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• Liverpool teammate discusses fallout from interview

• ‘He apologised to us … That’s the man that he is’

Curtis Jones has revealed Mohamed Salah apologised to the Liverpool squad for the fallout from his interview criticising the club and Arne Slot.

Salah was omitted from Liverpool’s Champions League win against Inter having accused the club of throwing him under a bus in response to a poor run of results. The striker also claimed his relationship with Slot had broken down and that he had earned his position in the team after eight phenomenal seasons.

• ‘We will not take that long,’ says Amorim in response

• Amorim criticises sense of ‘entitlement’ at United

Sir Alex Ferguson has stated it could take Manchester United another “10 or 11 years” to win the title, prompting Ruben Amorim to publicly disagree with the club’s most successful manager.

Ferguson won 13 of United’s 20 league titles, the last in 2013, and was asked when a 21st may be added to the trophy cabinet.

Word from the top-tier press conferences, including updates on Viktor Gyökeres, Tyler Adams and Leeds reinforcements

The former Liverpool winger speaks about his hot start at Bayern, playing with Harry Kane, and hopes for the 2026 World Cup

After leaving Liverpool this past summer, Luis Díaz has had a strong start at Bayern Munich under Vincent Kompany, having accumulated 18 goal contributions (12 goals, six assists) in all competitions. Bayern manager Vincent Kompany gave Díaz a few days off to press the reset button after his sending off against PSG, but now the 28-year-old winger is back and ready to wrap up the year as Bayern play their final game of 2025 this Sunday when they travel to Heidenheim. I spoke to the Colombian star about his new club, life in Germany and next summer’s World Cup, which includes a headline matchup against Cristiano Ronaldo’s Portugal.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

It is a case of north London against Merseyside as Tottenham host Liverpool and Everton face leaders Arsenal

Saturday 12.30pm TNT Sports 1 Venue St James’ Park

After 16 games they are yet to win and are on course to break Derby’s record of securing 11 points in a season

By WhoScored

At what point does a relegation scrap turn into a scramble to prevent a historic crisis? Wolves appear to be answering that question this season. Sixteen games into the season they are without a win, have just two points, and are threatening to relieve Derby County of the unenviable label of the Premier League’s worst ever team. This isn’t just another bad side going down; this is a club threatening to become the Premier League’s ultimate cautionary tale.

Wolves may have already crossed that line. They became the first team in Premier League history to start consecutive campaigns with 10 or more winless matches, and now they stand on the brink of further infamy. Failure to beat Brentford this weekend would mean Wolves had equalled Sheffield United’s record 17-game winless start in the 2020-21 season.

Morocco are the hosts and favourites for this year’s Afcon. How well do you remember previous tournaments?

• Which Premier League teams will be affected by Afcon?

A crowded international calendar is undermining domestic leagues and WSL Football has been left to figure it out

When the League Cup quarter-finals are played on Sunday it will probably be the last time they look this way. . West Ham v Manchester City, Liverpool v Chelsea, Manchester United v Tottenham and Crystal Palace v Arsenal means the top four in the Women’s Super League are involved. With clubs having voted to remove teams competing in the Champions League from next season, major changes are afoot.

The future format of the League Cup is still to be finalised and is subject to Football Association signoff but this forms part of plans for a revamp of an underloved competition that has an identity crisis. The changes include ditching the confusing group stage with its uneven number of teams, weird point scoring and odd geographical groupings. It is understood proposals have been put together in consultation with a competition working group that included clubs and was reviewed by representatives from fan associations through the Football Supporters’ Association.

Ngumoha could step up for Liverpool, injury-hit Newcastle need to bounce back and Parker feels the heat

• Top scorers: check the latest Premier League standings

Chelsea are fourth in the Premier League and Newcastle 12th but the gap between them is only six points. It dictates that, given Eddie Howe’s ambitions of qualifying for the Champions League via the league, this is a pivotal fixture. How Newcastle’s manager must hope Enzo Maresca’s recent cryptic hints about potential discord behind the scenes at Stamford Bridge somehow help to undo the visitors on Tyneside, cutting the aforementioned gap in half. If off-pitch harmony endures at St James’ Park, Newcastle’s Saudi Arabian ownership will, nonetheless, be keen to see Howe and his players make further amends for last Sunday’s ignominious defeat at Sunderland. Falling nine points behind Chelsea may not be well received in Riyadh. Howe might have been tempted to start with a back five but with Tino Livramento the latest victim of a defensive injury crisis, he only possesses sufficient fit personnel to staff a four-man rearguard. Assuming Howe sticks with his preferred 4-3-3 it will be intriguing to see whether he drops a winger and fields Yoane Wissa to Nick Woltemade’s left in attack. Or does he opt for a potentially more fluid 4-2-3-1 with Woltemade as the No 10 and Wissa at No 9? Louise Taylor

