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⚽️ Updates from the 2pm (GMT) kick-off at Old Trafford
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Five minutes to kick off. Are you excited?

The fan protest outside the stadium is presumably still in full swing: we’ll update you on that when we have more.

⚽️ Updates from the 2.30pm (GMT) kick-off at the Etihad
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After six consecutive years as champions, Chelsea find their once firm grip on the Women’s Super League crown has been reduced to a little finger clinging to the side of the trophy. They head to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday nine points behind their opponents and surely sensing that only a win could prevent the title from transferring to Manchester City’s outstretched arms.

The big surprise here is the absence of Lucy Bronze for Chelsea. She has a ‘minor injury’, we are told. That’s a massive blow for the visitors. Manchester City, meanwhile, are overjoyed to welcome back Mary Fowler after her lengthy injury absence.

• Palace’s £48m bid accepted; Mateta takes Milan medical

• Slot keen on bulking up squad with versatile defender

Crystal Palace have had a £48m bid for Jørgen Strand Larsen accepted by Wolves, after the south London club reignited their interest in the striker.

The Norway international, who joined Wolves on a permanent deal from Celta Vigo last summer for £23m, has scored one Premier League goal this season. The 25-year-old was a substitute for Wolves’s 2-0 home defeat to Bournemouth on Saturday.

The FA Cup triumph has had little impact on a club caught in the mid-table loop, their best assets always slipping away

Ask a Crystal Palace fan what price they would have paid at this time last year to win the FA Cup. Would they have taken a run of 11 games without a win, Eberechi Eze and Marc Guéhi sold, Oliver Glasner disillusioned and on his way out of the club, and a probable relegation battle ahead? Almost certainly, yes.

But equally that Palace fan would be within their rights to ask why there should be a pay-off at all. This isn’t like Portsmouth winning the FA Cup in 2008 while living beyond their means under Alexandre Gaydamak, going into administration in 2009-10. It’s not like Wigan winning the FA Cup as they were relegated in 2013 having been sustained in the Premier League by Dave Whelan.

Saturday’s home defeat leaves Rovers in relegation trouble amid pitch problems and fan anger with Venky’s

For Blackburn managers of the recent past, this has been the cruellest month. Jon Dahl Tomasson and John Eustace left the club in February 2024 and 2025 respectively when they became disconnected from the club’s unpopular owners, Venky’s. The problem for the current manager, Valérien Ismaël, is that fans are growing increasingly anxious for another change in the dugout as the cycle repeats itself. It has been another winter of discontent at Ewood Park.

After finishing seventh last season thanks to a late season surge under Ismaël, there will be no push for the top six this time. A scrappy defeat by Hull via Lewis Koumas’s 81st-minute winner made it one win in 15 games in all competitions, Rovers now mired in the relegation zone and the prospect of dropping to League One is alarmingly real with a three-point gap to West Brom in the last safe position.

• Centre-back scores emotional goal against Newcastle

• Slot: ‘Everyone was cheering for Ibou in dressing room’

Arne Slot revealed Ibrahima Konaté was not due to face Newcastle after the recent death of his father. The centre-back was rewarded for responding to Liverpool’s defensive crisis with his first Premier League goal at Anfield.

Konaté returned from compassionate leave after three matches out to cap Liverpool’s convincing 4-1 comeback win against Eddie Howe’s team. The France international was in tears after scoring in front of the Kop and admitted he did not “have words to describe what I feel right now” after the poignant goal.

• Comeback win over West Ham sixth in seven games

• ‘Fans were magnificent. I would have booed in first half’

Liam Rosenior said he hopes his appointment as head coach will eventually be seen as the best decision Chelsea have ever made.

Although Rosenior has won six of his first seven games since replacing Enzo Maresca earlier this month, the mood in the stands has been far from positive. Many fans are unhappy with the club’s owners and Stamford Bridge felt mutinous when Chelsea were 2-0 down at home to West Ham on Saturday.

