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• Talks deadlocked over asking price of rail terminal site

• Freightliner’s £400m demand could delay £4.2bn build

Manchester United’s plans to build a 100,000-seat stadium next to Old Trafford are facing delays due to a standoff over the price of land needed to begin work on the construction of the proposed ground Sir Jim Ratcliffe has called “the Wembley of the North”. The club want land used as a rail freight terminal to complete the Old Trafford Regeneration Project, which they claim will bring £7.3bn a year to the UK economy.

United have held talks with Freightliner, the haulage company that owns and operates the terminal, about buying the land, but negotiations are deadlocked due to a disagreement over the price.

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.

• New manager attacks attitude as Motherwell fight back

• ‘When you want to just jog around, there’s a big problem’

Russell Martin accused his players of having the wrong mentality after watching his Rangers side being held to a draw when Emmanuel Longelo drove home an 87th-minute equaliser for Motherwell.

“I think we were lucky to get a point,” said the former Southampton manager, who was appointed by Rangers in June. “Motherwell played great, we were nowhere near where we need to be, I’m extremely disappointed and hurt by that.

• Fan from Swindon end targeted Walsall goalkeeper

• Holloway: ‘Shut your face and get out of the game’

Swindon Town have launched an investigation into what their manager, Ian Holloway, called “absolutely horrific” behaviour by one of their fans in the moments after Walsall scored a late winner against them in their 2-1 League Two defeat on Saturday.

A supporter from the away end at Bescot Stadium was seen throwing an object at Walsall goalkeeper Myles Roberts, while Swindon said they were also aware of “a number of serious incidents” including “the use of pyrotechnics, objects being thrown, abuse directed at stewards, staff, players and match officials, as well as damage caused to property within the stadium”.

• Huddersfield ease past Orient, youthful Cardiff win

• League Two: Harrogate stun Bristol Rovers at home

Plymouth lost their first game since relegation from the Championship, beaten 3-1 at home by 10-man Barnsley on League One’s opening weekend.

The visitors scored two first-half goals against the run of play as Tom Cleverley’s side dominated, with a series of decisions going against them. Barnsley’s Jack Shepherd – booked in the first half as tempers flared – was then shown a second yellow for handball after an hour, but Argyle could not find a way back into the game, and Davis Keillor-Dunn added the visitors’ third late on.

• Midfielder signs deal despite club’s financial troubles

• Daughter Elsie broke into tears at thought of move

The Sheffield Wednesday captain, Barry Bannan, has signed a new contract with the crisis-hit Championship club. The 35-year-old midfielder has been at Wednesday since 2015 and despite the expiration of his previous contract in June has been training with the first-team squad during pre-season.

Wednesday are under a transfer embargo and subject to EFL fee restrictions until the end of the summer window after a failure to pay transfer fees on time. There is concern whether they will be able to fulfil their opening fixture of the at Leicester next Sunday. A pre-season friendly against Burnley, scheduled to take place behind closed doors on Saturday, was cancelled after Wednesday players reportedly refused to play.

• Spurs captain reveals intention to leave this summer

• He says it is the ‘most difficult decision’ of his career

Son Heung-min has confirmed he has taken the “most difficult decision” to leave Tottenham during this summer’s transfer window after 10 years at the club.

The 33-year-old made the announcement during Spurs’ pre-season tour of Asia, where he was speaking at a press conference in Seoul in his native South Korea.

• Newcastle reported to have made £65.5m Sesko offer

• Ramsdale joins on loan as Wilson seals West Ham move

Eddie Howe has admitted he does not know what is going to happen next after Liverpool had a bid for Alexander Isak turned down by Newcastle on Friday. The striker has made it clear he wants to leave this summer and is particularly keen on a move to Anfield.

Newcastle, meanwhile, are understood to have made an offer worth around €75m (£65.5m) for the RB Leipzig striker Benjamin Sesko. On Saturday, they announced the signing of the goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale from Southampton on a season-long loan.

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.

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.’”

