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A reminder of the teams

Manchester City (possible 4-3-3) Ortega Moreno; Lewis, Akanji, Ake, Gvardiol; Foden, Kovacic, Bernardo; Savinho, Haaland, Doku.
Substitutes: Carson, Brits, De Bruyne, Gundogan, Simpson-Pusey, Mubama, Alleyne, O’Reilly, McAtee

• Leicester manager was unbeaten against Slot with PSV
• Slot warns team ‘cannot underestimate one minute’

Arne Slot has said his experience of facing Ruud van Nistelrooy in the Netherlands, plus Liverpool’s brief drop-off against Tottenham, ensures Leicester will not be underestimated at Anfield on Boxing Day.

The Liverpool head coach was unable to beat Van Nistelrooy’s PSV when guiding Feyenoord to the Eredivisie title in 2022-23, drawing 2-2 at home and losing 4-3 away. PSV were one of only two teams to defeat Feyenoord in a season when Slot’s side won the league by seven points from their closest challengers from Eindhoven.

• João Pereira sacked on Boxing Day after poor run
• Rui Borges takes over at Portuguese champions

Sporting have appointed Rui Borges as head coach, after the Portuguese champions sacked Joao Pereira on Boxing Day. The new head coach has signed a contract until June 2026, with an option to extend a further year.

Pereira, who took over after Ruben Amorim’s departure to Manchester United in November, was in charge for eight matches, of which Sporting won just three, suffering successive Champions League defeats and falling to second in the Primeira Liga behind rivals Benfica.

Five years since the start of his Arsenal tenure, two of his former managers look at how his playing career shaped him

David Moyes wasn’t 100% sure when Mikel Arteta arrived at Everton. “He was a quiet boy and at the start we had to play him off the right of midfield,” he recalls. “I was thinking: ‘This is a young Spanish boy who might not be ready for the rigours of the Premier League and Goodison Park, for what is expected.’”

Alex McLeish sent his assistant Andy Watson to watch Arteta at Paris Saint-Germain when Rangers were considering signing him a few years earlier. “Different class, two good feet, quick enough, nimble,” Watson said. But there was a kicker. “He was never tested because PSG just rolled the ball out and it then took them 20 minutes to get to the halfway line!” It didn’t immediately scream “Scottish Premiership midfielder”, thought McLeish, picturing Aberdeen away on a wild, wet, winter’s afternoon.

In contrast to local rivals Chelsea, Marco Silva’s squad is full of players with experience and something to prove

Only two miles separate Stamford Bridge and Craven Cottage but Chelsea and Fulham inhabit different worlds. It is a one-sided rivalry – Fulham have finished above their west London neighbours once in the past 41 years – and there are few similarities in the way the clubs go about their business.

The contrast when it comes to recruitment is striking. While Chelsea’s owners, Todd Boehly and Clearlake Capital, have invested more than £1bn in their unique model of buying promising young players on long and heavily incentivised contracts, Fulham have used their smaller budget to implement an unglamorous approach that nonetheless has them set to enjoy another season making a lot out of a little.

Sheffield United lead a north-facing battle to go up while Frank Lampard and Wayne Rooney are in the trenches

Chris Wilder could not contain the excitement in his voice. “It feels imminent,” said Sheffield United’s manager. “It’s getting pretty close.”

Wilder was referring to his club’s protracted takeover by American consortium, COH Sports. At long last that particular saga has reached a conclusion, with the two key investors, Steven Rosen and Helmy Eltoukhy, joining United’s board as co-chairmen after the buyout of Prince Abdullah bin Mosa’ad’s United World Group was confirmed on Monday.

• Corberán says decision was ‘the hardest of my life’
• Spaniard played for Valencia’s youth and B teams

Valencia have confirmed the appointment of Carlos Corberán as their head coach on a contract to 2027 after paying his release clause of about £3m to West Bromwich Albion. The Spanish club made an approach on Tuesday after sacking Rubén Baraja.

West Brom said Corberán was departing “with the club’s gratitude and best wishes” after just over two years in charge and that Chris Brunt, Damià Abella and Boaz Myhill would oversee the first team while a replacement is sought.

• Romano Floriani Mussolini scored winner against Cesena
• Italian football federation launches investigation

The Italian football federation has opened an investigation after supporters of the second division club, Juve Stabia, appeared to celebrate a goal scored by Benito Mussolini’s great-grandson with fascist salutes.

