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3 min: … but then Gabriel inexplicably toe-punts a wild backpass out for a corner. So careless. An early chance for Brentford to cause some of that six-yard-box chaos their manager was talking about before the game.

2 min: Brentford stroke it around a bit. Then Arsenal stroke it around a bit. One of those starts.

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I share the same last name as one of Manchester United’s substitute keepers in Kayla Rendell, no relation though. Do you have a family connection to a footballer or have a similar name and try to pass yourself off as say Sam Kerr’s cousin? Get in touch and let me know by emailing.

A great feature here about the new format:

• Dutch club are managed by Robin van Persie

• Sterling thinks he can be ‘a valued member of the team’

Raheem Sterling has signed for Feyenoord on a contract until the end of the season. The 31-old winger, capped 82 times by England, has joined as a free agent, having at the end of January terminated his contract at Chelsea – which had 18 months to run.

Sterling has not played a competitive game since the final day of last season when he was on loan at Arsenal. He endured a difficult time over the first half of this season when the then Chelsea manager, Enzo Maresca, banished him from the first-team squad.

• Head coach’s deal was due to finish after World Cup

• England get Spain, Croatia and Czechs in Nations League

Thomas Tuchel believes he can lead England to a victorious World Cup this summer in what he hopes will be the first of multiple successes with the national team after signing a ­surprise contract extension.

The fresh deal means Tuchel will stay in charge until after Euro 2028, which England will co-host, barring an unexpected change in fortunes. It puts to bed speculation that he could be tempted by a high-profile club vacancy and provides all ­parties with certainty before their tilt at football’s biggest prize begins in June.

Tax exile has already proven himself a terrible club owner; now his ill-informed diatribe about immigration has poured fuel on wider flames

Well I, for one, am shocked. Shocked to learn that a tax-exiled English expat who made his billions squeezing chemicals plants doesn’t have liberal, let alone accurate, views on immigration. Or at least, in public anyway.

It seems highly likely Sir Jim Ratcliffe knew what he was doing in the course of his now semi-recanted Sky News interview. And it is above all vital that at least one part of his empire of influence – football, sport, Manchester United – rejects it, as the club have done to some extent in their statement.

• Villarreal player charged in July with five counts of rape

• Former Arsenal midfielder denies all the charges

The footballer Thomas Partey has been charged with two new counts of rape relating to an additional woman who came forward to police with the allegations in August last year.

Partey will appear at Westminster magistrates court on 13 March in relation to the additional charges issued by the Crown Prosecution Service over allegations that date from 2020.

• Touchline ban from FA for remarks to Kirsty Dowle

• Mandatory education and £2,000 fine also imposed

Barnet’s manager, Dean Brennan, has been given a nine-match touchline ban by the Football Association after being found guilty of making sexist comments to the referee Kirsty Dowle during a League Two game this season.

It was revealed in December that Brennan had been charged with an aggravated breach of FA rule E3.1 for allegedly making offensive remarks to Dowle during Barnet’s defeat by Shrewsbury in September.

Evangelos Marinakis is close to appointing fourth head coach of season after Sean Dyche’s sacking and it’s a mess of his own making because he should never have fired Nuno

Sacking three head coaches in a season does not reflect well on Nottingham Forest or their owner, Evangelos Marinakis. It is a mess of their own making, which started with the exit of their most successful manager in recent history and has the latest P45 going to the man brought in to sort out the problems created by an ill-judged appointment that lasted eight winless games.

Twelve months ago Forest were battling for a Champions League spot under the stable stewardship of Nuno Espírito Santo. A lot has changed and they will become the first Premier League side to have four permanent managers in a season, which was not a record the club were aiming for in August, when hoping to build on a seventh-place finish, an FA Cup semi-final and qualifying for Europe for the first time in 30 years.

If Tottenham are waiting for Pochettino part two, then season three of Postecoglou might bring the right survival vibes

It’s panic time at the bottom of the Premier League and, if the past couple of days are anything to go by, probably don’t go following Ange Postecoglou into a job any time soon. Others who have followed it more closely can do Nottingham Forest and their 4 (four) managers. This is a piece about Tottenham Hotspur, or as I like to call them, my big team who win things.

