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The former England keeper discusses his sometimes borderline deluded outlook and being proud to defend the values of the club he loves

Tom Heaton wears a scowl. Sodden and frozen, he trudges off a pitch at Manchester United’s Carrington training base, gesticulating and muttering a goalkeeper-eyed analysis of the game his team have just lost. “We got pumped,” he says loudly, his annoyance clear.

Sometimes the obvious question must be asked: even on days such as this, does Heaton still enjoy it? “I love it,” is his response, his near-permanent grin reappearing.

Plus: long waits to play at a World Cup, champions being thrashed and title-winners with a negative goal difference

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“Idrissa Gueye’s red card for slapping Michael Keane at Old Trafford made me wonder – which other players have put hands on a teammate during a game?” asks Conor Humphries.

We covered this in a question back in 2004 – but 21 years is a long time in football, never mind intersquad violence, so it’s due an upgrade. First, a brief summary of those we mentioned in the 2004 article.

• Uncertainty remains over planned 100,000-seat stadium

• United have aspirations to stage tournament’s final

The Football Association is planning to include a redeveloped Old Trafford in the UK’s bid book of stadiums to host matches at the 2035 Women’s World Cup, which will be made public this week.

Old Trafford is in line to feature in the bid even though Manchester United’s plans for a new 100,000-seat stadium amount only to artists’ impressions and there are doubts over how the projected £2bn project will be funded.

The final remains curious in a Celtic context because it is the showpiece occasion the club would rather forget

It feels cruel in part to use Thursday’s meeting of Feyenoord and Celtic to reflect upon illustrious times. The Dutch side are 29th in the 36-team Europa League table, with Celtic’s position in 27th only more slightly more palatable to supporters because Rangers are bottom of the pile.

Those fans disrupted an annual general meeting to the point of abandonment last week, demonstrating the disharmony that has engulfed Celtic for months. A club that progressed to the Champions League’s knockout phase last season, looking an overdue but serious European force, have starkly regressed. Celtic have the spending power to outshine clubs who routinely embarrass them in a bigger pond than St Mirren and Motherwell occupy.

• ‘We are not there yet,’ Mikel Arteta said on club’s standing

• Bayern visit Arsenal in Champions League on Wednesday

Mikel Arteta believes Arsenal remain in a “different universe” to European heavyweights such as Real Madrid and Bayern Munich given they have yet to win the Champions League.

The Premier League leaders head into their meeting with Bayern at the Emirates Stadium on Wednesday having won all four matches so far in the league phase and are the only team yet to concede a goal.

• Liverpool on run of six defeats in seven league matches

• ‘You would never have expected us to have lost so much’

Arne Slot has admitted he feels guilty about Liverpool’s “ridiculous” slump, a collapse that no one at the club envisaged, and said he must prove himself to everyone at Anfield on a daily basis.

Slot is dealing with the worst run of his managerial career after Nottingham Forest inflicted a sixth defeat in seven Premier League games, and eighth defeat in 11 matches in all competitions, on the champions on Saturday. Cody Gakpo described the 3-0 reverse at home to Sean Dyche’s team as a “kind of embarrassment”.

Brazilian teenager’s goal in win against Barcelona was a classic and the winger could end up as one of the very best

Everything Lamine Yamal does oozes quality. Even when he is strolling about looking dejected, which he did quite a bit at Stamford Bridge, he does it with the nonchalant grace of a star. He caresses the ball rather than kicking it, generating remarkable power from limited back-lift. He plays on the balls of his feet, always alert, always able to go either way. He glides rather than runs, but does so at speed. He has already finished as runner-up in the Ballon d’Or. But he was not the best 18-year-old right-sided forward on the pitch on Tuesday, not even close.

In Estêvão, brought in from Palmeiras for a fee that could rise to £52m, Chelsea have recruited a player who could end up as one of the very best. He has been making more and more of an impression since scoring the late winner against Liverpool last month. His last four starts for Chelsea have brought four goals, and he also scored in both of Brazil’s friendlies during the international break. It’s very early, but Brazil may at last have found the player they desperately wanted to have found in Neymar.

You had to go back to September 2018 for the last time Manchester City lost a Champions League group match at home, when Pep Guardiola was in the stands because of a ban, and Nabil Fekir’s winner gave Lyon a 2-1 victory.

