Ian Wright has claimed the relentless effort required to compete with Manchester City ultimately 'broke' former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp.

Wright was speaking on ITV Sport’s coverage of England’s international fixture against Czechia on Tuesday evening, shortly after the Premier League released an official statement confirming an independent commission had found Manchester City guilty of 114 financial charges.

The ruling, which addresses breaches spanning nine seasons between 2009 and 2018, arrives before Man City's first trip following the international break - a visit to Anfield to face Liverpool.

Wright: Competing with Man City 'broke' Jurgen Klopp

Reflecting on the title battles between City and Liverpool during the peak of Pep Guardiola and Klopp's managerial rivalry, Wright highlighted the emotional and physical toll inflicted on the German manager, whose side accumulated extraordinary point totals only to repeatedly finish second.

"It is quite appropriate for them to be going to Liverpool [next] because you have to say in that four in-a-row [time], Liverpool were the team that were chasing them down," Wright told lead presenter Mark Pougatch.

"You look at what [Jurgen] Klopp went through with that team and what Klopp went through himself to try and beat that [Man City] team to try and break them. And in the end, it probably broke him and it's been done wrong, in an illegal way. It's so sad. It's going to keep getting deeper, it's going to get so litigious now, I think it's going to go on so long, Pougs – it's so sad."

Klopp departed Liverpool at the end of the 2023/24 season after nine years on Merseyside, admitting he was running out of energy to continue managing at the highest level. During his tenure, Liverpool pushed City to unprecedented standards—most notably losing the Premier League title by a single point in both the 2018/19 and 2021/22 campaigns despite accumulating 97 and 92 points respectively.

Wright’s comments reflect a growing sentiment across the game that Liverpool's achievements under Klopp were unfairly compromised if City's domestic dominance was achieved through financial breaches.

However, Wright warned that the fallout from the guilty verdict is only just beginning. With Manchester City maintaining their innocence and preparing an appeal against the ruling, the former England striker expects an extended legal process that will continue to cast a shadow over English football.

Anfield will be a cauldron when Man City visit after the international break, carrying the weight of an unavoidable narrative. The game is scheduled to be played at 4:30pm on Sunday, October 11.

Roberto Mancini claims the club 'are not guilty' and insists that allegations regarding a secondary contract during his tenure are 'not his problem.'

Mancini, currently in his second spell as manager of the Italian national team, addressed the media ahead of Italy’s Nations League fixture against Turkey. When asked about the reported findings and his personal involvement in the long-running case, the 61-year-old offered a defence of his former employers.

"I don't think they [Manchester City] were found guilty," Mancini said. "It's not an issue that concerns me. It's nothing new because this has been discussed for the last four or five years."

Roberto Mancini: 'It's not my concern, it's Manchester City's'

Mancini’s comments come directly after reporting last week revealing that an independent commission had reached a verdict in the landmark case.

The Premier League charged Manchester City in February 2023 following a five-year investigation. The 115 alleged breaches, spanning a nine-year period between 2009 and 2018, centred on accusations that the club failed to provide accurate financial information, disguised owner funding as commercial sponsorship income, breached Premier League Profitability and Sustainability Rules (PSR) as well as UEFA Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations, and failed to cooperate with the league's inquiry.

"Manchester City has not been found guilty, and on the double contract it isn't my concern. It's their issue, not mine," Mancini added.

The Italian is implicated in one of the primary allegations. Appointed in December 2009, the point at which the alleged financial discrepancies began, the Italian spent four years in the Etihad Stadium dugout, famously guiding the club to their first Premier League title in 2012.

However, investigation findings allege that City operated an off-the-books payment structure to supplement his managerial wage.

While officially earning £1.45 million per season from Manchester City, Mancini reportedly signed a secondary contract with Abu Dhabi-based club Al Jazira, which is also controlled by Man City owner Sheikh Mansour. The arrangement allegedly paid the Italian coach an additional £1.7m (€2.03m) annually for a minimum of four days of consultancy work per year. The Premier League argued that this structure was used to conceal full manager remuneration, artificially lower City's official operating costs, and circumvent financial regulations.

Despite the reporting surrounding the guilty verdict on 114 counts, Manchester City have maintained their innocence throughout the proceedings and are widely expected to launch an appeal once formal sanctions are determined.

In the wake of the news, Manchester City chairman Khaldoon Al Mubarak issued an open letter to supporters, adopting a defiant stance regarding the ongoing legal battle.

"The Premier League process still has a long way to run, and our confidence and intent in proving the Club's innocence is just as strong as when this began," Al Mubarak wrote. "While some people have been quick to reach their own conclusions, and there is so much noise swirling around us, nothing has changed. There remain many who want to undermine the momentum of our Club. We will not give them that opportunity."

With potential penalties ranging from substantial financial fines and points deductions to potential expulsion from the top flight, the eventual resolution of the case will send shockwaves through world football. For Mancini, whose managerial legacy remains tied to City's breakthrough era, the ongoing battle is one he prefers to view from afar.

Alan Pardew admits that things got off to a rocky start at West Ham United - but ultimately left the club with few regrets by the time he was done there.

The former Hammers boss took the reins in October 2003 following Glenn Roeder's dismissal a couple of months earlier.

Pardew's departure from Reading proved to be lengthy and acrimonious before he got to East London, however, with the Royals unwilling to allow their manager to leave to take the West Ham job.

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

"We went to Cardiff three times during my time there"

Pardew told FourFourTwo: "I was put on bloody gardening leave for three months. The Reading owner, John Madjeski, wouldn’t strike a deal with West Ham even though they were willing to pay up the remaining time on my contract.

"Football-wise, I actually went from a team who were doing better than West Ham at the time.

And the problems on continued from there: "I inherited quite a few problems at Upton Park with the likes of David James and Jermain Defoe making it clear they wanted a move following relegation.

"I had to change things around and tried to do what I’d done at Reading by recruiting hungry young players such as Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker."

Pardew's Hammers lost in the play-off final to his former club Crystal Palace at the end of his first season in 2004/05.

But West Ham went one better the following year, earning promotion after returning to the Millennium Stadium for another play-off final. This time, they prevailed over Preston North End.

A solid 9th-place finish and a FA Cup final defeat to Liverpool in 2006 after that late Steven Gerrard equaliser was the pinnacle for Pardew. A dreadful start to the following campaign despite the signings of Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano saw him dismissed shortly before Christmas.

Pardrew reflects happily on his time at Upton Park on the whole, though, saying: "We had some great moments there.

"We went to Cardiff three times during my time there because Wembley was closed – two play-off finals and the FA Cup final vs Liverpool.

"The supporters loved those trips to Wales!"

The London Stadium was just 12 miles down the road as Dagenham & Redbridge netted their third past second-placed Wrexham in May 2022, but for those travelling Red Dragons, it will have felt like a lifetime away.

Phil Parkinson’s side pitched up at The Chigwell Construction Stadium that day with a dream, and a reachable one at that.

They were three points behind Stockport County in the National League – the fifth tier of English football, which holds only one automatic promotion spot to the Football League – but with a superior goal difference. Dagenham were eighth in the league, with the Hatters up against fourth-placed Halifax Town.

Phil Parkinson has already proved he's a mood-turning master

Dave Challinor’s table-topping side were prone to a wobble; in the last game, they’d let the Welsh side right back in, losing 3-0 against Parkinson’s men, in what felt like a potential title decider, just weeks after being dumped out of the FA Trophy at the same venue. Stockport were bruised, and Wrexham were on the up.

Plenty fancied Wrexham’s chances that day, despite not starting in the driving seat. Dagenham had to release a statement leading up to it, offering 300 extra tickets to away fans while pleading with them not to attempt to get in the home end. Excitement was bubbling over. It was certainly going to be a close run-in, wasn’t it?

Er, no.

The Red Dragons were battered off the park, losing 3-0 as Stockport banked a history-making 2-0 win against Halifax. The deflation for Wrexham carried through to the FA Trophy final at Wembley (a 1-0 loss to Bromley) and the play-offs, coming off second-best in a 5-4 game of hot potato with Grimsby Town.

Just like that, their season was over, with nothing to show for the incredible fight they’d shown through the latter part of the season and the hefty investment supplied by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac.

So why are we talking about this over four years after the fact? Partly because we all know what happens next in Wrexham’s story, and it shows just how quickly things can change for the better.

Of the group that travelled down to Dagenham that day, only Max Cleworth and Parkinson himself remain at the club.

The Wrexham boss has found himself in one of the tougher moments of his five-year reign at the beginning of this season. The lowest ebb came as they realised what would have one day been a dream: instead of travelling to the capital for the likes of The Chigwell Construction Stadium, it was the London Stadium for a league game. Well, it was a dream at kick-off, which quickly descended into a nightmare as Jarrod Bowen netted the Hammers’ first, followed by five of his mates also sticking one each past summer signing Anthony Patterson.

“We can do better, and I can do better,” a forlorn Parkinson said in a post-match interview with Sky Sports. “I think the word accountability is important for myself and all individuals as well.”

He cut a figure that you have no doubt seen before: looking down at the floor, blaming himself and admitting his side simply weren’t good enough on the night. A reluctant, withdrawn acceptance that maybe, after such an incredible journey, his spell was running out of steam.

The season prior, they’d been in the play-off places with one game left to play, heading into that final day level on points with Hull City. The Red Dragons drew with Middlesbrough, as the Tigers beat Norwich City, pipping them to the last play-off spot and then going on to win the end-of-season contest. As Wrexham were mulling over this West Ham defeat, a day later, Hull were holding Chelsea to a 2-2 draw at Stamford Bridge. Fine margins expand quickly in football.

Looking at it through that lens, there has been an understandable deflation around the Racecourse for much of the beginning of this term, and fans travelling home from West Ham that evening were no doubt feeling it. Faith in Parkinson is high, and perhaps restoring with their most recent win against Southampton, but it’s nights like West Ham when doubts creep in and can take hold.

Those with slightly longer memories will understand the immense rallying power Parkinson possesses, though.

After that crushing miss in the National League in 2022, he picked his squad up, dusted them off and blitzed the competition the following season, racking up a record-smashing 111 points.

That season for Wrexham was the catalyst. Second place in League Two (enough to go up automatically here) followed, and they repeated the trick in League One, famously marking back-to-back-to-back promotions. Yes, Parkinson has been backed financially, but so have others with much less to show for it. It still took some doing, especially from such a dispiriting 2021/22 season.

Thankfully, the two movie stars with their hands on the purse strings appear to be among those with long-term memories, and have not been afraid to double down on their support.

“Phil has shown over and over again that he can win at every level so far,” Rob Mac told The Wrexham Podcast earlier this month, “so I don’t see why he doesn’t have as much room as he can possibly have over the next few years to continue to prove it.

“Phil has earned a lot of wiggle room.

“When I look at how quickly managers are fired, not just in English football, in the sport, all of the world, every league, managers are fired so quickly.”

Firing Parkinson would by far be the biggest and most emotional call the Wrexham hierarchy have had to make since they took over, and Mac confirmed in that same podcast that he wouldn’t be afraid to do it, if the situation called for it.

It may yet come. They may feel they need a bit of Premier League experience in the dugout to take that next step, but Mac noted that situation has not been reached yet. And he’s right.

Following that loss to West Ham, the Red Dragons were just one point off where they found themselves at the same stage last season, getting back to winning ways a week later with that home win against the Saints. Yet more evidence of the manager’s bouncebackability, and a sign that things are not as bad as they’ve felt at certain stages.

Outsiders may ask how you recover a squad’s mood after that huge miss last season, and how you erase the memory of a 6-0 drubbing on what should have been a special night. Anyone who’s followed Parkinson’s career for any length of time will simply point to his record.

Germany manager Jurgen Klopp has come out in defence of his former Liverpool captain over criticism by the Dutch press.

Reds skipper Virgil van Dijk has been involved in a spat with reporters in the aftermath of the World Cup, where the Netherlands were beaten on penalties by Morocco in the round of 16.

There were suggestions that Van Dijk was involved in a tactical decision made by head coach Ronald Koeman, whose replacement, Xavi, will lead the Dutch for the first time against Klopp and Germany on Thursday.

Van Dijk 'singled out' over World Cup exit

Van Dijk denied the claim when he spoke to the Dutch media ahead of the start of their Nations League campaign, describing the accusation as 'nonsense' and reminding reporters that World Cup matches are won and lost as a team.

In his own pre-match media duties, Klopp leapt to the defence of his former captain, comparing the Dutch press to their German colleagues.

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

"Our German journalists are pretty good [at being critical] too," said the new Germany manager, who replaced Julian Nagelsmann after the World Cup.

"I haven't really followed the Dutch press, but I assume you weren't happy with the elimination. Then the captain gets more criticism too.

"Virgil has had a lot of great moments in his career and also a few lesser ones. Because he is not only physically present, but normally also because of his performances, I can imagine that he gets singled out a bit."

Nobody in football knows Van Dijk better than Klopp. The defender played 270 times under Klopp for Liverpool, where they won the Premier League and Champions League together.

Xavi's first Dutch squad also includes Ryan Gravenberch and Gody Gakpo, who were managed at Anfield by Klopp, and newer Liverpool arrival Jeremie Frimpong. In all, 10 of the Dutch players have been drawn from the Premier League.

Thursday's match in Amsterdam is the first meeting between the Netherlands and Germany since the last Nations League competition. Germany won their home fixture after a 2-2 draw in the Dutch capital.

The Netherlands' last win against the Germans was a 4-2 victory in a European Championship qualifier in September 2019.

Van Dijk captained the team in Hamburg and they went on to lose to the Czech Republic in the round of 16 of EURO 2020.

Arsenal very nearly signed one of Unai Emery's most trusted generals, alongside bringing the Basque to N5 in 2018.