November 2023 feels like a lifetime ago. Spurs were top of the league. Angeball was at its peak. Dynamic free-flowing football – they were 1-0 up against Chelsea thanks to Dejan Kulusevski (injured). It’s the 14th minute, Spurs neatly play themselves out from the back down the right, it breaks to Pape Sarr who rolls the ball to Destiny Udogie (injured), and Brennan Johnson (Crystal Palace) steams down the left. He plays a perfect first-time ball with his left foot into the path of Son Heung-min (LAFC), who rolls it home. Tottenham are 2-0 up against a team they lose to at least twice a season.

As ‘the pressure of the haircut’ enters the game’s lexicon, the extent to which football revolves around winning and losing games appears to be fading

“I don’t care about his haircut at all,” Matheus Cunha said this week. “I don’t really look at other people if they need to go to the hairdresser or not,” Bruno Fernandes said at the weekend. Michael Carrick, for his part, said he was aware of the haircut issue. But the Manchester United coach insisted it would not factor into his team’s preparations for their game against West Ham on Tuesday night.

And so, here we are. Many games of football end up being remembered for reasons far outstripping their original significance: the 1914 Christmas Truce, the 1962 Battle of Santiago, the 2020 pandemic curtain‑raiser between Liverpool and Atlético Madrid. To these we can add the Haircut Game: a mildly arresting 1-1 Premier League draw at the London Stadium that posterity will nevertheless recall as the game when a man did not get his hair cut at the end.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Chile’s female players are newly protected under labour law and are hoping their official status can help the game thrive in South America

The Chilean players’ association officially became a union in December, and its president, Javiera Moreno, believes there needs to be women’s representation in players’ unions around the world.

“We want this movement to become massive,” says the former Universidad Católica captain. “Our goal is to spread this to other countries. I don’t know if in other places the path will be to have a specific union for women. This was needed here, but I think there needs to be at least representation of women’s players within every country’s footballers’ union.”

• Amrit Bansal-McNulty claim relates to alleged racism

• Clubs deny wrongdoing in case being heard at tribunal

Queens Park Rangers and Crawley Town are being sued for more than £11m by a former player who is claiming they failed to protect him from alleged racist banter that he says destroyed his career.

The Championship club are joint defendants with Crawley in a claim currently being heard at the Central London Employment Tribunal, brought by the former Northern Ireland Under-21 international Amrit Bansal-McNulty, who is suing for £11.1m for a loss of opportunity as a footballer and personal injury. Both clubs have denied wrongdoing.

• Manchester United v Brighton tie had highest figures

• Data shows value to broadcasters of later kick-offs

The FA Cup third round generated higher viewing figures for the main rights holder, TNT Sports, than any of their Premier League games this season in an indication of the competition’s enduring appeal before the fourth round, which begins on Friday.

Data obtained by the Guardian reveals that Brighton’s third-round win over Manchester United last month attracted an average audience of 876,000, with a total reach of 2.1 million, based on viewers watching for a minimum of three minutes.

Manchester City’s week is ­moving along sweetly, this win closing the gap to three points to Arsenal, who travel to Brentford on Thursday. On ­Sunday, they defeated Liverpool at Anfield, on Wednesday they downed ­Fulham at home to reel off a 20th consecutive victory against them.

The rosiest moment for the title challengers was Erling Haaland’s 39th‑minute strike, a first in the competition from open play in nine games, though more con­cerning was his removal at the break, when City led 3-0.

Arsenal delivered a dominant and efficient display away to OH Leuven to take a 4-0 lead into the second leg of their Women’s Champions League playoff at the Emirates Stadium next week.

Frida Maanum opened the ­scoring, Olivia Smith added the second, Maanum struck again and Alessia Russo finished things off against the Belgian side before the midfielder Kim Little came off the bench late on to put the cherry on top of the evening, making a staggering 400th appearance for the club.

Arne Slot does not believe his job security hinges on Liverpool securing Champions League qualification this spring but the Dutchman would much prefer not to put that particular notion to the test.

On this evidence there seems a decent chance last season’s title winning manager will not have to. In finally ending Sunderland’s proud unbeaten home record in the Premier League, sixth placed Liverpool left themselves only three points adrift Manchester United and two behind Chelsea.

Ousmane Dembélé becomes our seventh winner as he beats Lamine Yamal into second and Vitinha into third on our list of the best players on the planet

• Premier League dominates list | How every judge voted | Our methodology | The top 100 female players for 2025

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The Frenchman, who has been named the best male footballer in the world by the Guardian, has benefitted from PSG’s focus on the team rather than individuals

What makes a good player great, and a great player the best? This question has been occupying me since 2014, when the Guardian first asked me to contribute to its inaugural Next Generation feature. My job was to look for a France-based talent born in 1997 who could go on to have a stellar career.