Newcastle v Chelsea, Saturday 12.30pm (all times GMT)

Bournemouth v Burnley, Saturday 3pm

Brighton v Sunderland, Saturday 3pm

Manchester City v West Ham, Saturday 3pm

Wolves v Brentford, Saturday 3pm

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Fifa’s lack of concern for African football’s key money-spinner has led to inadequate preparation time

With the hosts, Morocco, taking on the island nation of Comoros in the Africa Cup of Nations opener in Rabat on Sunday, there is no mistaking the excitement across the continent. Football is akin to a religion among Africa’s largely young population, with 60% of its 1.5 billion people under the age of 25.

But the timing of this Afcon, to be played over the Christmas and New Year period in Rabat, Casablanca, Marrakech, Agadir, Tangier and Fez, has never happened since the tournament began in 1957, igniting a storm of anger throughout the African football community.

• Forward thought to favour move to Liverpool

• Release clause understood to be a bit less than £65m

Manchester United are monitoring Al-Hilal’s Rúben Neves and Atlético Madrid’s Conor Gallagher as potential January signings to strengthen Ruben Amorim’s squad. Bournemouth’s Tyler Adams is also of interest but any deal for the American is not likely until the close season.

United are also vying with Liverpool and Manchester City to sign Antoine Semenyo from Bournemouth in early January but the forward is thought to favour joining Liverpool, with City his second choice, so Amorim faces a fight to convince him.

• ‘It doesn’t affect me,’ says coach, who has deal to 2029

• Intrigue around Maresca after ‘worst 48 hours’ comment

Enzo Maresca has played down links with Manchester City and insisted he expects to be Chelsea’s head coach next season.

Although Maresca has placed his future in doubt by refusing to quell suggestions that his relationship with the Stamford Bridge hierarchy has broken down, his contract lasts until 2029 and he has not said that he wants to leave.

• Bid includes 11 new stadiums but PIF wants to cut costs

• Architecture firms asked to resubmit plans, Guardian told

Saudi Arabia’s construction of stadiums for the 2034 World Cup is facing delays owing to a desire from the Public Investment Fund (PIF), the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, to scale back costs.

The Guardian has been told that several architecture firms awarded contracts to build stadiums in Saudi have been asked to resubmit plans because their designs have been deemed too expensive, and contractors due to start work next year have been told the build will not begin on time.

The bad news for Oliver Glasner is that Crystal Palace’s marathon season is about to get even longer. A thrilling draw against Finnish side KuPS in their 27th game of the campaign means that they must now contest a two-leg playoff at the end of February after finishing just outside the top eight in the Conference League table.

Having selected an entirely different starting lineup including four teenagers from the side who lost to Manchester City at the weekend, the Palace manager saw his second string impress as Christantus Uche gave them a deserved half-time lead.

• West Ham have one win from 11 league game this season

• Skinner has been in charge of club since July 2023

West Ham have sacked their women’s team manager, Rehanne Skinner, with the club second-bottom of the Women’s Super League. A statement said “recent results have not matched expectations” and that a change was deemed necessary.

Skinner had been in charge since July 2023 and departs after securing one win from 11 WSL matches this season. The news comes three days before West Ham host Manchester City in the League Cup quarter-finals.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Sanny Rudravajhala and George Elek as Manchester United and Bournemouth play out a thrilling 4-4 draw. On the podcast today; lots of fun to be had at Old Trafford as Manchester United and Bournemouth draw 4-4. But how to analyse a game that wild? Let’s hope the panel have some ideas. Elsewhere, Coventry City lead the Championship with a reinvigorated Middlesbrough led by Kim Hellberg in second. Plus, Cardiff City and Walsall lead the way in Leagues One and Two respectively and your questions answered.

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The US host city’s resolve in maintaining its ‘Pride Match’ should be commended as exactly the sort of thing this tournament is for

There are two World Cups. The product, marketed and monetized for all it will yield, and the experience.

Only one of those is the real thing. And in one case, it’s holding strong. In Seattle, the local organizing committee long ago designated the 26 June game slated for Lumen Field as the “Pride Match” to mark the city’s LGBTQ+ pride weekend celebration.