Emery took the Gunners job following the departure of club legend Arsene Wenger after 22 years in the hot seat – but failed to elevate a flailing Arsenal, finishing fifth in his first season and losing the Europa League final 4-1.

Now, in comments made to Mucho Deporte via a report from Sport Witness, Emery's right-hand man at Sevilla and Aston Villa, Monchi, has explained how fate very nearly brought him to the Premier League sooner.

Monchi opens up on botched Arsenal move - and subsequent “friction” with Unai Emery

Former Sevilla goalkeeper Monchi stepped into the Director of Football role at the Andalucian club in 2000 and helped to build a dynasty at the club, capturing seven Europa League titles over the years.

Emery was responsible for three in a row, forming a close partnership with his director, as the pair developed an astonishing formula for buying untapped talent and developing them into European stars.

“Once I had decided to leave Roma (in 2018), Unai called me about going to Arsenal,” Monchi says now.

“I was on the verge of going. But amidst the whirlwind of exchanging contracts with Arsenal, Pepe Castro [of Sevilla] called me. Just as he had helped me leave for Roma because I asked him to, I couldn’t say no to that call.

“It caused a bit of friction with Unai – because he was very excited, as was I, about me going to Arsenal – but I came to Sevilla instead. I am incredibly grateful for that second spell and that opportunity in Sevilla, even though those were four difficult, complicated years.”

Things didn't go to plan for Emery at Arsenal, who was sacked in November of his second season, with Raul Sanlehhi and Sven Mislintat largely responsible for the recruitment during the now Aston Villa manager's first stint in the Premier League.

While things certainly improved for Arsenal under another Basque in Mikel Arteta, Emery landed on his feet again, too, winning a fourth Europa League title with Villarreal before repeating the feat in the Midlands – where Monchi would link up with him once more.

“The Unai I know from Sevilla is nothing like the Unai I’ve come to know in Birmingham; he is a much better Unai, because he is someone who is always striving to improve,” he concluded.

“He is deeply inquisitive about football – obsessed with video analysis, imagery, and match preparation – and a coach who has almost always been successful.”

Arsenal take on Leeds United when Premier League action resumes after the international break.

Manchester United have confirmed it cost the club in the region of £8.2 million to sack Ruben Amorim and his backroom staff earlier this year.

As reported by the Manchester Evening News, the “exceptional items” in the club's latest financial results primarily reflect the severance packages for the Portuguese coach and his assistants.

Amorim was dismissed in January after a 14-month spell in charge, during which he struggled to get a tune out of his star-studded squad.

Ruben Amorim sacking cost Manchester United £8.2 million

Initially, the club faced a possible £16.7 million compensation bill, however, Amorim’s subsequent appointment at AC Milan this summer is believed to have activated a reduction clause in his contract, halving the final compensation payout to £8.2 million.

Following Amorim’s exit, Michael Carrick stepped up as interim boss, sparking a late-season revival that successfully guided the Red Devils back into the UEFA Champions League. Rewarded for his dugout - and most likely balance sheet - heroics, Carrick was officially handed the permanent managerial role over the summer. But, the honeymoon period appears to be over.

Assuming Carrick is currently on a contract similar in value to his predecessor's, the club is effectively investing £1.17m per match under their new permanent head coach.

Since the 2026/27 campaign kicked off last month, Carrick has taken charge of seven competitive matches, winning just two, including none of the last three.

The campaign began with a shock 2-0 defeat away to newly promoted Hull City. While Man United bounced back with a resounding 5-2 victory over Ipswich Town at Old Trafford, they were quickly frustrated by a 2-2 draw against Everton in early September.

A 4-0 Champions League triumph over Azeri champions Sabah FK was nothing more than the expected outcome, but the momentum was short-lived by a painful, and perhaps unjust, 1-0 derby defeat to Manchester City at Old Trafford.

Things went from bad to worse just days later when Carrick's side collapsed in the Carabao Cup, squandering a lead to lose 3-2 against Brighton & Hove Albion. Most recently, the squad could only salvage a late 1-1 draw against Fulham at Craven Cottage.

With just one win in their first five Premier League outings and an early exit from domestic cup competition, the pressure is mounting on Carrick.

Manchester United executives will be praying their investment in and commitment to his leadership begins to yield better results, or else they may find themselves facing yet another expensive managerial restructuring.

Tottenham Hotspur are considering sacking Roberto De Zerbi, after defeat to Aston Villa at the weekend.

That's the shock new report emerging following five games in the Premier League without a win, and the Tottenham board starting to worry after significant outlay to improve the squad over the summer.

With De Zerbi recently calling the Lilywhites the most “fragile” team he has ever managed at the weekend, Spurs' next fixture against Manchester United could be pivotal in both dugouts.

Tottenham Hotspur looking for a change already, following Roberto De Zerbi's disastrous start

De Zerbi was hired by Tottenham in March to steer the club away from relegation and was given apparent carte blanche over the summer to reshape his playing squad after successive 17th-place finishes.

Disposing of the 47-year-old so soon into the campaign would thus come as a shock – not least because Thomas Frank was given until February of this year as manager, despite overseeing just 13 games in 38 matches in all competitions – but the atmosphere in N17 appears to be souring already.

Spanish outlet Fichajes have reported that Spurs are already on the hunt for De Zerbi's successor, though his contract complicates the situation.

The Spurs boss has a deal that runs until 2031, with no break clause, meaning that it would cost tens of millions to part early from the agreement – but following comments at the weekend, De Zerbi is clearly unhappy with his situation.

Speaking to talkSPORT after the final whistle on Saturday, the Italian noted that “the leaders have to be stronger”, but that “I do not have all the answers”.

“It's difficult to explain because, in my career, 14 years as a coach, I've never seen one team like us," he said.

"So fragile, so inconsistent. You're good, or you're bad. You can't be very good in the first 30, 40 minutes, and then concede like this in this way. It's tough to accept for me.

“Maybe the communication between the players [is the problem], maybe the leaders have to be stronger," he added.

“We need leaders to drive and lead the team. With Newcastle it was the same, in Liverpool it was the same, with Everton it was the same: we have to find the solutions.”

Spurs take on Manchester United when Premier League action returns in October after the international break.

Snoop Dogg, Luka Modric and Martha Stewart aren’t used to being upstaged, but Swansea City fans have a new hero whose feats in South Wales are putting even the club’s celebrity co-owners in the shade.

Vitor Matos was appointed head coach of the Championship side last November, when they were 20th in the table and at risk of being dragged into a relegation fight. He guided Swansea to a top-half finish last season and has them among the early pace-setters this term, with supporters dreaming of a return to the Premier League.

The Portuguese, 38, is quietly doing one of the best managerial jobs in the top four divisions. If you weren’t aware of him, remember the name - because it surely won’t be long before he is in the Premier League, with or without Swansea.

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

Why Vitor Matos is one of the brightest young coaches in the EFL

Born just outside Porto, Matos is said to have been inspired to go into coaching by Jose Mourinho’s success at the Portuguese giants. He was in his mid-teens when ‘The Special One’ led Porto to the UEFA Cup and Champions League in 2003 and 2004 respectively.

After starting out at local clubs, Matos joined Porto in 2011 and progressed from Under 9s coach to assistant manager of the club’s B team, via a two-year spell in the youth set-up at Chinese Super League outfit Shandon Luneng.

At Porto he met Pep Lijnders, who also rose from the academy to the senior set-up before joining Liverpool in 2014. When the Reds needed a new elite development coach in 2019 - a role Lijnders held before becoming assistant manager - Matos got the call.

Then-manager Jurgen Klopp told Liverpool’s official website at the time: “[He’s] a really great guy, an outstanding coach. Young and experienced, you don't get that a lot. A kind of guy who is used to six or seven sessions a day. He is smart, his English is very good – which is obviously important – and he has worked at different clubs.”

Matos spent five years acting as a bridge between the academy and the first team at Anfield, helping to develop the likes of Curtis Jones, Jarell Quansah, Neco Williams and Harvey Elliott, before becoming Lijnders’ assistant at Austrian side RB Salzburg in summer 2024.

He left when Lijnders was sacked the following December and was appointed head coach of Portuguese second-tier outfit Maritimo in June 2025, only to be poached by Swansea just 12 games into his tenure.

Matos’ backstory is relevant as it helps explain why he is a good coach. He has worked in multiple countries, trained players of all abilities and ages, and learnt from some elite managers. When you consider that Arsenal boss Mikel Arteta and Manchester City counterpart Enzo Maresca both worked under Pep Guardiola and are now managing the two favourites for the Premier League title, it is no surprise that Matos is thriving after spending five years with Klopp.

Maritimo’s metrics under Matos reportedly brought him to Swansea’s attention and he is said to have impressed influential figures at the club, including Modric. Despite all that, the Swans undoubtedly took a risk in appointing a coach with no Championship experience to lead them away from relegation - but that risk has paid off handsomely.

After losing his first two games, Matos won five of the next seven to guide Swansea clear of the drop zone. The club didn’t make a notable signing in the January transfer window but still picked up the 10th-highest points total in the Championship between the manager’s arrival and the end of the season. They finished 11th with largely the same group of players that were floundering earlier in the campaign, which is always a sign of a good coach.

Swansea did spend money this summer, when they announced they had started working with data specialists Jamestown Analytics, co-founded by Brighton & Hove Albion owner Tony Bloom. Jamestown has played a key role in the success of Brighton, Hearts and Italian side Como, among others.

The Swans signed players from Austria, Belgium, Portugal, Scotland and Sweden for more than £20m combined, but continuity has been key to Swansea’s early-season form. In fact, the club’s top five players for both starts and minutes played across the opening seven games of the Championship campaign comprised three who were there last term - Josh Tymon, Lawrence Vigouroux and Marko Stamenic - plus Stephen Welsh, a free signing this summer, and Filip Lissah, a 21-year-old academy graduate who had made one substitute appearance before last month.

Ten of the 16 players who appeared in the 3-1 win over Burnley on September 12 also featured in Matos’ first game in charge. After beating the Clarets, the head coach praised Brazilian forward Ronald, who has had a disappointing two-and-a-half years at the club but provided the assist for Swansea’s third goal. It illustrates again how players who were previously underperforming have thrived in Matos’ favoured 4-3-3/4-2-3-1 system, where the team are encouraged to press high - an approach shaped by his time with Klopp.

He has also had to deal with losing key centre back Cameron Burgess to a season-ending Achilles injury on the eve of the campaign, as well as the summer departure of influential midfielder Ethan Galbraith.

Matos was named Championship Manager of the Month for August, but his success can be measured over his entire tenure. Ahead of last Saturday's trip to Lincoln City, he had averaged 1.65 Points Per Game across his 37 league matches, which translates to 76 points in a 46-game season - enough for a play-off spot. Despite this, Swansea’s form has largely gone under the radar, perhaps because they never troubled the play-offs last term, or because this season is still in its infancy.

In an open Championship promotion race, there is no reason why Matos’ side can’t reach the play-offs, especially with eighth place now enough to qualify. That would be a terrific achievement for a club who had regressed to mid-table mediocrity since losing the play-off final to Brentford in 2020/21.

But even if Swansea’s promotion push falls short, Matos’ personal bid for the Premier League surely won’t end there. Having quietly gone about his business in South Wales, it is only a matter of time until top-flight clubs start to take notice.

When any team is successful over a sustained period of time, it is natural to start taking it for granted.

For the likes of Liverpool in the 1970s and 1980s, and Manchester United under Sir Alex Ferguson, it reached a point where you simply couldn’t imagine them not winning.

While it is admittedly a stretch to compare these all-conquering sides to a club who have never lifted a major trophy, nor even qualified for the Champions League, there is a similar phenomenon surrounding Brighton & Hove Albion.

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

Why Fabian Hurzeler isn't getting the credit he deserves

Mentioning the Seagulls in the same breath as those teams may sound ridiculous - particularly if you support Crystal Palace - but the south coast outfit are an era-defining club in a different way.

For the best part of a decade, Brighton have been the model club of English football. Under the ownership of Tony Bloom, Albion have risen up the pyramid and become an established Premier League side through a mix of data-driven recruitment, exemplary player trading and smart managerial appointments, while boasting a state-of-the-art stadium and top-class training facilities.

It is now expected that every unknown player they buy for next to nothing will be sold for a huge profit, following in the footsteps of Moises Caicedo, Carlos Baleba, Jan Paul van Hecke and many more.

It is now expected that the next manager they appoint will raise the level of the team, in the way that Graham Potter built on the work of Chris Hughton, and Roberto De Zerbi built on the work of Potter.

It is why everyone expected Fabian Hurzeler to be a good fit when he succeeded De Zerbi in summer 2024, despite the German being just 31 years old at the time, making him the youngest permanent head coach in Premier League history.

But De Zerbi was a hard act to follow. The Italian is a tactical innovator, hailed by Pep Guardiola as “one of the most influential managers in the last 20 years”, and led the Seagulls to sixth place in 2022/23, the highest finish in their 125-year existence.

Furthermore, in the era of Squad Cost Ratio and Profit and Sustainability rules, there is something of a glass ceiling for those outside the Premier League elite, as Aston Villa and Newcastle United - clubs with far richer histories than Brighton - have discovered.

As a result, the bare facts suggest Hurzeler has not taken Brighton to another level in the same way as his predecessors. Under the German, the Seagulls have not matched or bettered their sixth-place finish of 2022/23. That saw them qualify for the Europa League, something Hurzeler is yet to achieve. They haven’t reached the semi-finals of a cup competition, as they did under De Zerbi in the 2022/23 FA Cup.

The De Zerbi factor and the way it helped further raise expectations of Brighton means that Hurzeler isn’t getting the credit he deserves, externally at least. But dig a little deeper and it quickly becomes clear that he is doing an excellent job.

The former St Pauli boss has led the Seagulls to successive eighth-place finishes, which last season was enough to secure a place in the Conference League (they would have also qualified in 2024/25 if Palace hadn’t won the FA Cup).