After a great deal of research, I narrowed it down from my shortlist of five by asking questions not about the players’ football ability, but about other attributes: resilience, adaptability, decision-making, creativity, work ethic, response to feedback and willingness to learn. Qualities we cannot see, and are harder to measure.

Aitana Bonmatí has been voted the best female player on the planet by our panel of 127 experts ahead of Mariona Caldentey and Alessia Russo

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• Meet the judges | See how every judge voted

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The margin may have got smaller but the brilliant Spanish midfielder makes it a hat-trick of No 1 finishes

They say the best things come in threes, and Aitana Bonmatí has written herself into the Guardian’s top 100 history as the first player to finish at the top of the tree for a third consecutive year.

Last year the majestic midfielder emulated her Barcelona and Spain teammate Alexia Putellas by winning for a second year running, but the 27-year-old has now gone one better, establishing herself once again at the top of the women’s game.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Will Unwin and Jonathan Liew as Nottingham Forest sack Sean Dyche and Manchester City close the gap on Arsenal to three points

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On the podcast today: it’s panic time at the bottom. Sean Dyche gets sacked by Nottingham Forest, who are now looking for their fourth manager of the season, with a goalless draw with Wolves not enough to save him.

In more traditional news, you got your voice note yesterday – Thomas Frank is sacked by Spurs shortly after we finished recording. We’ll analyse where it’s gone wrong and how good an interim combo of Redknapp, Sherwood and Hoddle would do.

Elsewhere, Burnley couldn’t survive … could they? A great win for them at Crystal Palace. There’s another defeat for Brighton; at least if he does get the sack, Fabian Hurzëler is young enough to retrain to do something else. A good win for Villa, who keep the chasing pack at arm’s length. Liverpool become the first team to win at Sunderland this season. And is that ominous Manchester City we see, dispatching Fulham in the first half?

Plus, Jim Ratcliffe, who moved to Monaco as an immigrant a few years ago, starts immigrant-bashing in the UK. There’s also Barry’s FA Cup factfile and your questions answered.

Chapters:

00:00 - Coming up...

01:45 - The managerial merry-go-round

25:08 - Palace 2-3 Burnley

31:55 - Villa 1-0 Brighton

34:32 - City 3-0 Fulham

42:12 - What's Sir Jim doing?

47:53:07 - Barry's FA Cup factathon

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Thomas Frank’s dismissal leaves a desperate Spurs looking to its recent past, among other places, for answers

Tottenham Hotspur have tried everything. After sacking Mauricio Pochettino in November 2019 – five months after the club’s first Champions League final, with Spurs sitting 14th in the league and sleepwalking to second place in a weak UCL group – There came a pair of chronic (if cantankerous) title winners: José Mourinho and Antonio Conte. They gave a pragmatist (Nuno Espírito Santo) a Big Six test and moved on when performances instantly stagnated. Then arrived Ange Postecoglou; a staunch tactical ideologue whose principles excited at first before becoming a liability.

Thomas Frank, though, seemed like the appointment most reminiscent of Pochettino’s 2014 arrival. Both raised relatively unfancied clubs to prominence and established firm operational bedrocks. Both spoke about the importance of culture as much as on-field Xs and Os. Neither had been tested at a club of this caliber.

The former England international is a pioneer in football and the media. But her broadside on TV punditry is another own goal, empowering the most chauvinistic commentators

Is this what Eni Aluko envisioned? Did she think reigniting the somewhat one-sided row between herself and fellow pundit Ian Wright would resurrect her broadcasting career or make Wright reflect differently on the incident that she triggered 10 months ago? If so, the exercise has failed and we sit staring at an overwhelmingly sad and depressing episode that is showing no sign of quieting down.

No one credible would dispute Aluko’s record as a player. Her 105 caps and 33 goals for England, involvement in five major international tournaments, four FA Cup wins, three WSL titles and Serie A and Coppa Italia medals speak for themselves.

Plus: a perfect hat-trick of assists, more almost-one-club players and Oxford’s penalty drought

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“In their Champions League match against PSV Eindhoven, Bayern Munich made four substitutions in the 62nd minute,” writes Stephan Wijnen. “The four players entering the pitch together had a combined estimated value of €265m (Harry Kane, Michael Olise, Serge Gnabry and Alphonso Davies). Is this the most expensive combined substitution ever?”

