As Everton fans prepared to bid an emotional farewell to Goodison Park, David Moyes offered up a rare dose of positivity and an even scarcer message of hope.

The Scot’s reputation for downplaying expectations had earned a nickname of ‘Dithering Dave’ which long preceded his return to the hot seat in January 2025. But Moyes managed to strike the right note after the final Everton men’s first team match at their spiritual home with a genuine mission statement.

“This club felt like, to me, one which was a big family but looked broken, felt broken – and it doesn’t feel like that anymore,” he began. “I hope the owners are recognising what they’re seeing today as well, because this is to be built up, brought back and get us back to where we belong - and where we believe we should be. There are 100 players here today who played in some great games here and have been in some great teams. We have to now try to make that happen again.”

Pick the ultimate 4-4-2 line-up from players in FourFourTwo's definitive Top 100 List

Everton owners’ greed is destroying the club

Barely 15 months since that rousing on-field address, life in the blue half of Merseyside has again become fractured following a summer transfer window underpinned by worryingly familiar traits of deception and dismay for royal-blue devotees.

When owners the Friedkin Group (TFG) pitched up, just six months before the Toffees made the move to Hill Dickinson Stadium, they arrived with the usual promises of a brighter tomorrow. Head honcho Dan Friedkin pledged to ‘contribute positively’ to the club’s history and strong local identity while executive chairman Marc Watts vowed the Americans would ‘usher Everton into a new era, one that is marked by ambition and professionalism’. This summer made a total mockery of those boastful soundbites.

A fortnight after Angus Kinnear publicly assured hand-picked fan media that the club was finally back on a firm financial footing, TFG well and truly shattered that illusion.

The CEO's previous claims of a 'two-summer window plan' have also fallen by the wayside as surreptitious attempts to sell homegrown star Harrison Armstrong to Nottingham Forest, only scrapped after fan backlash at Bournemouth, marked the start of a chaotic countdown to the end of the market.

Attempts to pin the entire saga on the owners affords them far too much credit on knowing the value players within the current squad could fetch, especially with Armstrong still only a peripheral figure despite the growing fanfare around his clear potential.

An established light-touch approach to life at Hill Dickinson Stadium precluded them from making such calls without a helping hand from the likes of Kinnear and recruitment chief Nick Cox.

Moyes’s squad is now alarmingly paper-thin until January with just 18 established outfield players at his disposal, including Thierno Barry as their sole recognised striker.

They ranked 18th for net spend in the Premier League, at a time when eye-watering amounts were sloshing about, while holding an equally dubious honour of the lowest squad value from all the top flight's 17 non-promoted teams.

Unlike his many predecessors, the likes of whom only broke their silences on transfer frustrations after leaving the job with the gift of hindsight and often creative licence, the manager remained forthright about Everton’s market shortcomings throughout a summer in when he took a rare step of not conducting media interviews until the last possible moment.

A late pursuit of Folarin Balogun ended in farcical fashion with the Monaco marksman walking away from formalities at Finch Farm in the final hours of deadline day. Prior to the United States international’s U-turn, Everton took a scattergun approach to alternatives; exploring a loan deal for Manchester United’s Joshua Zirkzee as well as Tammy Abraham at Aston Villa which failed to find favour with either party.

Iliman Ndiaye’s departure, joining Manchester City after a brief flirtation with Tottenham, was widely expected but his upfront £60m sale left a sour taste. Initial plans to offload the Senegal international to north London for an identical fee were offset by the prospect of Richarlison returning to his former club in a £35m deal - the exact figure he had cost eight years prior, without the added tax of injuries or advancing age. Another loan spell for Jack Grealish, returning from the Etihad Stadium for a second summer, did little to soften the blow of losing Everton’s most potent attacking source in recent times.

More than £100m was recouped in player sales on the final day of the window, almost double what Everton spent throughout the entire summer. It was asset stripping on an industrial scale and comparable with the January 2023 window that marked the beginning of the end for Farhad Moshiri's ruinous premiership.

Suspicions that Friedkin and his son Ryan saw a financially troubled yet consistently top flight club with an impressive new stadium on the horizon and sensed an opportunity to sweat the asset are becoming increasingly inescapable for many supporters. Instead of offering accountability for a botched recruitment strategy, the hierarchy has doubled down on a collective vow of silence while the absentee owners have already embarked on sounding out potential investors to dilute their near-total shareholding.

The approach is in stark contrast to their continued handling of AS Roma, where they remain far from beloved. Fans in the Eternal City have told them to ‘go home’ during routine periods of tumult, yet that abrasive relationship appears to only have strengthened their resolve to address concerns head-on and often in person. Every cough and sneeze emanating from Trigoria prompts swift intervention, especially in the season when the Giallorossi endured a three-manager turnover during 2024/25.

Successive point deductions for breaching the Premier League’s now defunct Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR) forearmed Evertonians from falling into the trap of believing that spending would be endless under the group who succeeded the perennially aloof Moshiri. But even those realistic expectations have not been met by an ownership whose priorities clearly lie away from the banks of the Mersey, with plans to launch an NHL franchise in their native Texas to sit within an already skewed sporting portfolio.

American owners are, by nature, ruthless operators but the Friedkins have taken that vulture capitalism to new levels. Kinnear’s declaration that his superiors are ‘winners’ lack credible evidence in their handling of a club with sizeable potential and an equally fervent fanbase, as they will have seen at the Vitality Stadium last weekend. Travelling supporters warned on the South Coast that their transatlantic overlords would have ‘a riot’ on their hands if Armstrong was sold from under their noses but the threat of uproar is not going away anytime soon.

Atmosphere group The 1878s have already confirmed pre-match displays for home matches will be 'stood down' for the foreseeable future in light of the recent transfer shambles while others are threatening to make a small dent in Hill Dickinson Stadium's profit margins by refusing to spend a penny inside, starting with Sunday afternoon's visit of Manchester United.

Healing the current division lies squarely at the feet of the Friedkins as well as those they have delegated to run Everton, very poorly it must be said, in their absence. This week’s events suggest that neither have the stomach to fix the mess that they created.

An injury-stricken Aston Villa have received a triple boost ahead of the club's clash with Hull City on Saturday, with updates being heard in a pre-match press conference regarding four injured players.

Unai Emery's side have lost both of their two Premier League matches so far this term, with Brighton serving his men a 4-0 defeat in their opening match.

That was followed up by a 1-0 loss at Villa Park to reigning champions Arsenal; now, they'll head on the road to face newly-promoted Hull with three fresh players in tow, set to make appearances.

Aston Villa receive triple boost

Emery provided updates on four injured players in a pre-match press conference ahead of the club's clash with Hull.

On Johan Manzambi, the Villa boss revealed: "He's training with the group, and he's progressively getting better.

"But he will need some more days for Tuesday in the Champions League, or for our next match against Nottingham Forest.

Elsewhere, Joao Gomes misses the trip through suspension, and Brian Madjo will remain sidelined for another couple of weeks, as relayed by Ben Dinnery.

Amadou Onana is recovering from reconstructive knee surgery, and will not appear for the Villans any time soon.

However, the club does expect to see three of its new signings make appearances on Saturday, or at least travel for the trip, in a needed triple boost.

Those players are Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Leon Goretza and Ibrahim Mbaye, all of whom are expected to make the trip.

Emery revealed: "I think the players are ready, and some players after we signed in the last week.

"They are going to be progressively better and better, understanding better our way to play.

"Tomorrow, hopefully we can do one step forward," concluded the Villa boss.

His side face Hull City tomorrow, which kicks off at 5:30pm BST and will be broadcast on Sky Sports - the presenters, pundits and commentators for that clash can be found here.

When Hull City won the play-off final and reached the Premier League 18 years ago, Dean Windass was the hero.

Windass struck a sensational volley for his local club to down Bristol City at Wembley, then was part of the squad that went into the top flight for the 2008-09 campaign.

Hull were tipped for instant relegation, but shocked everyone by winning six of their first nine games – following up an opening day win over Fulham with triumphs at Newcastle, Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur.

Hull City: fast starters

History has been repeating itself in the opening weeks of the current campaign – after victory over Middlesbrough in May’s play-off final, the Tigers beat Manchester United in their first game back in the Premier League, then won at Coventry City to make it six points out of six, ahead of this Saturday’s home match with Aston Villa.

“The best thing you can do is play a top team at home in the first game,” Windass tells FFT. “Everyone has a clean slate, but nobody expected Hull City to win.

“The pressure was on Man U, who didn’t know what Hull City were like. I was at the game and Man U were very poor – you could tell that they were trying to gel together with Youri Tielemans and their new signings.

“To have a great start like that was fantastic. I knew that Coventry would be a harder game, but they came through it and won 1-0.

“But my advice to Hull City fans and all my mates when they go to the gym is it’s a long season. Villa will be a tough test – every game is a tough test in the Premier League.

“When I went up with Bradford, I remember Paul Jewell saying to us ‘If we finish fourth from bottom in the Premier League this year, it’s a massive achievement, anything above that is a bonus, and we’ve got to win the majority of our home games’.

“I know Lewie Coyle, Oli McBurnie and Matt Crooks there now, and I’ve heard on the outside as a supporter that they’ve got a good changing room.

A famous teamtalk

“They’ve brought a lot of players in, but it doesn’t matter about the price tag, they’re not proven Premier League players, so they’re going to find it hard.

“But Stuart McCall at Bradford used to say ‘We’ve got a good changing room, we’ve got a good chance of staying up’.”

Bradford did indeed stay up in their first year in the Premier League, as did Hull in 2008-09, prompting Phil Brown to grab a microphone and sing to the fans on the pitch.

Windass went out on loan to Oldham in the second half of that campaign – 39 by then, his game time proved limited in the Premier League – but he saw enough to know that the Tigers’ unity played a big part in their survival that season.

That was tested by a poor run of form, then a 5-1 defeat at Manchester City on Boxing Day – Hull were 4-0 down at half-time and Brown responded by keeping the players on the pitch at the interval, giving them a dressing down in front of the away supporters.

If there was perhaps a perception that the manager lost the dressing room by doing that, Windass doesn’t think that was the case. He was subbed at half-time and it would turn out to be his last appearance for the club, but the players stuck together and the club ultimately stayed up.

“He kept us out on the pitch, and that was his choice,” says Windass, speaking in association with betTOM. “He’d given Christmas Day off because it was a Boxing Day game, and we were fifth in the table, something like that, I can’t remember.

“You’re playing Man City, Robinho was playing for them, Vincent Kompany, they had a decent team. You put your hands up, you’re getting beat by a quality team, and what Phil did was his choice.

“It didn’t dampen the changing room. The lads stuck together. I was coming to the end of my career anyway, I knew that I wouldn’t be playing, they’d bring me on every now and then.

“Phil got the last laugh, by singing on the pitch and staying up, and we had a good changing room.

“We had George Boateng, Paul McShane, Ian Ashbee, Nick Barmby, good pros. No matter what division you’re in, if you’ve got a good changing room, you’ve got a great chance of success.”

Last term, Liverpool endured a torrid season under now-sacked boss Arne Slot, but were still able to secure Champions League football with one of the lowest points tallies ever to do so in the Premier League era.

Liverpool will move forward in the competition, led by new manager Andoni Iraola, with their first group phase match versus Atletico Madrid next Wednesday at home.

It appears that the Reds may have solved their right-back issues going forward in the competition, amid intense scrutiny from within the fanbase towards an underperforming Jeremie Frimpong.

Liverpool solve their right-back issues, submit squad list, ahead of upcoming Champions League campaign

Frimpong has been subject to intense scrutiny since joining Liverpool, with the Dutchman's performances being branded too lacklustre, should the Reds wish to compete for major silverware.

In his opening two Premier League matches, both draws, Frimpong has won just six of sixteen duel or tackle attempts, with Liverpool conceding four goals in that period.

Ahead of Champions League nights returning to Anfield, the club has released its squad list for the competition, and given potential insight into attitudes internally regarding Frimpong.

Among those absent are Federico Chiesa and Wataru Endo, with their positions being taken by a currently-injured duo in Hugo Ekitike and Giovanni Leoni.

Chiesa recently picked up a muscle injury, while Leoni and Ekitike have been sidelined since the 2025-26 season - the latter getting injured in his debut Liverpool start last September.

Andoni Iraola also opted to include another injured defender in Conor Bradley, who left the pitch versus Arsenal with a severe knee injury in January. The Irishman is expected to return to action shortly after Leoni, who is set to return to training with the Reds during the international break.

Bradley would be a natural choice to displace Frimpong in Liverpool's line-up on European nights, should the right-back's recovery encounter no additional hitches, and continue steadily.

His inclusion in Iraola's squad list speaks to two things: Liverpool's lack of options at right-back, and an internal expectation that he will soon return to health.

It also raises questions about attitudes regarding Frimpong internally, with a possibility being that Bradley's recovery is now an even more immediate priority, given the current issues in the position.

The Irishman will play a role in Champions League proceedings later down the line, but fans struggling to bear the weight of Frimpong's performances can take solace in the knowledge that the Reds are including his replacement in their squad list for European nights.

If it wasn't enough for Manchester City to break the British transfer record on ex-Chelsea man Enzo Fernandez, willingly handing him Kevin De Bruyne's shirt number rather than retiring it, even just temporarily, tells you everything you need to know.

Premier League fans have had it easy when it comes to making that claim, yet the Cityzens keep giving them ammunition.

If being the defining figure across six English top-flight title wins isn't enough for a statue, a temporarily-retired shirt number, or a dedicated wing at the training ground, what is?

Enzo taking De Bruyne's shirt number so soon is wrong

There will be a section of angry Man City fans that will argue De Bruyne's legacy is not being tarred, and that he will forever be respected, regardless of whether his shirt number is in another player's possession.

But it's the principle: if you secure two PFA Players' Player of the Year awards, six Premier League titles, four Playmaker Awards, all as the cornerstone of City's golden era, that number belongs to you.

Whether De Bruyne himself minds or not, it's a show of respect that any serious clubs should offer to the legends that define them.

And before the question is raised: yes, Manchester City are different to other clubs that didn't retire the shirt numbers of other defining legends, such as Wayne Rooney's '10', or Steven Gerrard's '8'.

That is because, in the grand scheme of history, De Bruyne is more akin to icons at Liverpool and Manchester United in the 20th Century. Besides, '17' is far easier to retire as a number than the aforementioned pair.

The club does not possess the same history as its closest rivals, and it is De Bruyne who will go down as one of the first-ever Manchester City legends that raised the club to its ever-growing present.

But to give his number away within two years, to the first player that asked for it? Not even a buffer period, or to a player who has earned the right to 'stand where he stood'?

Nobody is asking for the Belgian's '17' to be withheld indefinitely — although, it's not the worst idea — but to give it to Enzo?

The same Enzo disciplined for singing homophobic and racist chants with his national team, who wielded an anti-Falklands banner in the summer after beating England, and got himself sent off by turning Pau Cubarsi into Simone Biles in the World Cup final?

The same Enzo who practically begged for a Real Madrid move while at Chelsea, and was removed from the squad ahead of an FA Cup quarter-final?

What has always held Manchester City back from being taken as seriously as their Premier League peers, is the idea that players who arrive there do so for money, not for the badge.

It's the idea that Manchester City, more so than their rivals, pay to see success, rather than breed it by creating a culture and environment that superstars would virtually pay to join.

And it's why the Manchester club time and time again are branded by opposition fans as soulless.

But one thing is for certain, the Cityzens have failed to honour one of the few players that nobody doubts adored their club.

If the Belgian's statue is being constructed behind the scenes, they better start carving the stone quicker.

As Jurgen Klopp’s swansong, he hoisted Liverpool into one final Premier League title race, finishing third behind Arsenal and Manchester City, and lifted the Carabao Cup.

The last trophy he brought back to Anfield came courtesy of ‘Klopp’s Kids’ — a unit of youngsters that took to the pitch in Wembley cameos and secured victory against Chelsea — and was, undoubtedly, one of the German’s finest feats as manager of the Reds.

Liverpool, back then, were different. Stefan Bajcetic drawing the curtain on an injury-plagued, but once highly-anticipated Reds career, proves it. And it could be a long journey back to the summit.

Bajcetic leaving Liverpool should remind fans how deep the rot spread under Arne Slot, and how much work rests on Andoni Iraola’s shoulders

'But he was injured! That’s nobody’s fault,' some might claim. But it isn’t Bajcetic’s departure in total isolation that should sting, it’s what his exit should remind Liverpool fans of. And that is the sheer number of developing talents that have been discarded, loaned, sold, and forgotten about since Klopp’s time on Merseyside.

From future club captain Trent Alexander-Arnold choosing Real Madrid — after the Reds lifted their first Premier League title in front of fans for 35 years, no less — to Harvey Elliot’s recent La Liga loan departure. After a torrid year at Aston Villa, the look on the Englishman’s face as he fielded questions from the Valencia media was… not pleasant to witness.

Young players once deemed to be Liverpool’s future, talents that the German was able to extract the very best from, have gone from a Carabao Cup-winning unit, and making reliable cameo appearances in both European competitions and the Premier League, to being spread around here, there and everywhere.

Instead, the Reds have spent big in their two previous transfer windows - their total expenditure on attackers alone exceeds £500 million - and lost the heart and soul that made Klopp’s reign so special, and so successful.

Is it a surprise that Slot was able to win a Premier League title? He inherited a team whose muscles and minds had been ruthlessly shaped by the German — one that also included a career-best and still-hungry Mohamed Salah — and rode that wave to English top-flight glory.

But, depressingly, the cost of that victory has likely set Liverpool back by years. To win it, Slot decided against using the German’s youngsters in any meaningful capacity, going full-throttle on extracting the last dregs of mentality and fitness that had been instilled in the core Reds by Klopp.

But a once wise decision — or at least one that felt wise, at the time — continued into the 2025-26 season, and questions surrounding Liverpool’s mentality quickly surfaced. When Reds legend Salah told the press last December that he felt he was being forced out of the club, tensions reached their boiling point.

If the club’s hierarchy could make an all-time superstar feel this way, an individual that had lifted Liverpool onto his shoulders and dragged them to the previous term’s Premier League-winning finish line, how was it making ‘Klopp’s Kids’ feel, behind the scenes?

Jarell Quansah? A lacklustre game to start the season versus Ipswich Town in 2024-25, and few opportunities after. Now, he’s at Bayer Leverkusen, and receiving England call-ups. Bobby Clark? He once ran riot for the Reds during their Europa League campaign in 2023-24. Now, he’s at Derby County, with three goal involvements in his first four Championship matches this term.

Jayden Danns? A scouser through-and-through, one who bagged twice versus Southampton in the FA Cup, no less, during Klopp’s swansong season. He’s back in the Liverpool Under-21s, and last appeared for the first team 12 months ago, again versus Southampton — for 15 minutes.

James McConnell? He’s in the Under-21s, too. And, finally, Bajcetic, who appeared in 27 games across the German’s final two seasons at the helm, even delivering a Man of the Match-worthy performance in 2023’s Merseyside derby at Anfield?

He’s gone, and wrote today on Instagram: “I never planned to write a goodbye message, because I was where I always wanted to be.

“I fought all the injuries and adversities with the motivation of paying back the love and trust you showed me… We will never know what could have been.”

And perhaps the Spaniard is a slightly different case — a talent thwarted by injuries, and dealt an unfair hand throughout his Premier League career.

But maybe seeing his fellow Carabao Cup-winning youngsters be loaned elsewhere, and denied first-team minutes, witnessing the standards drop on Merseyside, weaker training sessions, weaker performances, weaker mentality, weaker leadership, all in the aftermath of Klopp’s departure… perhaps that also played a role in Bajcetic’s recovery, or lack thereof.

Under the German, Liverpool became a family. Under his successor, that family became estranged. Can Iraola turn back the clock? That remains to be seen, but the damage cannot be reversed. As the saying goes, it’s all up from here — but is it? Let's hope so.

Manchester City have made their stance clear regarding competitiveness under Enzo Maresca during his first season as boss at the Etihad.

The Cityzens began their campaign with a 3-0 Community Shield final loss at the hands of Arsenal, who finally pipped Guardiola’s men to the Premier League title last term.

Maresca’s side recovered well, taking six points from their opening two fixtures versus Bournemouth and Crystal Palace in the English top-flight — but that must continue for the Italian to avoid scrutiny.

Manchester City set high standards and threaten scrutiny for Maresca

Manchester City finished second in the 2025-26 Premier League table, seven points behind Mikel Arteta’s Gunners who prevailed at the fourth time of asking.

Guardiola’s men pipped Arsenal’s 84 points with 89 in 2022-23, and claimed 91 points to the Gunners’ 89 in 2023-24; Arteta’s side then fell to Liverpool in 2024-25: 84 points to 74.

The Cityzens also prevailed against Arsenal in the Carabao Cup last year, then edged Chelsea in the FA Cup to secure a domestic double in Guardiola’s swansong season.

After two Premier League games, Manchester City top the table, with an identical points tally and goal difference to Arsenal, ahead only on goals scored.