Dale Vince’s team are giving away seats to a local doctor to be prescribed as an alternative to antidepressants

Dale Vince, the green energy entrepreneur and owner of Forest Green Rovers, has been mixing football and social causes for years. And so it’s perhaps not surprising that he is one of the partners in an initiative where GPs can prescribe a day out watching his National League team as an alternative to antidepressants.

“Our country’s facing a difficult time,” Vince says. “We’ve got extreme poverty at one end and extreme wealth at the other end, and football is the thing that binds us, it’s the thing that brings us together every week with a common purpose and a common cause. Modern life has stripped a lot from us as people and led to a mental health crisis. Football could help put that right.”

Livingston’s head of football operations on the fallout from his 10-game ban for betting on matches

Conversation with Brian Rice flows easily. Brian Clough pounced to sign the red-haired midfielder after he failed to agree a contract with Hibernian in the summer of 1985. “Eff me, it’s Steve Davis,” roared Clough as Rice entered the manager’s office for the first time.

It took until September ‘85 for a tribunal to determine Nottingham Forest would have to pay Hibs close to £200,000 for Rice. He had been unable to play until that dispute was resolved. Clough bawled at Rice again as he walked on to the training pitch the following day. “‘You’ll need to go back to Scotland. I’d need to sell the stand to sign you son,’” Rice recalls.

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

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.

In a Euro 2025 special, we look at other champions with short-lived leads and young England award-winners

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Chloe Kelly scored the goal that won Euro 2022 and the penalty that won Euro 2025. Including penalty shootouts, has anybody else scored the winner in two major international tournaments? And which women have dominated a whole competition?” asks Emma Pollard.

For a player who has never started a knockout match at a major tournament, Chloe Kelly has had … a reasonable impact. She scored the winner against Germany in extra time in 2022, and the winning penalty in the shootout against Spain on Sunday. Kelly also set up Alessia Russo’s equaliser in the final, played a key role in both goals against Sweden in the quarter-finals, kept England in the tournament with a nerveless penalty in the subsequent shootout, and then scored a 119th-minute winner against Italy in the semi-finals.

Semi-final first leg: scored Sweden’s second equaliser in 3-2 win away to Italy

Semi-final second leg: scored both goals in 2-1 win (5-3 agg)

Final: scored Sweden’s only goal across the two legs against England, which ended 1-1 on aggregate, then scored the winning penalty in the shootout
(NB: The tournament began at the semi-final stage)

Quarter-final: second goal in 2-0 win over Sweden

Semi-final: opening goal in 3-0 hammering of England

Final: equalised in the 10th minute v Denmark, then scored in the 89th minute to seal a 4-2 win

Last 16: scored two penalties in 2-1 win against Spain

Quarter-final: scored both goals in 2-1 win over hosts France

Semi-final: didn’t play v England due to injury

Final: opened the scoring from the spot in 2-0 win over the Netherlands

History-making England captain is often seen barking orders but has a more introverted persona off the pitch

Leah Williamson stops, unable to scrape the grin off her face, pizza in hand, hair still damp from the post-match shower and a fat lip. “Not annnother one?!” I say to her, mimicking her parody of the viral general election clip after England lifted the Finalissima. “Annnother one?!” she replies, still grinning.

I am not the only one who remembers the clip. “NOT ANOTHER ONEEEEEE,” Lauren Hemp commented on Williamson’s Instagram post.

A desperate own goal five minutes from time by Wimbledon’s Ryan Johnson may be the slice of good fortune Luton need after back-to-back relegations.

“We were due a bit of luck,” Matt Bloomfield, the Luton manager, said. “We feel like certain things have gone against us over a certain period of time but the one thing you cannot do is whine about it.

Culture secretary calls on owner Jason Whittingham to avert misery for fans, players, staff and local community

The culture secretary, Lisa Nandy, has called for the immediate sale of Morecambe football club to avoid the “heartbreaking” closure of the 105-year-old institution within days.

Shareholders at the National League club said it would “officially shut” and face “total collapse” on Monday unless the owner, Jason Whittingham, agreed to sell up.

• David Rozman spent a month at Old Trafford last year

• Head carer left Tour de France after ITA approach

The Ineos Grenadiers head carer who left the Tour de France earlier this month after it was revealed he had been called to interview by the International Testing Agency (ITA) over alleged links to convicted German doping doctor, Mark Schmidt, worked for Manchester United in 2024.