Meanwhile, the Seagulls’ points tally of 61 in Hurzeler’s first campaign was only one shy of the 62 that saw them finish sixth under De Zerbi two years earlier. The 33-year-old also boasts a better win percentage than the Italian over a near identical period: 44.2 per cent across 95 games, compared to 42.7 per cent in 89 matches.

There were other eye-catching statistics doing the rounds after Brighton hammered Coventry City 5-0 last Sunday. In the first four rounds of matches, the Seagulls were the best-performing team in the Premier League for goals scored (13), Expected Goals (10.05), big chances created (19), crosses (107) and shots on target (24, which was the joint-highest tally). They were also equal second for shot conversion rate, at 16.7 per cent.

You could argue that Hurzeler’s side have had a favourable set of fixtures, playing Villa and Coventry at a good time and facing a Chelsea side who have been leaky defensively. Meanwhile, a high shot conversion rate that has them overperforming their xG suggests they have been unsustainably clinical.

But Brighton’s attacking numbers are even more impressive when you consider that Hurzeler has had to completely revamp his forward line in the early weeks of the campaign. The Seagulls sold Danny Welbeck to Chelsea this summer, while Kaoru Mitoma, Yankuba Minteh, Jack Hinshelwood and Georgino Rutter have all missed games due to injury.

As a result, Hurzeler has been fielding a front four of Charalampos Kostoulas, who made just two top-flight starts in 2025/26, Malick Yalcouye, who spent the past two seasons out on loan, Maxim De Cuyper - a full-back by trade - and Diego Gomez. That quartet boasts six goals and three assists between them this term.

It is only seven months since some Brighton fans wanted Hurzeler sacked during a run of one win from 13 league games. Those results would put any manager under pressure, but context is key: when that run began last December, the Seagulls were fifth in the table. When it ended, they were 14th. The club didn’t finish higher than 15th in their first four seasons back in the top flight - another indicator of how expectations have been raised.

Hurzeler turned it around, but the achievement of returning to Europe was overshadowed by Bournemouth and Sunderland ending the campaign in sixth and seventh respectively, which were bigger stories than another top-half finish for the Seagulls.

The season before, Nottingham Forest’s seventh-place finish and Palace’s FA Cup triumph grabbed the headlines. Those were both shocks, whereas eighth was simply par for the course for Brighton.

It feels like Hurzeler needs to lift the Conference League, reach a domestic cup final or qualify for the Champions League for the job he is doing to be fully appreciated.

Achieve any of those and it would rank as one of the greatest seasons in Brighton’s history - maybe then he will step out of De Zerbi’s shadow.

It's fair to say things haven't been terrific for Manchester United so far this season.

Comfortable wins against Ipswich Town and Sabah aside, they've lost to newly promoted Hull City, drawn with Everton's massively depleted squad and lost a Manchester derby against a City side playing with only ten men.

However, Wednesday evening's home collapse against Brighton and Hove Albion might have been the lowest point of the campaign so far, and it was entirely self-inflicted.

Carrick needs to look at his decision making

It was the first time since 1976 that United had lost after taking a two goal lead at Old Trafford, a record that Michael Carrick will now have on his CV for the rest of his career, and the blame has to be put squarely at his feet.

His team selection, chiefly a second-string outfit with a couple of first-teamers thrown in, wasn't anywhere near strong enough, and so it proved.

Granted, the problems at Man United aren't entirely Carrick's fault, there were definitely positions that needed to be bolstered during the summer that were ignored by those in charge of recruitment, but he isn't helping himself with team selections like the one against Brighton.

First of all, the inexperienced centre back duo of Leny Yoro and Ayden Heaven was clearly a huge gamble, with neither particularly experienced or dependable enough to play without the support of a trusted guiding hand alongside them.

The lack of cohesion and understanding between the two was clearly on display for Brighton's equaliser when they were split as easily as Carol Vorderman tackling two divided by two.

Further baffling choices were seen behind the two defenders, with Karl Darlow getting his Red Devils debut. Given that Man United's next game isn't until 4:30pm on Sunday, was Senne Lammens really going to be tired from playing on a Wednesday night?

Darlow was very easily beaten for Brighton's first, which changed the complexion of the game right before half-time, while getting a grip on his inexperienced defenders was a distraction he struggled to cope with. Given the pressure Carrick finds himself under at such an early stage in the season, these choices look like unnecessary risks to be making when it ought to be imperative for him to start building momentum and picking up wins where possible.

Though a club of Manchester United's size should have loftier ambitions than the Carabao Cup, it is a winnable piece of silverware that is now off-limits for this season.

But the Premier League and Champions League are also beyond the realm of possibility for them this season, and likely will be for the foreseeable future, so any trophies should be welcomed.

Instead of taking it seriously, Carrick gambled and lost and has now further limited how much he can achieve in this campaign, while also increasing the amount of scrutiny he will be under from here on in.

His rested players need to perform against a struggling Fulham side this weekend, or things could turn nasty barely half way through September.

Given how much they've struggled so far, it wouldn't be wise to bet on them to succeed.

It took a while to take him out of the microwave but Ruben Amorim was cooked as soon as Manchester United were knocked out of the Carabao Cup at the first opportunity last season.

Man United were beaten by Grimsby Town on that occasion. Their third round exit from the same competition on Wednesday night was a major blow to Michael Carrick as he seeks to give lie to the idea that a football club should never appoint a caretaker manager on a permanent basis.

Losing to Premier League opposition in a cup game is just a hazard of the job, but throwing away a two-goal lead at home against Brighton & Hove Albion and not even getting to penalties was a bitter pill to swallow after a less-than-stellar start to the league campaign.

Next permanent Manchester United manager odds

United won just one of their first four league fixtures, the kind of drop in run-rate from the second half of last season that's bound to attract scrutiny after the Red Devils invested heavily to reinforce the midfield.

Andrey Santos and Youri Tielemans both started the Carabao Cup game at Old Trafford but were powerless to halt United's collapse from 2-0 up to 3-2 down. Consequently, Carrick is having one of those days where it's best to avoid the internet.

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

As the bookmakers slash the odds on Carrick becoming the first Premier League manager to face the sack this season, related markets on who would replace him as United's next permanent manager have gone into overdrive.

Based on an average of the various markets already available, the favourite is former Newcastle United manager Eddie Howe at 6/4 – an English boss with lots of Premier League experience but likely to be a divisive choice among United fans.

England manager Thomas Tuchel is available around 7/2 in the betting but not, the FA would say, available to move back into the club game after previous spells that included Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich.

Somewhere around 4/1, you'll find another manager whose most recent job was in international football. Julian Nagelsmann left the Germany job after the World Cup this summer and remains out of work, but is a less attractive offer following his performance over the summer.

Antonio Conte is listed around 9/1, while Gareth Southgate and Kieran McKenna – both available – are at odds of 15/1 on average.

Darren Fletcher leads the inevitable group of former Red Devils players, with 20/1 on offer if you think he'll get a chance to reprise his caretaker role on a permanent basis.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, Gary Neville and Wayne Rooney are also on the list along with former United managers Ralf Rangnick, David Moyes and Erik ten Hag. Their odds are appropriately long.

Other potential candidates with marginally more convincing odds include Carlo Ancelotti (20/1), Fabian Hurzeler (25/1), Mauricio Pochettino (25/1) and Diego Simeone (50/1).

Pressure is mounting on Michael Carrick at Old Trafford following Manchester United’s Carabao Cup exit to Brighton.

The 3-2 defeat, which saw the Seagulls come back from a 2-1 deficit, has prompted bookmakers to drastically slash odds on Carrick's dismissal.

Another defeat adds to what has been a tricky start to Carrick’s first full season as permanent manager. With the Red Devils languishing in 13th place in the Premier League table after picking up just four points from their opening four matches, an early cup exit leaves the club fighting on fewer fronts when silverware could have papered over the cracks of an otherwise sub-standard season.

Michael Carrick sack odds

In response to the defeat, Sky Bet has priced Carrick at 10/3 to be the next Premier League manager to leave his post, down from his 33/1 pre-season standing.

The former Middlesbrough boss was 11/1 in the same market at the start of September, and 15/2 prior to Wednesday's elimination.

Bookmakers have also priced the ex-Man United midfielder at 5/2 to leave the Old Trafford hotseat before Christmas Day.

And for those punters bullish enough to back an immediate exit, Carrick is 6/1 to be sacked before the end of September or during October. November, meanwhile, represents the shortest individual month for his potential departure at 7/2.

The road ahead offers little relief for the under-fire boss with Sky Bet offering 10/1 on Manchester United to lose their next two Premier League matches against Fulham and Tottenham Hotspur.

Should their poor form snowball further, odds stretch to 50/1 for four straight league defeats - which would encompass losses to Leeds United and AFC Bournemouth - and 100/1 for five consecutive Premier League defeats.

Bookmakers haven't completely written off the former England international, though. Carrick remains 2/1 to weather the storm and remain in charge until the end of the season.

However, with patience wearing thin among supporters and Man United already drifting from the top four race, upcoming fixtures will prove crucial in determining whether Carrick can stabilise the ship or become the latest managerial casualty in Old Trafford's turbulent post-Sir Alex Ferguson era.

Man United are away at Fulham on Sunday, 20 September in the 4:30pm kick-off on Sky Sports.

Their next league match after that comes following the extended September-October international break, at home to Tottenham Hotspur on October 10.

Roberto De Zerbi has seemingly begun pointing fingers at his Tottenham Hotspur squad, citing their sub-par fitness as a reason for their drab start to the season, following last weekend's 0-0 draw against Everton.

The Toffees played their part, operating an effective man-to-man marking structure that helped extended Spurs' barren, goalless start to the new Premier League season.

Despite overseeing a £350 million summer spending spree designed to fire Spurs back into the Champions League, De Zerbi watched his side draw yet another blank this past weekend.

Spurs players 'not fit enough' despite full De Zerbi pre-season

Tottenham have now failed to find the back of the net in their opening four league fixtures of the 2026/27 campaign. Rather than taking tactical responsibility for his team's lack of a cutting edge, some may take the view that De Zerbi has opted to pass the buck.

Speaking to Sky Sports following the final whistle at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Spurs boss shifted the focus away from his own setup and directly onto the application of his players.

"The physical condition of the team is not the best," De Zerbi claimed when pressed on his side's attacking struggles.

It is something of a deflection from the manager keen to explain away an unexpected start to the season.

De Zerbi did suggest he felt the team played well on Merseyside, referencing the number of times they entered the Everton penalty area, but was frustrated his players did not take enough shots. Choosing to cast blame onto the physical state of the dressing room, as well as individuals' decision-making, is certainly a choice when this is a dressing room he spent an entire pre-season preparing physically and tactically.

What makes De Zerbi’s comments particularly concerning for Spurs fans is how familiar they sound.

Just seven months ago, back in February, former boss Igor Tudor made similar comments. The Croatian accused a fatigued Tottenham squad of lacking basic fitness and desire during a torrid run of form. Tudor’s public assessment subsequently alienated key players, ultimately accelerating his exit, leaving a toxic atmosphere in north London.

De Zerbi was brought in to lift that gloom, and achieved that during the latter part of last season by rebuilding player confidence, none more so than Dutch defender-turned-skipper Micky van de Ven.

But as the pressure mounts, he appears to be pulling from the same playbook of excuses as his predecessor.

Leaning on fitness issues after just four games is something of a red flag. If the Italian cannot figure out how to integrate £350m worth of new talent and get Tottenham firing in front of goal, the blame game will do little to save him from difficult conversations with his superiors, and crucially, maintaining the good will of fans.

Michael Carrick has wanted to be Manchester United head coach ever since he played his 464th and final game for them aged 36 in 2018 and moved into coaching.

Aware of Carrick’s desire to become a coach, Man United’s then-manager Jose Mourinho presented him with a whistle and a role in training. Now, actually being in charge is more than a job to Carrick.

He cares deeply about the responsibility, which is why defeat in the Manchester Derby, the manner of the loss and the result itself will hurt deeply.

HENRY WINTER: 'Michael Carrick is hurting after Manchester Derby defeat'

Carrick is a composed character, a very measured individual, reflecting his thoughtful playing style. But it was easy to detect his hurt in all the interviews he conducted afterwards. It was in his eyes, in his tone and in the words themselves. It was easy to sense his frustration and anger at VAR’s failure to consider that Enzo Fernandez was impacting on Lisandro Martinez and Senne Lammens and therefore offside.

“If that's the interpretation of not interfering in the game now, that's really worrying for me,” Carrick told the BBC. “It's a staggering explanation.” Man United received an apology from Pro Ref that the officials got it wrong. He was let down by VAR.

It’s what Carrick said next that needs scrutiny. “The decision isn't going to change the season, but it's had a major impact on the game,” he said. Two things: firstly, on it “could change the season”. It does. It whips up more doubt around Carrick so early in this season. He deserved the job after steering the club back into the Champions League. Owners will always consider that the first priority in a season because of the £100m attraction.

Carrick also got the job because of the absence of heavyweight alternatives. Potential candidates such as Julian Nagelsmann hardly enhanced their reputations at the World Cup.

Some perspective is required, patience too. Of the new managers at the bigger Premier League clubs: Enzo Maresca was given a vastly superior squad to Carrick, so life was always going to be smoother for the new City leader; Xabi Alonso has a defence to sort out at Chelsea; and Andoni Iraola is taking time to impose his ideas on Liverpool.

Roberto De Zerbi did well to keep Tottenham Hotspur up last season, but they are struggling in 17th despite spending £344m. Unai Emery is having to do a rebuild at 19th-placed Aston Villa, who have one point from four; there is increased scrutiny on Emery as these are, by and large, all his recruits.

All of these are good managers and deserve time. The ever-quickening news agenda and hunger for headline content doesn’t help.