Internally, the message isn’t solely one of appreciation for the strong performances that Maresca has been able to extract from his group, but a reminder of the Cityzens’ expectations.

Manchester City journalist Simon Bajkowski has revealed that the club anticipate an even stronger season than the one delivered by Guardiola prior to his departure in May.

“There is confidence at Man City that the recruitment is good enough to expect Enzo Maresca to fight across all four competitions,” he claimed.

“With depth cited in every position despite wholesale changes, there is even an internal belief that Man City are in better shape for this season than last year.”

That is to be expected, considering the financial force of Manchester City’s transfer activity — breaking the British record to secure ex-Chelsea man Enzo Fernandez’s services.

Elsewhere, they brought in World Cup breakout talent Ayyoub Bouaddi for little under €100 million, and almost broke the British record for another midfielder, before securing Enzo’s signature.

That was for former Nottingham Forest talent Elliot Anderson, who arrived at the Etihad for a staggering sum of £116 million. He has since started all three of the club’s opening clashes.

Whether Maresca will be able to compete for the Premier League and Champions League trophies remains to be seen, but the message is clear. That is the expectation, and with failure will come scrutiny.

There is an argument that Chelsea are better at conducting transfers than they are at winning football matches. This summer's window has done nothing to redress that balance.

While rival fans mock and scoff at the volume of transfer activity at Stamford Bridge, the reality is they're quite good at it. Xabi Alonso’s side have emerged from the 2026 summer window stronger, more balanced, and the undisputed kings of the transfer market.

The marquee acquisition of Morgan Rogers is excellent business, even at a premium price. Signing Rogers gives Chelsea what could be the most lethal front three in the Premier League alongside Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro, supported by enviable depth in reserve.

Chelsea's transfer window mastery

Equal significance lies at the opposite end of the pitch, where landing 2022 World Cup winner Emiliano Martinez provides an immediate upgrade on Robert Sanchez, and solves a problem position that has plagued the club for several seasons.

Chelsea finished the window £35 million in the black, despite signing £349m worth of players. The club recouped a staggering £384m in player sales, extracting significant fees for the likes of Liam Delap, Nicolas Jackson, and joint-British record man Enzo Fernandez.

Even in Alonso's brief tenure to date, Chelsea's recruitment has evolved, perhaps due to the Spaniard's influence, moving away from the rigid, youth-exclusive early iterations of the BlueCo transfer model.

Recognising that raw potential requires established leadership to properly flourish, the ex-Real Madrid manager sanctioned the arrivals of Jordan Henderson, Danny Welbeck, and the aforementioned Martinez. Inserting three seasoned campaigners into the dressing room provides the maturity, leadership, and also winning pedigree necessary to give the squad a more balanced feel.

But the youthful talent pipeline remains as vibrant as ever, too. The additions of Marco Palestra, Valentin Barco, and Geovany Quenda inject energy and genuine competition for places across the pitch. Paired with veteran guidance, Chelsea’s squad profile looks healthier than at any point in recent memory.

Perhaps most impressive was Chelsea’s execution in clearing out the periphery of their squad.

Unused players who faced exclusion from the Premier League’s 25-man squad list - including Tosin Adarabioyo, Marc Guiu, Benoit Badiashile, David Datro Fofana, and Mykhailo Mudryk - were successfully moved on, most for modest transfer fees.

Despite rival clubs knowing Chelsea needed to trim the edges of their first-team group, the Blues negotiated well. In doing so, they generated vital capital given their underlying financial situation, while avoiding contravention of FIFA and FIFPRO’s new anti-’bomb squad’ regulations, which grants powers to isolated players to demand free transfers.

Naturally, no transfer window is completely flawless and Chelsea's is no different. Missing out on deadline day midfield targets Lamine Camara and Manu Kone leaves Alonso slightly lighter in central areas than ideal following Fernandez’s departure to Manchester City.

Looking at the window from a big picture perspective, Chelsea have, somehow, pulled it off, again. Generating £384m in sales while leaving the squad demonstrably stronger, balanced, and stacked with depth is an achievement, make no mistake. With no European football to distract from domestic ambitions, Stamford Bridge is primed for a serious campaign.

If transfer windows are meant to reflect a football club’s long-term vision, Everton’s summer 2026 recruitment was a masterclass in panic, indecision and dysfunction. The Toffees' window shows nothing less than a club all at sea: decades removed from their last trophy lift, and decades away from their next.

After years of walking the financial tightrope and navigating Profitability and Sustainability (PSR) penalties, this was supposed to be the summer where the club established a clear, modern direction in their new home.

Ending deadline day in a far more precarious position than when the window opened - desperately short on attacking options and publicly lacking strategic conviction - is not how anybody wanted things to go.

Everton have outdone themselves - and not in a good way

Nowhere was this misstep more glaring than in Everton’s handling of their forward line. Sanctioning the departures of both Beto and Iliman Ndiaye on transfer deadline day was always going to be a gamble. But, doing so without getting replacements through the door is nothing more than a whopping error.

To leave David Moyes with 23-year-old Thierno Barry as the club’s sole recognised senior striker is...errr...not good. A promising up-and-comer he may be, but Barry netted eight goals in 41 appearances across all competitions for the Toffees last season - not something to hang your hat on.

Why wait until the eleventh hour of transfer deadline day to conclude such important business, especially when Ndiaye’s eventual exit was predictable for weeks?

Moyes himself pulled no punches regarding the state of his squad. Speaking after Everton’s 4-0 Carabao Cup victory over Preston North End, the Scot gave a characteristically blunt assessment of the club's transfer progress.

“I still think we are short in the squad and I still think we are short in quality in some places.”

Moyes noted that, despite incoming signings, the squad was numerically thinner than last season's already depleted group. His post-match comments were a clear instruction for reinforcements that ultimately went unheeded, not by design, but that's by-the-by now.

A deal for Monaco’s Folarin Balogun was on the verge of completion before Everton’s medical staff identified issues during his medical, prompting the club to halt proceedings.

The Toffees immediately pivoted to Manchester United outcast Joshua Zirkzee. Perhaps upon witnessing the wave of negative supporter backlash, Everton’s leadership got cold feet. In an attempt to salvage face, they tried to revive the Balogun deal, only for the US international to turn down the move entirely.

Comically, the USA striker walked out of Everton's training base late into the night, returning to the principality.

The resulting collapse left Everton empty-handed - a terrible look that epitomises a club operating without internal alignment.

Their lack of conviction in decision-making was exhibited in the earlier saga surrounding 19-year-old midfielder Harrison Armstrong. Everton had agreed a reported £40m deal to sell the academy graduate to Nottingham Forest - a move most likely driven by executives eyeing financial compliance.

But, following furious dissent from the fanbase, the hierarchy executed a U-turn. While keeping a talented youngster is welcome, backing out of a massive sale purely due to public outrage demonstrates a boardroom lacking internal conviction. If the club genuinely needed the funds, capitulating at the first sign of supporter anger suggests they are making policy on the fly.

To cap off a rather unimaginative window, Everton opted to re-sign Jack Grealish, as well as adding Ainsley Maitland-Niles, but not another left-back. While Grealish possesses undeniable talent, committing a massive wage package to an expensive loan signing feels short-sighted, and a sticking plaster over the remainder of their window.

Everton enter the 2026/27 campaign with a paper-thin squad, an exasperated manager, and a fanbase utterly bewildered by the handling of the window. By waiting until deadline day, bowing to public pressure, and bungling negotiations, Everton have turned what could have been a transformative summer into months of clock-watching for the January sales.

At least doughnuts will be served for another year at the Hill Dickinson, right, Everton fans?

Southampton sold Taylor Harwood-Bellis to Aston Villa on transfer deadline day but their former defender created the emblem that will follow them around for the rest of the season.

The Harwood-Bellis binoculars will be adopted at grounds up and down the Championship, a gleeful reminder that Southampton sought an unfair advantage last term and ended up knocking themselves out of the play-offs instead.

Saints chairman Dragan Solak showed an extraordinary degree of faith in manager Tonda Eckert. His team lost their shot at promotion and were docked four points for 2026-27 but Eckert remains in his post and Southampton have a plan.

Eckert’s Southampton are playing on the front foot and outscoring Championship rivals

There were times last season when Southampton in the Premier League seemed extremely unlikely. Eckert turned those fortunes around and has been given the courtesy of a chance to prove where their results did and didn’t come from.

Not all ownership groups would have responded in the same way. It’s up to Eckert to show that he warrants the backing.

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It’s goals that are his weapon of choice in the wake of ‘Spygate’ and Southampton are delivering.

Saints’ 1-1 entertaining draw at Birmingham City might look at first glance like a quieter night at the office. Viewed from a certain angle, though, it’s evidence that a high-scoring team can go away to the division’s toughest grounds and eke out results.

Eckert’s team have scored 10 goals in their four Championship matches. Only Wolverhampton Wanderers – thanks to a Konstantinos Mavrapanos own goal – have scored more. Southampton’s expected goals (xG) value is the highest in the second tier, 1.5 goals higher than Wolves.

They’ve outscored their xG even so, and the player most responsible for putting away those chances is striker Cyle Larin, who scored twice against Millwall in the win that took Southampton into positive points and off the foot of the table.

The Canadian had two very presentable chances at St Andrew’s but failed to hit the target with either. Eckert was unmoved when asked about his number nine, saying that he’s put everything away so far.

On a night when it was their opponents who had the majority of the game’s big chances, Southampton’s goal came from another source. Defender Keven Schlotterbeck thumped them into the lead with a header from a corner in first-half stoppage time before August Priske equalised 10 minutes into the second half.

The visitors returned to the south coast with one point rather than three but moved up one more rung on the long ladder back, and Eckert can take encouragement from a set piece goal and the return of former captain James Ward-Prowse, whose free kicks at Birmingham drew a good save from James Beadle and led to a disallowed Kuryu Matsuki goal.

Ward-Prowse’s golf-club supply adds to the more fluid influence of Finn Azaz. The 25-year-old remains a crucial component in Eckert’s supply line, playing line-breaking passes from deep and creating at closer quarters higher up the pitch.

All these cogs and more are turning in the name of goals and firepower could be the essence of Eckert’s second promotion quest. Southampton will make mistakes at the back, will concede goals; they did both against Birmingham.

With Larin firing, set pieces producing, Ward-Prowse pitching and wedging, and Azaz’s artistry packing a punch, opposition managers will know that their first job is to keep Southampton out.

The ability of Eckert’s team to keep making chances and taking them at a clinical rate will be key if they’re to bounce back after the brutal heartbreak of a unique and self-inflicted setback at the end of last season.

Joao Gomes won’t forget his Aston Villa debut in a hurry. On his early return from injury, the midfielder started an awful performance with a yellow card and ended it with a straight red. He played 39 minutes and Villa were already 4-0 down.

Their first half at Brighton & Hove Albion in the first Premier League match of the season was reflected in Gomes’ display and was a brutal reminder that decimating a football team by ripping out its spine is going to make life difficult.

Playing Arsenal is its own challenge but Villa’s first game already had the feel of a season nadir. It could get worse for Unai Emery before it gets better. Fortunately for Villa, his very presence is their saving grace.

Can Villa shake it all about and avoid a decline?

It would be naïve to pretend that everything at Villa is hunky-dory and they’ll be cruising through to the latter rounds of the Champions League while maintaining a top-four spot, but the sheer heft of their incoming transfer business is a counterweight to the black clouds gathering over the early part of the season.

Emery and president of football operations Roberto Olabe have revolutionised Villa’s squad. Nicolas Jackson, Johan Manzambi, Alejandro Garnacho and the arrival of Ibrahim Mbaye add to a pacy attack at the front of a team younger and more financially future-proofed than the one they’re replacing.

Medium-term sellability is something Villa must take very seriously if they’re to avoid stumbling back into the trap that led to six of the players who started the Europa League final in May leaving before the end of August.

Villa’s new signings offer hope for tomorrow but today and yesterday have been bruising. There’s no getting away from it.

Lucas Digne. Youri Tielemans. Morgan Rogers. Ezri Konsa. Emiliano Martinez. Ollie Watkins. That list of names will be etched into the memories of Villa supporters, for better, for worse, forever.

The exodus has the potential to be a disaster. Unavoidable in isolation but bearing the fingerprints of poor decisions past, such drastic change has compelled various pundits to speak of doom and disarray.

They might have a case. At the very least, a decline in Villa’s fortunes on the field is likelier than not. That’s as much about the heights of 2025-26 as the pitfalls of 2026-27.

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The Emery model will be put to the test this season

Emery himself is the single reason why decline is likelier than disaster and neither is inevitable.

Speaking to the media before the Arsenal game, the Villa boss tossed away the word that’s been on the lips even of optimistic supporters.

“In football, if you are expecting a transition, then maybe you are not in the right way,” he said. “We must compete and win, rebuilding the team as fast as possible. We have to accept our way and our decisions and why we are taking some decisions. I am positive.”

Next time The T Word comes up in a Villa context, remember that the manager has no truck with the idea. It’s that attitude that encapsulates everything Emery has brought to the club.

Notwithstanding his evident annoyance over Watkins’ absence against Brighton, Emery has come across as more positive and more fired-up at the start of this season than ever before.

He’s clearly raring to go the moment the transfer window is closed – Emery hates the transfer window – and he can get back to the task he’s excellent at.

Something else that’s often overlooked is that Emery, while not immune to poor results, is embedded in a club where he has near-total control over football matters. There are few eggs laid at Villa Park these days that don’t drop straight into the Emery basket.

It’s a spectacularly risky strategy on the part of Villa’s owners in an era of head coaches and sporting directors, but their faith in the boss has proved rewarding thus far. The manager and the model are in the foothills of their greatest challenge yet, and this season will put them both to the test.

They’ve already made a big noise together. Now, Villa can start to see the quiet return of the club’s trust in Emery.

The next few months and maybe a few more beyond that are bound to be a difficult spell. Villa have rebuilt quickly in terms of personnel, but teams take longer.

They have a manager who’s both emotionally invested enough to be committed through the rough stuff and good enough to justify the patience of Nassef Sawiris while it happens.

Anything could happen at Villa this season. Upheaval is a destructive force in football, and continuity can go a long way. Villa have precious little of that, but the one sturdy pillar they do have is the most important of all.

Even after relegation scares in back-to-back seasons, the most pessimistic of Spurs supporters probably wouldn't have predicted being rock bottom after two games, with a -5 goal difference.

Or perhaps they would have, from recent trauma build-up. Still, Tottenham Hotspur’s summer incomings have been impressive, and arrived with an expectation of achieving European football this season.

But the North London club, at best, could be considered slightly overzealous in regard to its expenditure this summer, and their haste in helping to solve Chelsea’s wage bill issue is worrying, to say the least.

Tottenham Hotspur secure services of Chelsea duo, but why?

Ahead of Tuesday’s transfer deadline at 11pm BST, Spurs look set to secure the services of Chelsea duo Mykhailo Mudryk and Tosin Adarabioyo.

Their London rivals are willing to shift the pair in an effort to solve their wage bill issues, and Spurs seem all too eager to aid them in this regard.

Mudryk will sign on a season-long loan, while Adarabioyo is expected to move on a permanent transfer for around £7 million — combined, they recorded zero goals and zero assists in 23 Premier League appearances last season.

Chelsea, in contrast to the North London club, are fourth in the Premier League table, having taken two wins from two against Brighton and Fulham — blockbuster 3-2 and 4-3 victories.

Last season, they finished in 10th, accumulating just nine additional points to Spurs’ tally of 41, which saw them capable of being relegated all the way until the Premier League’s final gameweek.

If you stare hard enough, you’ll find that there was likely an expectation for the two clubs to perform as peers this season, yet Tottenham Hotspur have, rather alarmingly, found themselves vacuuming the crumbs up off the floor in Chelsea’s kitchen.

And that should worry fans of the North London club — after an initially serious summer in which Spurs secured the services of Sandro Tonali, Mateus Fernandes, Savio, Jan Paul van Hecke, Omar Marmoush, and further Premier League-proven talent, this is a concerning sign.

It’s one thing to take players from Manchester City; Enzo Maresca’s men will likely challenge for the Premier League title this season, and the Savio-Marmoush duo bring multiple top-level seasons of experience under Pep Guardiola’s wing to London.

But a pair of 'B squad' players from Chelsea with little observable Premier League impact? What benefits could this duo bring that outweigh the positive impact it will have on the Blues’ wage bill, and their rivals’ ability to compete?

How good can Mudryk and Tosin possibly be, for paying £7m and the pair’s wages, to prevent Chelsea from getting the last laugh here?

During a summer in which Spurs appeared determined to turn a page, their performances on the pitch have scarcely improved, and their transfer business will conclude on a sour note.

And while fans of the North London club will surely stay focused on seeing the likes of Fernandes, Tonali, Savio and Marmoush come good, they should keep a closer eye on the duo that Chelsea appear overwhelmingly likely to have fleeced them for.

At the fourth time of asking, Arsenal secured the Premier League title in their third race against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City last season.

Previously, they fell to the Cityzens in 2022/23 after leading for the campaign’s bulk, again in 2023/24, then to a Mohamed Salah-led Liverpool in 2024/25.

The Gunners, who secured the English top-flight crown with 85 points in May, have never retained the Premier League title, however, their quest to do so now appears slightly easier, and less expensive, following an accidental discovery versus Aston Villa.

Do Arsenal really need a left winger?

Mikel Arteta’s men emerged victorious on Monday evening, taking home three points following a 1-0 victory at Villa Park.

New signing Christos Tzolis, who began his Gunners career with two assists in Arsenal's Community Shield final victory versus Manchester City, was hooked at half-time against Villa, with the score tied at 0-0.

In came Eberechi Eze, who featured on the left wing for the second half’s duration, in which Arsenal took the lead, and then maintained it, through Bukayo Saka.

Arteta’s side are not short on attacking depth, despite the loss of youngster Ethan Nwaneri to Borussia Dortmund on loan, and the departure of Gabriel Martinelli to Saudi Arabia.

That was evidenced by both players being absent from the Community Shield final squad, in which the North London club ran riot from an offensive perspective, scoring three in under 50 minutes.

On the bench that day were Eze, Saka, Viktor Gyokeres and Declan Rice, with Kai Havertz, Noni Madueke, Bruno Guimaraes and Tzolis handed starts versus Enzo Maresca’s side.

And with Eze’s appearance against Villa, it appears that any fears regarding reinforcement on the left flank have been alleviated, with the Englishman well-adjusted to challenge for the role.

The statistics painted a clear picture: 80% pass accuracy, three duels won, seven carries for a total distance of almost 100 metres, one of which being progressive, and six kilometres covered.

And, more importantly, three points for the Gunners after a dominant second half — limiting the chasing Villans to 0.24 Expected Goals (xG) while Arteta’s side racked up 0.7, and bagged the deciding goal.

Much has been made of Arsenal’s strength in the position, yet Eze’s appearance now certainly warrants consideration as an alternate to Tzolis.

The Gunners reportedly tried their luck with Malick Fofana at Lyon, but were rebuffed after low-balling for the player. That appears to have allowed Sunderland to sign the winger for a price the French club deem more acceptable, in one of the strongest deals of the summer transfer window.

Positioned second in the Premier League table, and yet to concede a goal, the future appears bright for Arteta’s side. And fans would be forgiven for interpreting Eze’s cameo as a firm statement — Arsenal can retain their top-flight title, and they already hold all the necessary keys to do so.

At the start of the summer, most Liverpool supporters and observers would have identified three key areas of the team that needed addressing in the transfer market.

The obvious was a winger to effectively replace Mohamed Salah. In signing Bradley Barcola, Liverpool have done that but on the opposite wing.

Barcola, though, you could argue, is actually the replacement for Luis Diaz, who departed the year before.

Liverpool's glaring right-back issue

The next two positions that most supporters would have wanted to see addressed also revolved around the lack of replacing other previously departed legends.

Fabinho left Liverpool three years ago now, but still his role in midfield as a defence-first player hasn’t been replaced.

While Trent Alexander-Arnold left a year ago and no matter how hard he tries, Jeremie Frimpong simply isn’t a replacement, or even an actual right back.

Liverpool, though, have gone through the summer seemingly without any desire to add either a midfielder or a right-back, despite the clear need in each instance.

Arguably it’s at right-back which is the biggest issue, although both full-back positions are areas of major concern and this was highlighted in the 2-2 draw with Nottingham Forest - Andoni Iraola's first home game in charge.

Frimpong and Milos Kerkez were hooked in the 72nd minute, with Liverpool 2-1 down at the time.

Now, there are potentially several other reasons (not least youngster Trey Nyoni's impressive cameo in midfield) why Iraola’s team enjoyed their best 20 minutes of the game from that point on, but certainly a contributing factor was the full-backs being replaced.

Szoboszlai can learn like Milner - and become a better midfielder

Dominik Szobsozlai, as he was regularly last season, moved to right-back, immediately giving Liverpool a player who can actually put in a cross and also be defensively stronger than the player he was replacing.

The Hungarian might not necessarily like playing there, but Iraola could do far worse than have the same conversation Jurgen Klopp had with James Milner in 2016 in explaining how he wanted the midfielder to be his left-back for the season ahead.