Footage captured during the team’s win at home to Cesena showed the moments after Romano Floriani Mussolini, 21, scored the only goal. As the announcer calls out “Romano” seven times, dozens of fans appeared to respond each time with the fascist salute and enthusiastic shouts of “Mussolini”.

Rodri has beaten Vinícius Júnior and Erling Haaland to top our ranking of the most talented players in the world this calendar year

• How all the judges voted | Rodri heads 2024 list | Our methodology | The top 100 female players in the world
• 2023 edition | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012

The national team are looking forward having changed their colours just hours after Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus

On 9 December Syria were drawn in a 2027 Asian Cup qualification group with Myanmar, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Officials at the ceremony in Kuala Lumpur could have had lengthy conversations about how all four’s football fortunes have been damaged and held back by their respective leaders and governments. This time, however, there was even more than usual to discuss. Hours earlier, Bashar al-Assad had fled Damascus for Moscow, ending a dictatorship that had ruled for more than 50 years. As in other fields, there is a sense of uncertainty in football but also an optimism that there may be better times ahead and that the sport can, perhaps, help unite a nation that has gone through so much.

The civil war that started in 2011 has resulted in the estimated deaths of more than 500,000 people and the displacement of many more. During that time football still functioned but reflected the divisions in wider society. “As the nation fractured, so did the national team,” Bernd Stange, Syria’s coach from 2018-19, says. “There were players who fought for certain groups with weapons in their hands, and others who were staunchly opposed to the ruling regime. Unfortunately, as a foreigner, I was not able to focus solely on football and unite the team.”

Houghton and Miedema are among 17 current or former WSL players signed up to A Licence course aimed at creating more female coaches

“Who is the spare player? Where’s the space? Yes, yes, let’s go!” is the shout, as Manchester City’s under-16s girls’ squad are put through their paces at the City Football Academy and the net ripples at the end of another slick move.

On this particular ice-cold December night, the future stars being developed are not only the youngsters but those in the tracksuits too. The next generation of coaches, participants on the latest Uefa A licence course run by the FA, are leading the session and are faces familiar to any Women’s Super League supporter.

• Long-serving players have ‘big responsibility’ says coach
• Rashford is still keen to play for United, insists Amorim

Ruben Amorim says Marcus Rashford has a “big responsibility” to help Manchester United out of one of the club’s lowest moments by performing at his best, with the manager insisting the forward wants to play.

Rashford has been excluded from United’s past three match-day squads owing to his performance in training and for “selection reasons”, the head coach has said. Amorim takes his side to Wolves on Boxing Day after the Carabao Cup defeat at Tottenham and the 3-0 loss against Bournemouth in the Premier League at Old Trafford last Sunday.

Rodent sightings cause club’s food hygiene rating to tumble at century-old stadium already afflicted by roof leaks

While matchday punters pay huge sums to see their heroes, it seems rodents have found a way to get into Old Trafford for free, leaving behind Christmas gifts for the food hygiene inspector to find.

Manchester United’s food hygiene rating tumbled to two stars out of five on the most recent inspection, after mouse droppings were found in a kiosk that sells food to fans and a ground-level corporate suite.

• Manager says club are ‘still a bit short in a couple of areas’
• Tottenham are 11th before trip to Nottingham Forest

Ange Postecoglou has confirmed Tottenham plan to be active in the January transfer window. Spurs have been beset by injuries and suspensions over the past month and have fallen to 11th in the Premier League amid inconsistent form.

A thrilling 4-3 win over Manchester United in the Carabao Cup quarter-finals last Thursday was followed by a humbling 6-3 loss at home to Liverpool on Sunday and Postecoglou confirmed before Boxing Day’s trip to Nottingham Forest that the club aim to boost the squad.

• Gakpo wants Salah to stay at Anfield ‘for a long time’
• In-form Egyptian is out of contract at end of season

Cody Gakpo is hopeful that his Liverpool teammate Mohamed Salah will extend his stay at Anfield. The 32-year-old Egypt forward is out of contract at the end of the season and a new deal is yet to be agreed.

Salah has been in sensational form this season and the two goals he scored against Tottenham on Sunday took him above Billy Liddell into fourth place on Liverpool’s list of all-time leading goalscorers.

• Striker has one goal in his past six league matches
• ‘It’s about all of us, not just one player,’ says Guardiola

Pep Guardiola has denied Erling Haaland needs to score more to help Manchester City out of their dire run of nine defeats in 12 games.

City have managed only one victory in the sequence, 3-0 against Nottingham Forest in the Premier League. The champions are seventh on 27 points, four behind fourth-placed Forest.