There should be a desire to support a home-grown coach like Carrick (and full transparency, I helped him write his 2018 book). I know how much he genuinely cares about his club, the staff, players and fans. But Carrick does deserve scrutiny. He mentions, secondly, the goal having a “major impact” on the game, but the bigger impact was United’s failure to exploit their numerical advantage when Phil Foden was sent off after 23 minutes.

There has to be sympathy for Carrick over the City goal and the club’s failure to give him the defenders, especially full-backs, that he needs. Diogo Dalot and Patrick Dorgu are simply not good enough. Their flaws, such as failing to clear properly, had a “major impact” on the game. But Carrick’s in-game management wasn’t good enough. He’s not to blame for Bryan Mbeumo wasting an inviting chance late on, but Carrick was outwitted by Maresca, whose changes were far more intelligent and productive. Iliman Ndiaye came on for Rayan Cherki at the break and, along with Antoine Semenyo, stayed high and stretched United. Maresca’s boldness paid off.

Carrick, bafflingly, waited for 45 minutes after Foden’s exit to sharpen his attack with Benjamin Sesko. Until then, Carrick preferred the false 9 approach of Matheus Cunha. Sesko replaced Youri Tielemans, with the No. 10 space becoming crowded with Cunha and Bruno Fernandes (who did drop slightly deeper). Why not keep the balance and withdraw Cunha, not Tielemans?

If Carrick has concerns about Sesko’s match sharpness or his quality, then he could simply have switched Marcus Rashford and Cunha. Set City another challenge. Unleash Rashford’s pace through the middle. Cunha also enjoys that left-sided No. 10 role, albeit tucked in more than Rashford.

The sight of Foden going off so early at Old Trafford should have been the signal to go for the jugular. Seize the moment. Go for victory even more. Attack, attack, attack. Get a psychologically important win, not only vital for local pride but also to disperse some of the clouds gathering during United’s unconvincing start to the season. Only Kobbie Mainoo rose to the challenge. Carrick didn’t do enough. He can reflect and learn. But also, it’s far too early in the season for knee-jerk reactions. As with other managers, Carrick deserves time.

When a football manager has little or no budget to work with, their other skills are brought to the fore.

That was certainly the case for Steve Coppell during his first spell as Crystal Palace boss, when his tenure was built on necessity, ingenuity and the ability to spot talent where others weren’t looking.

With little money available, Coppell was able to sign and transform a collection of relative unknown players into household names, and would come agonisingly close to landing the club’s first major honour and to playing European football.

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

Coppell on losing Ian Wright

The likes of Ian Wright, Alan Pardew and Gareth Southgate all made a name for themselves under Coppell, who admits that he had to think outside of the box.

“First and foremost it was a necessity,” Coppell recalls to FourFourTwo. “When I first went to Palace we had no money. My first year in management was the blind leading the blind. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing.

“We made our training ground open to non-league managers and they became our scouts. Ian Wright was a no-brainer. All the non-league players had an ‘I’ll-show-them’ mentality and that’s what we were looking for.”

Ian Wright was the figurehead for how Coppell was able to create a new culture around the club. But after finishing third in 1991, the striker would depart in what Coppell sees as a defining moment for Palace.

“Almost immediately Ian Wright went to Arsenal,” Coppell continues. “We had a great relationship with Ian and he could have left a couple of years before but agreed to sign a new deal. He’d done well by us but we both knew the situation and we weren’t going to stand in his way.

“To a certain extent that was a real body blow – I really do think we could have been one of the big boys for a couple of years.

“For your best player to leave to fulfil his ambitions sends a message to the other players. It became a difficult couple of years.”

As a player, Coppell earned 42 England caps and, following his success in the Palace dugout, his name was soon bandied around as a potential successor to Three Lions boss Graham Taylor in 1993, following England’s failure to qualify for the following summer’s World Cup.

“On occasion I was mentioned, but never approached,” Coppell recalls. ”It never really interested me that much.

“The Palace job was massive and so intense that I think I would have been unfulfilled as a national team manager.”

Turkish media are reporting that Super Lig side Trabzonspor have held talks with Pep Guardiola, as the club look to go from strength-to-strength after signing Liverpool legend Mohamed Salah.

The pair faced off for almost 10 years in the Premier League, with Salah taking the English top-flight title from Guardiola’s Manchester City twice in that period.

Now, it appears that the Egyptian and the Spaniard could join forces in the Super Lig, with Turkish media reporting that Guardiola has been offered a €13 million salary to manage Trabzonspor.

Pep Guardiola could join forces with Mohamed Salah in shock Super Lig move

Despite a productive start to the season from Salah — striking four goals, and claiming an assist, in three Super Lig starts — Trabzonspor endured a devastating Europa League crash-out.

That arrived through Ferencvaros, who decimated Salah’s side 5-0 (agg.) in their Europa League two-leg qualifier. In the aftermath, then-manager, and former Trabzonspor player, Faith Tekke resigned on the spot.

The board rejected Tekke’s resignation, who lost 2-1 in his following fixture versus newly-promoted side Amed, away from home. He was then allowed to leave; now, according to Turkish news bulletin Gusholder Haber Bulteni, the Super Lig side has held talks with Guardiola.

In Trabzonspor’s first match since Tekke’s departure, they dismantled Genclerbirligi in a 5-0 romp at Papara Park. Goals came through Paul Onuachu, Ernest Muci, Salah, and new signing Franculino Dju.

In their pursuit of the Super Lig trophy — which Trabzonspor have additional motivation to achieve this term, with Galatasaray gunning for an unprecedented fifth successive Turkish top-flight title — Salah’s men appear to have turned, stunningly, to Guardiola.

The report from Gusholder Haber Bulteni has since been relayed online by Trabzonspor media, and other Turkish outlets.

In FourFourTwo’s view, the Spaniard is exceedingly unlikely to make the Super Lig move; however, it could be one to keep an eye peeled for. Having won virtually everything there is to win, and Trabzonspor emerging as a serious economic power in Turkey that could, under the right guidance, dominate the Super Lig in coming years, their project might appeal to Guardiola.

In 2022, Trabzonspor won their first top-flight title since 1984. A total of 78 clubs have competed in the competition, with only six winning it, and Salah’s side have claimed the fourth-most, with seven.

Galatasaray have 26, Fenerbahce hold 19, and Besiktas have lifted 16 Super Lig trophies. If any club is capable of disturbing this Istanbul-based dominance, it is likely to be Trabzonspor, and they are currently well-positioned to do so.

With Guardiola having taken Manchester City from relative Premier League minnows, to winning the second-most titles in the competition’s history, he could be enticed by a similar story playing out in Turkey, under his leadership.

The salary offered could pose issues, with the Spaniard reportedly having earned over £20 million annually in England. In contrast, €13 million to manage in Turkey appears drastically less appealing.

While this remains a vastly distant possibility, who wouldn’t like to see Guardiola and Salah work together, if just for a season, with their footballing legacies already stamped?

Fulham are facing the prospect of losing their opening four Premier League games of the new season this weekend, which would spell bad news for Alvaro Arbeloa.

The Spaniard is fast emerging as the frontrunner to become the Premier League's first managerial casualty of the new season.

A winless start to the campaign has plunged Fulham into crisis, leaving the former Real Madrid interim boss fighting to salvage both his authority and his job ahead of a weekend trip to face Liverpool.

Alvaro Arbeloa on the brink at Fulham

Having replaced Marco Silva over the summer, Arbeloa was heavily backed by the club's board during the transfer window.

The 43-year-old tapped directly into his former employer to reshape the squad, securing moves for Real Madrid trio Cesar Palacios, Gonzalo Garcia, and Manuel Angel.

However, due to Arbeloa’s tactical tweaks and, on the surface at least, a clear preference for his ex-Bernabeu recruits, he has alienated established figures within the squad.

Alex Iwobi has found himself displaced from his natural wide role and redeployed into central midfield, a move widely understood to accommodate Palacios on the wing.

Meanwhile, £34 million midfielder Emile Smith Rowe has seemingly been marginalised, featuring off the bench for a combined total of just 25 Premier League minutes across Fulham's three opening defeats.

Internal friction is growing with Brazilian winger Kevin, too. As reported by Saturday White Fever, Fulham find themselves with an ultimatum just four weeks in to the new season.

Kevin, the club's record signing, and Arbeloa are believed to have fallen out over the ex-Shakhtar Donetsk man's playing time. He has accumulated a mere 24 league minutes this term, and was left as an unused substitute during last weekend’s loss to Crystal Palace.

The immediate aftermath of that Palace defeat saw Kevin take to social media to post a cryptic message which read: ‘no speak, no hear, no see’. This post has been universally interpreted as a protest against Arbeloa’s team selection and possibly his management style, too.

It is now understood that Kevin is expected to seek an exit from Craven Cottage during the January transfer window unless the board opts to dismiss Arbeloa before then.

Alarmingly, the discontent is not isolated to one individual, either. In what appears to be a coordinated effort, both Iwobi and Smith Rowe have scrubbed their official Instagram accounts clean, wiping all historical posts depicting them in Fulham colours.

With a dismal record heading to Anfield, Arbeloa's gamble and squad management has backed him into a corner.

Should Fulham suffer another damaging defeat against Liverpool, or if the team produces another lifeless display, the board may be forced to act.

The manner of performance on Merseyside could well prove terminal for the manager's brief tenure in West London.

Sabah manager Valdas Dambrauskas has an unusual curriculum vitae.

Manchester United's first opponents after securing a return to the Champions League are one of four teams playing in the competition for the first time, and Dambrauskas will go head-to-head with United boss Michael Carrick at Old Trafford on Thursday.

Sabah are first-time champions of Azerbaijan and the route Dambrauskas took to get them there was circuitous to say the least. The Lithuanian, 49, even counts Man United themselves among his former employers.

'To come from Lithuania and be given that opportunity was a huge step for me'

Dambrauskas and his girlfriend, later his wife, moved to England after he won the equivalent of £725 on a Lithuanian television game show based on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?

He enrolled on a sports science and coaching course at London Metropolitan University and soon found he needed to top up the funds if his coaching education was to continue. He secured an interview for a job with Man United's soccer schools programme.

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

"After we’d paid for our flights and accommodation, we had money left to cover our expenses for just one month, so I needed to get a part-time job urgently," Dambrauskas told FourFourTwo.

"At the time I still couldn’t speak English properly, but they liked me because of my personality and I got the job. To come from Lithuania and be given that opportunity was a huge step for me."

Dambrauskas went on to work with Brentford's Centre of Excellence and as the manager of Kingsbury London Tigers, now London Tigers, who were then competing in the Spartan South Midlands League.

"That was a fantastic experience – all of my jobs were part of a great learning process, up to 2014 when I got my first chance as a head coach back in Lithuania," he said.

It was the doomed Ekranas who gave him that opportunity. They went bust the next year, only reforming in 2020. Dambrauskas has since managed in Latvia, Bulgaria, Greece, Cyprus, Hungary and Croatia. He's a league champion in three countries.

True to form, Dambrauskas' Sabah needed to take the long way round in the Champions League.

Starting in July, with the World Cup still rumbling on, the Azeri champions beat Welsh side The New Saints in the first qualifying round before seeing off KuPS and AGF to set up a play-off against Israel's Hapoel Be'er Sheva. They scored three goals in extra time at the end of the second leg.

After their Champions League trip to Old Trafford, Sabah will face league phase fixtures against Slavia Prague, Borussia Dortmund, Viking, Barcelona, Villarreal, Napoli and Arsenal.

Ex-Chelsea and West Ham manager Graham Potter has branded an unnamed former club of his "dysfunctional" in the comments of an Instagram post.

The current head coach of the Sweden national team is rebuilding his managerial career after disappointing spells at both Chelsea and West Ham United.

Potter posted an image of himself doing pilates to Instagram yesterday, and dug out one of his former clubs in reply to a fan.

Graham Potter digs out 'dysfunctional' club in Instagram post

The Englishman made a name for himself as boss at Brighton, where he lasted three years in the job and led the Seagulls to their highest-ever top-flight finish in 2022.

He made the move to Chelsea, where, after losing 11 games in his 31 at the helm, he was sacked inside eight months.

After almost two years away from management, Potter returned to the Premier League to coach West Ham.

In London once more, he lasted even less time, managing the Hammers from January to September of 2025.

The Englishman's side finished 14th in the 2024/25 Premier League standings, but was sacked after leading the club to a 19th-placed position after the next term's first five games.

Now manager of the Sweden national team, Potter led his side out of the groups in North America this summer, before exiting in a 3-0 defeat to previous tournament edition finalists France.

The 51-year-old posted an image of him in a pilates pose to Instagram on Thursday afternoon, which prompted one fan to jokingly respond: "Hopefully you are better at Pilates then you were a football manager."

Potter replied: "I'll try not to do Pilates in a dysfunctional place and I will be ok," with a flexed bicep emoji.

It is unclear which club the Englishman was referring to, however, the Hammers were relegated in the same season that Potter left them, while the Blues finished just 13 points clear of the drop zone in 10th last term.

Since Potter joined, Chelsea have now resorted to their eighth manager in three years, with Xabi Alonso at the helm.

Another fan commented in response: "Didn't mind the money though, did you?" to which Potter replied "absolutely not."

And when a West Ham fan wrote: "You got us relegated, you mug," the Englishman replied with two laughing emojis.

Less than two years ago, FourFourTwo sat inside the bowels of Al Ahli's inner city training ground in Jeddah, and whispers abounded. “If he loses this game, the manager might well be sacked,” one Saudi Pro League expert told us that evening, as we waited for Matthias Jaissle to arrive for his latest pre-match press conference.

Al Ahli had won only three of their first eight games of the new league season, and sat eighth in the table before the Jeddah derby with title-challenging Al Ittihad – a fixture that would attract a raucous crowd of 52,546. Given that Jaissle's club were one of the Saudi Pro League's big four – all owned by the country's Public Investment Fund (PIF) – their results were below expectation.