A Guardian study of past ticket prices for the men’s World Cup, compared with current 2026 figures, shows how the barrier for entry has been raised for most fans

In the past, a fan’s ability to attend a World Cup hosted in their nation hinged more on bid books than their checkbooks. For 2026 in the US, Mexico and Canada, even the least expensive tickets are a luxury commodity by comparison.

An analysis by the Guardian of men’s World Cup ticket pricing shows that amid the general rise in ticket prices for the 2026 World Cup, the most extreme of those hikes have often applied to the cheapest tickets. The analysis is based on official Fifa pricing dating back to 1994, with more robust data available starting in 2006. Prices for 2026 games are accurate as of 16 December 2025, and do not include the 1.6% of sellable tickets for each game that Fifa recently made available for a fixed $60 price.

Give the one you love something special: a free subscription to Football Daily. The gift that never starts giving

Welcome to the fourth 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!

Six Sunderland players are off to the tournament but Chelsea, Arsenal and Aston Villa are not losing anyone

By Opta Analyst

The Africa Cup of Nations begins on Sunday in Morocco. Thirty-two Premier League players have been selected to represent their national teams at the tournament but some clubs will be hit harder than others.

Sunderland have enjoyed an excellent return to the Premier League, with their derby win over Newcastle on Sunday taking them to 26 points from 16 games. They have already picked up more points than the three promoted clubs did last season – Leicester (25), Ipswich (22) and Southampton (12). However, they will have some key absentees over the next month. Six Sunderland players will be with their national teams, representing nearly a fifth of all Premier League players at the tournament, and double the tally of any other club.

Fifa has made big mistakes over 2026 tournament but it can afford to slash prices and even give some tickets away

Who is the World Cup for? Fifa appeared to share some of its thinking on this topic in the past week. On the one hand, there was the revelation that spectators are being asked to pay more than twice as much for match tickets than they were in Qatar. On the other, the news that prize money for competing teams is to rise by more than 50% on four years ago. Stakeholders are doing good! Fans? Not so good.

It hasn’t taken long for some of those watching to wonder whether things could be done differently. Tom Greatrex, the chair of the Football Supporters’ Association, which represents fans in England and Wales, argued that the ability to pay expanded prize money, itself a result of expanded revenue, showed “there is no need to charge extortionate ticket prices to the supporters who bring the vibrancy to the World Cup”. You could go so far as to say there was never a real need to do it in the first place.

Plus: which European champions were top at Christmas, players giving each other presents and other festive trivia

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“Just reading a book about Christmas No 1s,” begins Paul Savage. “The section about Wham!’s Last Christmas says Andrew Ridgeley was watching football at George Michael’s parents on a Sunday, when George got the melody and wandered off to record it upstairs. Greatness obviously awaited but I want to know: which match was it? It’s 1984, a Sunday and presumably on terrestrial TV. Was the second half worth Ridgeley not getting involved in the recording?”

Last Christmas by Wham! didn’t become a Christmas No 1 until 2023, having been kept off top spot by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas in 1984. As Paul mentioned, George Michael wrote the song in his childhood bedroom while his parents and Andrew Ridgeley watched football on TV downstairs.

• Al-Qadsiah describe appointment as ‘landmark moment’

• Martin O’Neill says patience needed with Wilfried Nancy

Brendan Rodgers has been confirmed as the head coach of the Saudi ­Arabian side Al-Qadsiah. Rodgers resigned from Celtic in October, a move thattriggered a stinging attack from the club’s main shareholder Dermot Desmond. The 52-year-old is yet to address Desmond’s sentiment but is known to have been attractive to Saudi clubs for some time. He turned down a move to the kingdom after leaving Leicester in 2023.

Al-Qadsiah, who sacked their Spanish manager Michel at the ­weekend, have stolen a march on their domestic rivals by moving for Rodgers, who has been keen for a swift return to the dugout. The club are owned by Aramco, the state-owned Saudi oil company.

Urs Fischer’s side are certain to begin 2026 bottom of the table but denied rampaging leaders victory at home

Sometimes the numbers really don’t say it all. Mainz were on the wrong end of many of them as Sunday evening drew in, as you would expect for a visit of almost any team to the Allianz Arena, never mind a struggler. They had the lowest share of possession of any Bundesliga team in a game since the statistics were first recorded – 15%. When they did have the ball, fewer than 60% of their passes were actually completed. Are you sure you can face looking at the xG after that? Mainz logged a respectable 1.07, but Bayern Munich’s was a staggering 4.72.