Before we go any further – a player’s estimated value is not an objective measure, but using transfer fees doesn’t necessarily work, with some players moving for no fee (Kylian Mbappé, for example). Like Stephan in his question, we are going to use Transfermarkt’s valuations in a bid for consistency, and will focus on the value of players coming on.

Can you do any better? Email us with your answers

The winning run may be over but his Manchester United team showed fight until the end against West Ham

On nights such as these it can feel as though football is choosing to remind you of its true nature. Which is, it turns out, the most gloriously perverse, slow-burn, 400‑miles‑from‑home, 10.15pm on a Tuesday, waving your arms in the air, gripped‑with‑final‑plot‑twist-ecstasy pursuit ever devised.

For Manchester United’s travelling support this game must have felt like a slow-motion strangulation. Your team have had two shots on target all night. They’re 1-0 down against relegation-haunted West Ham – 95 minutes have passed. Narratives are being muddled. Arcs of hope reined in.

Fifa president will be under major scrutiny when he goes to Brussels to address the Uefa annual congress on Thursday

Assuming Gianni Infantino turns up on time, he is expected to make his customary address to Uefa’s annual congress on Thursday. The couple of hours spent in Brussels Expo Hall 3 will be largely procedural but the Fifa president’s messaging will be worth delegates’ attention. Even by the standards of relations between football’s major governing bodies, the past 12 months have been fractious. The fault lines hardly get narrower and there is certainly no reduction in the number of thorny issues simmering away.

At last year’s edition, in Belgrade, Infantino used the gathering of European football’s great and good to make a caveated case for Russia’s return to competitive action. If that was a rolling of the pitch, his comments on the matter in an interview last week amounted to letting the sprinklers loose. Infantino said the ban on Russian sides should be reassessed, at least for age-group teams, but there is little chance of his views gaining weight around Europe even if he elects to revisit the argument.

The Brazilian was often exposed by the tactics of Ten Hag and Amorim, but was always adaptable and a replacement will be expensive

“Leave the football before the football leaves you.” The meme-baiting quote from Jamie Carragher hung heavy over Casemiro for a long while, but it is testament to the Brazilian’s character and durability that he will leave Manchester United this year on his own terms, two years after those infamous words from the former Liverpool player.

In fairness to Carragher, context at the time was key. After United were hammered 4-0 by Crystal Palace in May 2024, Casemiro looked spent at the elite level, bypassed too easily in increasingly fast‑tempo matches and left for dead by Erik ten Hag’s high-risk tactics.

After just eight games, it’s fair to ask if the former Columbia University math major is having the best-ever season for a US coach in Europe

Pellegrino Matarazzo stood there, still and composed. Brown pants. Black sweater. Arms crossed, one hand to his chin and grey beard. The New Jerseyan looked less like the manager of Real Sociedad, a club that placed in La Liga’s top six for five straight seasons before last year, than a math professor. That’s what he well might have been, had his life taken only a slightly different turn; he graduated from Columbia University with a degree in applied mathematics, after all.

Instead, he was there on Saturday, at the Anoeta Stadium, calmly coaxing his side past Elche, 3-1, pumping a single fist when La Real scored, occasionally waving those arms to push his side further upfield. As if Matarazzo’s being there, as if his team taking yet another lead, was all just a matter of course. Just a big-time manager at a big-time club, doing big-time things.

Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on 12 May. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University.

VAR’s application has been a divisive topic everywhere it has been introduced. It was more of the same in Serie A

You might not be shocked to learn that Daniele De Rossi thinks football has gone soft. Since retiring and moving into management, the man with the “beware the sliding tackle” tattoo has acknowledged he sometimes misses getting to stick the boot in. But would the stick figure seen flying into an opponent on the back of his right calf even stand a chance in this era of VAR?

“I don’t know what to say any more,” lamented De Rossi after his Genoa team lost 3-2 to Napoli on Saturday. “The football we played no longer exists. We were naïve, but it seems I don’t know anything. I don’t know what sport I am coaching.”

Win against Stuttgart was a reminder that unity remains St Pauli’s greatest strength in defying the odds again

It had begun to look like a lost cause. In a season where the Bundesliga’s relegation battle increasingly promises a richness that the title race may lack (with all due respect to Borussia Dortmund’s efforts to stalk Bayern Munich at closer quarters in recent weeks), it has felt like St Pauli were, like fellow minnows Heidenheim, ready to be cut away. The Hamburg club’s best-ever start to a top-flight season, two wins and a draw from their first three games, felt like an age ago. Nine successive defeats will do that to you.

