sit with the same old friends in the same old bars with the same old faded photos on the wall. Because for all that has changed over the years, this is still their town, their team, their tradition. And when their beloved Villarreal are playing there is nowhere else they would rather be.

But when they play their home game against Barcelona the week before Christmas, the Estadio de la Cerámica is likely to be sitting empty. For the small industrial town of 50,000 just off the A7 motorway, it will feel just like any other night. The classic club anthems will reverberate not in Castellón but more than 4,000 miles away in the Miami suburbs. And football’s dystopian, fungible future will never have been closer to becoming its dystopian, fungible present.

Brazil lost qualifiers in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia … just like they did before the 2002 World Cup

Despite how it might look on paper, Brazil did not necessarily hit a new low at high altitude by losing 1-0 against Bolivia this week. As their place at the World Cup was already reserved, Carlo Ancelotti could afford to field a second-string side with seven changes. It looked like they would return home from 4,000 metres above sea level with a draw until Bruno Guimarães gave away a penalty.

Miguel Terceros smashed the spot-kick past Alisson, securing a place in the playoffs for the hosts, who are now dreaming of reaching the World Cup for the first time since 1994, which is, of course, when Brazil won the tournament in the US. This has been a successful campaign for Bolivia. Not so Brazil, who finished fifth in the table with just 28 points from 18 games, making it the worst qualification campaign in their history.

After a 2-0 loss to South Korea and a win by the same scoreline against Japan, our experts consider the state of the program overall

Yes, any time a World Cup host country and a generation of prodigies lose a handful of consecutive games with their A-team, or what passes for one, alarm bells should be ringing. That’s not to say all is lost. While Mauricio Pochettino’s optimism rankled after a 2-0 loss to a South Korea side that had a disconcertingly easy time of it, there was much more to feel good about in the 2-0 win over Japan. Still, it was one game. Japan rested a lot of regulars. (Then again, the US were hardly at full strength.) LS

Mauricio Pochettino made big changes to the US setup, and the moves paid off with the team’s most complete performance in a long while

This United States’ international window once looked like it could be disastrous. Now, it has been upgraded to strangely uneven.

A much-improved US got goals from Alejandro Zendejas and Folarin Balogun to beat a heavily rotated Japan side 2-0 at Lower.com Field in Columbus. The result lends some credence to Mauricio Pochettino’s insistence that the US’s recent subpar results were all part of a plan with a single target: arriving at the World Cup in peak form.

Supporters are putting money into their teams in a typically collective response to financial crisis

There seems to be a not-for-profit association for everything in France, from amateur mycology to choral music and international disaster relief. There were one and a half million Associations Loi 1901 at the last count, which equates to one for every 48 inhabitants, with 60,000 to 70,000 new groups created each year. They constitute an essential part of the fabric of French society, a natural response to every kind of need felt by local communities – except when it comes to organised football.

This is odd, considering professionalism was introduced by the French FA as late as 1932 after a decade of hand-wringing and it would have been natural for practitioners of the game to take the matter in their own hands. Yet in France, club ownership at all but the lowest level has always been the preserve of private individuals, local authorities and, a very French trait, businesses that have set up teams for their employees, the football corporatif or football entreprise, which has its own leagues and federation.

British prime ministers have been pretty much invisible on the terraces … until now. And football is always telling you things

If you’d told Keir Starmer last summer that just over a year after his election as prime minister he would single‑handedly, and by the sheer force of his own personality, have stopped England fans from singing songs about the IRA and Ten German Bombers, he would no doubt have been delighted. I guess they must really like me then. Phase One Goals. You warned me off, Jeremy, but I knew the Arsenal thing was a good idea.

Either way Starmer has now made this happen. England fans are not singing about those things any more. They are instead singing about him being a wanker and how he should fuck off, something they continued to do this week from Birmingham to Belgrade. So, a partial success then, Sir Keir. Delivery. Pragmatism. Yes, I think we can work with this.

Offloading the error-prone goalkeeper has added to rather than solved the goalkeeping conundrum at Old Trafford

Altay Bayindir: age 27, seven Premier League appearances for Manchester United and a catalogue of game-costing errors. Senne Lammens: age 23, has never played in English football. Tom Heaton: age 39, last Premier League game January 2020, for Aston Villa. André Onana: age 29, 72 Premier League matches, Champions League and Europa League finalist, and a catalogue of game-costing errors.