And yet, even if the most deflating statistical confirmation of all is that Mainz are certain to begin 2026 bottom of the table (even with a game still to play before Christmas), they have every right to feel good about themselves, even after conceding a late penalty equaliser to the inevitable Harry Kane. In Urs Fischer’s debut after being appointed as the new head coach Mainz became the first team to prevent Bayern from taking maximum points at home this season, and the first last-placed team to take a point at the venue since relegation-bound Köln in April 2006.

Cristian Chivu’s side are yet to draw a game this season while Milan continue to drop points against the minnows

“The reality is different to the narrative,” declared Cristian Chivu in his press conference just before a 2-1 win away to Genoa sent Inter top of the table. Fresh off back-to-back Champions League defeats, albeit in controversial circumstances, and having lost four Serie A games in the first 14 rounds, his approach to criticism was bullish. “Despite what people say, in my view we are having a great season. We started under a magnifying glass, because people said we were failures and we were finished, but we are still up there.”

Looking at the standings, it is rather hard to disagree with him. Inter are the sole leaders, the first time all campaign they have been in this position. Even with those setbacks against Atlético Madrid and Liverpool, they remain in a strong position to secure a top-eight Champions League spot and will participate in the Supercoppa Italiana in Riyadh this week.

The forward’s blocked contract and a growing talent drain to Europe have nudged the NWSL into crisis mode. Here’s what’s happening and why it matters

The Trinity Rodman contract saga has exposed a fundamental tension at the heart of the National Women’s Soccer League: a salary-cap model built for stability and measured growth coming in collision with a global market that has accelerated far beyond it.

Rodman is one of the most important young players in US soccer, arguably its most marketable female star and a centerpiece of the NWSL’s future. Yet European giants have offered her salaries that America’s top women’s domestic league cannot legally match, prompting the NWSL to veto a record-breaking Washington Spirit deal (and the players’ union to file a grievance in response).

Spurs have faced low moments in their history, and this is one of them. How will the club respond in the post-Daniel Levy era?

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Tottenham Hotspur, Thomas Frank said after Sunday’s 3-0 defeat to Nottingham Forest, are “not a quick fix”. That’s been true for probably 40 years, since they lurched into financial crisis amid boardroom shenanigans in the 1980s, becoming the first soccer club to list on the stock exchange and embarking on a disastrous programme of diversification (the highlight perhaps being becoming Hummel’s distributor in the UK, a role they performed so badly that Southampton took a page of their own programme to blame Spurs for the fact that their shirts were not being delivered).

Right now, Spurs would probably settle for even a little bit of a fix, a slow hint of progress, a flicker of hope, anything to break them out of the current grim spiral. They have won just one of their last seven league games. When they beat Everton on 26 October, they were third, five points behind the leaders. Sunday’s defeat leaves them 11th, 14 points behind Arsenal. Given that Spurs finished 17th last season, perhaps that is not so unexpected – and the compacted nature of the table means they are only four points off fifth and probable Champions League qualification. But, equally, 22 points represents their lowest Premier League tally after 16 games since 2008.

German striker was given a sarcastic ovation by the Sunderland fans after his inadvertent match winner

On numerous occasions during the 75 minutes he spent on the pitch during the Wear-Tyne derby, Nick Woltemade cut an extremely isolated, peripheral and forlorn figure in the opposition box. A bad afternoon for Newcastle’s German striker got significantly worse shortly after half-time when he cut an even more isolated, peripheral and forlorn figure in his own team’s box after inadvertently heading a Nordi Mukiele cross past Aaron Ramsdale from six yards out.

Woltemade’s embarrassing own goal proved to be the unwitting match-winner in a contest that had until that point been high on full-blooded aggression but low on moments of real quality. As he made way for Yoane Wissa, it was no surprise the Sunderland fans granted the visibly deflated 23-year-old a sarcastic ovation. A fan favourite on Tyneside until the 46th minute of this match, Woltemade has now pulled off the unlikely feat of winning a permanent, bitterly ironic place in mackem hearts.

Forward made an emotional lap of honour at Anfield after a week that put his future at the club in doubt

Mohamed Salah and Liverpool have put politics to shame by showing what a long week truly looks like. It ended with the Egyptian doing a one-man lap of honour at Anfield, an attempt to rebuild trust with the supporters after creating a ceasefire, if not a complete truce, with Arne Slot.

