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• Wilder returns after three months with club bottom

• He departed following playoff defeat to Sunderland

Chris Wilder has been confirmed as Sheffield United’s new manager on a contract to 2027 after Rubén Sellés was sacked on Sunday. It is the 57-year-old’s third spell in charge of his boyhood club – and comes just three months after he was sacked by the club. He takes over a team bottom of the Championship after defeats in all five of their league matches.

United said in a statement that promotion remained the ambition for the season. The club are nine points off the playoffs and 13 behind the leaders, Middlesbrough, after the 5-0 loss at Ipswich on Friday that triggered Sellés’s dismissal.

The attacking midfielder sparkled against United, giving City a boost for the season and England hope for the 2026 World Cup

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

One of the many mysteries of last season for Manchester City was Phil Foden. When he was a teenager, everybody knew how good he was. He had been probably the key player shortly after turning 17 as England won the Under-17 World Cup in 2017, and there had been a clamour for him to play for Manchester City long before Pep Guardiola began to start him regularly in 2020-21. For four seasons he was one of the best players in the league and then, suddenly, there was nothing – at least by the exceptionally high standards he had set.

Foden had not had a good Euros in 2024. He has never really produced his best for England, a function perhaps of him playing for a club with such a specific style of play. Take him out of that regimented environment where he knew exactly what runs to make, exactly where his teammates would be moving, and he found it hard to adapt. And England generally did not play well at that Euros, despite reaching the final; the front end of the team was a mess, lacking the balance of previous Gareth Southgate sides.

• Worker shown serving pint in social media post

• City confirm ‘individual has now been removed’

Manchester City have dismissed a bar worker who wore a Manchester United shirt while serving drinks at the Etihad Stadium during the derby on Sunday.

The club were made aware of the worker via a post on X from an account called @Mataniels. It included a photograph of the man in question handing over a pint while wearing a black shirt containing a clearly visible United club crest, alongside the caption: “Absolute joke @ManCity – letting one of the bar staff in block 315 wear a United shirt on Derby Day #mcfc.”

Coach broke with tradition after first league win of season that helped calm talk about ability to take club forwards

Happiness was this once; now there is only relief but it is something. In fact, for a little while on Saturday night, it feels like everything. At the end of each game when the final whistle goes, so does Diego Simeone: sprinting down the tunnel and straight up the stairs, not a word to anyone and not outrun by anyone either, no stopping and no looking back. This time, though, is different. Juan Martínez Munuera brings Atlético Madrid’s 2-0 win over Villarreal to a close a little before 11pm, 63,312 fans erupting; a little after 11pm, at the top of the steps under the stand where the fourth official awaits his colleagues and the visitors trudge past tearing off tape and turning right, there’s still no Simeone.

Usually the first through, not even slowing here once he’s safely out of sight of supporters and cameras, a figure in a skinny black suit dashing past a pair of security guards, down the corridor to the left and into an empty dressing room, this time Atlético’s manager is outside under the lights instead. He heads on to the pitch, embracing his players. He screams at Koke, his captain, crushing him with a cuddle. Pulls Antoine Griezmann close and whispers something in his ear, only he has to shout to be heard over the noise. High fives his son Giuliano, who is also one of his wingers. And then joins the rest of them celebrating before the south stand, communion complete.

Russo shines in the No 10 role, bluntness costs Liverpool and London City struggle with juggling act

Alessia Russo opened her account for the season in style, powering an effort from the edge of the box into the top corner and converting a second from the spot in Arsenal’s 5-1 defeat of West Ham. The England forward also provided the assist for Stina Blackstenius’s goal to put the visitors in front in the second half. Russo showed how effective she can be in the No 10 role as well, her goals and assist coming once she had dropped deeper after Blackstenius came on. “She is really good from those positions – that’s why we’ve been working with Less every now and then in that position,” said the head coach, Renée Slegers. “We have two really good 9s and sometimes we need a Russo player type in the 9 and sometimes we need the Blackstenius player type in the 9, and then we know that Less can do the 10 as well.” SW

Match report: West Ham 1-5 Arsenal

Match report: Everton 0-2 Spurs

The team is climbing up the Ligue 1 table but fans are sick of being treated like ‘pawns’ by the Chelsea owners

By Get French Football News

Strasbourg are a club torn between inertia and evolution. Change is visible all around the Meinau: in its recently developed stands and on the pitch where, in two years, they have gone from perennial relegation strugglers to Champions League candidates. The motor for change was BlueCo’s purchase of the club in 2023. The takeover was met with stout opposition and the team’s upward trajectory since has done little to remould public opinion.