Guardiola stood down all but one of the XI that lost at Newcastle and witnessed an off‑colour display reminiscent of last season as Bayer Leverkusen ended a 23-match run.

Newcastle cannot complain that they were not warned. Eddie Howe had cautioned his players that Pierre‑Emerick Aubameyang was “as good as ever” and would need to be “controlled” but, ultimately, the visitors proved powerless to prevent the 36-year-old transforming both the match and Marseille’s Champions League ambitions.

While Aubameyang fulfilled the soaring expectations of a raucously loud audience at a stupendously designed, incredibly atmospheric arena, Howe’s team started brightly before taking a wrong turn. They ended up mugged in the manner of naive tourists who had wandered into the wrong arrondissement of this beguiling yet sometimes brutal city.

Cheikh Touré died after being lured abroad in one of a growing number of extortion schemes tricking talented teenagers with dreams of making it big

The last time Diodo Sokhna spoke to her teenage son, he seemed subdued, his voice sapped of all the optimism he had set off with on a journey supposed to put him on the road to a career as a professional footballer.

After that call Cheikh Touré went silent. His mother’s WhatsApp messages to his phone received only the dreaded single tick, indicating they had not been received. Soon afterwards a man with a foreign accent rang her from a number she did not recognise. He told Sokhna her son was dead and then hung up.

Research is on ‘an upward curve’ and the next five years could be vital in trying to limit cruciate ruptures

Players who compete in the top two levels of German women’s football are four times more likely to rupture their anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) than their male counterparts, according to the German Football Association (DFB).

The governing body has funded a central injury and illness registry in women’s football for three years. So far in the Frauen Bundesliga, Germany’s top flight, there have been a reported seven ACL injuries 10 games into the current campaign. In the men’s Bundesliga, meanwhile, there have been three such injuries.

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• Serhou Guirassy scores twice in 4-0 victory

• Juventus off the mark with winner at Bodø/Glimt

Borussia Dortmund ended a three-match winless run with a decisive 4-0 triumph against 10-man Villarreal, powered by a double from Serhou Guirassy.

The Guinean striker broke the deadlock in stoppage time before the break, heading home from a corner, and he made it 2-0 early in the second half.

• ‘I’m 1,000% sure I know how to build a team,’ manager says

• Frank insists continuity under Arteta has helped Arsenal

Thomas Frank has given a robust defence of his credentials at Tottenham, saying he was entirely convinced of his ability to rebuild the club and lead it to success. The manager is under mounting pressure after Spurs’ 4-1 derby humiliation at Arsenal on Sunday, a result that extended a troubling run.

Tottenham have won three of 11 matches in all competitions since the end of September and it has been as much about the lack of spark and identity in many of the performances. It was especially so against Arsenal when Frank set up in a 5-4-1 formation and watched his team fail to lay a glove on their rivals.

• Kitching and Sims strike late for league leaders

• Southampton’s Eckert makes it four out of four

Late goals from Liam Kitching and Ellis Simms helped Coventry to extend their advantage at the top of the Championship table with a 4-2 win against Middlesbrough.

The Sky Blues landed two early blows in the opening 15 minutes, going ahead through Simms’s stunning top-corner strike and Kitching’s header.

• Spain, Argentina, France, England will be top seeds

• Fifa says measure will ‘ensure competitive balance’

The four highest-placed teams in Fifa’s rankings have had a pathway cleared to meet in the World Cup semi-finals after tennis-style seeding measures were introduced in the name of “ensuring competitive balance”.

Spain, Argentina, France and England – the top four in descending order – are to be split into different brackets in the 48-team finals tournament, with the aim of preventing Spain from facing Argentina, or England from playing France, before a possible final.

• Portugal forward was sent off against Republic of Ireland

• He missed Armenia game so is free to play at tournament

Cristiano Ronaldo has been cleared to play in the opening matches of Portugal’s World Cup campaign after he was handed a suspended sentence for his red card against the Republic of Ireland.

The forward, who was a guest of president Donald Trump in the White House last week, had a customary three-match ban for violent conduct commuted by Fifa’s disciplinary committee on Tuesday to a one-game ban, with two further matches suspended under a year’s probation.

Ten years ago Arsenal were thrashed by the Bavarian giants – now Mikel Arteta’s men are rated the best side in Europe

November 2015. The Allianz Arena, Munich. A decade ago, yet a lifetime away for Arsenal in the Champions League.