A year later, Milner explained what he learned in the new position: “But at times you have to curb that and adapt to the match situation and maybe sometimes hold back a bit if the time of the game suits that. I think sensing danger early is the biggest thing to learn. When you play in midfield you’re obviously always switched on to defending.”

Those words about “sensing danger early” are incredibly timely, with Iraola’s pre-Nottingham Forest press conference featuring a very similar message when discussing his midfield’s need to find a balance after being caught out twice by Newcastle in the opening fixture.

“There are players that are very good, they’re smelling, ‘OK, there is real danger, I can’t take the risk of going (forward),” explained Iraola. “Now I think I have to stay’. “Recognising those situations is the job we have to do now.”

A season at right-back, then, would actually help Szoboszlai learn that side of his game and make him a better midfielder in future. That should be the message Iraola gives him in order to get the Reds’ No. 8 to buy into the role.

Would Szoboszlai particularly enjoy it? Probably not, but it’s about what’s best for the team, as Milner succinctly explained: “It’s about whatever’s best for the team and ultimately I just want to be out there playing games, contributing and helping this football club.”

And if Szoboszlai has designs on becoming Liverpool captain after Virgil van Dijk departs, then a selfless season at right back would show he puts the team first and give him a new understanding of the team and overall patterns of play.

Liverpool solve two issues with Szoboszlai role change

For Liverpool, they’d be getting a far more reliable outlet on the right, who can produce crosses like the one Szoboszlai did for Alexander Isak against Forest, which the £125 million man couldn’t get on the end of.

No Liverpool player had more touches, created more chances or made more accurate crosses than Szoboszlai against Forest.

He made three stat-recorded accurate crosses, while Frimpong and Kerkez made none between them. The duo attempted six, with none of them finding their target. It was a similar story against Newcastle the week before.

Of course, stats on crossing is pretty flawed, a player can produce a wonderful cross but if the forward doesn’t get on the end of it, it’s recorded as a failed cross.

The eye test tells us that Szoboszlai’s crossing was significantly better than Frimpong’s versus Forest. Of that there is no doubt.

He can also move inside more to create numbers-up situations in midfield, again more akin to Alexander-Arnold did.

Liverpool’s focus on signing attacking wingers for Iraola this summer has neglected the right-back and midfield positions, but moving Szobsozlai fixes both, at least temporarily.

If Iraola is serious about getting the best out of his squad, and Szoboszlai is serious about being a team player, it’s a change that would significantly benefit Liverpool this season.

Tottenham will be hoping that the 2025/26 season saw the club bottom out following a series of recent struggles.

The club only secured their Premier League status on the final day of last season, as they meandered to a second consecutive 17th-place finish, but did not have a cup win to fall back on this season, following their 2025 Europa League triumph.

The reasons for Spurs' recent struggles have been well-documented, with managerial upheaval and questionable recruitment two of the main issues the club have faced over the past few years.

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Peter Crouch on Tottenham's need to rebuild

Former Spurs striker Peter Crouch has pinpointed last season's hire of Igor Tudor as a particularly poor decision, and also believes his old side are in need of a significant rebuild, in order to back new boss Roberto De Zerbi.

"Roberto De Zerbi has been amazing at Spurs," Crouch tells FourFourTwo. "The Igor Tudor reign was disastrous.

"No-one saw that appointment coming and it didn’t ever start making any more sense."

Crouch believes that for a club with Tottenham's ambitions, this decision was symptomatic of a wider problem that has impacted the club for some time.

“There’s been serious mismanagement for a while now,” he continues, adding that Tottenham's recruitment has also been below par.

“They haven’t bought well enough,” Crouch adds, backing their recent summer spending spree, which has seen the club spend more than £300million going into the final days of the window.

This has seen the likes of Savio, Sandro Tonali and Mateus Fernandes join, and despite an opening weekend 3-0 defeat to Brentford, Crouch insists it is now time for the club to kick on again.

"A club of that size can’t be trying to stay up by a couple of points," he insists, in a statement which also illustrates the size of the challenge facing De Zerbi and his side this year.

"I hope to see Spurs back to their best this season,” Crouch concludes.

It took 22 long years, but Arsenal returned to the summit of English football last season, when they eased to the Premier League title.

This title drought stretched back to the days of Arsene Wenger's Invincibles, and for former Gunners midfielder Ray Parlour - a member of that 2004 title-winning squad - the club's wait for the title only made this latest success all the sweeter.

And while Parlour admits he did not fathom the idea that the club would have had to wait that long when he celebrated that last success, he believes last season's title was a fitting reward for that at the club.

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Parlour on Arsenal ending their title drought

"I was so over the moon that they’d done it," Parlour tells FourFourTwo as he reflects on the significance of last year's win.

"It was a big relief, because if you’d said to me 22 years ago, back in 2004, that they weren’t going to win it again for such a long time, I’d have said you were mad."

Arsenal had made a habit of near-misses in recent years, registering three consecutive second-place finishes before getting over the hump last season, adding to a prior 11 top-four finishes since that 2003/04 triumph.

For Parlour, this all underlines how difficult it is to consistently compete for English football's biggest domestic prize.

"It shows how hard it is to win it," he continues. "I was thrilled for the squad."

And while Parlour is quick to praise the playing squad for the victory, he believes the credit should be shared around the club.

"The owners and the people who run things behind the scenes deserve plaudits as well, because we all see how things work in football in this day and age," he continues.

Parlour is also keenly aware that patience has become increasingly rare in the modern game, with Arsenal bucking this trend and allowing Arteta to continue to build his squad despite repeated near-misses.

"Most of the time, when things go wrong, or when a manager fails to win something, they don’t stay in their job.

"But Arsenal really stuck by Mikel Arteta and they backed him all the way."

During two trophy-laden spells at Chelsea, David Luiz turned out for the club almost 250 times, helping the Blues win the Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and Europa League.

But shortly after signing a new contract in 2019 and just weeks after he started in Chelsea’s 4-1 Europa League final win over Arsenal, the Brazilian defender signed for the Gunners in an £8million deal.

The reason for making this bold move across the capital with the ink on his new deal still wet was a simple one - the hiring of his former teammate Frank Lampard as Chelsea boss.

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Luiz on why Lampard’s Chelsea wasn’t for him

Luiz has recently turned 30 when Lampard, fresh from a stint on charge of Derby County, was handed the Stamford Bridge top job, but age was not a factor for Luiz, who is still playing as a 39-year-old for Cypriot side Pafos.

“I was already over 30 and had renewed my contract with Chelsea,” Luiz tells FourFourTwo. “No-one had ever broken the club policy of renewing for two years after the age of 30, and I renewed for two years.

“Then after two months, I went to Arsenal. It was down to the decision to bring Frank Lampard in as manager. In pre-season, I already could see the way he was going to play wasn’t going to leave me happy.

“At that age, I thought “I want to enjoy the game in the way I play it”, so it was better to leave.”

For Luiz, this was a decision made as a matter of principle.

“There are two kinds of workers in life,” he continues. “Those who work to protect themselves and the job, and those who want to do something different. In any company, 90 per cent protect the job, but I want to be part of the 10 per cent.

“It would have been easy to have stayed quietly at Chelsea, but I’m not like that. So I sat down with Frank Lampard and said ‘I want to leave – the way you’re going to play won’t be good for me, and the way I’d play in your system won’t be good for you either’.”

A year after playing his final match for Chelsea against Arsenal in the Europa League final, there was another twist of fate for Luiz.

“Life is so funny – later that season, the FA Cup final was between Arsenal and Chelsea. I leave, telling the manager I don’t think his philosophy would suit me, that maybe it wouldn’t work to win anything, then at the end of the season the final is against him.

“So if I won, in theory I was right. If I lost, I wasn’t. Thank God, we managed to win, and I was very respectful in the way I behaved, not celebrating, and respecting the history I built at Chelsea.”

Sir Geoff Hurst will forever be at the centre of English football’s greatest-ever achievement.

The former West Ham striker’s iconic hat-trick saw the Three Lions conquer the world at Wembley 60 summers ago, but just months earlier, his place at the 1966 World Cup was far from assured.

It would take patience, preparation and an unfortunate injury to Jimmy Greaves for Hurst to get his opportunity under Sir Alf Ramsey.

Geoff Hurst on waiting for his England chance

As Hurst looks back on his rise into the England starting XI that summer, he admits that he was eager to keep his expectations in check in the run-up to the tournament,

“Well, you don't get too far ahead of yourself,” Hurst tells FourFourTwo. “You might find it surprising but, although we were successful at West Ham, it was never really on my radar."

Hurst’s approach of letting his club football at Upton Park do the talking would pay off, though, as the call did come just in time.

“It was quite a surprise when I received a letter from the FA in December ‘65 saying I was picked for the game in February against West Germany at Wembley. You come and play and do your best, and hopefully the manager sees enough in you.

“Thankfully, he did. It wasn’t just me, either. Martin Peters, my team-mate at West Ham and room-mate on England duty, played his first game in May that year. He went on to score the other goal in the final, of course. We were cutting it fine!”

While Hurst was named in Ramsey’s 22-man squad for the World Cup, he didn’t actually start a game until the quarter-final win over Argentina, after first-choice striker Jimmy Greaves injured himself in the final group game. But was that a source of frustration for Hurst?


“Not for one second,” he insists. “I was honestly just so ecstatic to be in the squad for a home World Cup.

“I often joke that Alf Ramsay picked two average players ahead of me, in Jimmy Greaves and Roger Hunt, before finally getting it right. But, of course, those two were phenomenal strikers and I was thrilled to support the team however I could.

“That was a good attitude because, when your chance comes in life, you have to be ready to take it and I did.

“Saying that, I was honestly so sad for the great Jimmy Greaves, who damaged his leg against France. He deserved to play on.”

In a new book, Paul Watson regales some of the planet's weirdest footballing tales, including the club with a suspected drug lord in midfield, fans who dress up as squirrels and a Benin side itching for revenge.

Read on for 20 barely believable stories from all four corners of the globe...

Easter Island (A)

When watching the cup draw, any team is keen to avoid a potential banana skin, so Santiago Wanderers probably weren't too thrilled when they pulled out a trip to the remote Juan Fernandez Islands in the 2024 Copa Chile. The fixture meant a journey to Robinson Crusoe Island, 400 miles off the Chilean coast and named after the famed Daniel Defoe novel, which tells the story of a shipwrecked English merchant stranded on a remote island for 28 years.

There weren't enough commercial routes available for Santiago Wanderers to reach the island, so they had to call upon a Chilean navy supply ship, the Aquiles, to face unknown opposition.

Juan Fernandez's team had been hastily assembled from recreational teams on the island, but were hampered by players missing training for lobster harvesting. They still made their professional opponents sweat though, only narrowly losing 2-1.

It was the second time a team from the country's remote islands had entered the Copa Chile. In 2009, a team from Rapa Nui, more commonly known as Easter Island, hosted Colo-Colo, who are widely regarded as the nation's most successful club. Colo-Colo returned home 4-0 winners, but the most memorable moment was Rapa Nui's pre-match Polynesian war dance, on a field flanked by two of the island's famous Moai statues.

Too bad to take part

When a club is kicked out of their league, you generally presume they've cheated to win, but for Sueca United it was the reverse – thrown out of the lower levels of Valencia's league system for being so bad they were accused of not trying.

The club were the brainchild of eccentric actor Pau Codina and offered a chance to those who may not have got a game elsewhere. As admirable as that was, it left Sueca outmatched week after week. Over 11 seasons, they lost more than 300 games in a row, letting in more than 4,000 goals. The average scoreline throughout the club's history was 24-0. Come September 2023, the Valencian Football Federation had lost patience and expelled Sueca United after just two games, including a 40-0molly-whopping. Enough!

A derby on a ferry?!

The Estonian islands of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa have always had a fierce but good-natured rivalry. When they decided to play a football match in 2013, neither side was willing to surrender their home advantage, so they came up with a novel approach to a neutral venue – the game was played aboard the M/S Muhumaa passenger ferry connecting the islands.

A grass lawn was laid down on the boat's deck, but there was only room for five-a-side, which probably reduced the risk of any challenges going, erm, overboard if things heated up. Hiiumaa won 4-1 – a surprise, as Saaremaa is home to FC Kuressaare, who play in the Estonian top flight. Unusually, they train in Tallinn but host home games on their island, meaning home matches often require longer journeys than away trips.

Have boots, will travel

Sudanese side Al Hilal recently achieved an unprecedented feat – winning the league in three different countries, in the space of just two seasons. Displaced from their homeland by a brutal civil war, they and Sudanese rivals Al Merrikh joined Mauritania's Super D1 League for 2024-25. The two countries aren't exactly neighbours, situated around 3,000 miles apart, but Al Hilal duly finished top of the table, albeit only recognised as “honorary champions”, with locals FC Nouadhibou technically the title winners.

The two Sudanese clubs then briefly returned to their own country, with Al Hilal winning the Elite League – a short-form event to determine which clubs would represent the nation in continental competitions. Both then joined the Rwanda Premier League for 2025-26, where Al Hilal comfortably completed an unlikely treble.

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Oxygen required

There was endless talk about the effects of playing at altitude before England's World Cup win in Mexico City this year, but that was trivial compared to a visit to Peruvian side Union Minas. From the 1980s to the early 2000s, the Cerro de Pasco side reached the summit of Peruvian football with their squad of jobbing veterans and nearly men, aided by substantial home advantage.

The Estadio Daniel Alcides Carrion is the highest stadium in the world at around 14,000 feet above sea level – that's about 2,126 Dan Burns, and less than 4,000 feet lower than the base camps on Mount Everest. Opposition teams were so overwhelmed by the altitude that they would frequently be incapacitated, with oxygen masks a common sight in the visiting dressing room at half-time.

Union briefly led the top tier standings in the 1998 season, but the decline of the mining industry hit the area hard and they slid down the leagues before halting operations in 2011, only returning last year.

Six titles and a funeral

Some clubs evoke strong feelings of animosity from their rivals without it being entirely obvious why. For others, it's more apparent. Take Maltese club Valletta FC, for example.

The Lilywhites are one of Malta’s most successful clubs – they’ve won 25 league titles and in 2000-01, they laughed in the face of Gerard Houllier’s Liverpool cup treble by winning an almost unheard of domestic sextuple, at once securing the Premier League, Rothmans Trophy, Super Five Cup, Lowenbrau Cup, Super Cup and the Centenary Cup.

But it's the way Valletta celebrate their success that antagonises opponents – whenever they win the league, fans hold a mock funeral street parade for their beaten rivals, carrying coffins with the insignia of their rivals through the streets. It was no great surprise then that when Valletta suffered the first relegation of their history in 2023-24, a healthy dose of schadenfreude was expressed by other clubs.

Free trip to Tahiti

Since 1961, the Coupe de France has allowed entrants from French territories around the world, creating some of the most epic away days in world football. The French Football Federation covers the costs, but amateur teams still have to brave getting time off from their day jobs for what could be a lengthy jaunt.

In 2024-25, fourth-tier Normandy side US Avranches landed an away match with AS Dragon from Papeete in Tahiti – flying nearly 10,000 miles from rainy northern France to a tropical paradise island in the Pacific Ocean, only to lose on penalties after a 2-2 draw.

The wrong club

While players will always try to pretend that a transfer is motivated by a previous love for their new club, in reality there are often unspoken reasons behind switching teams. One of the strangest was the case of Congolese winger Thievy Bifouma's move to Iranian side Esteghlal Khuzestan in 2024.

The former West Bromwich Albion loanee explained he put pen to paper because he wanted to face Cristiano Ronaldo in the Asian Champions League. “I reviewed the calendar and realised they had a game against Al Nassr – I said to myself this was where I wanted to go,” he told Iranian media.

The slight issue was that Al Nassr had a date with Esteghlal FC, based in Tehran, not Esteghlal Khuzestan, a completely different team situated hundreds of miles to the south. “I had no idea there were two teams named Esteghlal,” Bifouma admitted. “When I arrived, my countryman Gael Kakuta called me and asked where I was.” Kakuta played for Esteghlal FC – the pair quickly realised that they wouldn't be team-mates after all.

"We got out of jail today, lads"

There are a fair few prison-based football teams around the world, but Welsh side HMP Prescoed are a rarity – their players aren't made up of guards or support staff, they're inmates at the Category D, or open, prison.

The team competes in the Gwent Central League, where a cursory glance at the league table suggests they appear to have an excellent home record, but abysmal away form. The reality is that HMP Prescoed aren't allowed to travel to away matches, for obvious reasons – they play them on their own field but must forfeit every game 5-0 and take a three-point deduction. As a result, the best-case scenario for the season is to finish on zero points. Last season they ended on minus five, having bagged five wins and a draw from their 14 fixtures.

Amercian nightmare

When the small Caribbean island of Antigua was given a chance to enter a club in the United Soccer League, the third tier of US football, it seemed like a great opportunity. By the time of their ill-fated third campaign in 2013 though, Antigua Barracuda's dream had turned into a nightmare.

The league was supposed to be ‘international', but three teams from Puerto Rico were removed during the 2011 season, and by 2013 Barracuda were forced into relocation to the US mainland just to participate at all. The cash-strapped team lived in a cramped hotel in Tampa, Florida, making journeys of up to 10 hours in a tiny minibus to fulfil fixtures. At one point they even had to train in their hotel's car park, as they didn't have access to a pitch. They lost 26 games out of 26.

Okinawa's number two team

Third-tier Japanese side FC Ryukyu come from the island of Okinawa, famed for its beaches, coral reefs and a well-known Second World War battle. Okinawa was once the Ryukyu Kingdom, a separate entity from Japan, and retains its own unique culture. It's also geographically detached from the rest of Japan, which presents something of a challenge for a football team – every one of FC Ryukyu's J3 League away games requires a journey of at least 400 miles.

However, if they wanted to encourage closer contact, they maybe wouldn't have chosen Unko Museum as their 2025 back of shirt sponsor. The Unko Museum is dedicated to the theme of poo, claiming to be “disgustingly cute” and, worryingly, “highly interactive”.

Itching to get home

Many teams can empathise with the misery of getting back on the coach for a long journey home following a disappointing defeat. Few, however, can compete with Bani Ganse.

The Benin side were already in a bad mood when they filed onto their coach to make a 10-hour trip back home from Loto-Popo in the country's south west. That mood was to get much worse when the players and coaching staff began itching uncontrollably. It turned out that Loto-Popo fans had sprayed an industrial itching powder on the seats of the bus in response to their belief that Bani Ganse had allegedly put “suspicious substances on the field”. Loto-Popo said they'd “neutralised that with holy water” – no such luck for the Bani Ganse players on their ever more irritating team bus.

The world's oddest rivalry

When Baltika Kaliningrad were promoted to the Russian Premier League in 2023, no-one was happier than the supporters of SKA-Khabarovsk, who no longer had to make the gruelling trip across the country to face them.

Khabarovsk is in the far east of Russia, close to China, Japan and North Korea, while Kaliningrad is an exclave on the Baltic Sea, nestled in between Poland and Lithuania. The 9,000-mile round trip had been a regular, dreaded fixture, but Baltika's promotion (they came straight back down, but yo-yoed back up again in 2025) at least trimmed Khabarovsk's mileage a little; they rack up around 70,000 per season, the equivalent of going a third of the way to the Moon.

Andy Morrison: Seychelles boss?

When youth football coach Andrew Amers-Morrison went on holiday to the Seychelles in 2010, he could hardly have imagined how eventful his trip would be.

The Seychelles Football Federation mistakenly believed former Manchester City player Andy Morrison to be on the island and pounced on the opportunity to offer him the men's national team job. Shocked but delighted, Amers-Morrison accepted. Sadly, it all unravelled when a journalist contacted the intended Andrew Morrison to ask him about his plans for the side, only for the confused man at the other end of the line to insist he'd never set foot in the Seychelles.

The embarrassed federation initially reduced Amers-Morrison's contract to six months to give him a shot at proving himself, then withdrew the offer insisting they “could no longer be certain he was the right person to head the coaching staff of the national team”. Hard to argue with that – they'd literally given the job to the wrong person. The real Andy Morrison has since managed Connah's Quay Nomads and Sri Lanka.

All at sea

Situated in the middle of the South Atlantic, the British Overseas Territory of St Helena is best known as the location of Napoleon's final exile – it's also home to one of the planet's most remote football leagues, played on the island's picturesque Francis Plain Playing Field.

It was in that league in 2020 that Crystal Rangers lost 36-0 and 30-0 to Rovers and Bellboys respectively – those seemed like bad results for a team who had won the island's cup four times and league title once in the 1990s, but there were mitigating circumstances. Both times, the team were only able to field eight players, with an emergency rescue at sea meaning several had to run for lifeboats during the pre-game warm-up.

Out of Africa

Ceuta is an autonomous Spanish city on the North African coast, connected to Morocco, and made global news lately when thousands of migrants entered by sea in a matter of hours. It doesn't have an airport, so it's also become a real headache for visiting teams since Ceuta reached the Segunda Division in 2025.