Back then, the main focus of our visit to Al Ahli had been the recent signing of Ivan Toney, rather than Jaissle, who was largely unknown to British audiences in October 2024. Our question was whether he could help his new frontman make England's next World Cup squad – Jaissle knew Thomas Tuchel, having played for him in the youth teams at VfB Stuttgart.

“Let's see if Thomas calls me and asks how Ivan is doing,” the smartly dressed Jaissle told FFT. “Ivan has the potential, definitely – he must deliver here to be seen in the UK, and we're doing our best to bring him into the best shape.”

Prior to this summer's World Cup, Tuchel did indeed call Jaissle to discuss Toney, revealing the “fantastic feedback” he received was enough to persuade him to pick the 30-year-old in his squad. By then, though, Jaissle could easily have been long gone as Al Ahli boss.

He did lose that Jeddah derby against Al Ittihad, a tetchy game interrupted by a sandstorm that blew dust from the nearby desert into the stadium. He avoided the sack, but was reportedly on his way out two months later after a loss at Al Kholood, with Max Allegri said to be his long-term replacement.

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

That was until ultras protested at the training ground, putting up a banner declaring “Enough failure, leave!” The message was aimed at the club's hierarchy, rather than the manager. Jaissle stayed, and became an Al Ahli legend within months.

Jaissle was a central defender during a playing career that saw him help Hoffenheim to the Bundesliga for the first time in 2008, when he'd just turned 20. He'd been expected to be alongside Mesut Ozil, Mats Hummels and Manuel Neuer as part of the Germany under-21 squad that thrashed England in the final of the Euros in 2009, but damaged his ACL shortly before the tournament and would never be the same player again.

Further injuries forced him to retire in 2014, aged 25, before he got a job as a youth coach at RB Leipzig – his former Hoffenheim manager Ralf Rangnick had since become a key man in Red Bull's football project. Jaissle adopted a similarly high-pressing style, and has taken it with him ever since. After a stint as assistant at Danish club Brondby, he joined Red Bull Salzburg, led their feeder side FC Liefering to a joint-highest finish, then was handed the reins at the main club, replacing Jesse Marsch in 2021.

Working with young players such as Benjamin Sesko, Karim Adeyemi, Noah Okafor and Brenden Aaronson, he took Salzburg to a double in his first season, plus the Champions League's knockout stage for the only time in their history. They lost 7-1 at Bayern Munich in the last 16, while Jaissle was still only 33.

A season later, they went 30 matches unbeaten on the way to yet another domestic triumph. It was Salzburg's 10th straight title, but they haven't won the league since Jaissle left that summer. The German joined Al Ahli just a month after they'd been one of four clubs to be taken over by the Saudi PIF – together with Al Ittihad, Al Hilal and Cristiano Ronaldo's Al Nassr. Jaissle's new club had been Saudi Pro League champions in 2016 but relegated since, only returning to the top flight in the same summer as his arrival.

They quickly signed Riyad Mahrez, Roberto Firmino, Edouard Mendy, Franck Kessie and ex-Newcastle winger Allan Saint-Maximin, finishing an encouraging third in Jaissle's first season – enough to qualify for the Asian Champions League.

Then came Toney's arrival, and that tricky start to 2024-25 when Jaissle so nearly lost his job. He knew the pressure he was under when we visited, but didn't let it show – remaining professional throughout, even taking time to greet visiting European media afterwards. It was hard not to warm to him.

“Things take time – the club has a long-term vision,” Jaissle told us, subtly calling for patience as he attempted to turn around results, while nodding to his ability to improve young players. “I hope we can do better by implementing the philosophy from the top down to the academy, because at some point we'll need the young talents. In my eyes, that is the right approach.

“A lot of signings were made before I arrived, so it's important as a coach that you're flexible enough to adapt to a new country, culture and player profiles. In the long run, it's important everyone is aligned, that you improve your squad and players in the way you want to play.”

Jaissle was afforded time to do that. Their progress to the knockout stage of the Asian Champions League had been a factor in him avoiding the sack – Al Ahli had a stronger second half of the league campaign, improving to fifth, then surprisingly became kings of Asia for the first time ever. The Champions League's final three rounds all take place in Jeddah, giving Al Ahli a home advantage that helped, but they still had to defeat reigning Saudi champions Al Hilal in the semis, before a final victory over Japanese side Kawasaki Frontale – conquerors of Ronaldo's Al Nassr.

Last term, while finishing third in a three-way domestic race, they went all Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest and became continental champions again. Toney was key, scoring 72 goals in two seasons under Jaissle.

When PIF-owned Newcastle were looking for a manager to replace Eddie Howe this summer, it shouldn't have been a surprise that they opted for the German. Howe will be a tough act to follow, having delivered the Magpies a first major honour in 56 years. Why have a manager who's won one historic trophy, though, when you can have a gaffer who's won two?

Jose Mourinho is set for an unexpected return to Stamford Bridge after Real Madrid were drawn against Shakhtar Donetsk in the UEFA Champions League this season.

The Ukrainian champions have selected Chelsea’s home ground as their venue for European fixtures in 2026/27.

Shakhtar have been forced to play their designated 'home' matches thousands of miles away from home due to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, which renders hosting international fixtures in their homeland impossible.

Jose Mourinho can't stay away from Stamford Bridge

Having previously utilised temporary venues in Poland and Germany during recent continental campaigns, the Ukrainian side reached an agreement to stage their Champions League ties in London this year.

The arrangement was made possible because Stamford Bridge is vacant of European football this season, following Chelsea's failure to qualify for any continental competitions.

The fixture, due to be played on Tuesday, September 8, sets up a West London homecoming for Mourinho, who made a return to Real Madrid this summer for a second managerial stint at the Santiago Bernabeu.

The Portuguese manager remains an iconic figure in Chelsea's history following two spells at the club. Across his reigns in SW6, he delivered three Premier League titles, an FA Cup, and three League Cups, famously declaring himself 'The Special One' during his unveiling in 2004.

Despite managing other clubs across Europe in the years since, Mourinho has repeatedly spoken of his enduring affection for Chelsea.

"When I am in London, I meet them every day on the street. I know that is going to be a relationship forever," Mourinho previously reflected when discussing his bond with the fanbase. "They belong to my history and I belong to their history. I will always be a Blue."

While Mourinho will occupy the technical area as Real Madrid manager against Shakhtar, his presence on the Stamford Bridge touchline is likely to be the focal point of the evening. For Chelsea supporters, watching their former manager return to the pitch under the Champions League lights, even in the opposition dugout as he did last season with Benfica, will stir plenty of emotions.

The Basque province of Gipuzkoa is famous for its scenic coastline, foodie hotspots and stunning mountainous terrain.

But this small area of northern Spain, with a population of less than one million, has also become notable for producing multiple elite football managers, including four current Premier League head coaches: Xabi Alonso, Mikel Arteta, Unai Emery and Andoni Iraola.

It meant that there were more managers hailing from Gipuzkoa than from England on the opening weekend of the Premier League season, putting renewed focus on the lack of home-grown coaches in the top flight.

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

Why are there so few English managers in the Premier League?

The three men flying the flag for English managers in the Premier League are Michael Carrick at Manchester United, Coventry City head coach Frank Lampard and Ipswich Town boss Gary O’Neil.

This is not a new phenomenon. Go back 10 years to the start of the 2016/17 season and there were just four English head coaches - Bournemouth’s Eddie Howe, Sean Dyche at Burnley, Crystal Palace manager Alan Pardew and Mike Phelan at Hull City. It was the same number on the opening weekend of the 2021/22 campaign.

Look down into the Championship and just 10 of the 24 clubs are led by English managers. If that seems low, it may be a surprise to learn that this isn’t a new phenomenon either. Just nine second-tier teams had English head coaches at the start of the 2016/17 campaign, while there were 10 going into 2021/22.

This doesn’t include the odd manager who was born in England and represented another country as a player, but the point still stands: the number of home-grown coaches at the top of the domestic game has been low for some time.

When you look at the identities of the three Englishmen currently managing in the Premier League, you start to see why.

Lampard and O’Neil both entered the division with promoted clubs, albeit the latter was hired over the summer after Kieran McKenna left Ipswich. Meanwhile, Carrick got the United job only after a trial run as interim head coach during the second half of last season.

Despite a generally positive two-and-a-half years in the Championship with Middlesbrough, it is hard to believe that Carrick would have been considered by the Old Trafford hierarchy if he hadn’t played for the club. Similarly, go back to summer 2019 and it is unlikely that Chelsea would have hired the coach that had just taken Derby County to the Championship play-off final in his first season in management if it wasn’t Lampard, a Blues legend.

It suggests that unless you are a famous ex-player, the most likely route into the Premier League for a second-tier boss is by getting your club promoted. But none of the current English managers in the Championship are in charge of one of the promotion favourites, so that is a tall order for the current crop.

You would think that if a coach performs well enough over a long period they would get a Premier League role sooner or later, but it rarely works out that way. Just three times in the past five years has a Premier League club plucked a manager directly from a Championship job - Wolves’ swoop for Rob Edwards from Middlesbrough last season, Chelsea hiring Leicester City’s Enzo Maresca in summer 2024 (and the Italian had just led the Foxes to the second tier title), and Southampton appointing Luton Town boss Nathan Jones in 2022.

In that time, 14 different English managers have been hired by Premier League teams, but only four hadn’t previously been a permanent head coach in the division. Those were Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa in 2021, O’Neil at Bournemouth in 2022, plus Liam Rosenior and Carrick this year. Once again, two of those were big-name former players, while Rosenior came from Chelsea’s sister club, Strasbourg.

It shows that almost every avenue to managing at the top level has been closed off. So, why is that the case?

Probably the most obvious explanation, although not the only one, is that the stakes are now so high at the top of the game that clubs aren’t willing to gamble on unproven coaches. As the riches on offer continue to grow, owners of Premier League teams are increasingly desperate to stay in the division, while those in charge of Championship sides are increasingly desperate to get there.

It means that new faces rarely get to ride the proverbial managerial merry-go-round - in the last five years, Keith Andrews at Brentford and O’Neil at Bournemouth were the only bosses hired permanently by Premier League clubs who were entering their first full-time role as a No.1.

Many young coaches have spoken out about their struggle to land a job. After becoming manager of Italian Serie B side Cesena in March, former England left-back Ashley Cole said he had felt ‘discouraged by a lack of opportunities’ at English clubs.

He told BBC Sport: “They like to throw the ‘you don’t have experience’ line. And I’m like, I get what you’re saying, I agree - but how am I going to get experience?

“That’s the battle you have to fight as a number two for six or seven years - you have to take a leap of faith, but a club also has to take a leap of faith.”

Cole’s former Chelsea and England team-mate John Terry echoed those sentiments last year. “It’s really disheartening, actually,” he told BBC Sport. “I have interviewed for a few jobs myself and not got them due to my lack of experience as a number one, but having captained Chelsea and my country, I’m not sure you can do much more in terms of leading teams and people.”

Terry holds a UEFA Pro Licence, which brings us on to another contributing factor. Here, England has traditionally lagged behind other major European nations, with a Guardian report in 2017 stating that 1,796 people in this country held a Pro or A Licence, compared to 15,089 in Spain. In 2021, the FA revealed that fewer than 500 coaches had completed their Pro Licence with England Football.

With a limited number of qualified English coaches in supply, and clubs unwilling to gamble on the ones that do have the necessary badges, it is no surprise that so few are managing in the Premier League.

Contrast that with Spain, where 12 of the 20 La Liga clubs are managed by Spaniards, while the national team won Euro 2024 and World Cup 2026 under a head coach, Luis de la Fuente, who led the country’s age-group teams for almost a decade.

Meanwhile, despite Gareth Southgate enjoying relative success after being promoted from England Under 21s to senior head coach, the FA replaced him with Thomas Tuchel in 2024 to win the World Cup - insinuating that they felt no home-grown coaches could achieve that goal.

It all adds up to a wider cultural issue that starts from the top. Whereas Spain’s FA and domestic league are committed to giving home-grown coaches opportunities, that is of secondary importance in England. That mentality has been ingrained for so long that it is difficult to see it changing.

No wonder Basque managers outnumber their English counterparts in the Premier League.

It's not been the start to the season that Aston Villa would have wanted.

Just a few months on from lifting the Europa League trophy and securing a top four finish, Unai Emery's side were thumped 4-0 by Brighton and Hove Albion on the opening weekend of the Premier League season.

Just to make matters worse, the situation around Ollie Watkins has left a bad taste in the mouths of many supporters.

"Unai Emery has geared Aston Villa up for consistent success in Europe"

Emery was cryptic as to what has gone on with the England striker, saying that the reason for Watkins' omission against Brighton was 'a question for him'.

That comes after several high-profile players have already left Villa Park this summer, including Youri Tielemans, Morgan Rogers, Lucas Digne and Ezri Konsa, with Emiliano Martinez also being tipped to go.

But Peter Crouch believes that the Villa boss has already shown he is more than capable of riding out to storm and continuing to take the side on to bigger and better things over the long run.

The former Villa striker told FourFourTwo earlier this summer: "Unai Emery deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the really elite managers, with what he’s done at Aston Villa.

"Winning the Europa League was massive, and Champions League football again is going to help them take things up another notch in the long term.

"I’m pleased for the fans who’ve suffered over the years.

"I interviewed Unai at the training ground and he’s in it for the long haul. Why wouldn’t he be? They’ve got ambition.

"They’ve built a hotel at the training ground – that’s important because they might fly back from a European game, sleep there, then do a warm-down the next day.

"He’s geared that club up for consistent success in Europe, and I think that’s what they’ll get."

Villa will find out their opponents for the league phase of this season's Champions League when the draw is made on Thursday, August 27.