• Pep Guardiola’s No 2 sought Klopp’s blessing for role

• Lijnders: ‘Jurgen said he would take the job if I didn’t’

Pep Lijnders has revealed Jürgen Klopp convinced him to take the job as Pep Guardiola’s assistant at Manchester City, despite the German spending almost a decade at their fierce rivals Liverpool. He said Klopp had joked about taking the role if Lijnders didn’t.

Lijnders joined Guardiola’s coaching staff in the summer and will be alongside the Spaniard, who missed Friday’s press conference for “personal reasons”, at Tottenham on Sunday. Lijnders spent almost 10 years at Liverpool, mostly alongside Klopp, and the pair had three title battles with City, twice finishing as runners-up. That sparked some internal debate for Lijnders when the opportunity arose to move to Manchester.

• Kane scores 36th goal of season in leaders’ 2-2 draw

• Rashford caps Barcelona’s 3-1 victory to extend lead

Harry Kane scored his 36th goal of the season but Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich let a second-half lead slip to draw 2-2 at Hamburg.

Fábio Vieira put Hamburg in front from the penalty spot then Kane levelled before half-time. The substitute Luis Díaz put the visitors ahead within a minute of the restart, but Luka Vuskovic kept up his good scoring form to earn what could be a precious point for the struggling hosts.

All the latest Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A deals and a club-by-club guide

• Women’s transfer interactive – all the January deals

Every deal in the WSL, NWSL, Liga F, Frauen-Bundesliga, Première Ligue and Serie A Femminile as well as a club-by-club guide

• Men’s transfer interactive – all the January deals

• WSL side host Brazilian champions in Sunday showdown

• Slegers wary of complacency against a ‘very good team’

Renée Slegers praised the impact of trailblazing hijab-wearing footballer Nouhaila Benzina after Arsenal’s defeat of Moroccan side AS Far earned them a place in Sunday’s Champions Cup final against Corinthians.

Asked about the impact of Benzina competing in the new cross-continental club competition in London, with no hijab-wearing players currently playing in the Women’s Super League, Slegers said: “The strength of football in society is that football is for everyone. It’s really good that we have role models in all possible ways to show that football is for everyone. That just makes me happy. It’s important. There are so many examples and different ways of how we can show that football is for everyone. This is one of them, so that’s great.”

That 1 February 2016 announcement led to Johan Cruyff’s gospel spreading to all corners of our game – and a bromance with Neil Warnock

It wasn’t quite without fanfare but when Manchester City announced, 10 years ago on Sunday, that Pep Guardiola was to be their manager from the next summer, it was a banal, bald press release that brought English football the news that would change it for ever. That was a simpler time, pre-Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency, and before centre-halves in League Two would split wide for the keeper to pass out from the back to the holding midfielder, dropping in to receive the ball as a false 9 came deep to link with full-backs stepping into midfield.

“It’s not about coaches adapting to English football,” said Jordi Cruyff in 2016 as Guardiola began to make his mark on England. “It’s about English football adapting to the new things of the game.” And yet that typical Cruyffian confidence looked like hubris when Guardiola’s Manchester City got hammered 4-2 by Leicester, 4-0 by Everton and experienced Champions League humiliations at Barcelona and Monaco in that first season.

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It would be a touch too hyperbolic to suggest this was a season-defining afternoon for Arsenal’s title ambitions, but given the opposition and the pre-match drama surrounding this game, there was no doubting that come full time this was a significant one in the Premier League title picture.

Two points from three games is hardly compelling enough evidence to prompt full-blown crisis talks, but given the lofty standards Arsenal have set in the first half of this season, we would learn plenty about them here. This against a team who have lost once since the start of December and with a ferocious home crowd behind them.

David Moyes could not contain himself. As the ball hit the back of the net after the substitute Beto had bundled in the equaliser in the seventh minute of injury time, the Everton manager set off. Moyes is 63 in April, but he sprinted on to the pitch in a moment of sheer delight as Brighton’s players dropped to their knees in despair.