The usual method is a ferry from the southern Spanish port of Algeciras, but when Barcelona drew Ceuta in the Copa del Rey in 2023, they left nothing to chance – flying their matchday squad there in three separate helicopters.

Last season saw Ceuta finish up respectably in mid-table, performing especially well at home, but coach Jose Juan Romero labelled their lengthy trip to FC Andorra for a dead rubber fixture “a pain in the ass” – a Spanish league match between a club from the African mainland and one from a different country altogether.

Going nuts

When you think about fan culture, you likely don't immediately picture the landlocked principality of Andorra, yet the world's 17th-smallest country is home to a brilliant, and slightly nutty, supporter tradition.

The town of Santa Coloma – just down the road from the country's big smoke, capital city Andorra la Vella – is home to two rival clubs: FC Santa Coloma and UE Santa Coloma. The latter have embraced the town's famously (OK, that may be overstating it a little bit) large squirrel population by adopting Esquirols, or the Squirrels, as their nickname.

To honour that moniker, supporters traditionally turn up to their final home game of every campaign dressed up as squirrels – something to strike terror into the hearts of their opponents, or, more likely, cause huge embarrassment for that one fan who forgets they still have another game remaining and dons the suit a fortnight early.

Easy day's work

There's an age-old punditry cliche that sometimes a result depends on which version of a team turns up. That was quite literally the case with Togo in 2010 – when Bahrain cruised past them 3-0in a friendly, the Asian team's coach Josef Hickersberger was more suspicious than happy. Togo had played at the World Cup four years earlier, but there was no sign of Emmanuel Adebayor, and the players were struggling to even get through the 90 minutes.

When Bahraini officials phoned the Togolese Football Federation everything became clear – they hadn't sent a team to play, and the side that had actually taken part in the game were imposters.

An investigation revealed the whole match was arranged by one of football's most prolific match-fixers, Singaporean Wilson Raj Perumal, with the fake side led by former Togo boss Bana Tchanile. When the sham game was taking place, meanwhile, the real Togolese squad had been on a bus, having recently played 4,000 miles away in Botswana.

Taking the league by force

In South Korea, all able-bodied men must undertake a period of military service before the age of 30 – for a lucky few, that military service can come while playing football.

Gimcheon Sangmu is the team of the Republic of Korea Armed Forces, and every season they sign 15 players who will spend between 18 months and two years with the club. The team's fortunes can vary, but they finished third in South Korea's top flight in both 2024 and 2025, and would have qualified for the AFC Champions League had they not been prohibited from taking part in Asia's continental competitions.

Their glory days will soon be over, however – the club will leave the top tier at the end of this year, regardless of their finishing position, because an affiliation agreement between the K League, the Korea Armed Forces Athletic Corps and Gimcheon City is about to expire. Any new citizen-owned club in Gimcheon or an armed forces club in a different city are expected to begin in the second tier.

"OK, I'll pick the suspected drug lord"

Deportivo Capiata in Paraguay were at a low ebb in 2021 – even so, a new signing in their midfield looked oddly off the pace for a regular starter. That man was Sebastian Marset, accused of being one of the world's most prolific cocaine traffickers, as well as a failed semi-professional footballer.

Marset arrived at the club in one of his many Lamborghinis, sending up a shower of gravel in the car park. He very quickly won over his team-mates with cash in exchange for supporting his claim to a place in the starting line-up – while the coach initially attempted to bench him, it was pointed out to him just how crucial Marset was.

Incredibly, Marset was able to play for the club, with his real name displayed on the team sheet, living his childhood dream of being a professional footballer while also allegedly laundering his money, until he chose to move on. US authorities placed a hefty bounty on his head and Marset was arrested in Bolivia in March 2026 – transferring to US custody, initially on loan with a view to a possible long-term deal.

Paul Watson's book Around the World in 80 Clubs is available now

Matt Grimes begins the new season as one of Coventry City’s on-pitch leaders, with his experience a vital part of last year’s successful promotion campaign.

The 30-year-old joined the Sky Blues in January 2025, ending a decade-long stint at Swansea City, during which time he learned a thing or two about leadership.

As Grimes prepares for his latest challenge of defying the naysayers and setting about masterminding a Premier League survival bid, he has reflected on how his own leadership role has evolved.

Grimes on why he doesn’t always need to shout

While some leaders will go for the fire-and-brimstone approach, being the loudest voice in the dressing room with theatrics on display, Grimes believes experience has taught him that this approach is no longer necessary.

“If we’re having a stinker and I come in screaming and shouting at half-time, the lads aren’t going to take me seriously, because they know that’s not the type of person I am,” he tells FourFourTwo.

That marks a significant change from earlier in his career, as he now sees autheticity is vital when it comes to commanding a dressing room.

“I think gone are the days where you need to be the loudest, scream and shout,” he continues, underlining the point that modern football leadership has evolved from the days of the loudest voice carrying the most weight.

With more than 500 career games under his belt, Grimes’ messaging comes from a place of experience and consistancy, where setting the standard himself can be a far more effective way of rallying the troops.

And it is this kind of level-headedness that will be vital this season.

Coventry start their first Premier League campaign since 2001 as one of the bookies' favourites to go straight back down, but Grimes believes lessons were learned last year which they can bring forward.

“We dominated at the start, had a wobble mid-season, but then recovered and won again,” he recounts as he looks back at a season in which Frank Lampard’s side would eventually finish 11 points clear of the chasing pack.

“We won eight out of nine to cement our place at the top. Seasons like that don’t happen often.

“It will sink in eventually, but even now, I don’t think it’s fully sunk in,”

Liverpool’s marketing department once coined a phrase that split opinion among fans.

Depending on which side of the fence Liverpool supporters sat, ‘This Means More’ was either an anglicised take on Barcelona’s 'Mes Que Un Club' – "more than a club" – ethos or a cheap strapline to hook in potential customers yearning for a sense of belonging. But for Jurgen Klopp, something really did mean more during his time at Anfield.

As his already depleted charges clung on for dear life against Chelsea’s financial juggernaut in the 2024 Carabao Cup final, the German went for broke. He flooded the Reds’ line-up with players forged almost exclusively in the developmental wing of the club’s AXA Training Centre.

Jarell Quansah, Jayden Danns, James McConnell, Trey Nyoni and Bobby Clark led a charge which culminated in Virgil van Dijk’s extra-time winner. Klopp described it as ‘easily the most special trophy I ever won’; no mean feat considering he already counted a Champions League on an impressive honour roll.

Alan Hansen’s infamous edict that ‘you can’t win anything with kids’ was disproved by his former club as a team of callow youth held their own against one that Gary Neville dubbed ‘blue billion-pound bottle jobs’ and offered a glimmer of hope that the tide could be stemmed, if only slightly. Fast-forward two years since that Wembley triumph and the club’s homegrown core is now facing a genuine existential threat.

Klopp previously spoke of his dream that the Reds could, potentially in the next decade, field 'a team full of Scousers' because they would 'fight like crazy'. Ironically, the player who commanded that soundbite, in July 2020, has delivered a hammer blow to his utopian vision.

Curtis Jones's departure to Inter Milan is set to mark the end of an era for the club's local heartbeat. In each of the past 33 seasons, a homegrown player has made at least one Premier League appearance for their boyhood heroes; a lineage that can also be traced back to the beginning of their 134-year history, with Philip Kelly becoming the first in a long list of what Kopites would later vaunt as ‘a Scouser in our team’. The Toxteth-born midfielder’s Serie A move, a year before his existing contract had been due to expire, risks changing all that.

Little over 12 months since Trent Alexander-Arnold walked away from the club that helped make him one of the world’s finest full-backs, Anfield chiefs were determined to avoid history repeating itself. The finders’ fee which Inter paid, in the region of £30m, is small change in relation to what will be lost by Jones pursuing more regular opportunities away from his roots.

Liverpool’s academy has long been a source of both pride and intrigue. Under the tutelage of Steve Heighway, a fabled winger in the club’s 1970s dominance period, numerous Scousers rose through the ranks to become household names. From Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler to Jamie Carragher and Steven Gerrard, local lads routinely came good on Merseyside at a time when only Manchester United’s Class of 92 had a more prolific output among established Premier League clubs. At a time when local match-goers were already finding their place at Anfield pushed to the margins by increasing ticket costs, they continued to represent the last authentic link between the stands and the pitch.

They also doubled as a reference point for incoming players getting to grips with the unique culture that still exists around the club.

For a time, however, that trail ran cold. Four sides in the club’s history have won the FA Youth Cup but the move from formative to first team proved a difficult gap to bridge for those who followed in Carragher's footsteps. Gerrard’s breakthrough in the immediate afterglow of the 1996 win over a West Ham squad containing fellow future stars Frank Lampard and Rio Ferdinand proved to be the last to make the grade as a regular figure in the senior setup.

Those capable of stepping up also found themselves caught in the crossfire as a pitched battle between the Kirkby centre of excellence and the Anfield dugout, where Gerard Houllier and Rafael Benitez both attempted to wrest control of the youth policy, raged. Attempts to redress the imbalance by enlisting former Barca youth coaches Rodolfo Borrell and Pep Segura, who played key roles in Lionel Messi’s rise, to oversee development had little effect on reversing what was already lasting damage. Local players that did go on to make semi-regular outings in that period ultimately played second fiddle to a talent pool which had drawn from far beyond the River Mersey’s enclave, most notably Raheem Sterling.

Through it all, Carragher and Gerrard continued to serve as standard bearers while Jon Flanagan briefly flew the flag after the latter’s departure until Alexander-Arnold – the real 'Scouse Cafu' – stepped up in Klopp’s first full season as the latest local totem. He was followed three years later by Jones, who emerged after being imparted with the former captain’s wisdom during his brief spell as the club’s under-18 manager.

Both players became Liverpool’s first local-born players since Gerrard to make over 200 appearances and made no secret of their respective personal targets to emulate him further by taking full ownership of the armband. Barring a prodigal return, something that is more difficult for Alexander-Arnold after last summer’s fractious exit, neither will realise that aim.

Burning ambition drove the pair’s moves overseas, but they are not the only ones to develop cabin fever within the former Kirkby crop. Although Merseyside-born rather than in Liverpool itself, Quansah and Tyler Morton also pursued transfers abroad with Bayer Leverkusen and Lyon, which have already paid dividends away from fleeting first-team involvements. A debut season in the Bundesliga elevated the Warrington-born defender to a place in England’s World Cup squad this summer while Morton, a holding midfielder, has thrived after being given free rein in Ligue 1. It was a similar story for fellow non-native Caoimhin Kelleher, who made the 'easy' decision of leaving for Brentford after his own path to succeeding Alisson as first-choice goalkeeper was inexplicably blocked by Giorgi Mamardashvili. Fans have continued to track the trio's progress from afar, somewhat wistfully, in hopes that their club's hierarchy will someday realise the error of its ways in sanctioning their sales.

Jones’s immediate replacements at the local vanguard, meanwhile, are conspicuous by their absence. Danns remains the sole survivor in Andoni Iraola’s current squad but has been beset by injury problems over the past 12 months. The striker only made his long-awaited return to action in last week’s tempestuous ‘mini derby’ with Everton U21s at Goodison Park.

A prospective run in the side appears increasingly improbable with record signing Alexander Isak leading the line, Hugo Ekitike’s looming return and a pursuit of more attacking reinforcements such as PSG’s Bradley Barcola expected before the transfer window closes. Iraola is well-versed on the importance of local identity after spending almost his entire playing career at Athletic Club, whose ‘cantera’ policy is notorious for an intake of players that are either of Basque origin or birth. He was forthright about a desire to keep Jones at all costs, using his inaugural address to underline the importance of a local nucleus. But if the Basque head coach gets off to a rocky start, as he did at Bournemouth, opportunities for Danns to stake a claim in and around the first team will be further limited.

At a time when youth development is front and centre for many of their Premier League rivals, Liverpool are in danger of falling away. Reigning champions Arsenal continue to thrive with Hale End graduates Bukayo Saka and Myles Lewis-Skelly while Manchester City have made Phil Foden and Nico O’Reilly focal points in their brave new era under Enzo Maresca. Even Chelsea, the aforementioned billionaire bottlers, count Reece James and Levi Colwill from their Cobham pipeline. United also continue to proudly boast of fielding a homegrown player in every matchday squad since 1937.

Klopp’s tempered his vision of an authentically local team by admitting he would settle in the interim for becoming a club where everyone with ‘a Scouse soul’ wanted to play. That may be all which Liverpool have left to cling with no legitimate successors readily available to assume to the mantle recently vacated by Jones's move to Italy.

A banner displayed at Anfield on last season’s final day in tribute to departing stalwarts Andy Robertson and Mohamed Salah asked, ‘When will we see your like again’. The same question can now be posed about the next Scouser to don the famous red shirt.

Leeds United have a golden opportunity to match or even eclipse their best Premier League finish in the modern era this season, and walking away from an expensive loan move is further evidence they are on track to achieve just that.

Mykhaylo Mudryk joining up with Daniel Farke's group at Elland Road never seemed a natural fit, even if the Ukrainian's talent is undeniable. While some may frame it as an inability to get a marquee signing over the line, it is probably more likely a reflection of the security Leeds have, across the board, in 2026.

Last term, the Whites signed Facundo Buonanotte on a second-half-of-the-season loan deal but the Argentine rarely played, never mind delivered. Given Mudryk's history, Farke's reluctance to guarantee game-time and the likely cost of bringing the attacker to Yorkshire, it always felt one that probably wouldn't get done.

Leeds' previous best since returning to the top flight was ninth (2020/21) under Marcelo Bielsa

Through a certain lens, this so-called transfer failure is perhaps the clearest declaration of intent Leeds have made all summer. Unwilling to compromise their long-term wage structure or bend to Chelsea's inflated game-time expectations for an unpredictable player, both sides have politely walked away.

Far from a setback, it is FourFourTwo's opinion that it will prove to be a bullet dodged, and a sign of maturity.

To appreciate how far Leeds have come, one must view this financial prudence through the prism of their volatile past.

Throughout the modern Premier League era, punctuated by emotional promotions in 2020 and 2025, stability has been fleeting, almost mythical at Elland Road.

The famous early 2000s heyday, filled with European nights, ultimately came at a crippling cost, built on borrowing that plunged the club into almost two decades of turmoil. You would have to rewind all the way to the early 1990s under Howard Wilkinson to find an era where Elland Road felt quite this grounded, structured, and secure.

Under the stewardship of 49ers Enterprises, Leeds are in safe, capable hands. The strategy during this transfer window has been surgical rather than superficial. Instead of chasing vanity projects, the board has systematically upgraded the starting lineup by bringing in top-tier talents like James Trafford, Tarik Muharemovic, and Harry Wilson.

Crucially, they have balanced the books through shrewd player trading, sanctioning Pascal Struijk’s move to Brighton without weakening the squad’s underlying foundation.

That sense of calm extends directly onto the pitch, where Farke has embarked on his fourth full season in charge.

Tactical and managerial continuity is a rare commodity in modern football, but Farke’s approach continues to pay dividends. Leeds kicked off their campaign with an away victory at Nottingham Forest last weekend - a venue where Forest lost just seven home games last term and won nine the year before. It could come to be seen as a statement victory that underlines their growing authority away from home. Leeds won only twice on the road last season.

While Leeds enjoy continuity, transition and uncertainty surrounds much of the division. This summer saw nine managerial changes at Premier League clubs, six of which occurred at teams Leeds consider direct positional rivals: Bournemouth, Newcastle, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Ipswich, and Forest.

While other dressing rooms are learning as they go under new leadership, Leeds have a settled, unified core. Key players Ethan Ampadu, Joe Rodon, Brenden Aaronson, and Jayden Bogle have all recently committed their long-term futures to the West Yorkshire club.

The underlying metrics further validate this upward trajectory. Since December 1, 2025, Leeds have accumulated nine victories, twelve draws, and just five defeats across twenty-six top-flight matches - the sixth-best record in the entire division over that period. It is no longer a temporary purple patch, rather sustained momentum from a club seemingly functioning with operational alignment.

The broader landscape represents a window of opportunity. With nine Premier League clubs burdened by the physical and mental demands of European competition, Leeds can channel their energy exclusively into domestic affairs. Free from midweek travel, squad rotation headaches, and fixture congestion, a settled Leeds side is perfectly positioned. Rejecting expensive shortcuts like Mudryk proves that Leeds value sustainability over optics, and that discipline is precisely why a top-ten Premier League finish is well within their reach.

While lots of football media write content around ‘what we learned’ from a match, this was a case of ‘what we already know’.

What most Liverpool observers already knew:

1. There’s a huge issue with the midfield

2. Liverpool are far too open on the transition

3. The full backs, especially Jeremie Frimpong, are major concerns

4. Alexander Isak doesn’t look like a Liverpool player

Liverpool’s issues were as clear at St James’ Park as they have been for a year, and in some cases well over a year.

The primary one is the midfield - both the setup and the personnel used.

“We’ve been talking about a defensive midfielder at Liverpool for the last three years,” assessed Daniel Sturridge accurately post-match.

Liverpool have midfield issues

Plenty of others have warned of it, going back to the very start of last season when Arne Slot changed his midfield setup to a ‘2-1’ rather than a ‘1-2’ - removing a more dedicated defensive minded holding midfielder and instead having two players alongside each other in midfield.

It means a completely changed role for Ryan Gravenberch, whose best six months came when he was positioned as more proactive ‘No.6’ in front of the defence in Slot’s first season in charge.

It was also done to accommodate Florian Wirtz as the new No.10 - something that Iraola has doubled down on and stated is where he, too, wants the German to play.

This is despite Wirtz’s best form with both Bayer Leverkusen and Germany being from a position on the left of an attacking three, cutting inside, and all evidence of his struggle centrally for Liverpool. Hooked after an hour at Newcastle, the £116 million signing is a major worry.

“If you actually analyse the midfield, they’re all naturally more attacking players,” Sturridge said on Sky Sports - which is certainly true. Gravenberch, Dominik Szoboszlai and Wirtz are offensive players, or at least want to be, and don’t have the natural defensive mindset of the likes of Fabinho or Rodri.

And it is perhaps Rodri who should be the signpost here to anybody saying that Liverpool supporters obsess over wanting a No.6 - of course they do, they saw firsthand how Fabinho transformed their midfield under Jurgen Klopp, and the whole league has watched how crucial Rodri has been to Manchester City.

The lighthouse was how former Liverpool assistant Pepijn Lijnders nicknamed Fabinho, for his ability to ‘organise the chaos’ and ‘defend forward. “On the defensive side of things, you have to be very alert to help the team,” said Liverpool’s former Brazilian. "I try to control the game.”

Liverpool severely lack a midfielder capable of controlling the game.

Arguably the best option there would be Alexis Mac Allister, whose introduction for the final half an hour saw him play more defensively than Gravenberch.

The Argentine does a similar role for his country, and did well there for a spell under Klopp previously too, even though, again, it’s not his natural game to be more defensive minded.

What Andoni Iraola says

Newcastle’s opening goal in particular showed the issue, with Gravenberch and Szoboszlai, the two midfielders, inside the Newcastle box as the counter-attack began.

It’s something that happened frequently last season, including when Antoine Semenyo charged through the middle in Liverpool’s opening fixture of 2025/26 for Iraola’s Bournemouth.

Now, the Reds’ new head coach needs to find a solution to a problem he previously identified as the opposition manager.

“I think it’s just not personnel,” he said in his post-match press conference at St James’ Park. “We have to adapt as a team to these situations and we have to know that these situations can happen.”

“It is something that we have to correct between a lot of players,” the Spaniard added.

Liverpool's invisible No. 6 search

Liverpool have needed a defensive-minded midfielder since Fabinho departed. That was in 2023, a summer that saw attempts to sign Moises Caicedo and Romeo Lavia end in failure and eventually Wataru Endo was brought in in a surprise move.

"We need you,” Klopp told the Japan midfielder as they greeted at the training ground for the first time. "We really need you, and your heart, and your legs and your football ability and your football brain. Your desire, we need it.”

Little has changed in the three years since. Liverpool still need a midfielder of those qualities.

Mamadou Sangare, who debuted impressively for Brentford in their win against Tottenham, was reported to be among the players Liverpool were monitoring but didn’t move for this summer - a player who has the attributes and approach towards defending in the middle that fans crave.

Martin Zubimendi was another failed attempt at a signing two years ago, less of a combative defensive midfielder but more of a controlling one - Rodri’s deputy for Spain, it probably wasn’t a bad idea, even if he’s fallen out of favour under Mikel Arteta at Arsenal.

Adam Wharton is a player who has long looked destined to end up at Anfield, having been tracked since his Blackburn days. He again falls more into the control than combat category, but he’d certainly add something different in Liverpool’s midfield.

But for now, it appears the No. 6 fans wish for won’t be arriving, with recent reports suggesting that internal figures at the club don’t see it as a position that is required to be strengthened. Not many observers would agree.

Liverpool fans must hope Iraola finds a solution, and fast, otherwise it threatens to undermine any progress made in attacking areas this season.