The first three are goalkeepers Ruben Amorim can field on Sunday in the derby at Manchester City and beyond. The last is the keeper who is joining Trabzonspor for the season in what appears to be one more head-scratching development at a club that continues to seek clarity.

Domestic game risks being ripped from its fabric as La Liga and Serie A seek approval from Uefa to play fixtures abroad

It has been called the biggest existential threat to European football since the ill-fated Super League. Now it is on the verge of becoming reality and the implications will be far reaching if, as widely expected, La Liga and Serie A are given permission in the coming weeks to host domestic games abroad. The sport risks being ripped from its fabric should Barcelona and Villarreal be allowed to break the mould and stage a top-flight fixture in Miami this December.

The topic has dominated discussion in football’s corridors of power recently and, at the heart of a complex and deeply emotive problem, the immediate equation is simple. If Uefa’s executive committee agrees to the plans when it convenes in Tirana on Thursday the final say will be down to Fifa, probably at a meeting of its council on 2 October. The global governing body would be unlikely to put up opposition and the question, at that point, will be just how earth-shattering a precedent has been set.

The juggernaut was captured in one three-month tracking shot, but this summer market told us something deeper – about football and the nation

By the time the clock hit 7.30pm the main presenter on Monday’s Sky Sports Window Slam Countdown looked not just frazzled, but oddly heroic, like a man who has ingested a potentially fatal overdose of late-breaking excitement and is now being encouraged to keep talking in a low, dogged voice about massive deals and unexpected snags just to keep himself awake until the paramedics arrive.

There was something of the Situation Room about the whole tableau, five nobly dishevelled talking heads leaning in around the curved tables, lists of names earnestly reeled off. Eberechi Eze. Randal Kolo Muani. We’re hearing that Coventry has fallen. In the bottom corner of the screen a picture of Marc Guéhi would flash up now and then reproachfully, Guéhi wearing a strange, lost smile as though he has in fact died. And below it all the countdown clock replaced with the simple end‑of‑days message: WINDOW CLOSED.

Our cartoonist looks back at a departed hero’s memorable moments after his 25-year reign at Spurs

• Buy a copy of this cartoon in our Print Shop

• David’s latest book, Chaos in the Box: buy it now

We assess how each top-flight side fared in the search for quality and value during the summer window

• Transfer interactive: all the deals from across Europe

Andrea Berta’s first transfer window since taking over as sporting director has been busy. Headline moves for Viktor Gyökeres and Eberechi Eze have given Mikel Arteta the firepower and creativity he asked for, while Martín Zubimendi has added class to midfield. The arrival of Cristhian Mosquera, Christian Nørgaard, Noni Madueke and Kepa Arrizabalaga has also added depth to Arsenal’s squad that is already being called on after a series of early season injuries, while the late signing of the exciting Ecuador defender Piero Hincapié should prove to be a shrewd addition. Ed Aarons

Behind the scenes on transfer window’s final day as the Hatters bagged their top target in a loan deal

“Can my dog live in the apartment?” Ben Osborn asks Stockport’s first-team scouting operations manager, Dale Hargan. The Derby midfielder is about to undergo a medical before joining the League One side on a season-long loan and there are questions that need to be answered.

It is deadline day and Osborn has left his East Midlands home for the prospect of more regular playing time. He will be one of three arrivals at Edgeley Park before the window closes, the end of half a year of planning for Stockport. It looks like everything has gone smoothly when Osborn eventually signs the relevant paperwork at 6pm in the boardroom at the club’s training ground clad in official merchandise. Relief can be seen on the faces of the recruitment team. Their hard work has paid off.

Swede is not a classic central striker, but could his signing herald tactical tweaks and what does it mean for Salah?

On the face of it, it’s not hard to see why Liverpool would want Alexander Isak. He will not turn 26 until later this month and has scored more than 20 Premier League goals in each of the past two seasons, something matched only by Erling Haaland. But he offers more than just goals; he’s a very modern centre-forward.

Thirty or 40 years ago, when 4-4-2 was still the dominant formation, strike pairings tended to come in two forms: either target-man and finisher, or creator and finisher. These days, the very best centre-forwards combine traits of all three. This is not entirely new: the days of Kenny Dalglish and Ian Rush or Niall Quinn and Kevin Phillips are long gone and football has been familiar for some time with players of the ilk of Didier Drogba, Andriy Shevchenko and Radamel Falcao, forwards with pace and some blend of physicality and technical ability.

Arsenal’s cautious, cagey, risk-averse approach showed a lack of adventure and they paid the price against Liverpool

You can get it if you really want. You really can. You can get it. Getting it is a distinct and achievable outcome. There is just one caveat. You do have to actually show some sign of wanting to get it, to throw a little risk to the wind.