Over the past seven days a lot has changed, but one thing remained the same, Salah started a Premier League game on the bench, not that he needed to wait long for a chance to do his talking on the pitch. He would finish with an assist after playing 75 minutes against Brighton in a game in which he desperately wanted to score. Maybe his parade was the beginning of the end, but it felt more like the start of the apology that should continue after the Africa Cup of Nations, giving both parties space to breathe.

In World Cup parlance, Qatar was Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s qualifier. Now it’s the big time for Trump’s dictator-curious protege

I used to think Fifa’s recent practice of holding the World Cup in autocracies was because it made it easier for world football’s governing body to do the things it loved: spend untold billions of other people’s money and siphon the profits without having to worry about boring little things like human rights or public opinion. Which, let’s face it, really piss around with your bottom line.

But for a while now, that view has seemed ridiculously naive, a bit like assuming Recep Erdoğan followed Vladimir Putin’s election-hollowing gameplan just because hey, he’s an interested guy who likes to read around a lot of subjects. So no: Fifa president Gianni Infantino hasn’t spent recent tournaments cosying up to authoritarians because it made his life easier. He’s done it to learn from the best. And his latest decree this week simply confirms Fifa is now a fully operational autocracy in the classic populace-rinsing style. Do just absorb yesterday’s news that the cheapest ticket for next year’s World Cup final in the US will cost £3,120 – seven times more than the cheapest ticket for the last World Cup final in Qatar. (Admittedly, still marginally cheaper than an off-peak single from London to Manchester.)

Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist

Our cartoonist on exorbitant World Cup ticket prices and peace breaking out on Merseyside

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Women’s football is booming – but the bigger it’s got, the messier it’s become for players. Through it all, the hot tip for Sports Personality of the Year has kept a cool head

At the end of last year, Chloe Kelly was seriously considering stepping away from football. She was deeply unhappy at Manchester City, her team since 2020, where it seemed as if they wouldn’t let her play, nor let her leave. She wasn’t getting enough time on the pitch, so wasn’t sure that she would be selected for England, who were preparing to defend the title she had helped win in 2022 in the Euros tournament. She was 26, about to turn 27. She had been a professional footballer since she was 18, but her mother was starting to get concerned. She desperately wanted her daughter to be happy again. “I remember my mum coming up to see me and she was meant to go home, but she didn’t go home, because she was so worried,” recalls Kelly.

Less than a year later, and things are very different. At the time of writing, Kelly is favourite to win Sports Personality of the Year after a history-making comeback. At the end of January, she was loaned to Arsenal and in May she lifted the Champions League trophy with the team, very much the underdogs in the final against Barcelona, whom they defeated 1-0. At the end of July, she scored that penalty for England, securing them a second Euros title, against arch-rivals Spain. She was fifth in the Ballon D’or Féminin, and named in the Fifpro World 11 squad for the first time – a peer-voted list of the best footballers in the world. Against the odds, then, 2025 has turned out to be a great year. “For sure,” Kelly smiles. “To bounce back, that’s what makes it the best year of my career.”

Revolution is still being sought three decades after the landmark ruling with a Dutch lawyer calling for a collective bargaining agreement for players

On 15 December 1995, judges at the European court of justice (CJEU) took two minutes to bring an end to a legal process that had lasted five years. The Bosman rule, as it was known, was to stand, the judges said. European football clubs were no longer allowed to demand transfer fees for players whose contracts had expired, with governing bodies stopped from capping the number of Europeans in any team. The man whose dogged legal pursuit had brought about these changes, Jean‑Marc Bosman, emerged from a crowd of cameras and well‑wishers to give his verdict. “I have got to the top of the mountain and I am now very tired,” he said.

For Bosman himself, it was downhill from there. “In the past I got a lot of promises but never received anything,” he told the Observer in 2015, claiming he “earned nothing” from the changes that ensued. He went bankrupt, was treated for alcoholism and was found guilty of assault against his then partner in 2013, resulting in a community service order that included mowing the grass of his local football pitch. There can be no argument, however, that the ruling that took his name was historic and, 30 years on, it has helped bring about a revolution in the sport from which the man himself was ultimately shunned.

How each team qualified, who will be favourites to progress to the knockout stage and which games to look out for

The opening game in the Azteca will be a repeat of the opener in 2010 when South Africa drew 1-1 with Mexico in Soccer City, Soweto. Mexico have won one knockout game at the World Cup, beating Bulgaria last time they hosted, in 1986. Their manager, Javier Aguirre, was a forward in that side and will be targeting their third quarter-final as hosts. South Africa, coached by the veteran Belgian Hugo Broos, qualified for their first World Cup since hosting, finishing above Nigeria and Benin, despite having a game against Lesotho they appeared to have won awarded against them for fielding a suspended player.