Yet these masters of the unusual and the unexpected had another surprise up their sleeve this weekend; not least, one suspects, to themselves. Stuttgart travelled north on a fine run of form, sitting pretty in a Champions League spot and fresh from a week of qualifying for the DFB Pokal semi-finals, a trophy which they have every hope of retaining. With one league win against largely hopeless Heidenheim since that golden start for their hosts, who are also harbouring an injury list as long as one of Scottie Pippen’s arms (to paraphrase Jay-Z), it looked straightforward for Sebastian Hoeness and his men.

Roberto De Zerbi’s team has stood up to PSG this season, but they were humiliated at the Parc des Princes on Sunday

By Get French Football News

To understand Marseille’s season, you need not watch all of their games; those played against PSG will suffice. After Marseille’s 1-0 win over the European champions in September – their first at the Vélodrome in the league in 14 years – the word “finally” was the word scrawled across the front page of local paper La Provence. That victory brought relief, but also hope and optimism: the Empire could be toppled. But it struck back on Sunday night.

“Rubbish,” read the front page of La Provence on Monday. And there really was only one word for it. It was a 5-0 defeat that could have been 10 – a humiliation. The Marseille defender Facundo Medina had spoken about “seeking revenge” for his team’s defeat to PSG in the Trophée des Champions in January, a defeat on penalties so narrow and frustrating that it left Roberto De Zerbi in tears in the dressing room.

Vivid dreamscape sold to fans in 2021 is yet to materialise amid layers upon layers of bureaucracy, economics and geopolitics

Layer two: Nick Woltemade, signed for £69m in the hot madness of summer, has stopped scoring. Anthony Elanga, a £55m winger, has struggled for game time and goals. Malick Thiaw, a £35m centre-half bought from Milan, keeps making basic errors. Last summer’s transfer window, conducted without a sporting director and with an outgoing chief executive, looks increasingly like a disaster. The football seems a little slower and less urgent these days, St James’ Park a little quieter and more anxious. Eddie Howe is basically holding this thing together with hugs and smiles.

Layer three: turns out Alexander Isak lighted the exit path so that others might follow. Sandro Tonali’s agent decided to make a little mischief on transfer deadline day, putting Arsenal on alert. Perhaps Tonali will be the next painful transfer saga, perhaps Bruno Guimarães or Lewis Hall or Tino Livramento. The sporting director, Ross Wilson, is still getting his feet under the table. The chief executive, David Hopkinson, reckons Newcastle can be the best team in the world by 2030. They sit 11th in the Premier League. No signings arrived in January.

Coach should not ‘stick to football’ when football strays into politics and death but his role as fluffer for his club’s autocratic owners cannot be ignored

You may find yourself living in a glass and steel yak-fur-lined penthouse. You may find yourself with six Premier League titles and a sport refashioned in your image. You may find yourself in front of a large advert board covered in words such as Experience Abu Dhabi, haunted by images of suffering, a scythe clanking gently at your shoulder. And you may say, well, how did I get here?

There are only ever two types of Pep Guardiola article. First, articles announcing that Guardiola’s influence has reached some new level of annihilating dominance, that what we have here is our own cashmere-draped, cranium-whirring Ideal Tactics Man, that Pep-ism is bigger than smartphones, bigger than internet porn, bigger than a mother’s love, that playing out from the back is now visible from space.

The winger seems to have lost a yard of pace but he is only 31 and leaving Stamford Bridge to make a fresh start may be the best thing for him

While Raheem Sterling’s bank balance was boosted by his unhappy spell at Chelsea, the professional cost has been huge. The winger’s career has nosedived since his departure from Manchester City three and a half years ago. Sterling was hailed as a marquee signing when he joined Chelsea in the summer of 2022 but there was no place for him inside the tent by the time an agreement was finally reached to end his £325,000-a-week contract by mutual consent on Wednesday.

The decline has been sad to watch. There was excitement when Sterling became the first player to join Chelsea after the Todd Boehly-Clearlake Capital takeover. He had won four Premier League titles with City and had undoubted pedigree. Thomas Tuchel wanted his threat in the final third and much was made of Sterling, who grew up near Wembley, returning to London when Chelsea signed him for £47.5m.

I played out a torturous, all-too-familar dance after the Gunners’ title-race stumble. But if we’re suffering like this in January, how will we feel in May?