This seemed to be the catch for Mikel Arteta at Anfield, on a day where for long periods his Arsenal team were in the ascendancy, dishing up a performance that was assured and compact, but also a bit like watching a politician giving a campaign interview on live TV where the idea is to simply say nothing, wear the right tie, filibuster, convinced that if nothing happens then good things are probably happening. This felt like a kind of high-end Starmer-ball. Hold the line. Let the other guy lose.

La Liga’s salary limit applies to the whole club and with six players leaving this summer, is the club’s golden era over?

How times have changed. For the past few years Barcelona have been the team everyone wanted to join: five consecutive Champions League finals, stylish football, leaders in women’s football, a stunning city and Ballon d’Or winners for teammates. However, 10 years after becoming professional, the three-time European champions are a club in trouble.

Restricted by La Liga’s financial fair play rules, the women’s team have had a calamitous summer transfer window. There have been six departures – all to the Women’s Super League – while the midfielder Alba Caño is leaving for the NWSL in January. They made only one signing, Laia Aleixandri on a free transfer from Manchester City.

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

It was fitting that Jamie Vardy was given an audience at the Violin Museum in Cremona, because at least they had access to a very small one to play for the striker about having to finish his career in picturesque Lombardy rather than the East Midlands. He is also a classical showman but, aged 38, some suspect that the former England international is a spent force. Vardy has been doubted from Stocksbridge Park Steels to the Champions League, though, and has always delivered. “It is up to me to disprove the predictions,” he chirped. “Age is just a number. I always listen to my legs. At the moment I still feel great. During my whole career I have been underestimated and I worked to prove everyone wrong, and I have succeeded in doing that.”

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Star names have been missing but second half of campaign should bring renewed interest after ratings spike last year

Halfway through the NWSL’s 13th regular season, the league reported TV ratings were trending down. But August has already shown glimmers of recovery and context adds important caveats to that downward slope.

As first reported by Sports Business Journal, when the league took a month-long break midway through the year in July, ratings were down by 8% across their multiplatform media partnership. That partnership, which is now in its second year, was signed in November 2023 with CBS, ESPN, ION (Scripps Sports) and Prime Video for a deal worth $240m – a huge increase from their previous one-party partnership with CBS worth $4.5m. In its first year, the league saw a big uptick in viewing numbers as matches proliferated across a variety of outlets, reaching a wider audience.

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

The joy of a Bigger Cup European tour is what makes a season for the fans – the trinket on offer in Budapest is merely a bonus. Six Premier League sides will get to test themselves against the best over the coming months and there are a few new faces in the competition and some intriguing passport stamps to collect. Who wouldn’t want to travel to the Cypriot city of Paphos in September to watch their beloved club play David Luiz’s Pafos FC? The temperature reaches 29C and there is no chance of rain. There are miles and miles of beaches to enjoy with a Keo in hand. If anything, the prospect of a 90-minute match is a bit of a distraction. The even better news is there are flights from London, Manchester and Newcastle.

I’m someone who is passionate and will fight ever[y] time I step on the pitch. But I need to set a better example and you fans know how much I love you and this club” – West Ham’s Jarrod Bowen takes to InstaChat to expain why he appeared to lose his cool with a West Ham fan after they were knocked out of the Milk Cup by Wolves.

A doff of the cap to the Leeds fans, who went from chanting Sheffield Wednesday’s hopefully soon to be ex-owner, Dejphon Chansiri’s name to booing their own side and leaving during the penalty shootout as they lost to what is essentially our under-21 team. And an extra doff of the cap to Dominic Calvert-Lewin, making his debut for Leeds, who fluffed three easy chances to win it for them in the last 10 minutes and then, in the penalty shootout, did his own heartwarming tribute to Wednesday legend Chris Waddle (circa Italia 1990). Hurrah!” – Noble Francis.

Thank you Celtic for giving us the daunting prospect of impossible away-day draws, cheesy headlines and, worst of all, hearing about that teenager Chelsea have already signed until 2068 every single week. Yes Kairat Almighty, the unbeaten at home Beast from the Far East. The broadcasters and tabloids are going to milk this to the last drop aren’t they? As a Spurs fan, I am already dreading the second half of our inevitable fixture against them. I hope you enjoy Bigger Vase, Celtic” –Yannick Woudstra.