Signing new wingers might help the situation by giving more pace and threat out wide, but it certainly won't solve it.

Liverpool debutant Jeremy Jacquet was thrown into the deep end during Sunday's 2-2 draw against Newcastle United.

The young French centre-back experienced a baptism of fire at St. James' Park, likening the atmosphere on Tyneside to one of European football's most notoriously intimidating arenas.

Jacquet, 21, recently completed his transfer to Anfield following an impressive rise through the ranks in Ligue 1.

Jeremy Jacquet: 'St James' Park is like Marseille's Stade Velodrome'

Handed his Premier League bow in front of 52,000 roaring Geordies, the highly-rated defender found himself thrust into the thick of a fiercely contested battle.

The clash saw Liverpool and Newcastle trade blows, ultimately sharing the spoils after a frantic ninety minutes that ended in a 2-2 draw. While the action on the pitch was at times breathless, it was the relentless noise from the terraces that left a lasting impression on the newcomer.

Speaking to French broadcaster Canal Plus, as quoted by Get French Football News, after the final whistle, Jacquet drew parallels between Newcastle's home and Olympique de Marseille's famous Stade Velodrome.

Across France and the wider European continent, Marseille's home ground is revered and feared in equal measure. It carries a reputation as an ear-splitting cauldron of hostility, where ultras create a visually spectacular and loud environment for visiting teams.

It seems the Geordie faithful managed to replicate that wall of sound on Sunday afternoon, offering the young Frenchman a stark welcome to the English top flight.

“The atmosphere? It wasn't bad. It reminded me a bit of the Velodrome," the young defender confessed. "It's an iconic stadium, fans shouting everywhere. That's why I'm here. I like that."

The newly arrived centre-back claimed to relish the intimidation, taking the St. James' Park decibel levels in his stride, although he was substituted during the second half for the more experienced Ronald Araujo, on loan at Liverpool from Barcelona.

When you hear the term ‘yo-yo club’, the team that springs to mind probably depends on the era that you started watching football.

For me, it’s West Bromwich Albion, who were promoted from the Championship four times and relegated from the Premier League on three occasions between 2002 and 2010.

Ipswich Town are the latest club to slip into a yo-yo existence, where they are too good for one division but seemingly not good enough for the league above, with Gary O’Neil’s side heavily tipped to go straight back down after promotion last term.

The three clubs Ipswich must emulate to shed the yo-yo tag

This is the fifth successive season in which the Tractor Boys have been in a different division, achieving back-to-back promotions to the Premier League in 2022/23 and 2023/24, before relegation in 2025 was followed by promotion.

It took them until November 10 to claim their first win when they were last in the top flight, but they ticked that off straight away this season, beating Sunderland 2-1 in Saturday’s opening game.

You would think that clubs who return to the Premier League at the first time of asking would be more likely to survive, but that’s rarely the case. In fact, 10 of the past 13 teams who gained an immediate return to the top flight went straight back down.

For example, it has happened to Burnley twice in the past four seasons: after dropping out of the Premier League in 2022, promotions in 2023 and 2025 were followed by relegations in 2024 and 2026 respectively.

But the Clarets are also one of just three clubs since 2013 to buck the trend, having been relegated in 2014/15, won the Championship the following campaign and stayed up in 2016/17.

The other two are Newcastle United, in 2017/18, and Fulham, who finally beat the drop in 2022/23 after one-season spells in the Premier League in 2018/19 and 2020/21.

So, what did these clubs get right and how can Ipswich follow their lead? Here are three reasons why the Tractor Boys are better-placed for survival this time around.

A settled defence

For Burnley in 2016/17 and Newcastle the season after, survival was built on an impressive defensive record. The Clarets finished 16th but had the 11th-best defence in the Premier League, while only six teams in 2017/18 conceded fewer goals than the Magpies, who ended the campaign 10th.

If Ipswich are to stay up, they must significantly improve on the 82 goals they conceded during their 2024/25 relegation season - and there are reasons to suggest they can.

After a leaky start to life in the Championship last term, the Tractor Boys kept 11 clean sheets from Boxing Day onwards to end the campaign with the joint second-best defensive record in the division.

Their back four against Sunderland featured three members of last season’s squad: captain Dara O’Shea, centre-back Jacob Greaves and left-back Leif Davis, who were also all part of the relegation campaign. Completing the defence was summer signing Issa Diop, who has spent the past eight years in the Premier League with West Ham United and Fulham.

Burnley’s 2016/17 defence had similar continuity, with three first-choice players - goalkeeper Tom Heaton, Ben Mee and Michael Keane - all relegated with the club two seasons earlier.

The likes of O’Shea, Greaves and Davis will have learnt from their experience two seasons ago, which should help Ipswich tighten up at the back.

Finding the right blend

Ipswich’s longest-serving players could be especially important considering the number of signings the club have made this summer.

The Tractor Boys have spent around £150m on 12 first-team players and could beat Sunderland’s record outlay for a newly-promoted club, of £161m, which was set last season.

Admittedly, Ipswich spent more than £100m two summers ago and still went down, but they can follow the blueprint of Fulham in 2022/23.

The Cottagers made some excellent signings to help them finish 10th, including Bernd Leno, Joao Palhinha and Willian, but the team was built around a spine of existing players such as Tim Ream, Antonee Robinson, Harrison Reed and Aleksandar Mitrovic.

Ipswich’s starting XI against Sunderland featured seven summer additions, with Julio Enciso and opening goalscorer Emersonn impressing, but also four survivors from last season’s squad, while another, Jack Clarke, came off the bench to bag the winner.

While Sunderland showed last season that a complete overhaul of the starting XI can bring success, O’Neil would be well-advised to maintain that blend of familiar figures and fresh faces.

A streaky streak

For Ipswich, the big unknown is in the dugout.

Kieran McKenna led the club from 12th in League One to the Premier League, so it felt like a huge blow when the Northern Irish manager stepped down in June, after delivering a third promotion in four seasons.

However, O’Neil has twice led sides to survival in the Premier League - Bournemouth in 2022/23 and Wolves the following campaign - and the way he did it could benefit the Tractor Boys.

Both clubs had fairly streaky form, with the Cherries taking six points from 13 games mid-season, then 18 from nine matches in March and April. It was the reverse at Wolves, where a run of 22 points from 11 fixtures was followed by five points from 10.

There are similarities with Newcastle in 2017/18 and Fulham in 2022/23. The Magpies took one point from nine games in late 2017, while four straight wins were followed by four successive defeats in the spring.

Fulham also had runs of four wins and four defeats, while at one point they didn’t draw a single game for three months.

In a relegation fight, it is better to be streaky than to pick up wins here and there, as a bad run can be followed by bursts of points that move you much closer to survival.

Ipswich drew 10 games in 2024/25 but won just four, so if O’Neil still has a streaky streak, the Tractor Boys will pick up more victories and have a better chance of shedding the yo-yo tag.

For some reason, Jon Bon Jovi was in the crowd at the Gtech Community Stadium on Saturday evening to watch Brentford take on Tottenham.

It would be too easy to reach for a Bon Jovi joke, but the visitors’ desperate defending relied on hope, faith and luck in an opening game that could easily have ended in a 5–0 defeat.

An unmarked Keane Lewis-Potter opened the scoring on 12 minutes, and a Richarlison mistake swiftly led to a second, but the goals were symptoms of a bigger story.

Tottenham at sixes and sevens in Premier League opener

Tottenham made seven changes from their last competitive game; many players had never played together, and midfielder Archie Gray had to fill in at right-back.

The result was a side that looked naïve, under-schooled and unprepared — less like a team than a collection of strangers still learning each other’s names. They also played every bit like an outfit that has finished 17th in the last two seasons.

Mikey Moore, 19, was the clearest example of the problem. Just back from a loan spell in Glasgow, he was almost invisible for the first 35 minutes. He later found himself in front of goal three times and, while he forced a save from goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher each time, still lacks a predator's instinct and remains in an awkward teenager phase. He needs to be shipped back out on loan somewhere that will put more hairs on his chest.

It is the manager who must take responsibility for the strangers he has assembled; this was easily Roberto De Zerbi’s worst performance. Making Gray, 20, Tottenham’s youngest-ever captain was a baffling decision, as was playing both kids on the same wing. Veteran James Maddison, who came on late and made little impact, was part of a squad dinner that De Zerbi organised in Mayfair during last season’s relegation battle. These kinds of team-bonding exercises clearly haven’t worked at Tottenham. A posh dinner can unite a bunch of players over three courses; it cannot make them a team.

The Spurs defence looked like strangers, too. It was at sixes and sevens for Michael Kayode’s third on 49 minutes, and six minutes later only an Igor Thiago penalty miss prevented a fourth. There were brief glimpses of brightness for Tottenham: Mathys Tel’s skill on the ball and Lucas Bergvall’s incessant engine. But individual flashes are not the same as cohesion.

The game will be remembered for some miserable debuts: Jan Paul van Hecke, who couldn’t win a header, and £100m signing Sandro Tonali, who was totally dominated by Mamadou Sangaré.

At full time, Tonali moped off the field with a swapped Brentford shirt over his shoulders, though who knows why he would want a souvenir from such a torrid game.

Tonali's shooting only troubled spectators in the upper stands, who chanted “What a waste of money!” Tottenham desperately need help up front from Manchester City winger Savinho, with a reported £75m initial fee, who, if his move is completed and he is registered in time, could appear against Charlton in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. But another new signing would only add to the sense that Tottenham are assembling strangers, not teammates.

The stadium DJ also resisted the urge to play Bon Jovi’s hit “Livin’ on a Prayer,” which describes a struggling couple who keep going only because they believe things can improve. It also describes the malady of being a Tottenham supporter.

As the sun dipped behind the stadium and darkness descended on Hounslow, one of the 1,725 travelling Spurs fans was pictured with his arms stretched wide in the manner of “can things get any worse?”

The tiny ground of O Vao sits just a few yards from the beach in Coruxo, on the west coast of Spain. Not far from the Portuguese border and just outside Vigo, the venue holds only 1,500 people, but was where arguably the most pivotal match of Andoni Iraola's managerial career took place.

In December 2019, Iraola was the manager of Mirandes – appointed not long after they'd been promoted to the Segunda Division. It was his first job as a gaffer in Spain, having been sacked just eight months into a stint with Cypriot club AEK Larnaca.

The early stages at Mirandes weren't all plain sailing, either. The club from Burgos province, close to Iraola's native Basque Country, won just one of their opening 10 league games under the new boss, to sit second bottom of the table. Even Racing Santander, who would eventually finish bottom by a distance, beat them 4-0.

Just when form started to pick up, Mirandes headed west to face Coruxo – of the 80-team third tier, split across four regional divisions in Spain – in the first round of the Copa del Rey. As the game entered stoppage time Coruxo led 4-3, on course for a major upset. Then came a controversial equaliser from the penalty spot – in the angry aftermath, the hosts had two players sent off, and Mirandes triumphed 5-4 in extra-time.

“Total madness,” was how one media outlet described a game that veered to and fro, like it was Liverpool vs Alaves in 2001's UEFA Cup final. “Coruxo deserved to win,” Iraola admitted post-match.

A whirlwind six weeks later, Mirandes had progressed to the semi-finals of the Copa del Rey for just the second time in their history, defeating La Liga trio Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal along the way. It was a cup run that alerted many to Iraola's budding managerial talent including the person who would be instrumental in taking him to Anfield this past summer.

Michael Edwards, Liverpool's chief executive of football when Iraola was hired in June, had known about him for a long time. Edwards had tried to lure Iraola to the club once before – as long ago as 2013, when the Basque was a 31-year-old right-back at Athletic Bilbao. Iraola spent almost all of his career at the club, making more than 500 appearances.

Liverpool were pushing for the Premier League title under Brendan Rodgers, midway through the campaign that would end with Steven Gerrard's slip against Chelsea, and considering adding competition to Glen Johnson at full-back. Edwards was then the club's director of technical performance, and had asked scout Julian Ward to contact Iraola's representatives. Ward went to watch him captain Athletic Bilbao to a November win over Malaga, before Liverpool expressed their interest in making a January move.

Iraola was tempted, and thought carefully before opting to sign a new contract at Athletic Bilbao – when Johnson got injured later that season, Jon Flanagan ended up filling in, even earning praise from Cafu. When Iraola informed Liverpool of his decision, unusually he accompanied it with a letter thanking them for their interest – saying he wished to play at Anfield one day, praising the ability of Johnson, and joking that he was surprised they still wanted him after watching the game at Malaga, when he didn't think he'd played that well. Edwards appreciated the letter, and kept an eye on Iraola's progress when he became a manager.

Mirandes understandably didn't go on to win the 2020 Copa del Rey, defeated by the Real Sociedad of Martin Odegaard, Alexander Isak and Mikel Oyarzabal in the semis. The one glaring absence from Iraola's otherwise impressive CV is the lack of a major trophy as either a manager or a player, despite coming astonishingly close several times.

Under Marcelo Bielsa, Iraola was part of the Athletic Bilbao side that reached the Europa League final in 2012, beating Manchester United at Old Trafford on the way. In the Bucharest showpiece though, Atletico Madrid beat them 3-0. “I don't know when an opportunity like this will happen to us again,” Iraola said. Athletic Bilbao haven't made it to a European final since.

Iraola was involved in five finals as a player and lost them all. The other four were all against Barcelona – one in the Spanish Super Cup, and three in the Copa del Rey. By the last, the 2015 Copa del Rey final against Barça's famous MSN front line, Iraola was getting a little fed up – particularly when a showboating Neymar pulled off a rainbow flick to rub in victory late on. “I didn't find it elegant or sporting,” the defender said.

He remained a nearly man at the very highest level. Iraola won seven caps for Spain during an era when they bagged three trophies, but his debut came a month after their Euro 2008 glory, aged 26. He wasn't selected for the triumphant World Cup squad in 2010, and was then ruled out of Euro 2012 through injury, just when it looked as though he might have made the cut.

When he became a manager however, it presented a new opportunity to climb to the pinnacle of the game.

On the face of it, being sacked only eight months into his first job looked like a failure, but the reality was more nuanced. At AEK Larnaca, Iraola made an instant impact, guiding them through three qualifying rounds to reach the Europa League group stage. In the league, they won six of their first eight games, but then didn't triumph in seven, and Iraola was fired.

“He did a fantastic job because we got to the Europa League group stage,” French striker Florian Taulemesse told NC-Network, a Cypriot media platform, also crediting a backroom staff member who has followed Iraola to Anfield. “He had a great strength and conditioning coach with him, Pablo de la Torre – the way he wanted us to play, we had to be in peak condition.

“Iraola was all about the high press, then every time we recovered the ball, he wanted to see vertical passes, not backward passes. He encouraged us to cross the ball from wide areas and shoot at the first opportunity. High press, recover the ball, create openings, shoot – do that again and again; attack, attack! Our wingers were fast, making us dangerous in transition.

“While it was his first experience as a head coach, he wasn't anxious. He was a calm coach who gave us a lot of confidence. But it became difficult mixing domestic football with European competition, because we were a Cypriot club with a small budget. We got a few injuries to key players and didn't have much depth. In Cyprus, three bad results get a manager sacked.”

That wasn't the case at Mirandes, where he recovered from his slow start, steering the club to 11th in the Segunda Division, as well as that Copa del Rey semi-final, before opting to leave the club when his one-year contract ended.

He joined Rayo Vallecano, who had finished just four places above Mirandes but had a history of playing in the top division semi-regularly – albeit often as overperforming minnows, at a stadium that holds less than 15,000. Within 12 months, Iraola took Rayo back to La Liga once more via the play-offs.

The progress didn't end there – they finished 12th in their first year back in La Liga and reached the Copa del Rey semis. Like at Mirandes, it was only the second time Rayo had ever got that far in the competition, having also narrowly avoided an embarrassing first-round exit – this time thanks to a penalty shootout victory at fifth-tier Guijuelo.

Rayo also caught the eye by beating Barcelona home and away – in the following campaign, they took four more points off the Camp Nou side. That made Iraola only the sixth boss in La Liga history to avoid defeat against Barça in any of his first four games facing them as a manager, and the first since Javier Clemente in the early 1980s. Some revenge for all those cup final defeats to Barcelona as a player.

“We weren't going to take the ball away from Barça the whole time, so we had to choose what to cover and direct the pressure towards their creators, and who was going to receive the ball,” Iraola explained after his fourth game against them, a 2-1 home triumph at Vallecas. “We didn't let them have the structure they wanted, and in the transitions we were dangerous.”

Iraola remains unbeaten against Barça today, having left Rayo at the end of his contract that summer, after improving their league position again to 11th. That February, Leeds had been rebuffed in their attempts to hire him, with Rayo unwilling to let him go before the end of his deal. West Ham were also linked, but it was Bournemouth who got their man, having surprisingly fired Gary O'Neil to create an opening for him – a move that had echoes of Southampton's sacking of Nigel Adkins to recruit Mauricio Pochettino in 2013, after the Argentine had impressed at Espanyol.

The end result was similar, too: like Pochettino at St Mary's, Iraola oversaw consistent progress at the Vitality Stadium, even if he got off to another slow start, winning none of his first nine league games. Having finished 15th the season before Iraola's arrival though, Bournemouth improved to 12th, then ninth, and then sixth last term as they qualified for Europe for the first time in their history. Again, he opted to move on when his contract expired.

His destination was unclear at that point – Manchester United and Chelsea were linked, but opted to place their trust in others, with Crystal Palace also waiting in the wings before Liverpool's decision to sack Arne Slot opened the door to Anfield. While Chelsea chose Xabi Alonso ahead of Iraola, the Reds preferred Iraola to Alonso – believing he was a better fit for the heavy metal football they wanted to return to, after such success under Jurgen Klopp.

Iraola is Liverpool's first Spanish boss since Rafa Benitez, although former Reds defender John Arne Riise thinks they're not that similar. “They're very different characters when it comes to how they communicate with players and how they act on the bench,” says the Norwegian, who played under Benitez. “I've watched Iraola on the touchline and he looks more energetic, more involved with his body language.

“Rafa was much more about strict tactics and a bit more cold-faced – I mean nothing bad by that because I had a great relationship with him, but I think players today will have more close, one-on-one conversations with Iraola than we typically had with Rafa.

“I liked the way Iraola's Bournemouth played by attacking with real pace and power, and how quickly they transitioned forward. I also loved the way they really sprinted back to support the team and stay compact the moment they lost the ball. It was similar to what we did during my first few seasons under Rafa, when we were challenging for leagues – quick transitions, powerful forward movement, intense tracking back. That was lacking last season.

“I'd like to see more enthusiasm and energy on the bench to engage with the fans and the players, as well – Arne Slot was very reserved on the touchline. You want that Jurgen Klopp style where he gets the crowd and the players going. It's important for Iraola to show he has that kind of passion.”

If Neymar turns up and starts doing a few rainbow flicks, that would certainly bring out a few emotions for a man who has never won a major trophy, but has now brought his managerial talents to a club where he has a genuine chance of doing just that. This is Iraola's ninth season as a manager – in the previous eight, his club ended in a higher league position than their last campaign. If he can keep doing that at Anfield, success won't be too far away.

As Liverpool’s title defence faltered last season and the team slumped to a fifth-placed finish, many believed that a lack of intensity in their style of play was to blame.

The Reds would finish 25 points behind Premier League champions Arsenal, with Arne Slot paying the price as the club moved to replace him with former Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola.

The Spaniard has built his managerial reputation on an intense, relentless style, with former Liverpool striker Peter Crouch believing that Liverpool fans will quickly warm to the new boss.

Crouch on Iraola’s playing style

“The pressing that Andoni Iraola demands of his players is off the charts,” Crouch tells FourFourTwo, before admitting that he would not have enjoyed playing under the former Spain international.

“That wasn’t my game – I used to quite like pretending to close an opponent down, then when he ran past me, I’d have a little rest!”

And while Crouch does not see himself as fitting the modern-day style of pressing from the front, he insists that running was never an issue for him.

“If it was getting on the end of crosses, I’d run for you all day,” he continues. “But this constant running up and down, closing your marker and bending your run, it makes me tired just watching it.”

Crouch, therefore, has enormous respect for players capable of doing both jobs.

“I have huge admiration for players who can do both, though: press and win the ball high up the pitch, and also get in the box and score goals.”

The best Liverpool sides of recent years have been defined by their intense style of play and Crouch believes Iraola will be a hit at Anfield.

“Liverpool fans will take to Iraola’s style,” he adds.

“It’s more direct, more all-action, whereas Arne Slot’s play was more pedestrian.”

Peter Reid knows better than most what it takes to lead Sunderland to the upper reaches of English football.

The former Black Cats boss led Sunderland to back-to-back seventh-place Premier League finishes in 2000 and 2001 - a feat that was not matched until last season.

Like Reid, Regis Le Bris followed up promotion to the top flight with an immediate seventh-place finish, but unlike the case of the former Everton midfielder, this was enough to secure European football, marking Sunderland’s first shot at continental competition since their European Cup Winners’ Cup tilt after their 1973 FA Cup victory.