Somehow, Everton’s unbeaten record here that stretches back to 2019 is still intact. It had seemed a goal from Pascal Gross would be enough for Brighton to claim victory at the sixth attempt after they had spurned a number of chances in the first half. But while it is one thing to plan how you are going to overcome a team managed by Moyes, it is not quite so easy in practice.

• Kaboré strikes twice in 3-0 win for Premiership leaders

• Maswanhise double keeps Motherwell on Celtic’s tail

Landry Kaboré scored a double as Premiership leaders Hearts cranked up the pressure on title rivals Rangers and Celtic by easing to a 3-0 away win over nine-man Dundee United.

The Jambos struck early through Kaboré and then doubled their lead with an Alexandros Kyziridis penalty shortly after home winger Amar Fatah was sent off. Kaboré then sealed a comfortable victory after United substitute Pan Camara was dismissed as Derek McInnes’s rampant league leaders soared seven points clear of Rangers and nine ahead of Celtic. Both Glasgow sides play on Sunday, Rangers at Hibernian and Celtic at home to Falkirk.

Former prime minister Tony Blair paid tribute to Triesman as a ‘vital part of the New Labour movement’

Lord Triesman, a former Labour minister and chair of the Football Association, has died at the age of 82. The Labour party said the peer died on Friday night “peacefully and at home”.

The former prime minister Tony Blair paid tribute to David Triesman as a “vital part of the New Labour movement”. Labour’s leader in the House of Lords, Angela Smith, described him as “respected and loved by his colleagues for his courtesy, kindness, wisdom, loyalty and generosity of spirit”.

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

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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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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 Nick Ames, Nicky Bandini, Lars Sivertsen and Archie Rhind-Tutt to discuss a dramatic end to the Champions League group stage

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Harry Wilson, Igor Thiago, Dominic Calvert-Lewin, Jack Grealish and Antoine Semenyo have shone for their clubs

By WhoScored

Harry Wilson was often a spectator rather than a player in his first three seasons at Fulham. He made 89 appearances in the league, but 48 of them were from the bench and he was taken off 34 times. Having scored just 12 league goals in three years, he was nearly shipped off to Leeds in the summer.

Well drilled, well balanced and boasting enviable depth, City can move closer to dethroning Chelsea on Sunday

After six consecutive years as champions, Chelsea find their once firm grip on the Women’s Super League crown has been reduced to a little finger clinging to the side of the trophy. They head to the Etihad Stadium on Sunday nine points behind their opponents and surely sensing that only a win could prevent the title from transferring to Manchester City’s outstretched arms.

City have endured plenty of near misses since they last won the WSL 10 years ago, finishing second five times – or six, if we include 2017’s shorter Spring Series. They have frequently made it look as if “next year” would finally be their year, so there is something incongruous about their flourishing form arriving after they finished 17 points behind Chelsea last season.

Striker strives for long stay in the Premier League, years on from ‘losing love to play football’ during poor run with Basel

‘Are you a professional footballer?” was a question Thierno Barry had dreamed about answering in the affirmative, but on this occasion modesty was the best policy. The Frenchman was on a Zanzibar beach, surrounded by a group of 10-year-old boys he had schooled in a kickabout that helped him rediscover his love of the game after a difficult start in Basel.

Switzerland was next on Barry’s path after he had proven his talent in the Belgian second division at Beveren but it was not a smooth trajectory. “Two stupid red cards” in his first two appearances and failing to score in 16 Swiss league games left Barry needing to get away, so he headed to Africa and switched off his phone to enjoy the tranquillity of the Indian Ocean, a world away from football.

Four points separate first from eighth in the Ekstraklasa and the aim is to establish Europe’s most interesting league as its sixth biggest

The temperature will be far below zero when Zaglebie Lubin and GKS Katowice restart Poland’s top flight on Friday evening. A bitter new wave of winter is about to hit central and eastern Europe, forecasts suggesting this is only the start. When the surprise Ekstraklasa leaders, Wisla Plock, play Rakow Czestochowa two days later the thermometer may plummet to -12C. It will take serious resolve to make these games happen but, after a break of almost two months, appetites to get back up and running are strong.