That night Arsène Wenger’s team were so shredded in a 5-1 defeat by Bayern Munich that my Guardian colleague David Hytner likened them to “the chicken feed from the lower reaches of the Bundesliga that Bayern routinely gobble up”. It was Arsenal’s joint‑worst result in Europe. And to rub it in, Bayern repeated the trick the following season. Twice: 5-1 at home, then 5-1 at the Emirates Stadium.

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When Jordan Pickford’s time as England and Everton’s eternal No 1 comes to its end, a career in peacekeeping, or failing that, manning the doors back in Sunderland, may await. As Idrissa Gueye and Michael Keane, teammates let us recall, went for each other at Old Trafford in full hold-me-back, hold-me-back mode, in stepped Pickford’s strong hands. Too late, it turned out. By then, Tony Harrington, the referee, had reached for his red card. Harrington had seen Gueye slap Keane, and the PGMO (no L these days, all you pedants) doesn’t agree with that in the workplace.

I see Spurs have signed the perfect ‘global partner’ for fans who found themselves pulling their hair out as the fourth Arsenal goal went in on Sunday: Turkish hair-transplant company Elithair. Sometimes, you just have to look in the mirror and acknowledge the bald truth of your shortcomings” – Justin Kavanagh.

Re: Patrick Connolly (yesterday’s Football Daily letters). Mate being responsible for a player not being able to perform at their best? I didn’t even know Ange Postecoglou had managed the Portland Timbers” – Derek McGee.

Will Leo Messi and Inter Miami winning a playoff game mean they will now be invited to participate in the World Cup finals next summer?” – Martyn Shapter.

Eberechi Eze’s hat-trick and Manchester City’s loss to Newcastle means Arsenal are in control of their own destiny

• Sign up for Soccer with Jonathan Wilson here

So it turns out those who had already handed the title to Arsenal were right after all.

It’s absurd, of course, to start handing out the title in November but a feature of modern football is how obsessed it becomes so early with title races. It’s perhaps a legacy of the Pep Guardiola-Jürgen Klopp rivalry’s peak, when being champion meant amassing more than 95 points. It made sense then to scan the track far ahead for any potential hurdles because there were so few. But less than a third of the way through this season, Manchester City, who remain probably the biggest danger to Arsenal, have already dropped as many points as they did in the entirety of 2017-18, their 100-point campaign.

Hat-trick against Dortmund showed striker’s instinct and invention as Sebastian Hoeness finds a solution yet again

This had felt like one of those weeks not in which momentum was shifting, but in which it had already shifted. It was ultimately a positive one for Germany; they had entered Monday’s reception of Slovakia, who had beaten them in the teams’ first game in Bratislava, with need of a point and not without some trepidation. Those worries were emphatically scrubbed out in Leipzig, 6-0. It was night and day next to the laboured win in Luxembourg three days before, but those contrasting displays had one thing in common. They were marshalled by the goals and the sang-froid of Nick Woltemade.

That the towering striker was Stuttgart’s for a season feels almost a dream already; a super, surprise single season of future fable to be filed alongside Didier Drogba’s solo campaign at Marseille as he power-walked the path to global domination. Yet if any team in Germany are equipped to deal with sudden, painful personnel losses it is Sebastian Hoeness-era Stuttgart.

The midfielder has made plenty of headlines in the last 26 months but he is finally back gliding across a football field

By Get French Football News

How much can you learn from Paul Pogba’s nine-minute cameo? Perhaps just that he does indeed exist and not only in columns, fitness updates and social media posts. That is where he has existed for the past 26 months, since his final game for Juventus in September 2023: equally at the centre of our gaze and absent from it.

Between his four-year doping ban, reduced to 18 months on appeal, his release from Juventus, and the extortion and kidnapping case that led to his brother being sentenced to three years in prison, his name has been constantly uttered but his face has been rarely seen – at least not on a football pitch.

Manager can view visit to Paris as a free hit, but the same does not apply to Fulham’s visit on Saturday

Welcome, then, to another of those Spurs weeks, where the executives are deeply concerned and it is impossible to ignore the sense of foreboding. The 4-1 derby humiliation at Arsenal on Sunday ensured the club are playing a game of crisis‑baton hot potato with Liverpool and surely the last thing that the manager, Thomas Frank, needs is a Champions League trip to Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night.