I sometimes joke that I’m not sure I actually like football, just Arsenal. Hate-watching rivals aside, if a game doesn’t concern the Gunners it probably doesn’t concern me, such is my one-club tunnel vision. Even then, there are occasions where my love of Arsenal appears debatable. As a friend recently put it to me: “I’ve watched Arsenal games with you. I’m not sure you like Arsenal and yet you’re possibly the most fervent Gooner I know.”

Ah, the torturous dance between joy and torment. I relived it again last Sunday evening, when Arsenal lost to Manchester United. On paper, it should have been simple enough to compartmentalise: you can’t win them all and we’re still four points clear at the top of the league table and looking strong in all three cups. And yet, for the first time this season, I succumbed to true result-induced head loss.

Our cartoonist looks back at the mayhem on Merseyside as visitors’ late win reminded Arsenal they’re still in the hunt

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Small town club’s Serie B adventure captivated football and inspired a famous book. That spirit remains and is being passed to their successors

The WhatsApp group flickers into life at about 6am every day. It is the manager who goes first because, when you are 79, old habits die hard. “Good morning,” Osvaldo Jaconi hails his former players and staff before, little by little, the salutations roll in from across Italy. Maybe it is someone’s birthday or another special occasion; the conversation may be accelerated by an in-joke that recalls why, three decades ago, they were brought together in the first place. Just in case anyone could forget, the group’s title says: “Serie B.”

This is how miracles stay alive. Perhaps it is the point of what Castel di Sangro achieved in 1995-96. A rag-tag bunch from this backwater in mountainous Abruzzo had risen from local amateur leagues and then, in a crowning triumph with little precedent, made it to the second tier. “It’s like 30 years haven’t passed,” says Angelo Petrarca, who was nominally the masseur but often resembled a one-man backroom. “It shows how much love everybody has for each other, and did back then. As if everybody is still right here.”

When Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac became club guardians in 2021 the Premier League was a dream. Now it’s a target

Two Chewbaccas handed out flyers to passersby. No one making their way towards the Turf batted an eyelid, but then again, for five years now, a touch of Hollywood has become pretty much the norm in Wrexham.

Ninety minutes before kick-off the city’s most famous public house was heaving. Lying in the shadow of the Racecourse Ground, it is the watering hole of choice for locals, and, thanks to landlord Wayne Jones’s prominent role in Welcome to Wrexham, the hit documentary following the club’s many fortunes, a tourist attraction.

After impressive work by Manchester United and Liverpool and disappointment for Chelsea, we assess every team’s business

With the contracts of so many senior players expiring in June, Arsenal’s focus was on preparing for the summer when they are expected to go through a major rebuild. Therefore their quiet window was no surprise, but they will be relatively pleased to have brought in a star of the future, Smilla Holmberg, at right-back and to have fulfilled their need for a backup goalkeeper, with Barbora Votíkova’s deadline-day loan. Much more significant, though, is the positive progress they are understood to have made in their attempt to sign Georgia Stanway on a free at the end of the season, and big decisions such as not seeking to extend Katie McCabe’s stay, as they prepare to refresh the team.

Will Arsenal regret Nwaneri move? Have Sunderland traded brilliantly again? We run the rule over every team’s business

The foot injury sustained by Mikel Merino made the last few days of the window a bit more interesting for Arsenal supporters, although in the end there was no big signing. Deadline-day links to Sandro Tonali of Newcastle and Leon Goretzka came to nothing, and Arsenal missed out to their north London rivals Tottenham on the 18-year-old Scotland striker James Wilson. They did sign the England Under-19 defender Jaden Dixon from Stoke but will Mikel Arteta regret allowing Ethan Nwaneri to join Marseille on loan with Merino poised to be out for at least two months? Ed Aarons

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There are a lot of billionaires making global headlines at the moment and even if we were dying of thirst, Football Daily wouldn’t go for a pint with any of them. Big Sir Jim Ratcliffe almost certainly wouldn’t want to come for a pint with us, given our backstreet local’s clientele boasts no end of foreigners of every stripe and shade, all of whom are apparently more hell-bent on annexing the pool table than “colonising the UK”. A man who is so patriotic he would do anything for his country except live or pay taxes in it, Big Sir Jim has plumbed unprecedented depths of unpopularity among Manchester United fans by embarking on a diatribe against immigrants that played fast and loose in its use of far-right rhetoric and was backed up by wildly inaccurate statistics.