Why would they not be? The Polish league is in its best shape for at least 30 years, feeling the benefit of a booming economy that is outperforming most of its European Union peers. Attendances are soaring and its football infrastructure, whose transformation was catalysed by co-hosting Euro 2012, sets standards for much of the continent. Then there is the remarkable way in which this season’s competition is poised. The gap between first and eighth is only four points; even Bruk-Bet Termalica Nieciecza, at the bottom, are only 11 points from the summit.

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.

A robotic team fuelled by data and scrutinised relentlessly in a climate of angst and rage feels like a digital-age metaphor

Like most people who have no talent for business ideas, I have a huge number of highly promising business ideas always on the go, ideas that are available for investment from any passing billionaire or Dragons’ Den rainmaker type.

Not one of the A-listers, obviously. I’m not insane. Not a Meaden or a Paphitis. But perhaps one of the minor ones, some strangely groomed South African retail magnate called Dork van Frotwangle who looks as if he keeps a bag of human fingers in his freezer and will mysteriously disappear mid-series and never be mentioned again.

• Versatile talent helped US to World Cup, Olympic gold

• Dunn starred in striker, midfield and left back roles

• 2015 NWSL MVP also won three league titles

Crystal Dunn, an Olympic champion and World Cup winner who made 160 appearances for the US women’s national team, announced her retirement from professional soccer on Thursday.

A key figure in the United States’ 2019 World Cup win and their 2024 Olympic triumph, Dunn hoisted the NWSL championship trophy three times, with the North Carolina Courage in 2018 and 2019 and with the Portland Thorns in 2022.

• AFC prize pot stagnates amid global women’s football boom

• Tournament is now world’s lowest-paying continental competition

It has been billed as the most successful Women’s Asian Cup to date, yet prize money at the upcoming tournament in Australia will not increase from what was offered by the Asian Football Confederation at the last edition four years ago.

Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the world’s oldest women’s national team competition introduced prize money for the first time in 2022, distributing US$1.8m among the nations who finished in the top four.

With the year’s first games out of the way, open questions remain for Emma Hayes’ side in each position

The first international window of 2026 has come and gone for the US women’s national team – though you’d be forgiven if it felt like a continuation of a familiar, looping theme.

Once again, Emma Hayes used the window to examine fresh faces among her incredibly deep player pool. Even considering the constant shuffling under Hayes after the 2024 Olympics, this was an especially experimental squad. Per the federation, the lineup for Saturday’s 6-0 thrashing of Paraguay featured the fewest average caps for a starting 11 (9.6) in a quarter of a century. On Tuesday, that record was broken again: a 5.2 cap average across the lineup.

• Gotham FC 0-1 Corinthians (Zanotti 83)

• Corinthians’ 40-year-old captain scores late winner

Corinthians earned a stunning victory against Gotham FC in the first semi-final of the inaugural Fifa Women’s Champions Cup, a goal from the 40-year-old Corinthians captain Gabi Zanotti in the 83rd minute the difference.

“Everyone was talking about maybe Gotham and Arsenal in the final but Corinthians are here and we played a very good game to beat the NWSL champions,” their manager, Lucas Piccinato, said. “We know what we can do.”

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.

The joy of the game is that big moments are rare – the climax of the UCL group phase felt like too much of a good thing

It’s half an hour after attempting to watch 18 football matches at the same time on the final match day of the Champions League group stage, so it’s still a little early to tell whether I think it was a brilliant night of football or not.

The information overload from a TV, laptop and phone means I may need a couple of weeks to really process it – by which time of course this will all be forgotten and we’ll be wondering whether one point from three Premier League games is enough for Thomas Frank to keep his job.

A country where safety is under threat from federal violence on the streets is not fit to stage soccer’s showpiece event

Removing the United States as co-host of the 2026 World Cup would hurt for pretty much everyone. Fans would miss out on seeing the sport’s pinnacle in their home towns (or somewhere nearby). Cities and businesses small and large would lose the financial benefits they had banked on. It would be a logistical and political nightmare on an international scale, the likes of which have never been seen before in sports. It would be eminently sad. And it would be entirely justified.