This is not the greatest worry because it is just about possible to paint the game against the European champions as a free hit. Even in the best of times, nobody would have expected much from Tottenham there. With two wins and two draws from four matches they can afford to lose this one.

More than two years of redevelopment at the storied ground later, feelings of relief and comfort greeted Barça’s return to time-honoured turf

There was no sign of Laszlo Kubala or Johan Cruyff, their statues still safely packed in storage, and Lionel Messi had sneaked in alone under cover of darkness a fortnight before but FC Barcelona’s current players were finally back at the Camp Nou as 45,157 fans and a handful of men in high-vis jackets and hard hats watched them return home 909 days later. It was like old times.

Athletic Club, ideal guests, had not won here in 30 matches and after two years away they didn’t win this time either, the last of four goals conceded soon followed by fireworks on an afternoon of reunion.

Brommapojkarna will have a close eye on Arsenal’s clash with Spurs as their talent factory continues to thrive

“We’re building Swedish youth.” The sign adorning the main stand at Brommapojkarna is simple, authoritative and accurate. Beneath it, in the lashing rain, the men’s side are training. But while their top-tier status is important, that is far from the primary focus.

Twenty-four hours before the men’s game, BP’s 5,000-capacity Grimsta IP stadium hosted a celebration of the under-19s, who secured a first national title since 2008. Youth development is at the heart of the club and on Sunday the fruits of Vällingby, a suburb in west Stockholm, will be consumed 1,100 miles away in north London.

• Ernst Tanner was subject of Guardian investigation

• Complaint alleged racist, sexist, and homophobic comments

• Tanner denies allegations, which initial MLS investigation did not corroborate

• Read our full investigation | Summary of our findings

Major League Soccer announced on Wednesday that it is re-opening its investigation into Philadelphia Union sporting director Ernst Tanner. The Union said in a statement to the Guardian that they have placed Tanner on administrative leave. The move comes a day after the Guardian published an investigation into Tanner’s conduct.

Tanner had previously been under investigation by MLS after the league received a complaint from the MLS Players Association in late January. In it, the MLSPA outlined a wide range of alleged issues surrounding Tanner, which included the use of racist, sexist and homophobic language and instances of inappropriate physical contact with a staff member.

Made multiple misogynistic comments, including saying “women don’t belong in men’s soccer” about a female MLS referee and telling a gathering of academy players that they “should never worry about a referee, unless she’s a woman.”

Directed a homophobic slur at an MLS referee in 2023

Spoke about Black players “like they were subhuman” and suggested that Black referees “lack intelligence and capability.”

Touched a co-worker inappropriately “numerous times,” an allegation for which he was reported to the Union’s HR department.

Hired an underqualified coach who was allegedly abusive toward players on the Philadelphia Union II, the club’s reserve team that is used as a proving ground for young players from its thriving academy.

• Draw with Curaçao ends automatic qualification hope

• He says team need ‘new energy and different perspective’

Steve McClaren has resigned as Jamaica’s head coach after a goalless draw with Curaçao ended the team’s hopes of automatic World Cup qualification and left them in March’s intercontinental playoffs.

Jamaica needed a win but hit the woodwork three times in the second half as Curaçao became the smallest country by population to win a berth at the World Cup finals. McClaren’s side finished second in Group B of Concacaf qualifying despite being the favourites.

A pension-pot World Cup looms and with Trump in the White House and a crown prince at his back, it is now a safe space

It was hard to choose one favourite photo from football’s double-header at the White House this week. In part this is because the pictures from Donald Trump’s state dinner with Mohammed bin Salman and his in-house hype men Cristiano Ronaldo and Gianni Infantino were everywhere, recycled feverishly across the internet, dusted with their own drool-stained commentary by the wider Ronaldo-verse.

Mainly there were just so many jaw-droppers. Perhaps you liked the one of Trump and Ronaldo strolling the halls of power, Ronaldo dressed all in black and laughing uproariously, like a really happy ninja. Or the one of Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez standing either side of a weirdly beaming Trump at his desk, holding up some kind of large heraldic key as though they’ve just been presented with their own wind-up wooden sex-grandad.