Sources at Manchester United have confirmed to the Guardian that David Rozman spent one month working at Old Trafford last year as part of what is called a “knowledge exchange” within Ineos Sport. Rozman is described on the Ineos Grenadiers website as “one of the longest-serving members of our staff” who “takes on the important role of head carer”.

• 11 clubs have repaid only £2.78m up to March 2025

• Rangers owe £2.78m and Aberdeen more than £2.7m

More than £22m in Covid-related loans from the Scottish government to football clubs remained outstanding at the end of the last financial year, it has been revealed following a Guardian freedom of information request on the eve of a new Scottish Premiership season.

Eleven clubs, then all in the top flight, opted to take interest-free loans totalling £25.26m in 2021 to assist with business recovery from the pandemic. While terms on the loans mean full repayment is not due until 2042, the scale of moneys still outstanding is likely to turn heads as many top-flight outfits continue to spend freely and receive decent transfer fees for players. Several clubs have also received significant European revenues over recent seasons. Clubs lower down the Scottish football food chain also received Covid grants. Two of them, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Dumbarton, have subsequently entered administration.

• David Moyes frustrated again in the transfer market

• Coach already missed out on Conceição and Bakayoko

Southampton have rejected a £27m bid from Everton for Tyler Dibling, leaving the Merseyside club to consider an improved offer to land the England Under-21 international.

The 19-year-old was one of the few pluses in a troubled season for the relegated club and has attracted interest from Aston Villa, Fulham and West Ham. He has two years remaining on his contract at St Mary’s Stadium and is believed to be open to a move to Merseyside.

Attention has quickly turned towards Brazil 2027, but how will Sarina Wiegman’s team evolve before then?

The shiny ticker-tape had not even been cleared from the pitch at St Jakob-Park when the gauntlet was thrown down. As England celebrated their Euro 2025 triumph, King Charles wrote on the royal family’s Instagram account: “Well done, Lionesses. The next task is to bring home the World Cup in 2027 if you possibly can!” No pressure, then.

The short-term future for England players will centre around two things; a holiday – unless you are a National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) player like Jess Carter, who had to fly straight back to the US to play club football – and more accolades, the latest of which came on Friday as the National Football Museum announced every squad member and Sarina Wiegman will all be inducted into their Hall of Fame. More awards will surely follow but, eventually, everyone will catch up with the king’s mindset and focus attention on 2027.

After three years at Manchester United’s academy, 47-year-old is adapting to life as a League Two manager

‘I don’t want to name- drop,” says David Hughes, the Newport County manager, mindful of his reply to a question about the coaches who have shaped his career to this point, and whether he canvassed their opinion before taking the job this summer. The 47-year-old has spent the past three seasons at Manchester United, in an instrumental academy role as a development-phase coach, and prior to that worked at Aston Villa, Cardiff, clubs for whom he also played, and Southampton. This may be his first real shot at frontline management – aside from a few months in charge of Barry Town more than two decades ago – but he is anything but inexperienced.

The close season always brings change but it is hard to imagine a starker shift than Hughes swapping a global institution for Newport, with one of the smallest budgets in League Two. He has added two performance analysts to his team but it is a skeleton operation compared to United’s academy structure, where he worked closely with Nick Cox, who is moving to Everton as their technical director. “Big, big clubs have huge numbers of staff, different levels of responsibility and accountability,” Hughes says. “But we’re really pleased with our small staff. We came back for pre-season and the goals were green from last season, so we went out as staff cleaning the goalposts and I’m thinking: ‘We’ve got a team here.’ Everybody’s prepared to muck in.”

Driven by the ambitious ownership of Tom Wagner and an NFL icon, the Blues intend to take the second tier by storm

Unsurprisingly, Tom Brady, a seven-time Super Bowl champion and global sporting icon, is braced for the challenges that await Birmingham City, where he is a minority owner. “Just because you were successful last year doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful this year,” he says, alluding to a season that culminated in promotion and a record-breaking tally of 111 points. “You have to put the same amount of work, commitment and discipline in – sometimes more – because the stakes only get higher. When the competition gets tougher, the margin of error gets smaller.”