Reid on Sunderland’s return to Europe

“I was absolutely delighted – to get to Europe is some achievement,” Reid tells FourFourTwo. “It’s a great club and the supporters are unbelievable.

“I went to the Championship play-off final in 2025 – we won, amazing, but I was thinking we’d sort of scraped through and needed to get recruitment right to have any chance of staying up.”

A busy summer followed the Black Cat’s Wembley victory 12 months ago, with more than £200million being spent on new arrivals, as Reid’s hope that the club got their recruitment right came to fruition.


“I have to say, the recruitment last summer was fantastic,” he continues. “Nordi Mukiele was so strong at the back, and Brian Brobbey was so powerful up front – absolutely fearless.”

Perhaps the most important player brought in last summer was a familiar face to seasoned Premier League viewers, in the form of a certain ex-Arsenal midfielder.

“Then there was the class of Granit Xhaka in midfield. Boy, what a signing he was. Just the calmest, most authoritative player you could have found.

“I went to the game against Newcastle [that Sunderland won 1-0], and there was just this feeling inside the stadium that something special was happening.”

Despite last season’s success, several pundits are tipping Sunderland to struggle this season, as they get to grips with balancing domestic and European football.

“You can never tell how a club is going to get on with the balance of Premier League football and Europe,” Reid admits. “Even though we’ve got the basis of a very good side that can compete against most clubs on our day, you need a deep squad.

“But I’m up there often and you can smell success in the air. The future is looking bright.”

Arsenal’s 22-year wait for the Premier League title came to an end last season, sparking wild scenes of celebration in north London.

As thousands fans spilt out into the streets for the title parade, it was a reminder of the link between the club and its fans.

And for former Arsenal midfielder Ray Parlour, these scenes could provide Mikel Arteta’s squad with the perfect motivation to go again.

Ray Parlour on Arsenal’s motivation to run it back

“They said something like half a million people turned up to the parade,” Parlour tells FourFourTwo. “Which was amazing and just shows you how much that Premier League win meant to everyone.”

The Gunners ended their pre-season preparations with a convincing win over Manchester City in the Community Shield, with Arteta’s men the bookies’ favourites to be celebrating another title success next May.

If any extra motivation was needed, Parlour believes the current squad can utilise memories of the fans’ title celebrations.

“If you ask any of those players who were there, hearing those fans cheering their names, it’s the sort of thing you want to do again,” he continues.

“You’ll be looking around at your team-mates, saying ‘Lads, come on, who enjoyed that?’ I'm sure they all did and they will want to do it again.”

Parlour adds that this buzz will have stayed with the squad all summer and if utilised correctly, can be key in ensuring Arteta’s players maintain their hunger and help them deal with the very different pressure that defending a title brings with it.

“You get back to pre-season on a high,” he adds.

“People talk about money but, ask most players and they’ll tell you, football is all about getting as many medals as you can while you’re still playing.”

If Arsenal can maintain this mentality, then Parlour will be hoping he can join in those celebrations again, come the end of the season.

The post-Pep Guardiola era is underway at Manchester City, after the Spaniard ended his ten-year trophy-laden spell at the Etihad this summer.

As Enzo Maresca gets to work in taking the club into a new phase, former Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart believes one of the first challenges will be to restore the fear factor at the club - something that was slipping under even Guardiola over the past two seasons.

For Hart, this crucial area is separate from tactics and personnel, with City once possessing an aura that immediately put opponents on the back foot. Getting it back, however, will not be easy.

Hart on City’s need to restore the fear factor

“They lost that one-goal lead they had when they lined up at the start of games,” Hart tells FourFourTwo, explaining how opponents felt like they were a goal down even before kick-off.

“There was a point in Pep’s reign that they got 100 points, when they were absolutely phenomenal.”

This sense of inevitability was once one of the defining features of Guardiola’s reign, but with the club’s last title coming in 2024, that psychological edge has faded.

“People aren’t as afraid of them any more, but you earn that over time,” Hart continues. “Hard work, grinding it out, being willing to go through tough moments. You’ve got to earn the right.”

As Hart looks back at last season, he does see reasons for encouragement in the upcoming campaign, not least as the club look to prepare for another key exit in Rodri.

“They didn’t struggle as much when Rodri couldn’t play,” Hart continues.

“And I liked the signings – Gianluigi Donnarumma, Antoine Semenyo, Marc Guehi, and Rayan Cherki was a breath of fresh air.”

The former City No.1 was also impressed by what he saw from the club’s current custodian.

“Ederson was an incredible keeper for Manchester City, but the biggest compliment I can pay to Donnarumma was that he very much made the shirt his own.

“Defenders trusted his angles – they didn’t let players inside, but the full-backs were quite comfortable letting people have shots from an angle.”

After romping to the Premier League title in Arne Slot’s first campaign during the 2024/25 season, a £446million summer spending spree had Liverpool fans believing they were well placed to run it back.

Fast forward to the end of the season, and the Reds’ woeful title defence saw them finish in fifth place, 25 points adrift of champions Arsenal, as Slot paid the price by losing his job.

Former Bournemouth boss Andoni Iraola is the new man in charge and he will be hoping that after a season of settling in, the club’s 2025 recruits will make a bigger impact this season.

Owen on Liverpool’s 2025 signings

Former Liverpool striker Michael Owen believes that last summer’s new faces can make an impact.

“I’m still excited by those signings,” Owen tells FourFourTwo. “Although they appear to have been disappointing, it’s hard to analyse whether that’s been because of quality, tactics or injuries.”

Liverpool broke the £100million mark twice last summer in their purchases of Florian Wirtz and Alexander Isak, while Hugo Ekitike was a £69million signing and Owen is confident that trio can all prove their quality in a Liverpool shirt.

“I was thrilled when they bought Florian Wirtz, and I was thrilled when they bought Alexander Isak,” he continues. “I didn’t know much about Hugo Ekitike, but he turned out to be probably the best of the three last season.

“Isak missed his pre-season, struggled a bit when he came in – when he was then starting to show a bit, and actually scored a goal or two, he got injured.

“Then Ekitike got a horrific Achilles injury, an absolute nightmare, and I can’t imagine he’s going to be back too long before Christmas. But no-one can say Wirtz is not a great player, or Isak, or Ekitike.


Liverpool’s 2025 defensive recruits arrived on somewhat more modest fees and Owen still believes there are questions to be asked of the likes of Milos Kerkez and Jeremie Frimpong.

“I must admit, I thought Milos Kerkez was a very good signing,” he continues. “But now I’m not thinking that, and I don’t know what Jeremie Frimpong is.

“He’s not really a right-back, but he’s good to have in the squad – you can play him as a right-sided attacker, or you can probably get away with him playing at right-back against a lesser team.


“He also picked up a lot of injuries, but in many ways, the positives now are the negatives from last term – the amount of injuries we sustained, and the fact that many of those players will hopefully be available again now. That will be a big boost to the manager. There are still some seriously talented footballers in the squad. It’s just a question of getting them all playing well together.”

As Michael Carrick completes his first pre-season as the permanent Manchester United manager, he will look to build on a promising five-month audition for the job last season.

The former Red Devils midfielder took charge as the club’s interim boss in January following the sacking of Ruben Amorim and would lead his side to a third-place finish, a stark improvement on the previous campaign, when they stumbled to a 15th-place finish, their worst return of the Premier League era.

One attribute that Carrick brought back to Old Trafford since taking over was resilience, with former Red Devils defender Gary Pallister believing that this was a result of Carrick’s set-up in terms of both tactics and personnel.

Gary Pallister on what Carrick got right last season

“He changed the system,” Pallister tells FourFourTwo. “There was a lot of talk about that under Amorim, a lot of negatives towards the five at the back.

“I think sometimes that was maybe a bit of an excuse – whether it’s a five or a four, players should be able to adapt, but Michael brought resilience and freedom into the team.”

This freedom was helped by Carrick ending Amorim’s habit of putting square pegs in round holes.

“He played people in the right position,” Pallister continues. “Luke Shaw was back at left-back, and he gave Bruno Fernandes freedom – at times before he was stuck deeper in midfield, which I don’t think suited him when he’s the most gifted player in the league.

“He just gave people belief.”

Amorim was sacked in January following the club’s 1-1 draw against Leeds United at Elland Road, ending the Portuguese’s turbulent 14-month spell in charge. In Carrick, Pallister believes they have a manager who ‘gets’ the club in a way the now-AC Milan boss never did.

“I don’t know how bad things got under Amorim, but Michael understands what Manchester United is all about,” Pallister continues.

“He grasped that nettle as a player, then he went back in last season and just ignited a spark.

“He made the team more difficult to beat, and the players seemed to be playing for him. Were we always playing unbelievable football?

“I wouldn’t say we were – it wasn’t always sumptuous, fantastic, breathtaking football, but there was more of a mental toughness about the team. He’s got a great chance to build on things this season.”

“It never happens for people like us, you know.”

So reads the third line of We'll Live And Die In These Towns, by The Enemy. The Coventry band's 2007 single has been the unofficial anthem of the city's football club for several years now.

After 25 years outside of the top flight, Coventry City fans could be forgiven for self-indulgently attributing that one particular line to their plight of recent decades. This season, those fans will sing it to a worldwide Premier League audience for the first time.

Coventry romped to the Championship crown with 95 points and deservedly earned their spot in the top tier once more, under the management of Frank Lampard. Following spells with Chelsea, Manchester City and Everton, blue was the colour for him yet again.

The Sky Blues finished 11 points clear of runners-up Ipswich, scoring 97 goals. They spent 40 of the 46 game weeks in the automatic promotion places and, save for a mid-season wobble, the overwhelming majority of that was in top spot. Keeping the rest of the division at arm's length, without the benefit of parachute payments, is no idle task.

It has been an arduous journey. The club today is unrecognisable from the one that succumbed to relegation from the Premier League in 2001. Back then, they played at Highfield Road and had spent 34 consecutive seasons in the top flight – one of the longest-serving sides at that time, in fact, behind only Arsenal, Everton and Liverpool.

Even the current iteration of Coventry City is much changed from the one that was playing League One football as recently as 2020. It's a team that has evolved, shed its skin, morphed into something else entirely and finally rid itself of the financial deadweight that had, at one stage, dragged them down to the fourth tier.

In recent years, the trajectory has been upward, but plotting a way back from League Two is rare – nigh-on impossible, in fact. They've managed it in eight years, though there have been a handful of false dawns along the way.

The club came agonisingly close to a Premier League return in 2023, only to be defeated on penalties by Luton in the play-off final. In 2025, the decisive blow to their redemption hopes came in the last minute of extra time in their semi-final second leg at Sunderland. In between those campaigns, Coventry came within a hair's breadth of making an FA Cup final appearance, too, but for a tight VAR call denying them when they had seemingly battled back from 3-0 down to lead Manchester United 4-3.

Considering that the club had also spent the latter part of their previous top-flight existence circling the drain year after year, it hasn't been easy being a Coventry fan.

“There are signs up – even on the road signs – saying, ‘We're back',” Gordon Strachan tells FourFourTwo – the last man to manage Coventry in the Premier League was in the city this summer, and saw what the club's return to the big time meant to everyone. He continues: “The community, football-wise, took a battering for 25 years. It's a different world now in Coventry.”

He's not wrong. The Scot understands better than most what plights the club has been through over the past quarter of a century. He also knows what it went through before that. Strachan joined the club under his former Manchester United gaffer, Ron Atkinson, in 1995, and then became player-manager a year later. He hung up his boots in 1997 but stayed in charge for another four years, until four months after Coventry's relegation from the top division.

Strachan's family are still among the club's season ticket holders. While football ended up taking him elsewhere, it's a place that he returns to often.

“The eyes of the world are now on Coventry, which is great, and they're actually talking about the football,” he says. “For 20 years, it was, ‘Who owns the stadium? Who's got the shares in it? Where are we playing? Are we at Northampton or Birmingham? Who is the owner?'”

There were times when fans genuinely pondered whether the slide would ever end. Disputes over rent, administration, points deductions, Sisu, League Two, Mike Ashley, Frasers Group, Sixfields, St Andrew's… finally, though, the Premier League beckons.

"Up there with Jimmy Hill"

We'll Live And Die In These Towns is a song about the realities of post-industrial Britain, urban unemployment, and getting by despite the weight of it all.

Coventry was a hub for the automotive industry and the base of many leading car manufacturers before the turn of the 21st century. Such was the city's industrial might, it was even targeted in a Luftwaffe bombing raid during the Second World War. No longer is it an industrial powerhouse, but there are reminders of its past.

‘Getting by' is what Coventry City have done for much of the last 25 years. While the club's previous owners sustained a loss-making enterprise, supporters did their best to keep the spirit of a well-supported side alive.

“It's been painful for these people, absolutely painful,” Strachan tells us. “But the younger ones, who are 12, 13 – that's the catchment area. Coventry have captured another group of kids now, which they couldn't do for years. “The three main people in this have been Mark Robins, Doug King and Frank Lampard. Frank's had to take them over the line, but between the three of them, that's some group. I think Mark Robins is up there with Jimmy Hill, Noel Cantwell and people like that for the club.” It was Hill who managed Coventry to their last top-flight promotion, in 1967. Cantwell succeeded him and, three years later, led the club to sixth in the First Division – their highest ever finish.

To tell the story of Coventry's return to the top without reverence for Robins would do the experienced manager a great disservice. While Lampard will lead the team in the Premier League, he may never have taken the reins if not for Robins' promotion successes.

The former Manchester United striker brought Coventry back from the brink. He arrived at the club for a second spell as manager in March 2017, when they sat 10 points adrift of safety in League One and doomed for the fourth tier.

Yet they spent only one season in the basement division. Robins' charges confirmed their play-off place with a 0-0 draw at home to Morecambe on the last day of the 2017-18 campaign, then defeated Notts County and Exeter to go up. Promoted alongside Coventry that season were Luton, who, five years later, would beat them at Wembley to reach the Premier League.

The Sky Blues lifted the League One title during 2019-20's Covid-affected campaign, despite being forced to play their home matches at St Andrew's in Birmingham. They were seven points clear of third place with 12 fixtures left to play, having lost just three matches, when the season was cut short and settled on points per game.

Robins almost led the club all the way back to the Premier League, but for that shootout defeat in 2023. When the decision was made 18 months later to replace him with a big-name, big-time Charlie, there was consternation among fans and pundits alike. Robins was EFL royalty. He'd had a transformative effect on a beleaguered club. Lampard, meanwhile, had flattered to deceive in his second Chelsea spell and scraped by with relegation-dodging Everton.

It was a bold call – but one that paid off, to the tune of hundreds of millions.

From Blackburn to Las Vegas

Shortly after Lampard's arrival, Coventry made the mid-season signing of Matt Grimes from Swansea City. At 31, he has made 485 appearances across the EFL's three divisions, but only four in the Premier League, all as a young player for the Swans more than a decade ago.

Given that 383 of the midfielder's EFL outings were in the Championship – and included three failed play-off campaigns – the term ‘glass ceiling' felt appropriate. Grimes freely admits that after two or three years with no concrete transfer interest, coupled with Swansea's hopes of promotion waning over the course of his 10 years with the club, the chance to play in the Premier League seemed to have passed him by.

“I'm getting older,” Grimes tells FFT. “I gave a lot of years to Swansea and I'm very thankful for what they gave me in return, but I felt it was the right time to have a crack somewhere else. And it's turned out as well as it could have done. I thought to myself, ‘If I don't go and Coventry get promoted, I'd be gutted'. But then I thought, on the flip side, ‘If I go to Coventry and Swansea get promoted, I'd be just as devastated'.

“I remember my agent saying, ‘Just have a chat with Frank Lampard.' I was very settled at Swansea – I was very happy. We were like, ‘Let's just have a conversation and see how it goes.' As a midfielder, I don't think there's anyone you would rather play for than one of the greatest English midfielders of all time, if not the greatest. That was huge. It was a massive compliment that he wanted to sign me.

“I'm not sure exactly how many seasons I've played in the Championship – seven or eight, I think – but I've had three play-off campaigns and eventually won the league. The painful moments make the good ones even sweeter.”

After last year's play-off semi-final defeat to Sunderland, the squad rallied, using their near-miss as motivation to start fast in 2025-26. “The message from the gaffer was, ‘We need to start quick,'” Grimes explains. “In my past experiences, when Swansea made it to the play-offs under Steve Cooper, I think we won five of the first six matches. Our form for the rest of the season wasn't great, but you're always just a couple of wins away from where you want to be – top two, top six.”

Coventry went a dozen league games unbeaten, and by the time their first defeat came at Wrexham at the end of October, they were top of the table with a goal difference of +25 – fully 16 goals better than anyone else. In their first dozen games, they'd won 4-0 away at Millwall, 5-0 at Sheffield Wednesday and 5-3 at Derby, while beating Birmingham 3-0 at home and dispatching QPR 7-1.

Forward Brandon Thomas-Asante tells FFT: “The QPR and Sheffield Wednesday matches were pivotal points when we sent out a message and made people respect us more, as well as beating Middlesbrough at home in February.

“Then when things weren't going so great, like in the winter when people were asking, ‘Is this when the wheels fall off?', we had the quiet confidence and humility to grind out a result or turn things around when the hype wasn't there. That was important. Over the past 18 months, we gained those minerals.”

Minerals were needed, as Coventry picked up only two wins from eight in mid-season. By the middle of February, the Sky Blues had also lost back-to-back games away at Norwich and QPR, then drawn 0-0 at home to struggling Oxford.

“If we're having a stinker and I come in screaming and shouting at half-time,” says Grimes, the club captain, “then the lads aren't going to take me seriously, because they know that's not the type of person I am. I think the days where you need to be the loudest, and scream and shout, are gone.”

His approach proved to be the correct one. Coventry picked themselves up, secured a vital 3-1 home triumph over Middlesbrough in their next game and regained top spot from them, as well as momentum. Having led the league for four months, they had been knocked off the summit for all of seven days.

“We dominated at the start, had a wobble, then recovered and won again,” Grimes says. “We won eight out of nine to cement our place at the top. Seasons like that don't happen often. Even now, I don't think it's fully sunk in.”

Coventry secured their long-awaited return to the Premier League with a 1-1 draw at Blackburn, courtesy of Bobby Thomas' 84th-minute header. They went up with three games to spare.

“It was funny after Bobby scored,” Grimes recalls. “That was probably one of the strangest feelings on the pitch. I was going to the gaffer, ‘Should we go and win it? Should we not? Do we want to go for the title tonight?' There were 7,000 fans there, something daft, which was a testament to them. It was more relief than anything at that point, because we knew it was going to happen. We were glad to get it done.

“The club have been down to League Two, had to groundshare and all of that, so I feel like an imposter talking about it because I haven't endured it the same way the fans have. But to give that back on that night, when we got the club promoted in front of 7,000 away fans, who travelled all the way to Blackburn on a Friday night, was very, very fitting.”

Coventry rounded off a title-winning campaign in style by putting 12 goals past Portsmouth, Wrexham and Watford over their final three league fixtures. Then the squad headed off to Las Vegas for a celebration. “

When teams come down from the Premier League, it's normal that all of the bookmakers have them to be in the top two or top six,” Grimes says. “So to win the league like we did, 11 points ahead of second – I don't think people will realise the magnitude of it until maybe a couple of years down the line.

“It was a season where most of what we touched turned to gold.”

Cosmic Frank?

Patently, Lampard knows how to win football matches. “You can't have too big a long-term plan at a club, because in football, the only thing that really matters is winning,” Strachan explains. “Frank's picked it up and added to it. It's nothing cosmic – it's good players, with a good understanding of what they're doing, doing what they're best at.”

The 69-year-old's view may be a simplified version of what it takes to manage a club, but it served him well for much of his Highfield Road tenure.

“Five years before relegation, we beat everyone – Liverpool away, Manchester United, Arsenal a couple of times, Chelsea three or four times, Aston Villa – so there were a lot of great moments,” he recalls with a smile. “I spent most of my life laughing. I had a great time.”

Lampard will likely say something similar when the time comes for him to hang up his, er, notepad – but that's a long way off for now. His uncle, Harry Redknapp, was a manager until the age of 70, which suggests that 48-year-old Lampard has at least two decades left.

“He has surprised me – I didn't see them going up at the start of the year,” Redknapp says. “I didn't see Coventry in it at all. I thought if they could finish sixth, maybe make the play-offs, it'd be a great season for him.

“He's got to make sure he goes into the Premier League prepared. Are they going to be good enough to stay up? That's the problem. We've seen it so many times: good young managers, who have done an excellent job and know the game quickly watch all their hard work unravel.” All right, Harry, let him enjoy it, will you?

“When results aren't going your way, you have people calling up the radio,” Redknapp continues. “Idiots who don't know what they're talking about come on and say, ‘Well, yeah, we're losing because he's a Championship manager.' What a load of rubbish.”

This year will be a test of Lampard and Coventry's mettle. Before Sunderland and Leeds' sterling efforts in 2025-26, all of the previous six freshly promoted sides had gone straight back down. Grim reality greets aspirational Championship clubs once they're in the promised land.