• Saka sustained hamstring injury at Crystal Palace
• Arteta ‘putting some ideas together’ to replace winger

Mikel Arteta has said he and Arsenal must find a way to cope without Bukayo Saka after confirming the England forward is set to be sidelined for “many weeks” due to the hamstring injury he sustained against Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Saka was pictured leaving Selhurst Park on crutches after he limped off during the first half of his side’s 5-1 victory, with Arteta confirming on Monday that the 23-year-old has torn a hamstring. The Arsenal manager described it as a huge blow and also revealed that back-up Raheem Sterling is likely to be out for several weeks after picking up a knee injury in training.

The Manchester City midfielder becomes the sixth player to top our ranking of the world’s best 100 male footballers

• The 100 best male footballers in the world 2024

One of the worst things about seeing Rodri in agony on the pitch against Arsenal in September – and the subsequent news that he had ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament – was that in the buildup to the injury he had criticised the workload being put on players. It was as if he knew something bad was about to happen.

In April, after an epic 3-3 draw at Real Madrid the Manchester City and Spain midfielder said: “I do need a rest.” He added: “Let’s see how we speak, how we live the situation. Sometimes it is what it is. I need to adjust. It [rest] is something we are planning, yes.”

This year 197 judges took part and here is a chance to see how every single point has been awarded through the years

Sometimes it feels as if it does not matter if you vote or not because your effort is not going to make a difference. Every now and then, however, there is a contest – whether that is the 2016 US election or the Guardian’s top 100 best male footballers in 2024 – where the result is so tight that a few people may very well have made a difference.

The US election may be slightly more important all things considered but the fact is that this year there were only 68 points separating the top two in our annual countdown with Rodri receiving 7,495 points to Vinícius Júnior’s 7,427.

Aitana Bonmatí finishes top of our rankings for a second consecutive year, with Caroline Graham Hansen second and Sophia Smith third

• Bonmatí on top of world again | How every judge voted | Video top ten | 2023 list | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018
• Subscribe now to our free women’s football newsletter

The Spanish midfielder wins for a second consecutive year on a fast-moving list that sees 15 players appearing for the first time

• The top 100: check out the full list for 2024

Aitana Bonmatí emulates her Barcelona and Spain teammate Alexia Putellas and takes back-to-back wins in the Guardian’s 100 best female footballers in the world list.

The double Ballon d’Or winner received votes from all 99 of this year’s judges, finishing 667 points clear of her club teammate Caroline Graham Hansen, the Norwegian climbing to her highest ranking after a superb individual year for both club and country.

Rodri’s injury, Erling Haaland and Pep Guardiola all play a role in this champion team’s profound collapse

Eight weeks, 12 games and nine defeats into Manchester City’s descent into the footballing upside down, Pep Guardiola has at least identified the problem.

“We haven’t scored the goals we scored before, and we have conceded the goals we didn’t concede,” Guardiola told the BBC cameras after the defeat at Villa Park on Saturday, speaking in that now-familiar watery, rambling drawl, the voice of a man being encouraged by paramedics to talk about defensive injuries and midfield duels in order to keep himself awake until the ambulance arrives.

In Germany Fanprojekte play a crucial social-work role with football fans but a court case in Karlsruhe is threatening their existence

In a section of woodland next to Wildparkstadion, this winter’s festivities are in full swing. It is a cold, crackling December day and Karlsruhe’s ultras have set up their version of a Christmas market. Warm glühwein may be the best bet in conditions such as these but one of their number has also brought a portable outpost of the brewery that he runs.

Further along, children are served pancakes; anyone needing to augment their colours before the match against second-tier promotion rivals Hamburg can buy scarves or hats. The game is important but the proceeds from these stalls, which will go to local organisations supporting refugees, will outlive any football result.

The Cherries are flying high after a five-game unbeaten run built on their ability to hunt possession all over the pitch

By Ben McAleer for WhoScored

A little over a year ago, Bournemouth celebrated their first win at Old Trafford. Goals from Dominic Solanke, Philip Billing and Marcos Senesi secured the spoils on a memorable day for the south-coast side. Twelve months later, it has happened again. Bournemouth celebrated another 3-0 win at Manchester United on Sunday after Dean Huijsen, Justin Kluivert and Antoine Semenyo scored for Andoni Iraola’s side.