It is his final answer in an interview that takes in everything from the “blue-collar nature of Birmingham”, which he compares with Cleveland and Cincinnati, to the Championship landscape and the bubbling rivalry with Aston Villa, which he was educated on during his first visit to England’s second-biggest city after acquiring his 3.3% stake.

Players can still live the dream in League Two. It’s a strange one, but a dream all the same

I am staring at a video posted on X by my beloved Cambridge United. Their stuff is pretty good. It’s four days until our League Two campaign begins at home to Cheltenham. “Striker, Acquired” it reads, the video showing a man with a neat beard in baggy jeans wearing the new home shirt. The music is the kind that if it was played too loudly in a confined space, I would instantly get a migraine. OK, these things aren’t aimed at me.

The man does some keepie-uppies in bright white trainers. He has an endearing smile. He side-foots a few, points at the camera, leans against a post, rests a ball against his right hip and then smashes a penalty into the roof of the net. Our new saviour is here. The man to score the goals to get us back into League One at the first attempt.

Younger brother of Wayne hopes he will not be needed on the pitch as he embarks on first managerial job

Macclesfield FC have grown accustomed to being the most famous team with the most famous names in their league. In a previous life, the club listed Sammy McIlroy, Paul Ince and Sol Campbell as former managers. Since their rebirth in 2020, the former Premier League players Neil Danns, Alex Bruce and, most notably, Robbie Savage, have enjoyed spells in the hot seat.

John Rooney’s surname is unlikely to go unnoticed. Yet the younger brother of the England and Manchester United legend Wayne is, by his own admission, a far less glitzy appointment than his predecessor Savage, whose effervescent character came to define Macclesfield in recent years. A self-styled Marmite man, Savage enjoyed unparalleled success in his season-long stint at Macclesfield, winning the Northern Premier League with a mammoth 109 points. His departure to Forest Green this summer left a void, with key players such as Laurent Mendy, Tre Pemberton and Neil Kengni following him to Gloucestershire.

PGMO puts its officials through their paces on the Costa Blanca and offers an insight into what goes on off the pitch

“Three, two, one,” comes the countdown from Francis Bunce, a senior sports scientist at the referees’ body Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO), before he blows the whistle to kick off the much-anticipated maximal aerobic speed (Mas) test. It is 8.53am at the La Finca resort on the Costa Blanca, about 30C and the warm-up has very much been and gone. This a six-minute all-out run. “They call it Mas because at the end you’re just praying for it to finish,” says a smiling Keith Hill, one of the referee coaches observing the session with Howard Webb, the chief refereeing officer.

Part of Webb wishes he had a time machine, so he could teleport here a minibus of referees at their peak in 2003, when he joined the Premier League list, to witness the evolution of training. Now they run approximately 12km a game and use technology such as Playermaker, straps that attach to boots and can read running gaits, track how quickly officials change direction and identify injuries. Scott Ledger, who has been an assistant referee on more than 500 Premier League games, is wearing boots fit for the occasion, Adidas Copa Mundials decorated with the Spanish flag. This is day three of a five-day pre-season camp but the Mas is the main event from a physical perspective.

The US owns a good recent record against Euro 2025 teams, but the transition to a new generation under Emma Hayes could be limiting for now

Sunday in Switzerland, England’s Lionesses clawed their way to a second straight Euro title after defeating the reigning world champions, Spain, 3-1 in a penalty shootout. With a record 1.35m watching stateside, at least one wondered if, in some alternate universe in which they could play in the Euros, they would have won it.

Asked that question on a recent episode of The Women’s Game podcast, US captain and OL Lyonnes midfielder Lindsey Heaps suggested that they could. While debriefing England’s wild quarter-final comeback against Sweden with retired World Cup champion Sam Mewis, Heaps began by noting the difficulty of comparing Emma Hayes’ program in transition to mid-tournament teams: “It’s so hard because we’re obviously missing a lot of players,” she said. “But we have a lot of new, young players, inexperienced players, that are doing so well. I think it would be so hard to say. Also, Emma would fully prepare us for a tournament, and tournament mode. So it’d be a little bit different than what we’ve been doing, and how we’ve been playing.”