Re: yesterday’s Football Daily. I am sure I am in tune with 1,057 others when I suggest that Tottenham Hotspur did a Frank appraisal of their situation and decided to have a frank conversation with Frank to explain that, frankly, his tenure as manager was not good enough and that, as soon as their franking machine could print off the postage, Frank would be getting a frank letter, asking him – frankly – to do one. Which is a great shame, as he seems to be a really good guy and, as his time at Brentford shows, he is a very good manager. As an Arsenal fan, I now wish him well, which I haven’t been able to do since June last year” – Andrew Kluth (and no others).

In yesterday’s Football Daily (full email edition), we have Liam Rosenior making sure his players are ‘switched on for 90 minutes’. Can I be one of 1,057 pedants pointing out that, according to no less an authority than Big Website, games now last an average of 100 minutes, 36 seconds? Demand more, Liam. Demand more” – Simon Riley (and no others).

This may be scant consolation to Rod de Lisle (yesterday’s Football Daily letters) but Leicester’s capitulation against Southampton, while spectacular, is eclipsed by at least one other game. Back in 1957, Huddersfield Town – managed by Bill Shankly, who, were he still around, would surely win letter o’ the day so often you’d probably drop it altogether as a feature, and also featuring future Wolves manager Bill McGarry as a player – somehow contrived to turn a 5-1 lead in the 63rd minute away at Charlton (who had also been down to 10 men since the 17th minute) into a 7-6 defeat” – Simon Gill.

It doubtless won’t be much consolation to interim Leicester boss Andy King, but given that his team weren’t playing against 10 men when they threw away that 3-0 lead to lose 4-3, it probably wasn’t the worst half in the history of football” – Nick Payne.

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

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Given the frequency with which they’ve told Thomas Frank he would be “getting sacked in the morning” in recent months, disgruntled Tottenham fans were bound to be on the money at some point. Following the club’s latest home defeat at the hands of Newcastle, the Spurs hierarchy finally acquiesced to their demands and in a statement released at 10.17am announced that the Dane was done. This morning, the 52-year-old was finally sacked. “The club has taken the decision to make a change in the men’s head coach position and Thomas Frank will leave today,” droned a club statement posted at 10.17am on Wednesday, confirming that Frank had been sacked in the morning.

In these inclement times few clubs have been as badly hit as Dundee United, with the condition of their Tannadice Stadium pitch having caused several postponements to matches due to waterlogging and flooding. (Cue the traditional jokes about the Dundee United captain after the coin toss for ends at the start of a match, ‘We’ll start with the deep end’.) The most recent announcement on the club’s website about further possible delays to today’s fixture against Aberdeen includes the puckish sentiment (hopefully as a knowing pun): ‘While there is currently no plan for a pitch inspection, this remains a fluid situation ...’ Well, what else indeed?” – Ken Muir.

Max Maxwell’s letter (yesterday’s Football Daily) was a wonderful read but I kept waiting, in vain as it turned out, for ‘jumpers for goalposts’. Wasn’t it?” – Andy Stiff.

Re: the Manchester United fan growing his hair – should he just pray for going bald? And if that does happen, will he follow his club’s greatest player Bobby Charlton with the combover to end all combovers?” – Darren Leathley.

So yesterday my team, Leicester City, heaped more misery on us beleaguered fans by somehow contriving to snatch defeat from the jaws of a three-nil lead against Southampton, going down 3-4. I don’t normally condone meltdowns by characters such as Ian Holloway, Frank Doberman (aka Harry Enfield, referenced in yesterday’s edition) and historically, one Sir Alex Ferguson. But in this instance I’m tempted to request that all three gentlemen attend the next Foxes training session, fully armed with telephones, pot plants, irons and other assorted household items. These to be bombarded at the hapless team, before unleashing a large portion of expletive-laden vitriol. It would make me feel better, at least” – Rod de Lisle.

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

US captain reflects on her playing career in France and the need for greater competition as she prepares for a summer move to Denver

Lindsey Heaps is sitting in the heart of Lyon, a city that has witnessed her transformation from a self-described “baby” into the authoritative captain of the US women’s national team. Now wearing the No 10 shirt for OL Lyonnes, inherited this season from Dzsenifer Marozsán, Heaps is reflective. She is a veteran, a leader who has won almost everything, yet she remains a student of the game, constantly seeking the “good struggles” that defined her early years.