“I feel like we are back at the beginning. I am so disappointed with the reaction,” complained Liam Rosenior on Sunday, exasperated by the latest fan protests. You needn’t scratch too much to uncover the resentment that bubbles beneath the surface of the Meinau. The 15-minute strike, where the club’s ultras remain silent at the start of matches, is now just a common feature of Strasbourg fixtures, and you are never more than a few weeks away from a lengthy and often explosive supporters group communique denouncing some facet of the management of the club.

Home team were heading for a win to celebrate their 80th, but then up popped Jakub Kaminski in the 14th minute of added time

“I thought we got off to a good start until the thunderstorm.” In context it was a standard, anodyne, flat-batted answer by Köln’s Marius Bülter as he strove to analyse his team’s efforts. Quite unwittingly, it captured the chaos of the afternoon perfectly. It was an afternoon that was supposed to be about VfL Wolfsburg as the club celebrated their 80th birthday with as much flourish as this industrial corner of Lower Saxony could muster, with billowing clouds of green and white smoke accompanying club legends including 2009 champion Grafite and iconic defender Naldo leading the team on to the pitch in front of a (rare) sold-out crowd.

Yet typically Köln, the club that does football drama like few others, rudely barged in and made it all about themselves. In Lukas Kwasniok they have a new coach who, like the club’s best down the years, knows how to lean into the emotion and Effzeh are already an invigorating watch. As they trailed 2-1 going into stoppage time, Kwasniok had thrown attacking substitutes such as Ragnar Ache and the lively teenager Said El Mala into the mix to make something happen. Little did the coach know his team would have to equalise not just once, but twice in that period.

A sensational game had siblings as frenemies, an English defender’s first Serie A goal and a teenage match-winner

Igor Tudor sat down, straightened his tie and acknowledged we had all just witnessed a “particular game”. Seven goals (including some absolute screamers), back-and-forth lead changes, brothers as frenemies, a star turn from one of Serie A’s emerging talents and a deciding goal from a teenager. “Particular” was one word for this season’s first Derby d’Italia. “Completely bonkers”, might be two more.

Let us go back to the beginning. Juventus were hosting Inter on Saturday evening in a game that felt like it might have arrived a little too soon for everyone involved.

Newcastle’s new striker makes his mark, Martínez is in Villa’s good books again and Madueke has dream week

• Premier League top scorers 2025-26: who is leading race?

Is Gianluigi Donnarumma a Pep Guardiola goalkeeper? He may or may not be, but he is an exceptional goalkeeper. Manchester United didn’t offer enough of a test even to begin to assess whether Donnarumma is good enough with the ball at his feet to allow City to play as Guardiola would like them to. Nor did they test whether his starting position is advanced enough to sweep up behind a high defensive line and prevent the sort of chances City yielded up to Tottenham and Brighton. But his save to keep out a Bryan Mbeumo volley, hurling himself to his right to push the ball wide, was spectacular, and drew congratulations from pretty much all his teammates. Even if he is not the perfect stylistic fit, Donnarumma’s presence, his commanding stature and the aura he projects make him the right goalkeeper for now as City begin the process of rebuilding with a notably young squad. Jonathan Wilson

Match report: Manchester City 3-0 Manchester United

Match report: Burnley 0-1 Liverpool

Match report: West Ham 0-3 Tottenham

Ruben Amorim is not the biggest problem at Old Trafford, but it is becoming harder to deny he is one of the issues

Perhaps the best that can be said of Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United is that you know exactly where you stand with them. It’s 10 months since he was appointed but he is yet to win back-to-back league games. Having beaten Burnley last time out, amid scenes of revealing euphoria, they were never going to win at Manchester City.

Which must have been a relief for City, who had lost two of their first three games this season for the first time in 21 years. There was, for them, particularly after half-time, a pleasing sense of normality returning. Rodri, shaky early on, began to dominate as he used to before his knee injury, while there were fine performances from Erling Haaland, Jérémy Doku and Phil Foden.

Decision to begin consultation is likely a sensible one and a break from the present way of doing things in world football

Never underestimate the attraction of a good can-kick. That would appear to be the message coming out of Tirana on Thursday when Uefa announced it had not taken the epochal decision on overseas league fixtures that the world of football had anticipated. Instead, the executive committee decided it would embark on a round of consultation, one that would even take in the considerations of supporters to boot.

This is likely a sensible decision. There has been a fair amount of surprise in some quarters that the question of whether and by how much football leagues should be allowed to move from domestic to international is only now being properly debated in the corridors of power. After all, the first writ in this debate was served by the promoter Relevent against the United States Soccer Federation in 2019. Only with the prospect of La Liga staging a fixture between Barcelona and Villarreal in Miami as soon as December has the issue come into focus. But to have discussion at all will be regarded by many as better late than never. It is also a break with the current way of doing things.

• Midfielder stable and alert after medical emergency

• Match will be restarted at some point in future

Racing Louisville midfielder Savannah DeMelo was stable and alert after she was taken by ambulance from a match on Sunday against the Seattle Reign because of a medical emergency.