I can assure Alex Cameron (yesterday’s Football Daily) he was not alone in his interpretation of your wine-related strapline. Maybe readers could suggest suitable managerial or player candidates to receive a bottle of Chateau d’Arse, an amusing little Fitou from the Languedoc-Rousillon region” – Max Maxwell.

Federico Macheda (yesterday’s Football Daily) – now there’s a blast from the past! The last time I heard that name, I looked like Jack Grealish before he signed for City. Fortunately, as someone who’s only 40 in January, I’m still some ways away from looking like Everton Grealish” – Rowan Sweeney.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Sign up now! Sign up now! Sign up now? Sign up now!

The Premier League’s big return this weekend brings to mind the story of Chuck Cunningham. No, he’s not a flinty young American prospect snapped up on deadline day; he was Richie Cunningham’s older brother on US sitcom Happy Days. Chuck was a bit-part character played by three different actors – until one day, he said goodnight to the family, headed upstairs and simply never came back down again. His clumsy departure gave rise to “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome”, where characters change appearance, relocate or disappear altogether to leave viewers scratching their heads.

We are a big store but they were very lucky we had enough boots in stock that were the right size. They paid between £200 and £230 for each pair and £30 for the shin guards. We have had the odd player come in because they have left their boots behind but never the entire team” – a local sports shop owner in Bergen, Andre Gullord, had a day to remember after a number of Manchester United players’ boots were lost en route to their Women’s Bigger Cup qualifier game at Brann on Thursday. United were forced to buy replacements just hours before the crucial first-leg tie, which they lost 1-0. “We are investigating how this happened,” sighed a club statement, with the bill thought to be around £4,000. “In the meantime, we have secured new boots for all the affected players.” In cost-saving measures that are sure to please penny-pinching billionaire Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe, midfielder Lisa Naalsund, who is from Bergen, asked her mother to bring some boots to the stadium for her.

Rather than adding a further round to the promotion playoffs [yesterday’s full email edition], I wonder if the EFL has thought of having all 24 teams involved. Maybe they could all play each other home and away to make it fairer, with some kind of points system for determining places” – Adrian Riley.

Not humorous but I need to get this off my chest so maybe you’ll consider inclusion [make your own jokes here – Football Daily Ed]. Why are the Championship’s televised fixtures so inconsiderate of away fans? Ipswich host Sheffield United at 8pm on Friday, leaving Blades fans with a trip home from Suffolk after 10pm. Tomorrow, Charlton v Millwall is at 12.30pm – wouldn’t it be kinder to have played these games the other way round? I know it’s all about the money, but travelling supporters are a key part of the atmosphere, would it really hurt to treat them with a little more respect?” – Glynn Marshall.

One of my ‘favourite’ things about Football Daily are the verb choices for quotes in the News, Bits and Bobs section [full email edition]. Over the last year, I’ve been keeping a tally to determine the most frequent selections. At the top of the table, with 63 uses, we have ‘roared,’ edging out ‘cheered,’ which finished on 57. ‘Sighed’, ‘sniffed’, ‘tooted’ and ‘whooped’ will have to battle it out in the playoffs. Among the more colourful one-off entries for the last year: ‘Shizzled,’ ‘rhapsodised,’ ‘Redknapped’ and ‘Aretha Franklin-ed’. Keep up the ‘good’ work” – Chad Thomas.

I just saw footage of Romario, actually 59, still nutmegging opponents and scoring goals à la Dennis Bergkamp v Newcastle. He’s a free agent and I believe Chelsea are still looking for a striker” – Yannick Woustra.

This is an extract from our daily football email … Football Daily. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions.

Plus: more First Division players from unusual places, and the first team with a star on their shirt

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“In their Conference League game away to Legia Warsaw, Hibernian wore parts of all three of this season’s kits – third shirt, away shorts and home socks,” noted Euan Williamson last week. “Has any other team done this before?”

As mixed kits go, the ensemble worn by Hibs in Poland – black shirt, green shorts and green socks – looked good. Hibs, who had lost the first 2-1 at Easter Road, came within seconds of a famous triumph before eventually losing in extra-time.

Any more examples? Email us here…

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Dan Bardell and Ali Maxwell to discuss all the latest World Cup qualifying action

Rate, review, share on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Audioboom, Mixcloud, Acast and Stitcher, and join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter and email.

On the podcast today: another England qualifier, another low block they labour to break down – this time from Andorra. The panel ask, does it always have to be like this? Thomas Tuchel’s England side are yet to be good, so how long do fans have to wait for it to click?