Of the original goalscorers, only one – Billing – featured in some capacity to inflict a miserable Christmas on Ruben Amorim. Solanke was sold to Tottenham over the summer and Senesi is injured. But even with changes to personnel, Bournemouth will start Boxing Day in the European spots. Despite the big-money departure of last season’s top scorer, they continue to exceed expectations.

From Tickle Me ElMou to Tiny Tears, our cartoonist has you covered if you need a last-minute football-related present

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

As I focus my energy on the political landscape in Lincolnshire, experiences at Grimsby can assist shaping a sense of identity

In May 2021, Andrew Pettit and I took on what would prove to be one of the hardest challenges of our lives when we bought our home-town club, Grimsby Town. The difficulty wasn’t just in turning the club around, it was in grappling with an economic system that simply doesn’t work. Most importantly, and unlike the business world we come from, the stakeholders are not abstracted customers but our family, friends and the wider community of which we are part.

Football isn’t just a game, it offers a sense of history, rootedness and connection far beyond what happens for 90 minutes on any given Saturday. It’s a crucible for human stories, a reflection of society and an arena where ambition, frustration, identity and community collide.

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.

Liverpool keep doing Liverpool things. The Premier League is now theirs to lose, and for a manager in his first season in England, that is a remarkable achievement

• Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

Eventually, there comes a point at which the fact that everybody seems to be having an off-day when they play against Liverpool has to be taken as a Liverpool thing rather than a quirk of the calendar. They head into the Christmas programme four points clear of Chelsea at the top of the table with a game in hand having lost only one of 16 games. While this will always in part be the season when Manchester City imploded, it should also be pointed out that Liverpool at the moment are on course for 93 points; only four times has the champion ever won more than that.

Even with Liverpool’s consistency there’s a tendency to look at Sunday’s 6-3 win at Tottenham as a result of the inexcusable openness of Tottenham rather than of their own excellence. And it is true that it’s easier to play Spurs right now, when they’re missing Cristian Romero and Micky van de Ven, when Ange Postecoglou is doubling down even further on doing things his way, than it might have been at certain other points of the season. But at the same time, Spurs tend, relatively at least, to be better against teams who come at them, who give them space behind the defensive line they can attack, and until the game disintegrated into mass silliness in its final quarter, Liverpool gave them a lesson.

This is an extract from Soccer with Jonathan Wilson, a weekly look from the Guardian US at the game in Europe and beyond. Subscribe for free here. Have a question for Jonathan? Email soccerwithjw@theguardian.com, and he’ll answer the best in a future edition

Arne Slot urged his players to keep their foot on the accelerator after Liverpool extended their lead at the top of the Premier League to four points with a wild 6-3 victory against Tottenham. Although the manager felt his team produced their best attacking performance in an away game under him, he was not happy with a drop in intensity at 5-1 that gave Spurs brief hope of a comeback. The score was pulled back to 5-3 and Liverpool, who ended up capitalising on Chelsea’s draw with Everton earlier in the day, were reminded that they must maintain their focus if they are to win the league.

• Arne Slot warns against complacency despite Liverpool’s six-goal display

• Ange Postecoglou’s unserious Spurs exposed by serious Liverpool

Ruben Amorim said Manchester United's players and fans were 'suffering' after a damaging 3-0 Premier League loss to Bournemouth at Old Trafford. Dean Huijsen exposed United's frailties from set pieces with a first-half header before Justin Kluivert and Antoine Semenyo added goals after the break to secure three points for the visitors

• Semenyo seals stunning Bournemouth win to add to Manchester United misery

Pep Guardiola has defended Manchester City striker Erling Haaland after his team fell to their ninth defeat in 12 matches. CIty have now lost six of their past eight Premier League games following a 2-1 loss to Aston Villa. After the game, in which he failed to find the back of the net, Haaland told TNT Sports that he hadn't been scoring his chances and that he needed to do better.

• Manchester City’s bleak midwinter rolls on as Rogers seals win for Aston Villa

In 2024 the world of football was filled with incredible skill as well as some unique moments. From stunning strikes to own goals and animals on the pitch, here are some of the most entertaining moments the sport had to offer.