It brings me no pleasure to say this. The United States has been eager to host a men’s World Cup for more than a decade and a half. The desire survived and even grew after 2010’s failure to out-bid Russia and Qatar (in public and behind closed doors) for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. With hosting rights for 2026 later secured alongside Canada and Mexico, the US soccer scene prepared to show off that the sport is now part of the nation’s fabric, 32 years after hosting the tournament for the first time in 1994. Soccer’s growing popularity in America has helped inspire other US sports to try new formats, encouraged us to engage more fully with the world in a sporting context, and has been at the center of conversations about our society and culture. The 2026 World Cup was seen as the best chance for the world to fully experience not just how much the US has improved at soccer, but how much soccer has improved the US.

Farai Hallam trusted his own judgment on Yerson Mosquera incident despite a VAR review and, in doing so, showed the way forward

I refereed professional football for 25 years. We were talking about handball when I started and it remains one of the most discussed topics in the game.

One reason for this is that we’ve had a number of law changes by the International Football Association Board (Ifab) over recent years. All were made in an effort to achieve consistent outcomes for the benefit of the game, but we can sometimes end up with different interpretations of the laws.

Our cartoonist on anxiety at the Emirates as Michael Carrick oversees another thrilling win

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On a soaked Brixton pitch, the club launch their latest programme as part of a widening mission that now stretches from Glasgow’s soup kitchens to Gaza relief

You would not expect to find coaches from the Celtic FC Foundation in Brixton. But even the torrential rain in south London has not stopped them and four local teams from turning out to help launch a programme that will provide girls and young women from underprivileged backgrounds in the local area with a chance to play football.

It is one of several initiatives established since the foundation began working in London to mark Celtic’s 125th anniversary in 2013. Another, based in Hackney, called Breaking Barriers helps integrate refugee and asylum-seeking communities through the sport.

The Leicester City chair plays down talk of another relegation but knows the mood among fans is fraught

Leicester City are hurting but Aiyawatt “Top” Srivaddhanaprabha, looking towards the pitch at the King Power Stadium, insists he shares supporters’ frustrations. He acknowledges the warm glow of their extraordinary Premier League title win almost a decade ago has long faded. He watches every game, which sometimes means tuning in from Thailand in the early hours. An 8pm kick-off in England is a 3am start in Bangkok.

“I want to see the real passion of the players and the performance,” the chair says. “When it is not there, I can’t sleep, so it’s love and pain. Leicester is like my son. So I have to do it right. Of course, a son can be naughty, a son can fail the exam, a pain in your head. The son can be top of the class, graduate, have a bad girlfriend or good wife, you never know. So I feel the same, but the love is there. The responsibility is there. The first thing for me is to identify the problem and fix it.”

Multi-club owner’s Women’s Champions Cup sponsorship creates a conflict of interest, whatever her motivation

You can imagine the meltdown across social media, if Stan Kroenke, Todd Boehly or the Glazer family were to enter into a partnership with the Football Association. Well, women’s football in the United States already took a similar unusual step in November 2024 when US Soccer announced “a historic gift” of $30m (£22m) from Michele Kang, the owner of one of the country’s biggest women’s clubs, Washington Spirit, over a five-year period.

US Soccer labelled the donation as philanthropic – the largest women’s football in the country had ever had – and “non-profit”. Then, in December 2025, US Soccer unveiled the Kang Women’s Institute, a platform “designed to accelerate advancements in the women’s game through science, innovation, and elevated best practices”, and there was surprisingly little public condemnation. Overwhelmingly, the women’s game around the world appeared to celebrate the businesswoman’s generosity rather than questioning this arrangement, because of Kang’s repeatedly stated aim of trying to grow women’s football.