Fulham will start the new Premier League season by having the neighbours round. The first Monday Night Football of 2026-27 takes Chelsea down the road to Craven Cottage, where they’ll play in a derby that will do little to indicate what’s to come for either team in the next nine months.

Chelsea have more tangible targets than local bragging rights in a rivalry so cosmopolitan that ‘local’ doesn’t mean much anyway. They’ve been going after those goals like they mean it, up to and including a British transfer record move for the hottest property in English football.

Morgan Rogers has linked up at Stamford Bridge with Xabi Alonso, the Blues’ new manager and the man on the end of the pointed backing of the club hierarchy. Alonso won’t have to deal with European football this season. He will have to deliver it, however.

Managers united in Madrid misery

The 44-year-old officially succeeded Carlo Ancelotti as Real Madrid boss two weeks after leaving German Bundesliga side Bayer Leverkusen, where his success was generational and indisputable.

Alonso lasted six months back at the Bernabeu, winning 24 of his 32 matches in charge and leaving by mutual consent in January. Real Madrid were four points behind leaders Barcelona with exactly half a season to play but the manager’s race had been run.

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

The outgoing gaffer was succeeded from within by Real Madrid B manager Alvaro Arbeloa. He was replacing the man with whom he had played as a teammate more than any other.

After his 19 league matches in charge, he too had collected four points fewer than Barcelona. Arbeloa stood down at the end of the season and finds Alonso in the away dugout for his first Premier League match as the manager of Fulham.

Unlike Alonso’s, Arbeloa’s Real Madrid departure had been in the works for a while. Question marks over their performances in big matches that marred his half-season in the hot seat were far from baseless.

There were reports of tensions in the dressing room that came to a head when Federico Valverde clashed with Aurielien Tchouameni, and Antonio Rudiger apparently opted for the physical method to express his opinion to Alvaro Carreras.

The scepticism of Bernabéu kingmaker Kylian Mbappe made Arbeloa’s demise inevitable despite his own standing within the club.

Mbappe was more positive about Alonso, but neither the former Leverkusen boss nor Alonso's old teammate got what they’d hoped for from their respective ascensions into the top job with the Spanish capital titans.

When they press the flesh like Dillon and Dutch on the touchline at the Cottage tonight, Alonso and Arbeloa will have that in common. Real Madrid isn’t a job that cuts slack. It’s a Mourinho-sized role with Mourinho-sized ups and downs.

Same tee, different pins

There’s no point in drawing conclusions about a manager after a few months spearheading football’s greatest basket case. Some managerial personalities can pull it off. Others, well, they can’t. It doesn’t say much about them either way.

What separates the two who landed in West London this summer is the nature of their experience before they each spent six months as an egg in a cement mixer.

Alonso, as a Bundesliga champion, double winner and invincible with Leverkusen, has proven himself up to a point. Arbeloa has not. In that sense, they have at least popped up at Chelsea and Fulham the right way round.

Alonso has the chops and the more acute need to prove it. Fulham are embarking on life after Marco Silva and that comes with a very particular kind of pressure.

Youngsters Gonzalo Garcia and Cesar Palacious followed Arbeloa from Real Madrid but doubts over whether the Cottagers have done enough to account for losing the direct impacts of Harry Wilson and Raul Jimenez for nothing are entirely justified.

19-year-old striker Jonah Kusi-Asare has joined from Bayern Munich and promising young midfielder Shea Charles has come in from Southampton, but selling Sasa Lukic and Issa Diop to promoted Ipswich Town could prove more significant than Fulham would like if they don’t have their wits about them.

Alonso’s brief is a touch spikier. Chelsea dropped to a level they consider beneath them and are investing in bouncing back. Qualifying for the Champions League is the new manager’s minimum objective. He won’t be there this time next year if he doesn’t.

Whether that would make Leverkusen rather than Real Madrid the Alonso anomaly would be for Chelsea fans to decide, and their Fulham counterparts will have their say on the early-career trajectory of Arbeloa too.

Free of the Bernabéu factor, untangled from the merciless mangle that is Real Madrid, 2026-27 will help define exactly what tier of manager these former colleagues are going to be.

Their aims are different this season, but they’re starting at the same time, in the same game, under the same floodlights.

Liverpool hiring Andoni Iraola came as a curveball to some: Xabi Alonso was available for quite a while, after all.

That was the obvious choice, too. The former Liverpool midfielder had been heavily linked to take over from Jurgen Klopp, before Arne Slot was even in the conversation for the job – so when Alonso to Anfield rumours failed to materialise at the end of last season, it was assumed that the Reds would stick it out with Slot. Alonso even moved to Chelsea.

Which made Iraola an interesting hire. On the pitch, yes, he's perfectly suited to the high press that has come to define the red half of Merseyside over the past decade or so. Off the pitch, few have made the connection just yet.

Andoni Iraola didn't just join any big club - Liverpool offer a collective identity that he wants to work under

The Basque played almost his entire career at Athletic Club before sampling the Big Apple with a season at New York City FC – before heading into coaching.

In 2024, FourFourTwo met up with Iraola to talk about his journey from Bilbao to Bournemouth and how he became one of the most exciting young coaches in the world through a very particular pathway.

Athletic, famously, have a very defined identity: their ‘cantera’ policy focuses solely on developing players of Basque origin or from the region. The fanbase at San Mames, meanwhile, are openly politically active, expressing solidarity with international social and political movements. Regardless of whether you're broadly left or right in Bilbao, however, you belong to something bigger.

Rayo Vallecano – who Iraola managed before Bournemouth – are staunchly socialist. The club's prominent ultra group, Los Bukaneros, is explicitly anti-fascist, anti-racist, and pro-workers' rights. In 2014, the club and fanbase aided Carmen Martinez Ayudo, an 85-year-old local woman evicted from her home, flying banners with “The evictions of a sick state, the solidarity of a working-class neighbourhood” at the very next game.

And when FourFourTwo put it to Iraola himself that perhaps a club's identity was integral to him in football, he nodded in agreement. While careful not to use the P-word (that's politics), he made it very clear that he likes to align himself with clubs who passionately believe in something.

“I’d practically been a one-club man as a player: I stayed 16 years at Athletic Club, and I think at Athletic and Rayo Vallecano, the sense of belonging is really important,” Iraola said.

“In the end, I always ask my players to think first collectively, even if I understand that the players want to achieve a lot of things in their careers. If we work as a collective, I will look like a better manager, they will look like a better player and even the players who are playing fewer minutes will look better – because the ones that are playing will look better. I think we have to prioritise the team, and the team always comes first.

“This has always been the case at Bournemouth.”

It was Bill Shankly who once said, “The socialism I believe in is everybody working for each other and having a share in the rewards. That's how I see football, that's how I see life.” Plenty has happened politically, socially and at football grounds – both to Liverpool and within the city – since those words were uttered.

But the feeling of Liverpool's identity has always been palpable. Perhaps nowhere else in the country could a parallel of “Scouse not English” take off. The Reds bought into the collective under Klopp a lot more than some fans have with high-press priests at other clubs. It's perhaps fair to suggest that Liverpool's identity was a big reason for Iraola moving to Anfield.

Real Madrid begin their La Liga campaign on Saturday – for the first time since 2013, they’ll be under the management of Jose Mourinho.

The Portuguese boss previously spent three years at the Bernabeu, winning the league in 2012, during a time when Barcelona had both Pep Guardiola and Lionel Messi.

After a spell at Benfica last term, Mourinho was reappointed this summer by Florentino Perez, who believes he could be the man to turn things around after a difficult couple of seasons for Real Madrid.

Real Madrid great gives his verdict

Former Bernabeu favourite Steve McManaman works as a co-commentator and analyst for Disney+, who will screen Real Madrid’s opening match at Espanyol this weekend.

McManaman is fascinated by the club’s decision to rehire Mourinho, and is sure it will make the La Liga season an entertaining one.

“He’s going to have to do well,” McManaman told FFT. “That’s why he’s been brought back – it’s as simple as that, he’s got one job, and that job is to finish above Barcelona.

“With all respect to Atletico Madrid, Villarreal etc, the team they need to beat is Barcelona. They’re the strongest side, so that’s his job – to usurp them. Challenging for the Champions League is secondary.

“Hansi Flick has done the most incredible job since he’s been at Barcelona – they’re starting to get their finances in an upward trajectory, Camp Nou will bring in more and more people, therefore helping their financial situation, and with the signing of one of the world’s best players in Rodri, that will strengthen them as well, as will Anthony Gordon.

“It will be a hell of a La Liga season – it’ll be fireworks all around, watching Jose and everybody.”

Real Madrid have spent heavily to add the likes of Yan Diomande and Marc Cucurella to their squad, but Barcelona have won the title in each of the past two seasons, and McManaman knows Perez cannot afford that to happen again.

“There was a lot of criticism about them last year and they have to turn it around,” he says.

“Either you win things, or you don’t and you’re losers, aren’t you? It’s as simple as that. When it’s as cut and dry and as black and white as it is in Spain, when it’s Real Madrid and Barça, if your main rivals win, it’s a disaster.

“So it’s up to Real Madrid to sort themselves out and try to come strong. It’s going to be a hell of a contest this year.

“Barcelona were excellent last year and for all their frailties – you saw them at times and thought ‘How on earth can they keep winning?’, because they let in a number of goals – the proof is in the pudding. They’ve been winning and they’ve been successful.

“The only blot on their campaign was their loss to Atletico Madrid in the Champions League, and that was circumstances, red cards etc.

“Bringing in Rodri, he will be the metronome, they’ve got the Pedris and the like around him and a new quick forward line with Lamine Yamal and Anthony Gordon, as well as Rafinha, that’s exciting.

“Expect lots of goals in La Liga this year, and fantastic football, certainly between the top two.

“I don’t want to keep saying the top two because hopefully you want to see Atletico, Villarreal and other teams challenging, but the two biggest teams have invested more than anybody this summer and look as if they’re going to be streets clear.”

ESPN on Disney+ is home to live LALIGA action every Saturday night, bringing the best of Spanish football to fans across the UK

Frank Lampard has been here before. The Premier League was his playground for nearly two decades and he was indisputably one of its greatest ever players by the time he left it behind.

He’s been here as a manager, too, with both Everton and former club Chelsea. The Coventry City boss is no Premier League novice but it’s different this time. His work at Goodison Park and Stamford Bridge had merit but the three years since his third Chelsea exit have been the making of him.

Steering the Sky Blues to promotion as the winners of the Championship in his first full season in charge was a serious achievement. Owner Doug King gave no indication in the autumn of 2024 that he felt he was taking a risk by appointing Lampard, who has repaid that confidence many times over.

Lampard is back among the big boys

Others weren’t so convinced. There are still doubters now, not least those whose interest begins and ends with the Premier League. They’ve seen Lampard deliver results in the form of promotion but the substance, the material evolution of Lampard the Gaffer in the West Midlands, remains out of view.

Expecting the same Lampard is folly. We’ve all learned a lot in three years, about ourselves and our lives and our priorities, about our strengths, weaknesses, methods and motivations.

Lampard is no different, and yet it must be acknowledged that, yes, the immediate task he faces is a difficult one.

Transfer activity has to be carried out in quantity and quality, but is impossible to complete.

City have that in common with most promoted teams but have invested heavily to bring in players they hope – with some justification – will prove shrewd acquisitions.

Carl Rushworth was their number one all along. Frank Onyeka was an easy choice in midfield after a positive loan. Gustavo Hamer is the returning hero seeking the creative freedom of home.

Loum Tchaouna and Aurele Amenda are big-money, high-potential risks; Caleb Yirenki the young superstar record buy.

King, Lampard and Dean Austin have already achieved a lot in the transfer window and there will be more to come, but Coventry will start the season at a disadvantage as a club promoted into the Premier League for the first time in the modern era. They have a world of work to do and none of it is easy.

The cost of the spotlight

Lampard returns to the Premier League as a more skilled and more experienced manager but his deftness and adaptability were developed away from the hyper-exposed top division.

It’s possible to look at Lampard’s managerial career as a series of specific challenges. Both spells at Chelsea were appointments of hopeful convenience, Derby County a mutual show of ambition, and Everton a rescue mission.

Whether or not it’s overly generous to say that he was more of a success in those roles than he’s given credit for is beside the point. Lampard did all this as a young boss, in the years when many managers are able to learn and fail and evolve away from the glare under which he was operating.

Lampard at 48 is a different kind of coaching archetype, cerebral and even studious without being yet another caricature off the one-dimensional high-performance conveyer belt. He’s dedicated but thriving, it might be said, precisely because of the respect he has for balance in life.

When advice is offered by people who succeeded in management before him, Lampard is able to take it on board without questioning his own outlook and methods. In time, he has become a more rounded manager than he was when he last took charge of a Premier League match.

Lampard has tactical ideas and plans like any other manager but doesn’t allow them to hold him back. In a Championship title race that occasionally threatened to become competitive, Lampard succeeded not as an idealogue but as a manager who found a way to build a team that finds a way.

Coventry’s resilience will be the making of their manager

The pivotal moment in Coventry’s season and Lampard’s managerial career came in February, when the injury-hit Sky Blues found themselves looking up at Middlesbrough from second place after the Teessiders logged their sixth win in a row.

Coventry, winless in three and with two wins in their last eight Championship matches, beat Boro relatively comfortable in their very next game, won six on the spin and never looked back.

The bond between Lampard and Coventry is real and their new adventure is a shared one, but all outcomes are possible amid the trials and tribulations of a promoted club. Even good managers need a fair wind in that brutal first season.

Coventry might stay up, they might go down. Lampard might last the season regardless, he might get an offer he can’t refuse from elsewhere. King might be the man to make that decision, as unlikely as it seems now.

In FourFourTwo’s opinion, the only thing we can be relatively certain about is that Lampard, one way or another, will be among the Premier League managers again next season.