• Melbourne-based club reports $11m loss in 2023-24

• ALM’s outgoing transfer fees offer one positive sign

Western United is haemorrhaging cash at a rate of close to a million dollars every month, but as the A-Leagues pivot to focus on financial sustainability officials are confident the competition’s conga line of outgoing transfers is a positive sign for the local game.

The Tarneit-based outfit reported a loss of almost $11m for the 2023/24 financial year in accounts lodged to Asic this week, following a deficit of more than $12m for the preceding period.

Influenced by Pep Guardiola, Roberto De Zerbi, Luis Enrique and others, no team in the world relies on buildup quite like this newly-formed group

For a goalkeeper under pressure, there’s one safe way out: turn away from the opponent, shield the ball with your body and boot it long.

A few minutes into the second half against Nashville last weekend, Pablo Sisniega did the exact opposite.

Spurs and Newcastle are two of the clubs who have made signings from the world’s fastest growing talent pools, with greater recognition of the technical ability they bring

Arsène Wenger was ahead of the curve in 2013 when he identified one of the world’s fastest growing talent pools. “I find a new market that is very interesting and very competitive is the Japanese market,” he said. “Look at the number of Japanese players who play now in Germany for example.”

And now England. This summer, Japan’s Kota Takai became part of the new Thomas Frank era at Tottenham while Birmingham have added another two Japanese players to take their contingent to three. They also have the South Korean midfielder Paik Seung-ho while his compatriot Park Seung-soo has joined Newcastle from Suwon Bluewings.

Playing an entire tournament with a fractured tibia is the type of undiluted commitment and individual sacrifice which carried team to glory

For some reason, as Chloe Kelly’s penalty hits the net and the England players explode across the pitch like streaks of white light, as Sarina Wiegman and Arjan Veurink embrace on the touchline, as England fans clutch each other in the stands, the eye is drawn to Khiara Keating of Manchester City.

Keating has not played a minute for England at this tournament. In fact, she has never played a minute for England at all. In fact, there was not the remotest possibility that she would play a minute for England at this tournament, and she knew this all along. Her entire Euros has consisted of training, travel and watching football from a hard bench. And yet at the moment of victory, nobody celebrates harder than England’s third goalkeeper.

Host country provided a record attendance and a summer spectacle despite a relatively modest football infrastructure

Twelve hours before Euro 2025 reached its crescendo the Uefa executive director of football, Giorgio Marchetti, addressed a hall of delegates in Basel. The morning coffees were still taking hold as officials from clubs, federations and other stakeholders settled down for a forum designed partly to debrief the previous month. There was no mistaking the congratulatory mood and Marchetti was determined to see it last. The tournament would not be “like a butterfly, over in 24 hours”, he said; instead its reverberations would be felt far into a burgeoning sport’s future.

There was certainly little sign of any effects dulling as afterparties swung long into the night following England’s heist against Spain. The overwhelming sense was of euphoria, sprinkled with relief, that host and governing body had pulled off what some viewed as a high‑wire act. Switzerland’s relatively modest football infrastructure, not to mention its muted appreciation of the women’s game, had raised eyebrows but it staged an event that delivered to the last.

Arsenal’s new signing arrives with a reputation for goals but also mystery around his iconic celebration

Every goalscorer needs a trademark celebration and the one Viktor Gyökeres has shown off over the past few years has certainly increased its reach of late – fingers interlocked, thumbs pushed up, a mask formed across his mouth and nose.

As Gyökeres’s transfer from Sporting to Arsenal has edged along, fans of the London club became increasingly desperate for clues. They were convinced they spotted one when the defender Riccardo Calafiori was pictured at their kit launch with the shirt pulled up towards his eyes; mask‑style. And then there was Myles Lewis‑Skelly, another of their defenders, looking at a Gyökeres-to-Arsenal story on his phone and copying the gesture.