When you work in the game it is easy to get cynical but this week I’ve been consuming all the #limbs I can find

For the second time in a week, I’m welling up. This time in a cafe on Northcote High Street in Melbourne at 9am. I punched the air when Kieran Tierney curled that one in. But Kenny McLean. From the halfway line. As the ball sails over Kasper Schmeichel my hands involuntarily shoot to the sky. What a moment. The commentary is amazing. Before long I’m watching it on a loop. The unwritten rule of not talking over each other goes out of the window. In fact it’s better. You want the comms to feel like you feel.

On BBC Scotland, Liam McLeod, Steven Thompson and James McFadden absolutely nail it. McLeod: “They’ve given it away.” Thompson: “SHOOT, SHOOT.” McLeod: “He’s gonna shoot.” (McFadden is grinning wildly.) Thompson: “OH HE’S DONE HIM, HE’S DONE HIM, HE’S DONE HIM.” McLeod: “HAS THAT GONE IN? OOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO THAT’S UNBELIEVABLE …” The fixed camera set on Thompson and McFadden is wondrous. Two grown men jumping up and down in unison like 10-year-old boys. They are just so happy.

The Arsenal and England forward is backing new global campaign because talent and teamwork should decide the game – not the climate

I’ll never forget stepping out on to the pitch in Switzerland for the Euro 2025 tournament. The air felt heavy – not with pressure or expectation, but with heat. It was more than 30C (86f) that day. It makes your lungs sting, makes you feel like you’re running through water.

In the England camp, we had done everything to prepare. Ice vests before training, hydration breaks, modified warm-ups – things that just weren’t part of football life a few years ago. At our base in Zurich we even had cryotherapy and Slush Puppies to cool our core temperatures. During training, there were ice-cold towels, extra rest moments and constant reminders to hydrate. You could feel how carefully the staff planned every detail. But when the whistle blew, no protocol could change the fact that the climate itself has changed.

Troy Parrott’s last-gasp goal and DR Congo’s triumph proved once again why the best soccer is almost never about the soccer

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Last Thursday, Irish football was in a bleak place. They had two games remaining in World Cup qualifying and apparently no hope of making it to North America next summer. Another campaign had collapsed in predictable ways: they couldn’t score, they made bafflingly simple errors, too few of their players play for elite sides and those that do seemed unable to reproduce club form for their country.

Their one possible star, Evan Ferguson, had not been energised by a move to Roma – quite the reverse – and although there was vague talk of a new contract for their manager, the amiable Icelandic dentist Heimir Hallgrímsson, everybody thought he would be off after the game in Hungary and was vaguely dreading another Football Association of Ireland recruitment saga, which would inevitably take months, throw up a series of implausible names and result in the job being given to Hallgrímsson’s assistant, John O’Shea.

Our cartoonist on a simple win over Spurs that boosted the Gunners’ title hopes, smug Australians and more

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Former defender on his challenge as sporting director at Ligue 1 club and using Arsène Wenger as an inspiration

Returning to Brittany was the obvious choice for Laurent Koscielny. Having left Lorient for Arsenal in 2010, the former defender is back at the Ligue 1 side as the sporting director.

“My wife and I were keen to come back, it’s a beautiful region, and the people are welcoming and kind,” the Frenchman says of the seaside town, known for its annual Celtic music festival and military naval base.

Which players have run the furthest, taken the most long throws and fouled the most without seeing a card?

By Opta Analyst

You know that Erling Haaland is the top scorer in the Premier League and that David Raya is great at keeping them out at the other end of the pitch, but what about the quirkier metrics? Who covers the pitch but sees the penalty area as their kryptonite? Which defender loves one-v-one battles? Who prefers to shoot without taking a touch to settle themselves?

The former Liverpool and Osasuna player on his coaching journey, redemption in Spain and working with Sven-Göran Eriksson

“I went to a very good school, believe it or not. A grammar school. We had Spanish lessons, but I didn’t take Spanish. I thought: ‘What’s a hairy-arsed kid from the Liverpool ghetto going to need that for?’ And lo and behold …”

It’s late in Bilbao, back in the country that changed him, and a glass of wine rests on the table in front of Sammy Lee, who is grinning again. It’s been an emotional evening and a long night: a lot of laughs, some tears too, talking life at Liverpool and the life that came next. “For me, it’s about coaching even more than playing,” the European champion and former England assistant says. “And that started here.”

In an exclusive extract from her autobiography, goalkeeper reveals the painful road to her shock England exit

England felt like such a safe space for me. It was usual to have a team review after a big tournament and after the Euros in 2022 we came together in the Club England meeting room at St George’s Park, the team’s headquarters.