Redknapp thinks the Sky Blues need six quality players to stay afloat. Grimes is giving nothing away. “For any promoted team, the first goal is to stay up,” he says. “If you stay up, maybe then you can start to think about other things. We don't want to get carried away.”

Asked what stadium he's most looking forward to playing at, Grimes' answer is simple. “It's a cliche answer, but the big stadiums: Liverpool, Chelsea, Arsenal, Man United,” he admits, having grown up in a Liverpool-supporting family. One of those fixtures is first up. Coventry will go to reigning champions Arsenal in the 2026-27 Premier League's curtain-raiser on Friday, August 21.

After progressing from League Two to the top flight in just eight years, it will be quite the baptism of fire, before a first home game against fellow promotees Hull at the Coventry Building Society Arena a week later. The Premier League will require each to be agile, adaptable, cunning and clever. Do either have that in their locker? We'll soon find out. For 25 years, it didn't happen for teams like Coventry City. Finally, though, after a quarter of a century, it has happened. The Sky Blues are back – now, it's all about staying put.

Strachan was speaking to FFT as an ambassador for Coventry Building Society. Visit thecoventry.co.uk for info

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This season more than any other in recent years, there seem to be a lot of questions in the Premier League. We’ll get answers over the course of the next nine months, but most of those uncertainties centre on the managers.

Ahead of this season kicking off, nine clubs had new bosses, one more than before the 2016-17 campaign. Add in Manchester United and Spurs last term, and 11 have changed manager since January 1.

In the 34 years of the Premier League, the title has been won 26 times by either Sir Alex Ferguson, Arsene Wenger, Jose Mourinho, Jurgen Klopp or Pep Guardiola. For the first time in the league’s history, none of those five are around, so it’s a new era, and every new appointment has carried an element of risk – even at the top with Manchester City and Liverpool.

The stakes are equally high for clubs who finished further down the league last season, aiming to ascend – Bournemouth, Chelsea, Fulham, Newcastle, Crystal Palace and Nottingham Forest will also be hoping their new manager gets it right, as will newly promoted Ipswich.

Title-winner Mikel Arteta is the only Premier League gaffer who wasn’t appointed this decade – Arsenal fans will no doubt hope and expect that the Gunners can pick up where they left off, so it will be fascinating to watch how this season of change plays out.

Enjoy the mag,

James

Year of the Boss

There are 11 new Premier League managers since the start of 2026 - nine of them coming in this summer. Defending champion Mikel Arteta will have new faces to beat this season - with Enzo Maresca, Xabi Alonso, Michael Carrick and Andoni Iraola all looking to dethrone him. We run the rule over the new gaffers this season.

Cherries head to Europe

For the first time in their history Bournemouth will compete in Europe. It is some journey for the club and fans as they nearly went out of the Football League less than two decades ago. With new gaffer Marco Rose replacing Andoni Iraola he will lead the club on their first European adventure.

From Lion’s Den to Dragon’s Den

Before Theo Paphitis was known for giving wannabe entrepreneurs a chance to achieve their dreams on BBC’s Dragon’s Den - he was chairman of Millwall. Under Paphitis, Millwall went to the FA Cup final and qualified for Europe, the former owner gives his take on his time at the club.

All around the World

Seasoned football traveller and writer Paul Watson brings some of the weirdest and wonderful stories from the wide world of football, we bring you 20 of the best tales.

Agueroooooooooo!

Manchester City hero Sergio Aguero re-lives that iconic goal that won the first Premier League title at the Etihad and the rest of his glittering career.

The Boy’s a Bit Special

Get the lowdown on Brighton’s big-money teenage signing and the Man City player compared to Raheem Sterling.

The man who has done it all

Player, manager, pundit, commentator, national icon - there is not much Chris Kamara has not done in football. He opens up to FourFourTwo about his career and his battle with speech apraxia.

Around the Grounds

Millwall boss Alex Neil talks about last season’s play-off heartbreak and how guiding the Lions in the Premier League would be his ultimate achievement.

Elsewhere, in our new feature ‘Beyond the Turnstiles’ we take a trip to Matlock Town and tell you why it should be on your bucket list of grounds to visit.

In the Players Lounge this month…

Steve Coppell on befriending Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar, Neal Maupay discusses winding up Arsenal and Clarke Carlisle opens up on being Britain’s brainiest footballer.

The Mixer

Our latest merch round-up features a piece of the World Cup final pitch, Juventus and Brentford’s stunning new change strips and the England team as you have never seen them before.

We spy a 1978-1980 Cardiff’s home shirt in Classic Kit and let you know the best website to keep track of your football ground visits.

Kevin Keegan remembered

Following his death, FourFourTwo re-publish our big interview with King Kev looking back on his career and life on and off the pitch

Upfront

Think you’re a football expert? Prove it by getting 100 per cent in our Ultimate Quiz. Columnist Jules Breach looks ahead to three of the big talking points in the Premier League this season.

Demba Ba selects the games that changed his life and The Script frontman Danny O'Donoghue discuss all things Manchester United.

Karen Carney hails sporting geniuses and an actor in the People I Admire.

Perfect XI

Jan Molby picks his ultimate XI from former teammates made up of Liverpool and Denmark legends.

FIFA have issued a series of sanctions against the Argentine Football Association (AFA) and several individual players following disciplinary breaches during the 2026 World Cup, namely the post-match scuffle at the final on July 19.

The AFA have been fined a total of $321,000 (£235k) for breaches involving discriminatory chants and gestures by supporters, non-sporting demonstrations, team misconduct, and failures in match order and security.

FIFA have also ordered Argentina to limit spectator capacity to 50% for their next home match.

Argentina hit with substantial fine over World Cup fracas

A second match capacity limit and $100,000 (£73k) of the fine have been suspended subject to a probationary period, while $100,000 of the total fine must be directed into an anti-discrimination plan.

Individual suspensions have also been handed down to four members of the Argentine squad and staff following altercations at the end of the final. Meanwhile, one Spanish player has been sanctioned.

Argentine midfielder Leandro Paredes will serve a 10-match ban and pay a $90,000 (£66k) fine, while defender Nahuel Molina has been hit with a seven-match ban and a $90,000 fine.

Argentina forward Thiago Almada and assistant coach Roberto Ayala were issued one-match and three-match suspensions respectively, with each receiving a $30,000 (£22k) fine.

Spain midfielder Gavi will serve a one-match suspension and has been ordered to pay a $30,000 fine, too.

FIFA have confirmed that all match bans will be served during the respective national teams' upcoming international fixtures this September and October.

All parties have 10 days to request a motivated decision prior to any potential appeal.

It is understood that part of Argentina's sanction relates to the players and supporters' display of a Falklands banner following the team's semi-final victory over England.

Ex-Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Giovani Lo Celso was pictured with the flag in question, deemed by FIFA as an unsporting demonstration, before it was laid on the turf in front of Argentina fans.

Surviving in the Premier League as a newly promoted club is never easy, but Hull City have decided to approach the challenge like a game of Monopoly - because they don't have any other choice.

The Tigers have dumped their wallet onto the board, rolling the dice on a number of summer arrivals.

It is an ambitious, high-risk strategy that will either prove to be a masterstroke of recruitment or send them straight back from whence they came, without passing go.

Hull City are playing Premier League Monopoly

To understand why Hull’s hierarchy felt compelled to completely overhaul the dressing room, you have to look back at how they got here.

Statistically speaking, Hull were one of the poorest sides to ever secure promotion from the Championship. Their underlying metrics painted the picture of a team dramatically over-performing their Expected Goals (xG) and points tallies, relying on special individual moments to drag themselves over the line.

Standing still with that exact core in the top flight would have left Sergej Jakirovic woefully ill-equipped. The squad desperately needed surgery, and so the club have opted for a partial reboot.

The profile of incoming talent tells its own story. Hull have raided the market for players of a calibre that could be considered top-end of the Championship like Joe Gelhardt, Luke Herrington, Jack Butland, and Matt Targett.

They've sprinkled Jakirovic's squad with wildcards like Konstantinos Tzolakis and Nobel Mendy - unknown quantities in English football but could come to be considered lower-end Premier League players.

Through no fault of their own, Hull City are betting heavily that second-tier stars can make the step up, while lower-end top-flight names can hit the ground running, simultaneously.

There is a simple reality at play here: if any of these players were the finished article, clubs much higher up the footballing food chain would have snapped them up.

They are only available for a club in Hull's position because the more accomplished sides have question marks about their ceiling, consistency, or physical durability.

No signing encapsulates this approach better than Lucas Gourna-Douath. Once heralded as one of European football’s premier young midfield prodigies, the Frenchman’s career trajectory has stalled in recent seasons.

Taking a gamble on him as a newly-promoted side is the ultimate draw from the 'Chance' deck.

If Gourna-Douath unlocks his potential at the MKM Stadium, Hull might have landed on Mayfair for a bargain price. But if those early career scouting reports were overhyped and he simply isn't cut out for the Premier League, it becomes an expensive flop that leaves their midfield exposed.

What cannot be disputed is the spirit within the camp. Battling through adversity to snatch promotion proved that the squad possesses remarkable togetherness and complete buy-in for their manager.

But in the brutal environment of the top flight, grit and team harmony only act as a temporary 'Get Out of Jail Free' card. Eventually, it's quality, tactics and squad depth that decide your fate.

For Hull City, success this season is straightforward: survival. Achieving that would represent an extraordinary accomplishment given the sheer scale of the squad's transition.

On the flip side, the nightmare scenario is irredeemable. If these gambles crash and burn simultaneously, Hull could potentially threaten Derby County’s infamous 11-point record as the poorest side in Premier League history. Mauled by the Tigers? Mauled by the rest of the league, more like.

Researchers found over 5,500 overtly racist messages directed at members of the Three Lions squad from a sample of 300,000 posts on X during the 2026 World Cup.

The findings show that while racial slurs made up one-to-two per cent of sampled tournament posts, abusive content doubled to between four-and-five per cent on match days.

The volume of racist posts then escalated significantly following England’s semi-final loss to Argentina.

Online racial abuse of England players at World Cup peaked after semi-final defeat

Online hostility was concentrated on specific players and driven by high-profile viral accounts. Jude Bellingham received the highest overall volume of racist posts, while Kobbie Mainoo - who did not play a single minute - and Bukayo Saka experienced the highest proportion of racial abuse relative to total mentions.

Defender Djed Spence was also subjected to anti-Muslim abuse.

Campaigners argue that standard remedies, such as blocking individual accounts or restricting platform access for under-16s, fails to address the core problem: algorithms engineered to maximise platform traffic and advertising revenue prioritise controversy and outrage.

"Our research shows that hate targeting footballers follows a clear and predictable pattern," said Patrik Hermansson, senior researcher at HOPE not hate. "It focuses on specific players and is, to a significant degree, driven by a small number of high-profile actors who benefit from the anger and attention they generate.

"This is not new or unexpected, and platforms should no longer be able to treat it as such."

Taylor Gese from the Future of Tech Institute has accused regulators of failing to enforce existing powers, noting that social media firms do not deploy available safety features because 'outrage drives engagement, and hate sells.'

Ahead of the new domestic season, advocacy groups are urging media regulator Ofcom and the UK government to classify major fixtures as high-risk events and to ensure tech platforms no longer amplify outrage, viral hate and mass harassment.

Nottingham Forest start the Premier League campaign under a new manager – after a season-long relegation battle last time around.

Forest began last season with Nuno Espirito Santo in charge but cycled through Ange Postecoglou and Sean Dyche before moving away from the drop zone under Vitor Pereira.

This summer, owner Evangelos Marinakis opted to let Pereira go and appoint Oliver Glasner, who won the FA Cup, Community Shield and Conference League during a highly successful spell at Crystal Palace.

Legend explains why predictions are wrong

Despite that appointment, some bookmakers have tipped Forest for the drop, believing that the constant changes around the club could destabilise them once more.

That prediction has been dismissed by Forest legend Stan Collymore, who thinks they have the ability to finish much higher in the table.

Asked if Glasner’s appointment may be Marinakis’ best decision in recent times, Collymore said: “It could prove to be his most impactful.

“Seeing bookmakers list Forest among the favourites for relegation seems wildly inaccurate based on their squad depth. Unless there’s internal friction between Glasner and the hierarchy, the team operates at an eighth to 10th-place standard.

“Glasner is a proven manager who’s won trophies across Europe. Retaining Morgan Gibbs-White gives them a strong core. Forest have the framework to compete around the European positions rather than lingering near the bottom of the table.”

Gibbs-White was wanted by Spurs last summer, but instead signed a new three-year deal at Forest.

“He is on a strong contract at Forest, and Evangelos Marinakis views him as their cornerstone player,” said Collymore, speaking on behalf of 10bet, who offer online casino and sports betting.

“His performance levels last season were exceptional. Aston Villa evaluated him before opting for Johan Manzambi – viewing Manzambi as a dynamic 20-year-old profile who carried the ball well on the European stage for Freiburg.

“At 26, Gibbs-White is in his prime. Early in his career, scouts might have viewed him as a player whose standard fluctuated between a nine out of 10 and a four out of 10, depending on his defensive work rate.

“However, he addressed those defensive tracking metrics over the course of last season. He has the technical quality to feature for any top six side.”

Leicester City started their League One campaign with a 1-1 draw at Notts County on Saturday – a few days after the club were put up for sale.

The Foxes have been owned by Thai retailers King Power since 2010 – six years later, they’d guided the club from the Championship to a remarkable Premier League title, one of the greatest fairytale stories in football history.

The death of Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha in a helicopter crash at the stadium in 2018 was devastating for everyone involved in the club, though, and Leicester have now been relegated twice in two years under the stewardship of his son Aiyawatt.

Legend insists good times shouldn't be forgotten

The Foxes’ slide down the leagues has led to significant criticism of decisions made at the club in recent times, and that fan pressure has now led to King Power opting to put the club up for sale for £200m.

Former England striker Emile Heskey is a Leicester City legend who began his career at the club and is now head of football development for the club’s women’s sides. He expects that it could take a while for a sale to happen, based on how things have panned out at other clubs when owners have looked to find new buyers.

“I don’t think it will be reasonably soon, I’d say there will be a lot of protracted dealings to try to get that over the line, but I think we can’t take away from what the Thai family have done for us in Leicester, for us in football and us in the Premier League,” he told FourFourTwo.

“Leicester City and the owners made every club around the country believe that they had a chance – that you never know, it might happen.

“It’s gone a little bit sour, but they’ve done a fantastic job up to now. Whoever takes over has a wonderful foundation with training facilities, both men and women, stadium, and a decent squad to now springboard into something different.

“You can only take your hat off to them and thank them for what they’ve done, not only for the club but for the city as well.

“They’ve done some fantastic things at the hospital, children’s charities, they’ve done everything.”

While Heskey acknowledges that things have not gone well for the men’s team on the field in recent times, he’s sure that the owners have always tried their best to deliver success.

“They have, and they’ve done what they believed was right for the club,” he said, speaking in association with Premier League betting site BetWright.

“Yes, it’s gone a little bit sour, it’s gone a little bit left, but you can’t blame them because the reality is that with the financial fair play, they’ve overspent.

“You can’t say they didn’t spend. That’s one of the things that fans say at a lot of clubs – ‘We’re not spending’. But no, they have spent, they’ve overspent, to try to get out of the hole.

“They tried to do it the way that they believed was right – now we’re in a bit of a pickle, and it’s for someone else to probably take it to the next stage.”

Liverpool are set to receive investment from one of the richest people in the world.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the most eye-catching name on the list of new investors coming in to buy a stake in the club.

So what do we know about the deal, how is Bezos involved, and what can Liverpool fans expect to see happen next?

Do Amazon now own Liverpool?

No. Bezos is the founder and main individual shareholder in Amazon, but his involvement in Liverpool is completely separate from that - he is investing his personal wealth through a consortium rather than buying them as an Amazon subsidiary.

The actual situation is that FSG have agreed to sell a 30% in the club to a group calling themselves 1892 Holdings, which is led by British-Indian businessman Amit Bhatia. Bezos is among the investors in 1892 Holdings alongside Eduardo and Elaine Saverin, and the Mittal family.

A £1.65bn deal has been agreed, which values the club at around £5.5bn.

However, the takeover still needs approval by the English game's regulators. No issues are expected in that process, which even in the best-case scenario could take up to three months.

How does the Liverpool board change? Are FSG leaving?

The Guardian report that Bhatia, Elaine Saverin and Bryan Baum are expected to join the club board, with Bezos considered a 'passive investor' who will not take a place on the board.

But FSG will remain 70% owners and the day-to-day running of the club is expected to remain unchanged in the immediate term.

That differs significantly from the situation at, say, Manchester United, where Sir Jim Ratcliffe and INEOS own a similar stake in the club but have taken control of how the club is run, including making changes at senior management level.

FSG insist that this is not an exit strategy for them, and they have prior history for bringing new investors into the fold without ceding control of the club: they sold around 10-11% of FSG (rather than the club directly, as it happening here) to a consortium called RedBird back in 2021.

Do Liverpool have a bigger transfer budget now?

The simplest answer to this is 'no', thanks to the way the Premier League's rules on spending work.

The top flight has switched to something called Squad Cost Ratio from 2026/27, which essentially limits on-pitch spending - player transfer fees and wages - to 85% of football revenue plus net profit on player sales.

Money put in by the owners does not count towards that, and so Liverpool's budget remains unchanged in the immediately term.

However, there are far fewer restrictions on what owners are allowed to fund off the pitch, and that's where the takeover could help if the new part-owners are willing to stump up for it.

FSG have not been shy about investing in infrastructure, most notably their expansion of Anfield from its previous 45,000 capacity to 62,000 over the past decade or so.

Investments like that, when done well, can boost a club's revenues (income) and thus give them more money to play with on the pitch over the longer term.

Will Liverpool get a streaming series, like All Or Nothing?

There's no suggestion they will at the moment...but we wouldn't be surprised.

Amazon Prime's All or Nothing series has previously taken a behind-the-scenes look at Manchester City, Tottenham, Arsenal, and next Manchester United.

Naturally, Bezos having sway with both Amazon and Liverpool could provide an easy connection between the two,

But it would be daft to think Liverpool weren't already the next obvious name on their list, even before Bezos' investment, and we doubt whether Bezo's involvement really changes that.

‘Out of darkness cometh light.’ So read the banners spanning the centre of Molineux’s South Bank before Wolverhampton Wanderers played their Championship opener against Blackburn Rovers.

It’s not a difficult message to comprehend. Wolves suffered an utterly miserable relegation from the Premier League in 2025-26, effectively left to wither by the very people responsible for nourishing them. 2026-27 is new. New promise. New bigwigs. New gaffer.

But the dawn of each new season gives lie to one of football’s great false assumptions. The Wolves supporters converging on Molineux in the scorching Friday evening sunshine resplendent in gold don’t care what division they’re in. At least not tonight.

A dose of Championship reality

Starting from zero offers the cruel extremes of elation or misery. This opening night threatened to end badly for Wolves, who scored first but found themselves behind against a Blackburn team expected to improve under returning manager Tony Mowbray.

The danger posed by established Championship teams to relegated opponents is that they can be sturdy and streetwise. Blackburn were both in the West Midlands in their first game of the season.

2026-27 is a bracing test for Wolves. The bar is high; the expectation that they will return to the Premier League at the first time of asking isn’t universally held but it was overheard frequently on the streets outside the ground without much need to strain the ears.

Relegated teams have certain advantages over other promotion hopefuls but those who drop on the back of disastrous seasons can be difficult to turn around.

The new manager tasked with that job is Cesar Peixoto, a 46-year-old former Porto midfielder who is in his first managerial role outside Portugal and never played a competitive match beyond its borders either.

Peixoto told reporters after their 2-2 draw with Blackburn that Wolves wanted all three points. He wasn’t happy with one but they were perhaps fortunate to even get that. The clock ticked into stoppage time with Rovers in front.

The goals scored by the away team pointed to a vulnerable spot that Wolves can expect opposition managers to target in every Championship fixture until Peixoto resolves it. Understandably, he wasn’t overly concerned after one match.

Yet it was a clear and repeatable blueprint that yielded both Blackburn goals.

Both came from deliveries into the box right under the nose of the goalkeeper and were finished with one touch by a player lurking in what ice hockey lovers would describe as the blue paint.

Sean McLoughlin smartly glanced a header beyond Dan Bentley to draw the visitors level. Andri Gudjohnsen turned in Oladapo Afolayan’s pass across the face to give them the lead. Both were defendable but not defended, good finishes from an attacking perspective but concerning for Wolves.

Wolves were saved by Raul Jimenez’s penalty in stoppage time

‘Out of darkness, cometh light.’

In need of a goal, Peixoto turned to a Molineux favourite. Weeks after playing in a home World Cup, Mexico striker Raul Jimenez played his first Championship match at his other home.

Jimenez, now 35, followed Wolves into the second tier after his contract expired at Fulham. The fans around Molineux know exactly what they’re getting from a striker with 55 Premier League goals to his name, but only half of his Wolves story can be told on paper.