United have lacked bite in the centre of the pitch for years and Ruben Amorim must prioritise this area to revive the side

The way we discuss football has changed a lot in recent times, tactics and data to the fore. Nevertheless, there remain some simple, simplifying truths that, when delivered by someone with elite-level experience, must be taken seriously. So, when Graeme Souness reminds us that “the team that gets to the ball first wins”, we should pay just as much attention as when hearing about hybrid pressing, on-ball value and chance-creating actions.

The players most obliged to reach that ball first are, like Souness, central midfielders. And, though there are operative off-pitch factors, the longstanding absence of players able to do that is a significant reason why Manchester United have been so poor for so long.

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

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

Stockport have shown plenty of ambition in the transfer market while Darren Moore’s Port Vale look to stave off drop

Last season was grim for Luton, culminating in them suffering a second successive relegation. But there remains plenty of quality at Kenilworth Road. Teden Mengi could easily be playing in the top flight, while Millenic Alli is a leading light of the recent intake. Most importantly, perhaps, the manager, Matt Bloomfield, knows this division well. Cardiff were also relegated from the Championship last season and will be hoping their new manager, Brian Barry-Murphy, can arrest the Welsh club’s slide.

Bristol Rovers will be hoping theirs is a short stay in the fourth tier, while another difficult season awaits Accrington

MK Dons finished 19th last season but Paul Warne is a good manager and the club have backed him in the transfer market. Aaron Collins has arrived from Bolton for £800,000, a huge fee in the fourth tier, with Will Collar also joining from Stockport.

Fifteen players have represented both Arsenal and Chelsea in the Premier League but that is not a record

Noni Madueke has made the short journey across London to join Arsenal from Chelsea. Some Arsenal fans have expressed annoyance at their club giving yet more money – £52m – to their rivals for a player deemed surplus to requirements at Stamford Bridge. The road from Chelsea to Arsenal is a well worn path. Kepa Arrizabalaga swapped south-west London for north London earlier this summer for £5m, following in the footsteps of Kai Havertz and Jorginho, who made the same move in 2023 for a combined £77m.

A total of 15 players have represented both Arsenal and Chelsea in the Premier League, with Havertz and Jorginho joining Ashley Cole, Cesc Fàbregas, Petr Cech, Olivier Giroud, David Luiz, Emmanuel Petit, Lassana Diarra, Nicolas Anelka, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Raheem Sterling, William Gallas, Willian and Yossi Benayoun.

A photographic celebration of England’s journey to Euro 2025 victory, from the opening defeat to beating World Cup holders Spain in the final

Over little more than three weeks in July, from Zurich via St Gallen, and Lancy to Basel, Guardian writers have followed every step of England’s journey across Switzerland during the Women’s Euro 2025. Under Sarina Wiegman, the Lionesses became the first England team to win a trophy on foreign soil. Here are our favourite pictures coupled with excerpts from our match reports and blogs.

GAME 1: GROUP D

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It’s taken almost two years but the good news is that if you bet on Lucas Paquetá to be cleared of those gambling charges you can finally go and collect. And if the 12 that signifies a hurricane is the highest measure on the Beaufort scale, you can almost certainly bet your bottom dollar that the West Ham midfielder’s sigh of relief upon discovering he had been cleared of spot-fixing accusations registered in the very high teens. Had Paquetá been found guilty of charges he deliberately got booked on multiple occasions so that assorted folk back home in Brazil could make the staggeringly insignificant sums reported to have been involved in this alleged global conspiracy, he was staring straight down the barrel of a lifetime ban from football.

In today’s Rumour Mill, the author labelled Kieffer Moore as ‘prolific’ due to his record of 60 goals in 203 Championship games. It is hard to detect irony or sarcasm in the written form, and with no use of italics or other such such writing tropes, one had to take the sentence seriously. His goalscoring record, although not shabby, can’t be termed as prolific. At an average of one goal every 3.4 games, extrapolated across a full Championship season, works out at just 13 goals for the league campaign after 44 matches. If that is now prolific, then going by the Moore Goals Ratio Method, my 14 goals in the 1990 season of the Primary 5 Glasgow School League also meant I had a prolific year” – Paul ‘Goals’ Kenealy.