The emotional security that I felt within England was bolstered by the culture and values that had underpinned and contributed to our success. Non-collegiate behaviour was not tolerated. We came back together to the news that Hannah Hampton had been dropped from the squad: her behaviour behind the scenes at the Euros had frequently risked derailing training sessions and team resources.

Gotham are underdogs against a potent Spirit side but they have the talent and resilience to cause another upset

At the close of quintessential NWSL playoffs rife with last-minute goals and upsets, the eighth-placed underdogs Gotham FC will face second-placed Washington Spirit for the trophy. Both teams have won the NWSL Championship once before: the Spirit in 2021 and Gotham two years later. Washington are the likely favourites, but Gotham’s talent cannot be discounted.

As we look forward to Saturday night in San Jose, here are a few key battles that could decide the game.

Vancouver Rise were crowned Canada’s first champions of the new professional league which has exceeded expectations in terms of tickets sold and viewing figures

In the words of Christine Sinclair, the all-time international top scorer for men or women: “What a difference a year makes.” On Saturday at BMO Field in Toronto, Vancouver Rise became the first champions of the inaugural Northern Super League season. It was a triumphant conclusion to a history-making campaign that has set the ball rolling for professional women’s football in Canada.

In front of 12,429 spectators, Anja Heiner-Møller’s side put on a display of perseverance to claw their way back to win 2-1 against AFC Toronto, the winners of the regular season’s Supporters’ Shield. A half-hour lightning break and deluge of rain did little to stunt the quality on show on the pitch and the enthusiasm off it.

Max Rushden is joined by Barry Glendenning, Mark Langdon and Jordan Jarrett-Bryan as Arsenal hammer Spurs 4-1 in the north London derby

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: a huge weekend for Arsenal. Not only did they thrash Spurs in the north London derby thanks to an Eberechi Eze hat-trick, but they got to enjoy losses for both Liverpool and Manchester City on Saturday, to Nottingham Forest and Newcastle respectively.

Bellingham’s dramatic 95th-minute bicycle kick prompted an unfettered outpouring of emotion for England fans

How vociferously are you allowed to celebrate a goal as a 30-year-old? This was the only thing that tempered my jubilation on 30 June 2024, a moral quandary amid the elation, the beer sweat, the tears.

As I dragged my heavy legs away from the Greenwich beer garden which that day became a golden English garden, having inadvertently collided with my friend’s chin while celebrating Jude Bellingham’s brilliant bicycle kick, I was hit with a pang of shame.

Plus: chants celebrating old memories, Trevor Wood from Jersey and ‘a Genghis Khan-like thick moustache’

• Mail us with your questions and answers

“England qualified for the World Cup in perfect style, winning all eight games without conceding a goal,” writes Charlie Wilson. “How many teams have done this?”

This isn’t the first time England have qualified for a World Cup without conceding a goal. They did the same ahead of Italia 90 – but three of their six group games were 0-0 draws and they might not have qualified had Poland’s Rysard Tarasiewicz scored in the last minute of their final game in Chorzow. Instead his heatseeker hit the crossbar and England were through.

Switzerland (A) 5-0

Wales (H) 12-0

Wales (A) 12-0

Croatia (A) 7-0

Croatia (H) 8-0

Switzerland (H) 11-0

Chelsea lose ground in title race at Liverpool while Arsenal struggle to find their shooting boots

When Alyssa Thompson fired in a superb ninth-minute opener, Chelsea looked on course for another routine win. However, Liverpool’s defence held firm and the Reds levelled in the 33rd minute and held out until half-time. The Chelsea manager, Sonia Bompastor, introduced further attacking options in the second half, including Lauren James and Aggie Beever-Jones, but a solid defensive display from Liverpool ensured Chelsea were unable to find a winner as the hosts earned their second point of the season. Although the result did mean Chelsea set a record of 34 successive unbeaten WSL games, clearly all is not well with the defending champions. Last season they had 27 points after nine games and led the way, this campaign they have eight fewer and are three points behind Manchester City. Réshma Rao

Match report: Tottenham 0-0 Arsenal

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

We pick the best youngsters at each club born between 1 September 2008 and 31 August 2009, an age band known as first-year scholars. Check the progress of our classes of 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 … and go even further back. Here’s our 2025 world picks

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