Arsenal and England star Bukayo Saka reunited with his first ever grassroots football coach, Colin Nixon, to celebrate the amazing impact coaches can have on individuals and their local communities. Nixon identified a six-year-old Saka’s talent and gave him the opportunity to play at his local west London club, Greenford Celtic. The pair reminisced about their time together with Nixon testing Saka on a drill they used to do, exclaiming 'he's still got it' as Saka rolled the ball

Ruben Amorim responded to questions after Marcus Rashford said he was 'ready for a new challenge', maintaining that Manchester United are better with the forward. Rashford's comments in an interview with the journalist Henry Winter came following reports that the club are ready to sell the 27-year-old. Rashford had been dropped for United’s 2-1 derby win at Manchester City on Sunday, having struggled for form over the past two seasons. United’s head coach insists he wants Rashford to stay however, saying: 'This kind of club needs big talent and he’s a big talent, so he just needs to perform at the highest level and that is my focus. I just want to help Marcus.'

• Amorim urges Rashford to stay at Manchester United and prove himself

• Rashford needs a fresh start but reviving his career will not be easy

Gian Piero Gasperini’s project embodies a mentality that echoes an NFL legend after 11-game winning run

The game had not even kicked off and it was starting to feel like a prize ceremony. Ademola Lookman held up the trophy he won as the African men’s footballer of the year. Atalanta’s president, Antonio Percassi, beamed as he handed over Serie A’s coach of the month award to Gian Piero Gasperini.

Percassi’s son, Luca, the club’s CEO, spoke for the TV cameras about the recent quality of life survey conducted by the newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. It had ranked Bergamo, where Atalanta are based, as the best place to reside in all of Italy. “As a Bergamasco, I can confirm those statistics,” he replied with a laugh.

Diego Simeone summons Alexander Sørloth from the bench to finish off anyone daring to hold up his title charge

The first time Diego Simeone met Alexander Sørloth, he told him he had come up with a name for him. “He calls me Hitman, I hope to live up to that,” the Norwegian said, and so when the boss needed a really big job doing this weekend, there he was: 6ft 4in and 15 stone of ice cool striding past the bodies lying at his feet. He had sat in the shadows silently watching, biding his time, working out where the opportunity would arise and he could appear and then, at just the right moment, he did. He had known and now it was done, plan executed to perfection. Sørloth shotgun. “Cold,” Simeone called him.

There were 23 seconds left on Saturday night when Sørloth scored the goal that beat Barcelona 2-1 at Montjuïc and it had to be him: a single shot, the aim as true as the timing, sending Atlético Madrid to the top of the table, a little bit of history made and title credentials confirmed. It is 13 years since Simeone became coach and he has transformed the club, leaving the Camp Nou in 2014 with a league title that may still be the greatest feat the competition has ever seen, and taking another title seven years later. But he had never actually won a La Liga game against Barcelona there and Atlético had not done so since February 2006, back when Fernando Torres was a player not a plasterer. Sørloth on the other hand had: in 2022-23 he had come with Real Sociedad and scored the second in a 2-1 win, in 2023-24 he had scored in the 99th minute to take Villarreal to victory, and now this. Three years, three clubs, three wins. “I told him: you had to come for us to win here,” Jan Oblak said.

Celebrations were dampened by tragedy in Germany but two 5-1 wins left two teams in the Bundesliga title race

The celebrations were not what they might have been. Bayern Munich had planned a Christmas display after the Friday night game with RB Leipzig, the full stop to their calendar year, which was swiftly cancelled after news filtered through of the awful attacks in Magdeburg, as the club’s CEO, Jan-Christian Dreesen, explained on the pitch at full time. While the mood was understandably dampened, Bayern had said what they wanted to on the field, just as Bayer Leverkusen did later on Saturday. In case you were in any doubt, there are just two to watch in the title race in the second half of the Bundesliga campaign. The team of 2024, and the team that is determined to make 2025 theirs.

A 5-1 statement by the leaders answered in kind less than 24 hours later by the champions. Leverkusen needed their equally resounding win over Freiburg to keep pace with Bayern after their demolition of RB Leipzig. They also needed it to cut away the rest of the pack, to clarify the title race to come. Never mind the four points by which Leverkusen trail Bayern. It is the five that separate the second-placed Werkself from Eintracht Frankfurt in third, after the latter’s surprise home defeat to Mainz (last week’s conquerors of Bayern), which mean that the table has been adjusted to more reflect reality going into the Winterpause.

They were 95 minutes into the battle that been built as the clash that would decide the title, the final seconds slipping away, when a man who looks for all the world like a norse warrior delivered the decisive blow. Atlético Madrid had suffered, they had resisted and, in truth, they had probably longed for that final whistle to go, and then suddenly Alexander Sørloth thumped in another late winner. In doing so he sent Atlético Madrid top the table at Christmas and their coach, staff and subs sprinting on to the pitch.