The game at Seattle’s Lumen Field was called off after the incident late in the first half. DeMelo sat down on the field before collapsing. Trainers rushed to her side and players from both teams were visibly shaken.

• Liverpool manager will be patient with new forward

• Milos Kerkez taken off after dive to avoid red card

Arne Slot said Liverpool would need to be patient with Alexander Isak, after leaving him out of the 1-0 victory against Burnley. The striker is not ready for the demands of playing regularly after missing pre-season and Slot is looking to build up his stamina slowly.

Mohamed Salah settled the match in the 95th minute from the penalty spot after Hannibal Mejbri handballed inside the box on a day that Liverpool’s talismanic forward misfired.

• Iheanacho on spot with almost last kick at Kilmarnock

• Rangers fans voiced anger after home loss to Hearts

The debutant Kelechi Iheanacho scored a last-gasp penalty as mutinous Celtic fans were left celebrating a 2-1 victory over Kilmarnock that moved them back to the top of the Premiership.

After a summer in which the club were widely deemed to have failed to adequately bolster their squad in the summer before crashing out of the Champions League at the hands of Kairat Almaty, angry supporters held a crisis meeting last week and decided to boycott the opening 12 minutes of the Rugby Park fixture. Around half of the travelling fans opted against partaking in the late-entry protest while the others eventually filtered in to witness the remainder of an underwhelming, goalless first half from Brendan Rodgers’ side.

At the end of 101 minutes, the mountain of buildup to a first league meeting between old foes for more than 13 years been and gone, the discourse quickly shifted from a feisty and somewhat forgettable stalemate to the world of handshake etiquette.

It was not quite a Thomas Tuchel and Antonio Conte kind of bust-up, given they had to be pulled apart after clashing at Stamford Bridge three years ago, but it is safe to say the Southampton manager, Will Still, did not appreciate his Portsmouth counterpart John Mousinho’s firm grip in the seconds after the final whistle.

• Head coach in defensive mood after 3-0 loss to City

• ‘I’m not going to change. I believe in my way’

A defensive Ruben Amorim insisted after Manchester United’s 3-0 derby defeat at Manchester City that his system will remain, so “you have to change the man” if his 3-4-3 formation is to be discarded. The head coach also suggested recent events behind closed doors have hampered the team.

City defeated United 3‑0 with Phil Foden’s 18th-minute header and Erling Haaland’s strikes on 53 and 68 minutes. It leaves Amorim’s side on four points after four games and his overall record as 31 from 31 games.

With £125m Alexander Isak’s Liverpool debut near, we look back at five record-breakers that flew – and five who flopped

Southampton to Blackburn, £3.6m
Shearer’s move to Blackburn was a pivotal moment in the Premier League’s inaugural season, backed by the ambition of their new owner Jack Walker. After an injury-hit first campaign where he scored 16 goals, Shearer exploded in the 1993-94 season with 31 goals from 40 games. The following season, he formed a formidable strike partnership with Chris Sutton and his 34 goals were crucial to Blackburn’s title win, the only major honour of his career. He broke the British and world-record fee again in 1996 after his £15m move to Newcastle.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Forty-eight teams will participate in next summer’s World Cup and 30 places are still up for grabs

Forty-eight teams will participate in next summer’s World Cup, with the hosts, Canada, Mexico and the United States, granted automatic entry. A further 43 places are determined by qualifying competitions from the six confederations and the remaining two will be decided at March’s six-team intercontinental playoffs in Monterrey and Guadalajara. After this month’s internationals, 18 countries have places booked. The draw is due to take place on 5 December at Washington’s Kennedy Center.

An upbeat Jamie Vardy insists he is ‘never to old to learn’ on his unveiling at the newly promoted Serie A club

In Cremona everything is about music: the city, located in the heart of the Po Valley, is where the greatest luthier of all time, Antonio Stradivari, was born. His violins – unique pieces, each identified by a name – are today in the hands of some of the greatest musicians in the world and can fetch a price of more than £10m.

So it was no coincidence that the Violin Museum, in Piazza Guglielmo Marconi, was chosen to unveil who the city’s football team, Cremonese, hope will become their greatest soloist: Jamie Vardy.

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

Major step to qualification with win in Serbia brings back memories of Waddle, Gascoigne and Italia 90 for head coach

Thomas Tuchel has not been short of recommended reading material since his appointment as England’s head coach. Or documentaries to watch. The suggestions have come from everywhere, but especially the media, who are eager to help out with presumed gaps in his knowledge of the nation’s football history. This is the real cost of turning to a guy from overseas.

Has Tuchel seen the fly-on-the-wall programme with Graham Taylor from 1994: An Impossible Job? No? He has to put that right. In fact, wouldn’t it be great if Tuchel could allow the cameras in for a sequel as he targets glory at the 2026 World Cup? It was put to him a few months back. Strangely, he did not seem keen.