Manchester United have been punching beneath their weight for some time. Ruben Amorim might not have been the most disappointing head coach appointment, just the man in the plush racing seat when the music stopped on the Red Devils’ aura.

Amorim was in the Man United job altogether too long but ultimately left them in a salvageable position last season. After a couple of matches under caretaker head coach Darren Fletcher, the club turned again to former midfielder Michael Carrick.

The brief for the interim head coach was clear enough: Get results with a team that previously couldn’t even count as high as the sum of its parts, never mind perform beyond them.

How it all went right for Michael Carrick at Manchester United

Carrick’s interim spell was a success. Finishing third in the Premier League and returning to the Champions League after a season that totalled a meagre 40 matches was an admirable achievement, albeit the influence of Bruno Fernandes simply cannot be ignored.

The outer-layer assumption is that Carrick was able to unlock United’s capabilities by engendering a sense of simplicity and freedom, most notably by doing away with a formation Amorim was smitten with but which plainly wasn’t working.

There’s some merit to that simplistic analysis.

Very good players can perform or not on their own but they can also be held back by their environment and, for very many reasons that don’t all apply in Amorim’s case, by a head coach that doesn’t suit, motivate or maximise them.

Relieving that internal pressure on a presentable playing staff by simplifying things and switching to a back four might sound obvious but isn’t just basic stuff that any incoming gaffer could have translated into results.

Carrick didn’t stroll back into Carrington in January, tell his players that back threes are for dorks and immediately defeat Manchester City by just going out there and enjoying themselves. It was an actively smart move on his part to see what he had and understand how to unleash it.

It earned United the desired outcome and got him the job on a permanent basis. With third place and a Champions League spot in the bag, he was the obvious choice.

The audition is over and it’s time to play the part

What happens now is for real and it’s Carrick’s to own. ‘Interim’ is gone. There’s no bounce, no release from loathed methods of old. The only yardstick is the same one against which all United managers are evaluated and that’s an entirely different challenge.

The power of ‘getting it’ typically doesn’t carry from one season to the next. There’s a big difference between getting it and doing it. Doing it is now the task at hand.

There are reasons to be optimistic. Carrick himself is one of them; it would be unreasonable to discount the very tangible success of last season, and it bodes well.

After all, the former United midfielder hasn’t betrayed any reason to doubt him. His team’s recovery in the second half of 2025-26 amounted to just two losses and three draws in 17 matches and included wins over City, Arsenal, Aston Villa and Liverpool, all of whom finished in the top five with them.

United have brought in some top-quality players in the transfer windows both this summer and last.

Senne Lammens, Matheus Cunha, Bryan Mbeumo and Benjamin Sesko are all major contributors, and the same will be expected of Youri Tielemans and Andrey Santos even if supporters hope for more additions. Even prodigal son Marcus Rashford could be in line to play his part.

For Carrick, the bar is high. Qualifying for the Champions League is the baseline for United, not a target, and even that would be deemed by some supporters as falling short of expectations.

The likes of United, Liverpool and Villa can also expect to face more significant opposition from big-spending Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur, neither of whom can afford another season like the last and are doing everything in their power to make sure it doesn’t happen.

We’ll find out in the early part of 2026-27 whether United are set up for success. This time last year, with plenty of money spent in the summer but holes in the team and a head coach who steadfastly stuck with methods that seemed to do more damage than just not working, they were doomed to fail

Carrick is the face of what United supporters hope will be a different experience, with players performing to their abilities and operating as a team capable of re-planting the United flag.

His first match of the new season takes United to promoted Hull City. The second is at home against Ipswich Town. The expectation will be that they win both. It’s a familiar standard that Carrick is going to have to embrace.

Ruud Gullit won one major trophy as a manager – and Dennis Wise was the captain who lifted it.

After a legendary career in which he claimed two European Cups and the Ballon d’Or, Gullit joined Chelsea as a player in 1995, then was appointed as manager a year later following the departure of Glenn Hoddle for the England job.

The Dutchman would spend around 18 months as Stamford Bridge gaffer, guiding Chelsea to the 1997 FA Cup – the club’s first major trophy for 26 years.

When Gullit managed Wise

Wise had been part of the Chelsea squad since 1990, and was 29 when Gullit took charge six years later. He’d won 12 England caps but had not been a regular presence in the Three Lions squad, and didn’t go to Euro 96.

The midfielder was sceptical about whether his new manager would be good for him.

“We clashed early on because Dennis was convinced I was only interested in fielding foreign players,” Gullit revealed.

“I told him directly ‘I want you to play to your full footballing potential, not like a wild street-fighter picking up constant yellow and red cards’.

“I invited him over to my home for a proper talk. I said ‘If you play the way I know you can play, you’ll represent the national team.’ He literally laughed at me!”

In October, Chelsea travelled to Leicester for a Premier League match, and Wise was brought off at half-time.

“Shortly after our chat, I substituted him while captain against Leicester when we were 1-0 down, and we turned it around to win 3-1,” explained Gullit, speaking on behalf of NY Sports Day. “He was furious and didn’t speak to me for two weeks!

“Eventually, a mutual friend I played golf with told Dennis he was misjudging the situation and urged him to talk to me properly. He did, and the rest is history.

“Dennis Wise was an outstanding footballer when focusing on his technical game. I gave him an ultimatum – ‘Either play the way I know you can play, or you don’t play at all, captain or not.” He chose to adapt, and he was magnificent for us.”

Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany is the football-minded figure who should lead FIFA in the future, according to former Belgium teammate Toby Alderweireld.

Kompany, a serial title winner as a player in Belgium and England, has also won back-to-back Bundesliga titles as the manager of Bayern, a position that comes with significant political context in the German game.

He played 47 times with Alderweireld as the pair formed part of the sturdiest and highest-quality defensive unit Belgium has ever had to offer, arguably one that should have been good enough to produce more at the base of the so-called golden generation.

‘He would be my president, always’, says Toby Alderweireld of Vincent Kompany

Former Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur centre-back Alderweireld was clearly inspired by Kompany as an international teammate and remains impressed as the 40-year-old emerges as a top-level manager.

“Who would be my pick to be the next president of FIFA? Vincent Kompany,” Alderweireld told Sveacasino.

“I never thought before that he wanted to become a manager. He always talked about going on a mission to change football but maybe it’s his mission to protect football. He would be my president, always.”

Gianni Infantino arrived at FIFA after rising to become the top administrator at UEFA, but he is not regarded as a football man. He has been accused lack of true insight into the substance of football and a perceived disregard for what makes the game what it is.

In Alderweireld’s estimation, that shortcoming is a serious one. Kompany’s primary qualification for the role in the eyes of his former colleague is that he was a top player and is a fine manager who quite clearly knows football inside and out.

“It’s very important that the FIFA president is someone who played the game and knows the game,” added the former Belgium defender.

“We've all been a fan. Then we've become a football player. We know both sides. When I was a child, I went to all the away games on the bus. We're not just people who made good money out of playing in the Premier League and Champions League.

“We’re football fans too. We played the game. We know how it is. What it is to be a player and a fan.

“The one thing that's very important is that the person who's doing the talking should be a football guy because look at the World Cup. A 20-minute show at half-time? That’s where you need someone who knows football to say no.

“The most beautiful thing about the sport is its traditions. New things have their place too but we need to protect the traditions as well and that’s why you need football players, football people who have been around the game, to keep the businessmen in check.”

Neither Kompany nor Bayern Munich have commented on Alderweireld’s recommendation. Watch this space?

Poor Roberto Martinez. Wigan Athletic’s finest is in line for another of European football’s top international jobs, and there’s not an iota of excitement online from anyone: it’s all just comments about how he wasted Belgium’s great-ever generation of talent. Of how he must possess sensitive information of big-wigs at some of world football’s biggest federations. Of how if his name was Bob Martin, he’d be coaching in League One.

After this summer, few can defend his Portugal tenure and his decision to play a 40-something up front. And yes, perhaps it is surprising that Martinez – whose finest achievement in football happened within days of suffering relegation – keeps getting the biggest jobs on the continent. Though to give them their credit here, this is a forward-thinking move by Dutch football association standards, an organisation who lost their contact book about 15 years ago, but were lucky enough to still have the phone numbers of Ronald Koeman and Louis van Gaal scratched on a desk somewhere in the office, in case of emergencies, and have flitted between the two like a moth stuck between two streetlights in a cul-de-sac.

No, but seriously, the Belgium accusations simply aren’t true. Yes, they had good players. Yes, he hired Thierry Henry as a coach. But not every golden generation gets its flowers – and that one certainly should never have gotten as far as a World Cup semi-final in 2018.

Just saying that sounds utterly bananas. Thibaut Courtois in goal. Vincent Kompany leading the backline, flanked by Toby Alderweireld and Jan Vertonghen. Youri Tielemans, Mousa Dembele, Yannick Carrasco and Dries Mertens all from the bench. A front three of Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku and Eden Hazard, for god’s sake.

Were you to name the 23 best footballers to ever come out of Belgium, there’s a fair likelihood that around 15-20 of them were in that selection. That team would walk most leagues in Europe – two or three times in a row. But that’s not how tournament football usually plays out. It’s not how it’s played out for every so-called ‘favourite’ in international football for the past couple of decades.

The Belgians had been dumped out of the previous two tournaments at the quarter-final stage with a whimper. Despite the wealth of talent available to Martinez, there were chronic issues across the pitch: Martinez had absolutely nothing resembling a left-back, with Nacer Chadli crowbarred into a wing-back berth out of necessity rather than invention. At the time, that was seen as the biggest problem.

It wasn’t. Not really. A lack of central midfield options meant that Axel Witsel – playing in China, at the time – was the one constant to rely on. Mousa Dembele had missed the last few games of the season and looked way off the pace during the tournament, getting dragged off after an hour of Paul Pogba and N’Golo Kante giving him the runaround in the semi. Tielemans was still just 21; Marouane Fellaini was a battering ram and De Bruyne had to play deeper at times, despite not being a double-pivot player.

Thomas Meunier was good, if not spectacular. The three-man defence, meanwhile, was fairly solid, if not ageing. The lack of pace from Kompany and Vertonghen put a lot of burden on Alderweireld’s legs. But really, all the spotlight was hogged by that attack: a get-out-of-jail trio who were surely capable of destroying all before them.

And to reiterate the point, yes, they would’ve done, had this been the Premier League. But here’s where this really gets controversial: were De Bruyne, Hazard and Lukaku really the men for tournament football?

Again, not really. They did their best, though. De Bruyne actually didn’t have a bad World Cup: he actually created the third-most chances of anyone in Russia – behind Neymar and set-piece specialist Kieran Trippier – but coming off the back of a historic 100-point season with Manchester City, we all expected him to flourish in his free role, delivering more than just the single goal he netted.

He seemed quiet: yet this would become a theme of the playmaker in knockout footbal. He’d never escape the ghost accusations when it came to European ties – he was subbed off in both Champions League finals he played through injury, which didn't help – but this was just who De Bruyne was. In the very biggest matches, he would enhance other players around him, rather than rocketing a ball into the top corner. His sole strike in 2018 came against Brazil – so he couldn’t have gone missing that much in big games – but he was more of a complementary piece when it came to international competitions.

Even Hazard was attacked with the ‘missing in big games’ cliche. The Chelsea legend netted just two Champions League knockout goals – and one was a penalty. Yet in 2018, he was absolutely magical, his performance against Brazil one of the finest of the tournament (and the 85th best of all time, according to FourFourTwo). He scored three times: you couldn’t have asked much more.

Lukaku, meanwhile, came out of the tournament with four goals and an assist, following a first season at Manchester United (yeah, that really happened). And it’s fair to say that the years have not been kind to the striker’s big game reputation, either. Despite 93 goals for his nation at the time of writing – and 26 scored against teams who have reached the top 10 of FIFA’s ranks since he made his debut – abiding memories of Big Rom at World Cups are not the braces he put up against Panama and Tunisia in Russia: they’re of his disasterclass against Croatia four years later, and his cameo roles in the States, which are fairly fresh in the memory.

2018 was right about the time that the 25-year-old was midway through his target man conversion, too. Despite his strength and build, Lukaku was never the guy to hold the ball up and bring others into play, with his first touch oft-slammed: he was at his best on the shoulder of a defender, or alongside another Martinez (Lautaro, at Inter Milan). He became a worse player when the likes of Jose Mourinho and Thomas Tuchel tried to turn him into something that he wasn’t – yet at the 2018 World Cup, he was there to run into space, to bully defenders who couldn’t handle his movement, and to take on the thankless task of stretching play for Hazard and De Bruyne to work in, since Belgium didn’t really have another top-level runner in attack.

It’s levelled at Martinez that he should have done more with that frontline, all at their peak, at the 2018 World Cup. In the years since, there’s a very good case – almost watertight, in fact – that each of Hazard, De Bruyne and Lukaku had their very best international tournament that summer.

It’s pretty well-established, too, that they lost to the better team: France were miles better in every department – and the Belgians gave them their trickiest game. The Red Devils comfortably beat England twice (in two games that didn’t matter). They outplayed Brazil; yes, they went 2-0 down to Japan, but pulled it out the bag when it mattered.

Belgium had the second-best players in the competition, and lost to the team with the first-best. But they were brilliance without balance: a semi-final was a proper achievement.

And by the time the Euros rolled around three years later, the golden generation had passed them by – Kompany had retired, Vertonghen and Alderweireld were well past their expirations and this was Real Madrid-era Hazard – yet they still didn’t disgrace themselves. Three wins in the group stage (caveated by the fact they played an understandably shellshocked Denmark after Christian Eriksen’s cardiac arrest), before beating a very good Portugal, and losing to the eventual winners. Again, was it really an underachievement? Or simply what we all expected from this group?