Barcelona’s fans, meanwhile, turned and headed straight for the exit, unable to believe what had just happened. What had happened was this: on a night when they had hit the bar and had more than enough chances to win it, including deep into added time, in which Jan Oblak, the goalkeeper had been the best player on the pitch, with Pedri, they had somehow been beaten. It is the third time in a row that they have lost here in La Liga and the first time they have ever fallen at the hands of a Diego Simeone-led Atlético team and it hurt.

The Saudi Pro League could very well be too big and important to Mohammed bin Salman’s plans for his country to fail. But how long can the poorly attended party last?

Last week’s confirmation that Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 World Cup was met with a strangely muted reaction throughout the footballing world – and at the Fifa Congress itself, which took the form of an extended Zoom call. Mostly this was because the announcement itself was a foregone conclusion; with no other countries bidding to host the 2034 tournament, and the vote in favor of the 2030 hosts effectively dependent on simultaneous approval of the Saudis’ 2034 bid, there was little of the fanfare that usually accompanies Fifa’s biggest proclamations, and none of the shock that accompanied the revelation of past World Cup bid winners like Qatar. The debate about the Saudis’ suitability as a World Cup host was lost well before last week’s Fifa Congress; the country’s appalling human rights record and odious history of internal oppression are no secret to Fifa, but football’s peak body brushed all that aside and went ahead with last week’s formalities regardless.

If the spectacle of Fifa member states raising their hands to applaud over Zoom in support of the Saudis’ 2034 bid felt like a strange way to seal the petro-monarchy’s footballing coronation, however, it’s perhaps because a vague sense has started to come into focus that all is not well with the Saudi sporting project. This is not to suggest that the Saudis will not succeed in holding the 2034 World Cup; the tournament is the showpiece event in crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s long-term initiative to wean the Saudi economy off oil and turn his country into a hub of the global leisure economy, so no expense will be spared in ensuring it is a success.

Powerful acceptance speech for best male player at CAF awards matched specially designed agbada for occasion

Ademola Lookman couldn’t help reminiscing on Monday night. Crowned best male player at the Confederation of African Football’s award ceremony in Marrakech, thanks in large part to his stunning hat-trick for Atalanta in May’s Europa League final, the Nigeria forward’s acceptance speech referred to one of the lowest moments of his career.

It came while Lookman was on a season-long loan at Fulham from RB Leipzig in November 2020 and during injury time of a televised Premier League game against West Ham at the London Stadium. Trailing to a late goal from Tomas Soucek, the visitors were awarded a penalty in the final seconds and Lookman stepped up to take it – only to see his weak Panenka chip loop straight into the arms of Lukasz Fabianski. “I couldn’t even describe the devastation,” Lookman told the Guardian in an interview a few months later.

Match will be remembered for the keeper’s horror injury but may also come to be seen as the day the title was decided

By Luke Entwistle for Get French Football News

Title deciders don’t usually come in December but this certainly had the air of one. Paris Saint-Germain’s draws against Nantes and then Auxerre had opened the door to challengers but it was slammed shut on an eerie evening in Monaco.

Initially scheduled to take place in early January, this match was brought forward due to an addition to the calendar – the Trophée des Champions. The French equivalent of the Community Shield, pitting the winners of Ligue 1 against that of the Coupe de France (or the second-placed team in Ligue 1 in the event of a domestic double, a feat PSG achieved last season), it was set to take place in China before the start of the season. However, Chinese authorities pulled out of hosting the event at the last minute.

• Rodrygo and Vinícius also on target in 3-0 victory
• Real Madrid win their ninth global title in Qatar

Kylian Mbappé helped fire Real Madrid to Intercontinental Cup glory with a goal in Wednesday’s 3-0 win over Pachuca at Lusail Stadium.

The 25-year-old had been a fitness worry having suffered a thigh injury during last week’s Champions League win over Atalanta. Mbappé missed Saturday’s 3-3 draw at Rayo Vallecano in La Liga, but was deemed fit enough to travel to Qatar.

Manchester City’s head coach, Gareth Taylor, says his team desperately need the upcoming winter break to bolster their squad after they were comprehensively outplayed by a Barcelona side who reminded everybody why they are the reigning European champions .

Both teams were already sure of their places in the knockout stages but Barcelona, who scored through Clàudia Pina’s low strike, Aitana Bonmatí’s calm one-on-one finish and Alexia Putellas’s thumping effort from the edge of the box, will now avoid the other three group winners in the quarter-finals after their scintillating performance ensured they will top Group D.