The Mexican hitman supplied a commemorative scarf to every fan on the South Bank. That’s the kind of figure Jimenez is at Wolves. The buzz when he came on was palpable and Peixoto was rewarded for giving the faithful what they wanted.

After replacing highly rated young winger Matheus Mane, Jimenez did what Jimenez does.

He won some flick-ons. He got himself into the box and tried to nick a goal by throwing a leg at anything small, round and rolling he could find. He let his opponents know he was there, naturally, but the first goal of his second spell at Wolves was familiar in another way.

Mowbray and Blackburn disputed the decision to award a stoppage-time penalty for Ryan Alebiosu’s handball, but once the offence had been adjudged to have taken place inside the box, what happened next in front of a sea of Jimenez’s scarves was never in doubt.

It truly didn’t matter in that moment whether Jimenez was scoring in the Premier League or the Championship or League One or anywhere else.

If Matthias Jaissle needed a reminder of the task he has inherited at Newcastle United this season, he got a rather harsh one inside 45 seconds at St James’ Park on Saturday.

Bayer Leverkusen were the prestigious visitors for the first part of a pre-season double-header a week before the new Premier League season. The sides met in the Champions League in December, drawing 2-2 at the BayArena. But the Magpies are on a very different path now, a fact that was made eminently clear from the moment Ibrahim Maza fired past new signing Lukas Hornicek at the Gallowgate End from distance. Newcastle recovered to level before half-time through Malick Thiaw before substitute Victor Boniface scored the winner.

On Sunday, Will Osula scored in another disappointing draw with French side Strasbourg, ending in defeat on penalties. Both games taught Jaissle more about what he was missing than what he had.

Newcastle United had two friendlies over the weekend – with plenty to learn in each

Maza was the difference on the first afternoon, offering Leverkusen the sort of creativity the Magpies have badly lacked for years. Every time he got the ball, he was in space and faxing goal, seemingly knowing where all of his team-mates were.

Although staff has since changed on almost every level, Newcastle tracked the Algerian as a teenager while he was at Hertha Berlin. Eddie Howe was criticised for a lack of ingenuity in his side, and Jaissle has gone on to lose Anthony Gordon and Bruno Guimaraes who could have gone some way to providing it.

The German likes to utilise a no.10 in a 4-2-3-1 system; not only was Maza making Leverkusen tick, he was showing what Newcastle were missing. You sense if they were to try and move for him now, he’d cost three or four times what he would a year ago.

After a harrowing summer of change on Tyneside, there is a need not only for three or four experienced players to strengthen particular positions, but signings that excite and prove to the existing squad and fans, that the Saudi-led project is still alive. Five years on from the takeover, the hard reset has left many contemplating the Public Investment Fund’s appetite for it given the changing political landscape in the Middle East.

Judging on pre-season is always a risk because results, by definition, don’t matter. Stretching the first team squad over two games just before the competitive action starts, though, seems somewhat counterintuitive. With both squads made up by benches full of academy players, it was always hard to read what would happen once substitutions were made.

“We needed to split,” Jaissle said on Saturday.

“First of all, because it doesn’t make sense that the the lads play two games in a row. But the most important thing now in the last friendlies that you see everyone over 90 minutes, and there are different approaches.

“Some of them, they could use one more training day, especially the guys who returned later or came back from an injury. So there are many aspects to consider, and again, it has nothing to do with with a starting XI or not.”

Across both days, Jaissle was forced to face reality in a number of different ways. Nick Woltemade and Yoane Wissa, the two forwards hastily signed under Howe to replace Alexander Isak in 2025, are not quite clicking together. Wissa is undoubtedly sharper than he ever has been in a black and white shirt, but that bar was painfully follow. Woltemade still looks like a square peg in a round hole, and although there is goodwill and a desire to make their record signing a success, a nagging sense that club and player should part ways is growing.

Then there is Osula: the most unpredictable striker at the club. Every touch of the ball generates anticipation, with any moment possessing the potential to be stunning and magical or a complete let down. In that sense, he is the perfect poster boy for the era to come at St James’ Park.

Excitement at the unknown is to be commended, because the usual response is fear. Based on both of these games, Newcastle are far from ready. They insist more business will follow before the transfer deadline, with Benfica fullback Amar Dedic likely to be confirmed this week, but that alone won’t be enough.

Someone like Maza would flick a switch and instantly reinvigorate everybody, giving Jaissle a stronger chance of making an impact. As of now, though, with Liverpool and the opening day less than a week away, Newcastle are undercooked and playing catch up. Turning things around will only get harder from here.

For any player, leaving a club after a decade of loyal service is never an easy decision to make.

And for Matt Grimes, who spent 11 years with Swansea City, the decision to part ways in January 2025 was always going to be something of a gamble, given how synonymous he was with the Welsh side.

But fast forward 18 months and Grimes is getting ready for another crack at the Premier League after his decision to join Coventry City paid off handsomely.

Grimes on his decision to join Coventry

“I gave a lot of years to Swansea and I’m very thankful for what they gave me in return,” he tells FourFourTwo. “But I felt like it was the right time to have a crack somewhere else.”

The Sky Blues would pay £4million for the midfielder, who admits that his decision to join Coventry was in part made by the fear of missing out on what could have been.

“It’s turned out as well as it could have done,” he continues. “I thought to myself, ‘If I don’t go and Coventry get promoted, I’d be gutted’.

“But then I thought, on the flip side, ‘If I go to Coventry and Swansea get promoted, I’d be just as devastated’.”

With a decision to make, Grimes mind was made up when he got the chance to talk to Coventry boss Frank Lampard.

“I remember my agent saying ‘Just have a conversation with Frank Lampard’,” he adds. “I was very settled at Swansea, I was very happy, and we were like, ‘Let’s just have a conversation, see how it goes’.

“As a midfielder, I don’t think there’s anyone you’d rather play for than one of, if not the greatest English midfielder of all time. It was huge. It was a massive compliment that he wanted to sign me.

The 31-year-old has spent much of his career chasing promotion to the Premier League and after several agonising near-misses, achieving this goal with Coventry has vindicated his decision to move on from Swansea.

“I’m not sure exactly how many seasons I’ve played in the Championship, I think seven or eight, but I’ve had three play-off campaigns and eventually won the league.

“The painful moments make the good ones even sweeter.”

Manchester United's pursuit of Ibrahim Mbaye has received a boost after Liverpool reportedly cooled their interest in the Paris Saint-Germain wonderkid.

The Red Devils are one of several clubs across the continent to have been linked with the 18-year-old winger, who scored against Michael Carrick's side in a pre-season friendly last weekend.

Mbaye has already made 41 appearances for PSG and found the net for Senegal against France at World Cup 2026, but he could leave this summer in search of more game-time.

Why Liverpool cooled their interest in Ibrahim Mbaye

Mbaye is the latest in a long line of French wonderkids produced by PSG and became the youngest player to start a game for the club when he lined up against Le Havre in August 2024, aged 16 years, six months and 23 days.

His goal against France also made him the youngest African to score at a World Cup, aged 18 years and 143 days, but his path to the first team at club level is blocked by the likes of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Desire Doue, Ousmane Dembele and Bradley Barcola.

Liverpool were one of the clubs hoping to tempt Mbaye away from Paris, but transfer specialist Fabrizio Romano claims that the Reds have pulled out of the race.

The Anfield club are also pursuing PSG team-mate Barcola, but stepped away from the Mbaye deal after learning via talks with his agent Jorge Mendes that a joint transfer could cost €200m (£171m) - with Mbaye reportedly valued between €40-50m (£34-42m).

That could open the door for United, who are one of several clubs - alongside the likes of Aston Villa, Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund - to reportedly make contact with the Champions League holders to enquire about the teenager.

Mbaye could be pushed further towards the exit door if PSG complete a move for Spain's World Cup final hero Ferran Torres, who is said to be closing in on a switch from Barcelona.

The 26-year-old can play across the front line, thereby increasing the competition for places in Luis Enrique's squad, with Spanish newspaper AS reporting that the French champions may consider Mbaye departing on loan as a result.

The teenager would be an excellent addition for United, who are light on wingers heading into the 2026/27 season.

Marcus Rashford has returned to the fold following his loan spell at Barcelona last season, while Amad Diallo has also impressed, but the remaining options available to Carrick include Patrick Dorgu, who joined as a wing-back, and 19-year-old Shea Lacey.

Mbaye showed United what they could be getting with an assured finish in the second minute of last Saturday's friendly in Stockholm, which ended 1-1.

Newcastle United representatives were spotted watching transfer target Amar Dedic on Thursday night as the club look to complete a deal for the Benfica right-back.

The Magpies have reached an agreement for the Bosnia and Herzegovina international, although hurdles remain over a potential transfer.

Dedic played under Newcastle manager Matthias Jaissle at Austrian club RB Salzburg between 2021 and 2023, and the Premier League side are keen to bring in the 23-year-old following the departure of Kieran Trippier this summer.

Benfica manager responds to Amar Dedic exit reports

Dedic played 43 games in all competitions for Benfica last season after joining from Marseille in summer 2025, before starting three of Bosnia's four matches at World Cup 2026.

Despite Newcastle's interest, he made his first start of the 2026/27 campaign on Thursday night against Hearts at Tynecastle, in a 1-1 draw which saw the Eagles progress 7-2 on aggregate from their Europa League third qualifying round tie.

Newcastle and Edinburgh are only around 100 miles apart and Magpies officials took the chance to watch Dedic in the flesh, according to Portuguese newspaper O Jogo.

The Bosnian played the full 90 minutes and hit the post with a header, with the publication reporting that the Magpies' representatives in the stands were "very attentive" to his performance.

While Dedic has reportedly agreed to join Newcastle, the fee remains a sticking point. It is claimed that the Portuguese giants want €35m (£30.4m) for the defender, whereas the Premier League club don't want to pay more than €30m (£25.6m).

Benfica manager Marco Silva, who moved from Fulham earlier this summer, was asked after the game about the reports surrounding Dedic.

“I care very little about what’s going on behind the scenes, which is normal at this point in the transfer window," he told Portuguese newspaper A Bola.

“We want players and there are other clubs who want players. That’s part of the market and it has zero influence on my decisions.”

Newcastle have made five first-team signings this summer but are yet to bring in a right-back, despite Trippier's departure and Tino Livramento's absence throughout pre-season with a calf injury.

They start the Premier League season at home to Liverpool next Sunday.

Manchester City’s women’s team did the double last season – but there’s no guarantee they’ll have everything their own way again this term.

Andree Jeglertz’s side lifted the FA Cup at the end of May, having won the Women’s Super League earlier that month – their first league trumph for a decade.

It ended Chelsea’s run of six consecutive league titles, with the Blues finishing third behind Arsenal, who won the Champions League in 2025.

New contenders

All of last season’s top three will have serious ambitions of challenging for the major honours this time around, and they could be joined by London City Lionesses.

The Bromley-based club are in only their second season following promotion to the WSL, but have invested heavily in a number of big-name signings under owner Michele Kang.

This summer, Mary Earps, Mapi Leon and Kadidiatou Diani have joined London City Lionesses, as well as two-time Ballon d’Or winner Alexia Putellas – arguably the biggest signing in WSL history.

Asked who she expects to be the strongest women’s team in the country this season, England great Fara Williams admits the answer is not obvious.

“That’s a difficult one,” the TNT Sports pundit tells FFT. “There have been so many signings, so many changes.

“Arsenal have made some real key signings, Manchester City have pretty much kept hold of their same squad – Kerolin has gone to Barcelona, but they’ve brought in Beth Mead.

“London City have heavily invested in big name players, so it’s whether they can mould that together in a season and be real contenders, and we can’t ever rule out Chelsea, with the history of their women’s team.

“I think it will still be those three top teams, and London City could have a real push in trying to change that – especially with City, Chelsea and Arsenal all playing Champions League football as well.”

London City Lionesses finished sixth in their first season in the WSL last term, but Williams thinks they can close the gap quickly after their high-profile signings, particularly Putellas.

“It makes a big difference, the level of the player and how that impacts the rest of the squad.” she said.

“I think it will show quite early in the season for them. I was a part of a Liverpool team that was a brand new team when we ended up becoming back-to-back WSL champions in 2013 and 2014. It definitely can happen with the right group of players.

“With the experience that Arsenal and Chelsea and Manchester City have, it will be hard to break that, but top players have signed, experienced signings. Mary Earps is massive for them in goal.

“I think their intention will be to challenge this season. Last year was about bringing in players of experience to keep them in the league, because teams that come up tend to go back down.

“It was about establishing themselves in the WSL, which they did quite convincingly. Then adding to that, the names that have come in this summer, the experience within that team now.

“There’s no doubt that among them and the owners, they’ll be expecting to be pushing for that title this year.”

"They have to spend the money"

While London City Lionesses have provided an intriguing new storyline to the women’s game in England, it's true that historically, clubs that have made progress by spending large amounts of money haven’t always been widely popular across the country.

Williams, though, says London City Lionesses have no choice but to take that approach if they’re to break into the elite.

“They have to – they have to buy the biggest names in order to create a fanbase, because they’re a new team,” she said.

“They’re not affiliated with a men’s team, they haven’t been established long enough for women's fans to be a part of their fanbase. In the women's game, what tends to happen is that fans follow individual players around.

“What better player to bring in than one of the world's best in Alexia Putellas, and try to bring that fanbase? Draw fans in that want to get a sighting of her live.

“They have to spend the money. In order to compete nowadays, whether it be the men’s or women's game, it’s those who are prepared to put their hands in their pocket and bring in the very best who are the ones who seem to be successful.”

With the Premier League, UEFA Champions League, Europa League, Conference League, Emirates FA Cup and Women’s FA Cup ALL in one place. There’s levels to this. TNT Sports.

Arsenal are in talks with Galatasaray over a potential move for striker Victor Osimhen, according to reports.

The Premier League champions are keen to upgrade their attacking options during the summer transfer window and have been linked with several stars, including Real Madrid's Vinicius Jr, Atletico Madrid forward Julian Alvarez and Paris Saint-Germain winger Bradley Barcola.

However, Arsenal are yet to seal a marquee signing in that area, and long-term target Osimhen is back in the picture - but a deal may be more complicated than it appears.

Arsenal eye Victor Osimhen as Gunners duo linked with Galatasaray move

Osimhen has been among the most prolific strikers in Europe over the past few seasons, scoring 32 goals for Galatasaray on loan from Napoli in 2024/25, then adding 22 more last term after joining the Turkish giants in a sensational €75m move.

The Nigeria striker signed a four-year contract with the Istanbul club 12 months ago, but the possibility of a move to the Emirates Stadium this summer has been raised during talks involving two Arsenal players.

According to The Telegraph, talks between the Gunners and Galatasaray over Gabriel Martinelli and Ethan Nwaneri have included discussions over Osimhen potentially moving to North London.

The report adds that the Super Lig club have already bid £38.4m for winger Martinelli and have expressed an interest in 19-year-old attacking midfielder Nwaneri, who was on loan at French club Marseille during the second half of last season.

It is unclear if it was Arsenal or Galatasaray who first mentioned the possibility of Osimhen joining the Gunners, while there is no indication whether the Turkish side would insist on any deal including one or both of Martinelli and Nwaneri going in the other direction.

The Gunners have long held an interest in the 27-year-old but The Telegraph states that he had fallen below Atleti star Alvarez in this summer's list of targets.

However, the report adds that Arsenal have considered switching attention elsewhere due to the Spanish club's £100m-plus valuation of the Argentina striker.

The Gunners have signed four first-team players so far this summer: midfielder Bruno Guimaraes from Newcastle United for £75m, defender Piero Hincapie for £34.5m from Bayer Leverkusen after turning last season's loan into a permanent move, Club Brugge winger Christos Tzolis in a £34m deal, and former Leeds United goalkeeper Illan Meslier on a free transfer.

Osimhen would certainly boost their options up front, where manager Mikel Arteta is currently able to call on Viktor Gyokeres, Kai Havertz and Gabriel Jesus.

The 2023 African Footballer of the Year helped Napoli win Serie A in 2022/23 and is a proven goalscorer in the Champions League, finding the net seven times in 10 matches in last season's competition - including bagging the only goal in a 1-0 win over Liverpool.

Leicester City owners King Power have put the club up for sale on the eve of the new EFL season, according to reports.

The Thai retail group bought the East Midlands outfit in 2010, with the Foxes going on to lift the Premier League in 2016 and the FA Cup five years later, as well as playing in the Champions League.

But Leicester have experienced a dramatic decline in recent years, culminating in back-to-back relegations that will see them play in League One this term, starting with an opening-day trip to Notts County on Saturday lunchtime.

Leicester owners want more than £200m for struggling club

King Power were incredibly popular with Foxes fans throughout their first decade of ownership as the club consistently punched above their weight, most notably when they lifted the Premier League as 5,000-1 outsiders in 2016.

But a string of bad decisions led to a shock relegation in 2023, and while they won the Championship at the first attempt under Enzo Maresca the following season, Leicester went down again in 2025 before suffering the dreaded double drop last term, not helped by a six-point deduction for breaching EFL financial rules.

The Foxes are now set to start only their second-ever campaign outside the top two tiers, against a volatile backdrop in which a section of the fanbase have long called for King Power to sell the club.

And the first steps towards a potential sale are now in motion, with US investment bank Citigroup producing an eight-page sales booklet on behalf of the club, which has been seen by BBC Sport.

The brochure, titled 'Project Lineup', values Leicester's physical assets at more than £200m and lists the men's and women's teams, the King Power Stadium, the Foxes' £121m Seagrave training ground and Belgian sister club OH Leuven as all up for sale.

According to BBC Sport, the booklet mentions the 2016 Premier League title, 2021 FA Cup triumph and expected turnover of £97m in the 2026 financial year, but fails to note the club's double relegation and financial troubles.

In the three seasons from 2022/23 to 2024/25 - the most recent campaigns for which the club's accounts have been published - Leicester lost £180.2m combined.

Last season's six-point deduction came as a result of breaching Premier League Profit and Sustainability rules during the 2023/24 campaign, when they were in the Championship. The Foxes were found to have overspent by £20.8m over a three-year period.

King Power founder Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha bought the club in 2010 but died in a helicopter crash outside Leicester's stadium in October 2018, with his son Khun Aiyawatt 'Top' Srivaddhanaprabha taking over as chairman.

The club have had 10 different managers in less than three-and-a-half years, including caretakers, with former Southampton and Rangers boss Russell Martin appointed as head coach this summer.

In just under a fortnight, Crystal Palace will visit the Hill Dickinson Stadium to kick off their 2026/27 Premier League campaign. They'll be a leading centre-half light, without the most successful manager in their history and with a series of new arrivals who are yet to prove themselves in the English game.

Are the Palace hierarchy taking a risk given what we know about England's top division?

Standing still as a Premier League club rarely means anything other than going backwards, particularly when the teams around you recruit aggressively.

Should Crystal Palace fans be worried about the 2026/27 Premier League season?

Oliver Glasner’s departure left a void at Selhurst Park, albeit not for very long with the appointment of Pierre Sage, who masterminded an improbable Ligue 1 title challenge with RC Lens last term.

While Glasner's relationship with sections of the home support was occasionally strained, there is no denying his calibre as a top-tier head coach. Replacing a manager of his proven pedigree is always a difficult undertaking, regardless of how long Palace had to make their decision.

From a squad perspective, FourFourTwo aren't overly enamoured by the business the South London club have done so far.

Take Palace's reshuffling of their wide attacking options, for instance. The swap deal involving Dwight McNeil and Brennan Johnson raises immediate questions about the club's long-term trajectory. Is replacing one inconsistent Premier League winger with another truly improving the squad, or is it an uninspired sideways move?

They are different players, despite playing in similar positions, but neither feels like the transformative force needed to elevate Palace’s attack into the upper half of the table. From the outside, if anything it reflects a safety-first mindset.

The club’s recruitment strategy elsewhere is also of interest. Spending on an unproven youngster from Major League Soccer in Zavier Gozo is entirely reasonable in isolation - it fits Palace’s established, admirable ethos of identifying raw, high-upside talent.

However, an 18-year-old making the leap from North America cannot be framed as a marquee signing tasked with carrying a primary attacking burden in the Premier League.

Meanwhile, the handling of outgoing talent could be deemed short-sighted, highlighted by letting Romain Esse join Club Brugge. While Esse has failed to kick on at Selhurst Park as many had hoped, it was an open secret that his limited minutes stemmed primarily from his relationship with Glasner.

With new management taking the reins, why not offer the gifted youngster a clean slate?

Defensively, the warning signs are even more pronounced after losing Maxence Lacroix to Chelsea.

Replacing him with Takehiro Tomiyasu and Oscar Mingueza on free transfers may look thrifty, but it's a risk. Tomiyasu is an intelligent player, but his historic injury record makes relying on him as a week-in-week-out starter a roll of the dice. Mingueza provides versatile depth, but in all likelihood neither truly replicates Lacroix’s impact.

If Palace fail to complete further marquee business before the transfer window closes, this summer could end up being a sharp step backward, especially when considering the strengthening that has gone on at clubs who finished below them last season.