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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With 11 games played our writers assess what has been good and not so good in England’s top flight as the league takes a winter break

This was a tough one, and an honourable mention has to be given to Martin Ho, who, despite only two summer signings, has taken Tottenham one point past last season’s 20-point total with half the season to play. However, Andrée Jeglertz arrived at Manchester City after managing Denmark at the Euros, where his team failed to pick up a point, and has had an instant impact. City look a different beast under the 53-year-old. The league leaders’ opening-day defeat by Chelsea is firmly in the past: they have won all 10 games since, have scored eight more goals than any other side and have built a six point lead at the top. Where previously City had struggled to kill off matches against title rivals, this season there has been a ruthlessness epitomised by their late winner in a 3-2 defeat of Arsenal, after they had twice given up the lead, and a comprehensive 3-0 win over Manchester United. SW

Crowds at women’s football in England are the envy of the world but there is a curious gap between number of tickets sold and attendances

When the stadium announcer reads out the attendance during England home games, the immediate question that follows relates to the drop-off between the number of tickets sold and the number of fans through the doors.

In 2025, on either side of a phenomenal European title defence in Switzerland, the Lionesses played eight home games, including three at Wembley. Across those fixtures, almost 48,000 bought tickets but stayed away.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Sanny Rudravajhala and George Elek as Manchester United and Bournemouth play out a thrilling 4-4 draw

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On the podcast today; lots of fun to be had at Old Trafford as Manchester United and Bournemouth draw 4-4. But how to analyse a game that wild? Let’s hope the panel have some ideas.

Faye Carruthers is joined by Suzy Wrack, Ameé Ruszkai and Tom Garry to review a dramatic final WSL weekend before the winter break. Plus, Zarah Al-Kudcy joins in part two to discuss Panini’s expansion into the women’s game

On today’s pod: a final WSL weekend before the winter break, packed with goals and drama. Manchester United and Tottenham share six in a chaotic draw at Leigh Sports Village, while Manchester City go six clear at the top after hitting Aston Villa for six, with Bunny Shaw scoring four in a record-breaking performance. The panel discuss the action from the weekend’s WSL games and ask why Bunny Shaw has never been shortlisted for a Ballon d’Or.

Plus: we’re joined by WSL Football’s Zarah Al-Kudcy to discuss Panini’s decision to include WSL 2 players in its sticker album for the first time, what that means for visibility and revenue, and how commercial growth could shape the future of England’s second tier.

Khadija Shaw becomes first woman to score 100 goals for City while United battle back to draw against Spurs

Leah Williamson returned to competitive action for the first time in 139 days on Saturday as she made a return from a knee injury late in Arsenal’s 3-1 victory against Everton. The England captain was brought on to replace Steph Catley as an 82nd-minute substitute at Goodison Park, drawing a roaring reception from the 1,200 travelling supporters. It was the 28-year-old’s first match since July’s Euros final against Spain in Basel. Arsenal are managing Williamson’s return carefully but she could feature again against the Belgian side Leuven in the Champions League on Wednesday. TG

Manchester City conquer the Bernabéu, Liverpool survive without Mohamed Salah and Atalanta find Chelsea’s flaws

• To say that Pep Guardiola and Real Madrid have history is to put it mildly. At Barcelona, Guardiola grew up amid an obsessive enmity on both sides, one deepened by his term as the Catalan club’s coach. They are highly familiar with Manchester City, too. City met Madrid for the fifth season in succession on Wednesday. Despite Madrid’s recent struggles under Xabi Alonso, winning at the Santiago Bernabéu is a huge result, a deserved win where City might have been out of sight by half-time. Rodrygo scored his habitual goal against City but one of Guardiola’s new generation in Nico O’Reilly equalised before a controversial penalty award, converted by Erling Haaland, decided the game. A player linked with a move to Madrid sometime in the distant future celebrated with a smirk; Jude Bellingham’s attempt to distract by trying to yank Haaland’s ponytail did not work. After the selection misstep that led to defeat to Bayer Leverkusen, Guardiola got it right in Madrid to leave a lifelong rival in flux. In acknowledging an opponent wracked by injury and infighting had made for an easier task than usual, high standards came to the fore. “I’ve been here [at the Bernabéu] many times in the last five years and we have played much better than today and not won,” Guardiola said. He talks – and his team plays – like he has his mojo back.

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