The game either lacks a big drugs problem or isn’t catching cheats – and has long struggled to bring prosecutions

Whether Mykhailo Mudryk is, ultimately, cleared or banned, he can count himself unlucky. The number of high-profile footballers embroiled in performance-enhancing drug scandals is tiny. Even fewer serve significant bans if found guilty.

Mudryk is doubly unfortunate in that the Football Association runs a pretty good anti-doping programme compared with many of its counterparts and it was an FA test in October this year that resulted in what is known as an adverse analytical finding.

A report from Fifpro has found that some players were playing too many games but most were not playing enough

The final whistle of Wednesday night’s Champions League fixtures marked the end of women’s football in England for 2024. A winter break over the festive period is well supported and much needed after four intense months, particularly for those competing in the Champions League, before an even more packed new year and summer, but are there downsides alongside the obvious positives?

A new report from Fifpro, the global players’ union, From High-Usage to Underload: A Tale of Two Industries, produced in conjunction with the analytics company Football Benchmark, calls for, among other things, the implementation of mandatory off-season breaks of four weeks and in-season breaks of two weeks.

Corner choreography is the current big thing, next it’s time to focus on the overall mood – and I’m up for the Spurs gig

It’s 25 October 2012. Those of you who follow the Austrian regional leagues won’t need reminding. SC Weiz versus Fürstenfeld in the Landesliga Steiermark. I won’t insult anyone by explaining which tier of Austrian football we are talking about.

Weiz have a free-kick 25 yards from goal. Kevin Steiner stands over the ball. There are six players in the defensive wall. There’s no draught excluder; this is 2012 – there were no draughts that required excluding.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Wilson and John Brewin for a special festive Q&A

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On the podcast today, in what is now an annual tradition we’ve gathered some of your questions on topics ranging from the greatest goal you ever saw live through to favourite tv chefs.

Plus: festive messages from all your favourite panellists. Merry Christmas from all at Football Weekly!

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Welcome to the third Football Daily Christmas Awards. This is the bit where, in our old guise, we would bang on about becoming so jaded that we’d lost count of how many years we’d been churning out this old tat. Hmm … So OK, here we are, refreshed and ready to go! Pour yourself a pint of wine, throw your boots up on the desk, decompress, de-depress, and enjoy!

Plus: the QPR player signed on Christmas Day, footballers doing panto and more in a festive special

“How many teams have rallied to survive after being bottom of the English top flight at Christmas?” asks George Jones. “And did any of these clubs do it without sacking a manager.”

“Nigel Pearson’s great-escaping Leicester City team of 2014-15 fit the bill – and then some, since as per George’s follow-up question, he survived the entire season (though not much longer),” writes Jack Hayward, who has gone above and beyond in answering this question. “On Christmas Day 2014, the Foxes were bottom of the Premier League, with only two wins and 10 points. They were still bottom as late as 18 April, when a 2-0 win over Swansea, plus QPR and Burnley dropping points, lifted them into 18th. A few weeks later, they had finished a lofty 14th and laid the foundation for the most extraordinary story in English top-flight history.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Jonathan Liew and Sam Dalling as Arsenal, Newcastle and Liverpool progress to the League Cup semis

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

On the podcast today: the League Cup semi-finals are shaping up to be quite interesting, with four teams who’ll definitely feel a trophy will help their cause this season guaranteed to feature.

They only have a pool of 60 players to choose from, but the team are getting set to roll in the Women’s Nations League

“It’s one of those things that you don’t look back on until it’s gone,” the Gibraltar Women’s manager, Scott Wiseman, tells Moving the Goalposts. “One thing we say to the girls is to just go out there and enjoy every moment because you never know when it is going to be your last. You know when it’s your first … and you’re never going to get this moment again.”

The date of 21 February 2025 will soon be one etched into the young history of Gibraltar’s national women’s team. When the players step out on to the pitch in Moldova to begin their inaugural Women’s Nations League campaign, they will be playing in their nation’s first ever competitive women’s fixture.

This is an extract from our free weekly email, Moving the Goalposts. To get the full edition, visit this page and follow the instructions.

Our cartoonist on how reinventing the corner has been life-changing for the Gunners’ dead-ball guru

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

Sixteen stadiums and not a home fan in sight, but how good is your knowledge of football away-days?