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Our newsletter takes a look at how the two expansion teams are taking different approaches as they prepare to enter the ever-so competitive league next year

On 13 March , the NWSL will commence its 14th regular season as the pre-eminent league in the United States. For the first time in its history, it will do so with 16 teams. That is double the number from the inaugural season in 2013 and a rapid rise from the nine teams that played out the 2020 campaign.

There is an inevitable aura of excitement surrounding the latest expansion as new opportunities for fans and players acceleratein an aspirational league. Halfway through the NWSL’s 13th regular season – which resumes this weekend after a prolonged summer pause – how are the expansion clubs, new and old, holding up?

Super Falcons were two goals down to Morocco in the final but comeback repaid Justine Madugu’s faith in his team

Eyebrows were raised when Justine Madugu was appointed as the new Nigeria coach in September last year, having had no head coach experience in international football before taking on the role.

On Saturday the “gamble” – if you call it that – paid off when the Super Falcons came from 2-0 down to beat hosts Morocco 3-2 in the final at the Olympic Stadium in Rabat to win the Women’s Africa Cup of Nations.

After years spent in striker-less formations, the Premier League’s top teams are seemingly all set to rely on a big body (or two) up top

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It’s only been a decade since it seemed the center-forward was being refined out of existence. Spain had won Euro 2012 with Cesc Fàbregas as a false nine, and Germany, who largely took Spain as a model, were less than convinced they needed one at the 2014 World Cup. They fielded Thomas Müller as a false-ish nine until the quarter-final, when Jögi Löw finally went back to basics and turned to Miroslav Klose. That he was 36 only seemed to confirm that the old-fashioned No 9 was an old-fashioned phenomenon – a dying breed. Yet this summer, the main interest in the transfer market has been the carousel of strikers.

Of course, strikers never entirely disappeared. The four leading scorers in the Premier League in 2014–15 were Sergio Agüero, Harry Kane, Diego Costa and Charlie Austin. Mauri Icardi and Luca Toni topped the charts in Italy, while Cristiano Ronaldo, his conversion to A No 9 complete, was top scorer in Spain (although that he was followed by Lionel Messi, Antoine Griezmann, and Neymar suggested a greater variety of goalscorer there).

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Sanny Rudravajhala and George Elek to preview the return of league football this weekend

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On the podcast today; the Football League is back with League One and League Two kicking off this weekend. While most fans are concerned about their summer signings there are two clubs in real peril: Sheffield Wednesday look set to start the season in the Championship without a manager, a full playing squad or even a complete stadium - can they find a buyer? Meanwhile, Morecambe seem like they have found a buyer but can’t sell - what’s going on there?

Today’s whispers are being squeezed out

The question of who will lead the Manchester United forward line remains uncertain. Ruben Amorim has been blunt in his assessment of Rasmus Højlund, despite the player’s desire to stay. United could offer the striker to RB Leipzig and plan a separate deal for the Bundesliga club’s Benjamin Sesko, who would cost at least £55m. All aboard the merry-go-round.

Jadon Sancho could be on his way back to Borussia Dortmund, where he spent the second half of the 2023-24 season on loan. The 25-year-old winger clearly enjoyed his second spell with the club and is said to be pushing for a permanent move after being left out of United’s pre-season tour. The Englishman, who joined United in a £73m deal from Dortmund in 2021, has reportedly agreed to a 50% pay cut to make the move happen. Chelsea are rumoured to be preparing a bid for another outcast, Alejandro Garnacho, before the transfer window closes.

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Tom Garry and Sophie Downey to celebrate England’s historic Euro 2025 triumph over Spain — and reflect on an unforgettable tournament in Switzerland

On the podcast today: It’s come home … again! England have retained their European crown with a dramatic penalty shoot-out win over Spain in Basel. Sarina Wiegman’s side, held together by tape, grit and fractured bones, battled through three games of extra time and two shoot-outs to defend their title and become back-to-back champions of Europe.

The panel relives the final in all its nerve-shredding glory, from Alessia Russo’s equaliser and Chloe Kelly’s penalty to Hannah Hampton’s spot-kick heroics. They also break down Wiegman’s bold decisions, Bronze’s fractured tibia, and what this win means in the context of England’s footballing history.