Nuno exit was inevitable after he went public but successor will need to win over squad and learn from errors

Crossing the Nottingham Forest owner, Evangelos Marinakis, is rarely a wise move. When Nuno Espírito Santo went public about the deteriorating relationship between the two most important men at the City Ground, a parting of ways became inevitable.

Nuno deserved better after leading Forest back to Europe after 30 years away and his popularity within the club means it will be difficult for Ange Postecoglou to replace him. Players and staff will not immediately embrace the change because of the admiration and warmth they felt for Nuno.

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.

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

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

Former Brentford striker missed out on England’s qualifiers but he believes the standard of Saudi football should not be ignored

Ivan Toney is aware of the outside noise. He hardly needs reminding that plenty of people have had their say since he swapped the Premier League for the Saudi Pro League just over a year ago. An Asian Champions League winner’s medal and 35 goals for Al-Ahli later, the striker is defiant, even if he found himself on the outside as England played their latest World Cup qualifiers.

“Those that know me, know that I do what I want to do,” Toney says. “If there is something I want to go for, to try, then I will do it. If people want to talk, they can talk. It doesn’t hurt me, doesn’t bother me, I just concentrate on myself. I do what makes me happy.”

TV host explains how a new Premier League initiative can help to end the taboo around mental health issues

“I go to football every week, all my life. Home, away, England away, all of it,” says Roman Kemp. “And there is something about it that is transcendent. It almost feels like religion to me. Like if you go on holiday and you go into a church, even if it’s empty, you can feel the energy it’s got in there. A football stadium is the same.”

Kemp, the kind of Gooner who performs his own statistical analysis of Arsenal’s season (“I look at the league and I do a side-by-side comparison of points gained, points lost”), brings to his passion for football the same all-encompassing enthusiasm that has made him a star of TV, radio and podcasting. And he believes that the game, and its unique place in society, can play an important role in addressing another subject close to his heart: suicide.

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.

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Before the Championship season started you would not have required the prescience of Mystic Meg to correctly predict that a team from the Steel City would be bottom of the table with no points after their first five games. With their club’s very existence under very real threat, most Sheffield Wednesday fans had resigned themselves to relegation at best before a ball was kicked, as long as their owner Dejphon Chansiri refused to sell up. A month on, the presence of their bitter city rivals one place below them at the foot of the table must be a rare source of happiness for Owls fans, in what looks likely to be a long season of unrelenting misery mixed with trepidatious uncertainty. Having lost last season’s Wembley playoff final to a late, late Sunderland winner, the Sheffield United hierarchy elected to end Chris Wilder’s second spell in charge of their club and embark on a new direction. And while “downwards into League One” might not have been the specific one they had in mind, it is certainly the new direction they appear to have taken after losing their first five games by an aggregate score of 12-1.

After the goal, Marcus said ‘well done’, with the eyes of a brother, but he wasn’t laughing. He teases me about headers, and so does Dad, so I’m happy” – Khéphren Thuram enjoyed scoring in Juventus’s madcap 4-3 win over Inter – especially so given that he got one over his big brother, who was also on the scoresheet. Nicky Bandini has the lowdown on a sensational Derby d’Italia here.

I pay no attention whatsoever to Scottish fitba, except when Scottish clubs go out of Bigger Cup, and it’s already September, so that’s long gone. However, I couldn’t help but notice that Rangers are nine points off Celtic and only two places off the bottom of the table after five games, which was puzzling until I remembered that Russell Martin was managing them. And also that fans of top-of-the-table Celtic are, and I quote, ‘mutinous’” – Noble Francis.

Like Chad Thomas (Friday’s Football Daily letters), I also love the verb play that Football Daily does. Sadly, I very seldom get to see my favourite verb used these days, because Alex Ferguson doesn’t make the headlines as often, and typically isn’t angry as much. Gone are the days that he ‘purpled’ on a weekly basis. Nostalgia always gets you” – Todd Van Allen.

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

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.

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.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Lars Sivertsen and Jonathan Wilson as Premier League football returns after the international break

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On the podcast today: Manchester City comfortably win the derby at the Etihad. They were the better side across the pitch and Phil Foden’s performance will be heartening for City fans. Conversely, United make familiar mistakes so the panel ponder what Ruben Amorim is doing to address them.

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.

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Half a dozen teams from outside their nation’s top flight who made it all the way to a domestic cup final

France’s secondary cup competition ran from 1994 to 2020, pushed by Ligue 1 sides who felt aggrieved by the Coupe de France’s great leveller of home advantage for its minnows. Paris St-Germain were the winners of the first and last editions of the League Cup and another seven in between. They lost one final, 25 years ago, to a team that were the antithesis of France’s spoiled ruling classes.

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