Guests with a ‘pitch view’ room at the Blackpool FC Stadium Hotel can’t watch the game – our writer checks in for a trip into the dark

Seems perfectly reasonable that anyone booking a “Superior Room with Pitch View” at the Blackpool Football Club Stadium hotel, located inside the Bloomfield Road Stadium, would expect a hotel room with a view of the pitch. And that is exactly the case – except, bizarrely, when Blackpool are actually playing, with some hotel guests scuppered recently by the smallest of fine print when booking: “Due to the EFL rules and regulations, bedroom curtains have to be kept drawn throughout a match.” Failure to do so could result in a £2,500 fine. Ouch.

Across the 14 years that I have worked for the Guardian, there have been a few occasions when I have been tempted, perhaps after a stressful shift, to go and lie down in a dark room. I just didn’t think that this could be an actual assignment. But off I go to Blackpool to investigate this special type of 3pm blackout, and shortly before kick-off between Blackpool and their League One relegation rivals Northampton, I find myself pulling a very heavy curtain across a panoramic window facing the Bloomfield Road pitch and the Blackpool Tower beyond. That’s my daylight done for the day.

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There are approximately 72 shopping hours left in this transfer window and, once again, it’s been a bit of a weird one so far. The bean-counting boffins over at Transfermarkt reckon that Premier League sides have splurged a collective £300m on players, on course for the second-biggest January spend in the last 10 years (behind only the chaos of 2023, when Chelsea splurged £270m on their own). It doesn’t really feel like that, does it? Even the list of the top flight’s biggest outlays this month quickly descends into a cluster of players we’ve only heard of from Football Manager, if at all. If anyone can tell us who Brian Madjo, Rayan and Kaye Furo signed for without consulting Big Transfer Guide, you’ll win our much-coveted respect.

Stranraer short on headlines (yesterday’s Football Daily, full email edition)? Have a listen to the Proclaimers’ Cap in Hand and the classic couplet: ‘I can understand why Stranraer lie so lowly/ They could save a lot of points by signing Hibs’ goalie.’ How about the terrible twins re-record a new version to raise money and alter that second line to: ‘They’ve just lost a load of cash by signing Hearts goalie.’ They wouldn’t even have to change the song title” – Morgan Armstrong.

I resent the suggestion that Michael Hann (and others) think I was unaware Barry Bannan had played in the Premier League (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). I knew that perfectly well. My letter specifically said a ‘last shot’, which at 36 seems a reasonable expectation for him. The reference to Promised Land is that, for the Owls, he was a Moses-like figure, roaming the outer leagues, performing minor miracles and coming close but never taking us back up. To those who eventually let him come to the Owls for free, Wednesday fans extend our thanks” – Chris Goater.

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Manchester City’s ability to rotate players has been central to opening up a nine-point lead over Chelsea

In recent WSL seasons squad depth has become increasingly decisive in winning the league. Success is no longer guaranteed by the best players but by squads able to sustain performance over a long campaign.

Manchester City’s ability to rotate players has been central to their momentum at the top and contributions from players beyond the starting XI increasingly define the competition. City are nine points ahead of Chelsea going into Sunday’s game against them.

Liverpool and Tottenham are in different situations but face the same problem: a manager in the hot seat but few ideal options

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Another weekend, another few days of soul-searching for Liverpool and Tottenham. Liverpool had been on a 13-game unbeaten run before Saturday’s defeat to Bournemouth, but nobody could claim a string of results that included home draws with all three promoted clubs was convincing. Spurs had won just two of their 13 league games before Saturday’s away draw at Burnley, which was salvaged only thanks to an injury-time goal from Cristian Romero.

For both, European competition had offered some relief – Liverpool looked very good in a 3-0 win away to Marseille while Spurs, at least in the first half, produced probably their best performance since August in beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0 – but the sad truth is that the vast majority of European sides these days simply cannot live with the physicality of the Premier League. That’s not to say that Bournemouth or Burnley are better than Marseille or Dortmund, but it is to say that the challenge they pose a Premier League side is less.