It may have been an absolute mess, but McClair’s two-yard wonder strike was a window into the human soul

The reality of corporeality is a hard thing to process; just look at what we look like! But somehow, the agglomeration of weird shapes and freaky textures that comprises us responds to instructions from the quivering lump of jelly that really comprises us, and thus does football eventuate. Jesse Armstrong once said that if a joke isn’t working, one thing to try is sticking it an enclosed space so “the characters are up in each other’s physicality” and such is our beautiful game: a chaotic, hilarious gumbo of bodies controlled by brains that are fickle, stressed and distractible, having been socialised into the fanatical pursuit of an arbitrary aim to which has been ascribed inherent moral value.

Many of the most preposterous events I’ve seen in my life have been football-related: consider John Terry arranging for himself to take a Champions League-winning penalty and adjusting his captain’s armband en route, then slipping and crying, or Steven Gerrard coming on for his last appearance against Manchester United after spending the entirety of the first half being wound up by the away end, then getting himself sent off 38 seconds later. For balance, I was also at the Stadium of Light on the last day of 2011-12, but we all have our own favourites: those moments when players, asked to process footballing obsession multiplied by the human condition, simply cannot.

As Swindon manager hits dugout landmark he reflects on his ‘rollercoaster’ life and why he would be first to go in a nuclear attack

Ian Holloway is trawling through pictures of his artwork on his phone. “That’s Pep [Guardiola],” he says. “Threw that one away, punched a hole through it because I didn’t like it.” Vibrant, acrylic paintings of Brian Clough and Jürgen Klopp soon appear on the screen. Another, inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s Lady with an Ermine, is of his wife, Kim, and their chihuahua, Ernie. “I couldn’t get her face how I wanted it, so she’s taken that over. I lost that one.”

There are drawings of Sir Alex Ferguson and Johan Cruyff, the latter puffing on a cigarette, a canvas of Walter White, best known as Heisenberg, and one of the Joker, which is on the wall of his son Will’s tattoo parlour in Bristol. “That’s what I was going to do. I wasn’t going to come back to football, I was going to do paintings for people. I had 100 people asking me online: ‘Can you do me a painting? How much will it cost?’ We went to see the Francis Bacon exhibition in London. Oh, what a weirdo but my God it was incredible. Art is just a wonderful thing.”

Well-travelled coach will bring intensity and attention to detail, but does not have long to fix things at Molineux

It was just last month when I spoke to Vítor Pereira and the Portuguese coach made it clear he still had ambitions of working in the Premier League. Those ambitions have now been realised.

“The main thing for me is to play quality football,” the new Wolves manager said. “That is what I love, so I really believe my next move will be to a top league in the world. This is my target for the future and I think it will happen. I was so close to being a Premier League manager on three different occasions. Small things stopped it from happening each time, but in the future I believe I will be there.”

Growing numbers of former top-flight footballers are prolonging their playing days down the pyramid. Two of them explain why

Once the floodlights fade, most professional footballers are lost to the game, a small percentage moving into coaching, a profession as ruthless as playing. Often, injury precludes ex-pros from playing any further. A considerable amount never kick a ball again, unable to repeat or unwilling to relive their playing days.

It is also far less common to see older players drop down the leagues than it was a generation ago. Premier League wages dictate that. There has, though, been a recent small, growing trend of former players dropping down the pyramid to play non-league football.

Injuries have hit and the owners have given their women’s team plenty of thought but Matt Beard’s side need strengthening

There will be many admirers of the frugal spending philosophy of Liverpool’s owner, Fenway Sports Group, especially with the men’s team top of the Premier League. For the club’s women’s team, however, languishing 19 points behind the leaders, Chelsea, as the Women’s Super League approaches the season’s halfway stage, is it time for FSG to rethink that model and inject more money to avoid falling further behind?

Admittedly, Matt Beard’s side’s 2024-25 campaign has been hindered by an extensive injury list that includes key players such as Marie Höbinger and Sophie Román Haug and an inability to convert their chances in early draws against Leicester, West Ham and Crystal Palace. But they are now on a four-game losing league run without scoring and their supporters will be frustrated to lie significantly closer to the relegation zone than the European places.

From Franco Mastantuono to Estêvão, we select some of the most talented players born in 2007. Check the progress of our classes of 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and look at the editions from further back

We pick the best youngsters at each club born between 1 September 2007 and 31 August 2008, an age band known as first-year scholars. Check the progress of our classes of 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 … and look at the editions from further back

From Warren Zaïre-Emery to Endrick, we select some of the best players born in 2006. Check the progress of our classes of 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018

• Next Generation 2023: 20 of the best Premier League talents