The timing of our meeting is poignant. This month Lyonnes reasserted their dominance over the Première Ligue with a 1-0 victory against Paris Saint-Germain, before winning 4-0 against Saint-Étienne in a derby. The results leaves OL in a league of their own: 14 points clear of second-placed Nantes, with PSG cast adrift in fifth place, 17 points behind the leaders. For Heaps, these numbers are not just a source of pride; they are a symptom of a wider problem.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Will Unwin and Jonathan Liew as Nottingham Forest sack Sean Dyche and Manchester City close the gap on Arsenal to three points

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

On the podcast today: it’s panic time at the bottom. Sean Dyche gets sacked by Nottingham Forest, who are now looking for their fourth manager of the season, with a goalless draw with Wolves not enough to save him. In more traditional news, you got your voice note yesterday – Thomas Frank is sacked by Spurs shortly after we finished recording. We’ll analyse where it’s gone wrong and how good an interim combo of Redknapp, Sherwood and Hoddle would do.

Arsenal make the leaders pay, Sonia Bompastor is defiant and Manchester United’s squad is working in harmony

Andrée Jeglertz said Manchester City’s “decision-making wasn’t ideal all the time during the game” in their 1-0 loss to Arsenal at the Emirates stadium on Sunday. He’s right. City may have had 22 touches in the opposition box to Arsenal’s 19 but they had only had one shot on target to Arsenal’s four. To some extent though, they have a hall pass for that lack of solid decision-making because it’s just so rare. Despite the defeat, City are sitting pretty at the top of the WSL table, their lead still a hefty eight points ahead of Manchester United. Should Arsenal win their game in hand, City’s lead will still be seven points. In a 12-team league and 22-game season, it’s incredibly unlikely that that gap will be bridged. Their goal difference is also 10 better than United’s. This is City’s title to lose and with the talent they have at their disposal the likelihood of any rot setting in is extremely slim. They play bottom-placed Leicester next, then struggling Aston Villa, who suffered a third back-to-back defeat, and those teams should fear City’s frustration. Suzanne Wrack

Liverpool rue costly mistakes, Viktor Gyökeres builds up a head of steam and Rayan gets the hype train chugging

• Premier League top scorers: the latest standings

Arne Slot was close to landing a coup against Pep Guardiola, the coach he admires most. Then came more of the individual errors that have ruined Liverpool’s title defence. Aching weaknesses within Slot’s squad were exposed again. Dominik Szoboszlai playing Bernardo Silva onside for Manchester City’s equaliser was an error midfielders playing full-back will make. Szoboszlai’s late red card was, though, foolish. Alisson’s foul on Matheus Nunes for Erling Haaland’s decisive penalty was another rush of blood. Liverpool’s huge summer spend was motivated by their executives’ belief in buying the best individuals to unlock the Premier League’s tactical cages. City’s key individuals showed such a policy can pay off, with Silva inspirational, Gianluigi Donnarumma making the save that sparked the game’s chaotic final scenes, Marc Guéhi looking an astute defensive signing and Haaland supplying Silva’s goal. City had been unconvincing but their mentality held, allowing them to eventually profit from Hugo Ekitiké’s misses and the waning of Mohamed Salah. John Brewin

Match report: Liverpool 1-2 Manchester City

Match report: Brighton 0-1 Crystal Palace

Match report: Arsenal 3-0 Sunderland

Match report: Newcastle 2-3 Brentford

Plus: footballers’ weddings on live television, the most successful fictional teams, and more

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Ian Muir played 95% of his games for Tranmere,” writes Robert Abushal. “One-club players aside, who’s the closest to 100% without being 100%?”

One-club men and women are among football’s more celebrated groups, the players who dedicated their entire career to one particular cause. Athletic Club give out the One Club Man and One Club Woman awards each year; the list of recipients include Paolo Maldini, Matthew Le Tissier and Malin Moström.

We haven’t included non-league teams, which rules out Paul Scholes (three games for Royton) and Le Tissier (Eastleigh) among others. We’ve also excluded Hamburg legend Uwe Seeler, whose one appearance for Cork Celtic was in a sponsored event.

Data on appearances for individual players can vary from source to source, particularly for older players. We made a judgment call in each case, so the figures may only be 99.82% correct. But that’s appropriate for this question, right? Right?

From PSG’s Ibrahim Mbaye to Brazil’s next hope, we select some of the most talented players born in 2008. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and go even further back. Here’s our Premier League class of 2025