The former Aberdeen midfielder, now with Swindon, opens up about the debilitating effect of suffering an ACL injury during her time in Scotland

“People need to know what happened,” Laura Holden says as she reflects on her difficult two years at Aberdeen when injury changed the course of her life. “It’s not all sunshine and roses. There are demons that just get brushed under the carpet without having the light shone on them.”

It has taken the Swindon Town midfielder time and a change of club to process everything that happened in Scotland. Holden joined the Dons in August 2023, determined to establish herself as a key player at one of the biggest clubs in the Scottish Women’s Premier League. But just six matches and 31 minutes into the first season, she ruptured her anterior cruciate ligament away at Hibernian.

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Today’s rumours are heavy on one side

The January transfer window is about to close (surely it cannot do so with the same melodrama as its summer counterpart) and, as always, certain parties are getting a little twitchy as the deadline looms. A fine example is Raheem Sterling, who has not kicked a competitive football in eight months yet somehow finds himself on more wishlists than a Tamagotchi in the late 90s.

Seven “Champions League level” clubs are said to be keen on Sterling – now a free agent after he and Chelsea went their separate ways – most notably Tottenham, where Thomas Frank is “on board” with the idea of signing the 31-year-old. Heaven knows Frank needs a boost from somewhere. Having represented Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea and Arsenal in a frankly remarkable career to date, a move to Spurs would leave Raheem with just one more to complete the big six set. Old Trafford in 2028, here we come. Napoli, Juventus and Bayern are also linked with Sterling, Champions League level clubs all.

Álvaro Arbeloa’s team have concerns as they look ahead to the knockout stages, while Jamie Carragher has concerns about the draw

It was billed by broadcasters as “Matchday Mayhem”. Finally, after 17 of the 18 final day matches had finished, came a chaotic denouement. Not even José Mourinho’s long Champions League heritage had included a moment like this, though his wild celebration was familiar. Benfica were beating Real Madrid 3-2, and Mourinho’s former club were already dropping out of the top eight. “I was told [the scoreline] is enough, so let’s close the door,” said Mourinho.

Plus: two sets of fathers and sons involved in one match, more record wins and losses and ‘sixes and sevens’

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Twelve of the 18 Bundesliga teams have a negative goal difference,” notes Damian Cerase. “I suppose this is down to Bayern handing out weekly drubbings, given that their GD is +57 after only 18 games. What’s the greatest disparity in a full season between the number of teams registering positive or negative GDs?”

“At the time of writing in the Bundesliga, all teams haven’t quite played the same number of games but nevertheless 66.6% of the teams have a negative goal difference,” begins Chris Roe. “For a complete season, the highest percentage in the English league system is from tier two in 2005-06 when 17 of the 24 teams (70.83%) had a negative goal difference; no doubt this was in part due to champions Reading, who had a +67 goal difference for the season. This example is narrowly ahead of two Premier League seasons (1998-99 and 2017-18) when 14 of the 20 (or 70%) had negative GD at the end of the season.

With Chelsea stumbling at the hands of Arsenal at the top, bottom club Liverpool finally ended their long wait

The Arsenal head coach, Renée Slegers, was effusive in her praise of her players’ ability to make things happen when their backs are firmly against the wall. After a dominant 2-0 win over Chelsea at Stamford Bridge she was asked about the Gunners’ ability to defy the odds and win against a major rival despite several key squad members being absent through injury and suspension. “When the moment is there for this team, when it really, really, really has to happen, they do it every single time, and so there’s a lot of strength in this team in those moments,” she said. That ability is great, but also a little damning. Five draws this season have already done the damage of practically ruling Arsenal out of the title race, one point separating them from Saturday’s opponents but 10 between them and the league leaders, Manchester City. It is not enough to find the fire, clarity and focus you need when up against the wall, Arsenal need to find it far sooner if they are to properly challenge for a title they’ve not won in seven years. Suzanne Wrack

Match report: Chelsea 0-2 Arsenal

Match report: London City Lionesses 1-2 Manchester City

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