It’s really easy to look at talent that a team has on paper and deem them a failure for not winning something. But it’s an oversimplification to wonder why a Croatian side who have very few star names – but stars in all the right places – often do better than a Portugal side who have standout attackers that struggle to gel together; or why England looked quite so poor trying to cram Jude Bellingham and Phil Foden into a midfield, when a team like Spain are quite happy to take off a big name like Pedri in the middle for Mikel Merino, if he offers them box threat.

International football is very rarely about who has the best squad, but who has the best moments. Belgium had very few players who have consistently pulled something from nothing in the biggest knockouts: they're all league specialists. And over the course of 38 games, Roberto Martinez would’ve been chastised for not finishing in a Champions League spot, at least, with the players he had at his fingertips. Across just seven matches, he probably did well to get to the last four of a major competition with Fellaini and Witsel in his engine room.

And maybe we’ve been harsh on him. Maybe the Wigan relegation and a fairly un-notable Everton stint have shaped the worldview that this is a guy you shouldn’t hand top-level talent to. No, he’s not a world-beater. No, he didn’t work miracles with Belgium. But did you really expect him to win the World Cup with that?

Former Liverpool manager Arne Slot has released a new statement to clarify his current status.

The Dutchman won Liverpool their 20th league title in his first season, after taking the reins from Jurgen Klopp – but his team struggled in their title defence, limping to fifth in the Premier League.

The former Liverpool boss has been linked with the Netherlands job in recent days and has spoken about his next moves and “incorrect speculation”.

Arne Slot clarifies position post Liverpool

Slot was given his marching orders on Merseyside at the end of the season, following a difficult campaign in which he fell out with talismanic forward Mohamed Salah and finished the season trophyless – despite a summer spend of over £400 million.

The 47-year-old has confirmed that he had talks with Dutch football federation, the KNVB, but that he declined to take over as the Oranje's head coach from the outgoing Ronald Koeman, with the job now likely to go to Roberto Martinez.

“Over the past few weeks, and particularly the past few days, various reports have appeared regarding the vacancy at the Dutch national team, suggesting that I had withdrawn from the process after lengthy negotiations, including regarding salary and contract duration,” Slot said, via Voetbal International.

“That speculation is incorrect. We simply never reached that stage of the talks.

“At this stage of my career, I prefer to see myself on the training pitch with my players every day. Something that is simply not possible in the same way with a national team.

“I have enormous respect for the national team and for the KNVB and can only be positive about the professional manner in which the talks proceeded that week. For now, I believe that club football still has a lot to offer me.

“It would be a great honour to represent my country as national coach one day. However, this was not the right moment for me.”

Slot's success in his first season on Merseyside made him a leading candidate for the Dutch job, following an excellent spell coaching in his homeland.

The Hardenberg native achieved success at Feyenoord by winning the Eredivisie and reaching the inaugural Conference League final, only to be beaten by Jose Mourinho's Roma.

Slot left the Reds with a 58 per cent win ratio in 113 games. Liverpool take on Newcastle United when the season starts.

It has been a summer of chaos and upheaval at Newcastle United, but you wouldn’t know it looking at Matthias Jaissle as he faced the media for the first time at St James’ Park on Tuesday.

Donning a smart suit, slicked-back hair, the Magpies’ new coach began by shaking every hand in the room before taking to the stage. He is supremely cool and confident, knowing his own mind and radiating belief that everything will not only be okay on Tyneside, but that great days and nights will follow.

Yet, having arrived at the end of July following Eddie Howe’s swift departure, in just enough time to see captain Bruno Guimaraes follow Sandro Tonali and Anthony Gordon out of the exit door, Jaissle is under no illusions. He faces a tough task, with just over two weeks until the Premier League opener at home to Liverpool.

"A big challenge"

The 38-year-old insists he sees opportunity rather than negativity. “It is a challenge, a big challenge,” Jaissle said. “We lost big characters; this is a vacuum. Others need to step into it, either through signing these profiles or existing players. We are aware of what we need internally.”

“Always when there is a transition period, it is not time to complain. We see the chance, not the negative. We want to do our best, and we are here to support the players. There will be adjustments in the next days and weeks, but we are focused on our daily work."

“I would have loved to have started from the beginning and been involved in everything, the signings and being involved from the first day. It is something I cannot influence.

“We’ll use every day in the best possible way to improve. This is a collective task for the whole club. If we are all thriving in the same direction, it is going to be successful.”

At their best under Howe, Newcastle were a nightmare to live with, hunting every ball and overwhelming opponents with their pressing and energy. It is no secret that the words “Intensity is our Identity” adorned the walls at the training ground.

As Howe’s flame began to wither towards the end of his reign, culminating in a 12th-placed finish in the Premier League last season, so did that core principle. But as a product of the Red Bull project, a disciple of Ralf Rangnick who has won league titles at RB Salzburg and Al-Ahli in Saudi Arabia, Jaissle wants to reinforce it, describing Newcastle as a “perfect fit” for his ideals.

“[We should be] front-footed, intense, aggressive and, of course, successful,” he said.

“That is why I am sitting here; the belief we have as a coaching team, the identity of Newcastle United is linked closely together [to that]. It is a perfect fit in my eyes. It is going to be exciting.

“Football is really complex. We can press, why are we doing that? To get the ball, and then you need to have solutions and be smart. You have to have your identity, how we want to play, vertical, we want to score goals, but it depends how the opponent is playing, it is about adaptation as well. We need to use their weaknesses and our strengths.”

Jaissle also believes his relationship with England boss Thomas Tuchel could be important as he settles into Premier League life. They go all the way back to the early days of his playing career, and Tuchel influenced his coaching journey, too.

“The connection is there, it has been a long connection,” he smiles. “He was my coach when I was a youth player in Stuttgart. He is an amazing coach; I really admire him and appreciate him a lot – what he did and will do in the future. He is really special; I am looking forward to getting insight from him about the league.”

His persona on the touchline is at odds with the man sat in the chair at the front of the room. He says he is passionate, emotional and will not change that.

There were no promises of a long-term vision, and some fans could be forgiven for asking wider questions of the Saudi-backed project. But, ultimately, if first impressions say anything, Matthias Jaissle certainly believes he will leave his mark on Newcastle.

Liverpool can certainly challenge for the Premier League this season.

That's the view of former Reds striker Michael Owen, who says that he's been impressed by Andoni Iraola and that the Basque simply needs time at Anfield to show what he's capable of.

With Liverpool entering a new era, few are predicting the Premier League title to return to Merseyside – but Owen says it's “possible”.

Liverpool manager Andoni Iraola needs time to implement his own style, says Michael Owen

Liverpool were disappointing last season, with Arne Slot losing his job as a result of a fifth-place finish, despite winning the title 12 months earlier.

Speaking to FourFourTwo, Owen – who now helps UK gamblers compare online casinos as the British ambassador for Casino.org – believes that Iraola has a “building job”, and says he's impressed by what he's seen at Bournemouth.

“He has proven at Bournemouth that he is a top manager and has an excellent style of play,” Owen tells FourFourTwo.

“I have been very impressed when watching Bournemouth play and I hope this can be translated to Liverpool next season. It’s a rebuilding job for sure with Salah leaving and the way Liverpool ended last year and the style of football as well.

“So it’s a big job indeed and the pressure is on, as Bournemouth, with respect, are not as a big of a club as Liverpool, so he will need to look to implement a style of play quickly for the team to start winning.

Despite the size of the task at hand, however, Owen says that he's been so impressed with the style of play on the south coast that he believes that his former side could challenge for the title again.

“From the way Bournemouth played, if you can deliver that at Liverpool, with the quality Liverpool have now and can bring in, then it’s possible to begin to challenge again for sure,” he says.

Liverpool take on Newcastle United in the opening game of the Premier League season.

The last two seasons as a Tottenham Hotspur fan have been pretty miserable – aside from that glorious Europa League triumph – but I have a feeling the club has turned a corner ahead of the new campaign, and it’s largely thanks to Roberto De Zerbi.

In all honesty, though, I was dubious as to whether his appointment back in March would be the right move for Spurs long-term. I was pretty confident that he would drag the club to Premier League survival, and that he did, but would his fiery temperament be at odds with the powers that be at Tottenham?

There’s still plenty of time for that to happen, of course, but we are witnessing what appears to be a real change in the whole mindset of the club this summer, and it could even lead to a surprise title challenge.

Roberto De Zerbi’s appointment at Tottenham Hotspur had me worried

I don’t think I was alone in having doubts over De Zerbi. Tottenham had reportedly tried to hire the Italian before they recruited Igor Tudor for his ill-fated tenure in N17, but to no avail. The fact he changed his mind a month or so later didn’t sit right with me.

Add to that the fact that this is a manager who doesn’t stick around at clubs for too long (his average time at a club is just over a year), plus the way he left Brighton, and I feared we would be a quick gig with no real consideration of the future.

Even De Zerbi’s track record should raise a few eyebrows.

Aside from a Ukrainian Super Cup during his brief spell with Shakhtar Donetsk, his greatest achievements are steering Marseille to second in Ligue 1, and helping Brighton to a top six finish.

They’re not results to be sniffed at, but they also don’t get me dreaming of glory, either. More than anything, though, it was De Zerbi’s personality that just didn’t seem like it would fit at Spurs.

Much like Antonio Conte before him, this is a man who will say exactly what’s on his mind without fear of upsetting anyone, and as we’ve seen in the past, the Tottenham Hotspur board don’t really like that approach.

I do believe that no-nonsense style was exactly what the squad needed at the backend of last season, though, and it’s no coincidence that those seven matches in the run-in were the best Spurs had looked all year.

Tottenham Hotspur look more disciplined and confident under De Zerbi

Under both Thomas Frank and Igor Tudor, the Tottenham players looked bereft of confidence, lacked any kind of fight, and played turgid football. Since day one under De Zerbi, there has been clear passion and a real togetherness on the pitch, and that delivered the results Spurs needed to stay in the top flight.

After survival was secured, De Zerbi himself even claimed it was the “biggest achievement in my time”, before adding, “We are Tottenham, and we can't suffer like this until the last second of the last game to stay up.” You just get the feeling that De Zerbi is raising the standards at the club and will absolutely not tolerate anything like what we saw last season.

For me, no player exemplifies the shift in attitude at the club more than Micky van de Ven. Under Frank, the flying Dutchman appeared to mentally check out and became a liability. As soon as De Zerbi took over, Van de Ven turned into a leader once more, and looked back to his best.

Speaking to The Standard recently, Van de Ven said: “You can see [De Zerbi] has brought a lot of passion into our group, a lot in terms of mentality and passion on the pitch. It is something we needed because everybody was a little bit down.

“He brings a lot of good energy and, from pre-season, we have really had the time to bring his football into the team. That's really enjoyable.”

He’s right, too. This summer’s pre-season activity for Tottenham has been refreshing, with positive results (including a rare win over bitter rivals Chelsea), a mix of experienced and youth players having important roles, and most importantly, the levels in terms of intensity and quality have not dropped despite these games being friendlies.

Another key case study is the comeback story of Antonin Kinsky. The Czech goalkeeper hit rock bottom in the Champions League last season when he was substituted in the first half against Atletico Madrid after a couple of errors. Now, he looks world-class and is Tottenham’s undisputed number one, and it’s all because De Zerbi put faith in him.

The mentality at Tottenham Hotspur has shifted greatly in such a short space of time, and now feels far more aligned with the spirit Ange Postecoglou brought to the club. While Postecoglou’s tactics were questionable, his man management was outstanding. What’s really exciting is that De Zerbi appears to be capable of both.

Tottenham Hotspur are not messing around this summer

Whether it’s due to De Zerbi’s influence or merely a reaction to back-to-back 17th place finishes, the Tottenham hierarchy are finally showing ambition and loosening the pursestrings this summer.

The £85m signing of Mateus Fernandes was a lavish surprise. The £100m capture of Sandro Tonali was, frankly, mindblowing. The club immediately recognised the fact that things needed to change, and put their money where their mouth is to fix it. The same can be said about the defence, too, with the £52m signing of Jan Paul van Hecke and free transfers of Marco Senesi and Andy Robertson adding real depth to an already strong backline.

I’ve also been really intrigued by the manner in which Spurs have sold off some of their younger players this summer. While the departures of the likes of Luka Vuskovic, Alfie Devine, and Will Lankshear were disappointing, Tottenham received good fees for players who were not likely to make an impact on the first-team this season. In years to come, we may regret not having them around, but that’s a problem for another day. What matters now is immediate improvement and success.

Now, if Spurs can follow through with their pursuit of Savinho (or another top winger) and, most crucially, find a high-level striker to lead the line, I see no reason why the Lilywhites can’t be considered genuine dark horses to challenge for the title. The squad is good enough, the manager is determined to make his mark, and the club as a whole demands and deserves better than what we’ve seen over the last two seasons.

The idea of Spurs pushing for the title, especially after the dismal showing in 2025/26, may be a naive pipedream to some. But, I’ll leave you with this… In the 2014/15 season, Leicester City ended up with 41 points and a -9 goal difference. The following season, they performed a miracle and won the Premier League title.

If the Foxes can do it with relatively meagre resources, I see no reason why a free-spending and revitalised Tottenham Hotspur can’t do the unthinkable and rise to the top.

Known for his high-pressing, Red Bull-educated style and sharp tactical focus, 38-year-old German coach Jaissle has developed a reputation as one of the most highly-rated young bosses in top-level football - but his appointment is still a risk.

Whenever a manager takes charge of a major project, they naturally look to familiar faces - players who already understand things such as pressing triggers, defensive demands, and dressing room culture.

Once his appointment is rubber-stamped, it would be reasonable to expect Jaissle to recommend such personnel to the Newcastle hierarchy.

Seven players Newcastle might sign under Matthias Jaissle

Despite so far having had a summer in which they have been one of the Premier League's more active clubs in the market, Newcastle are still in need of targeted reinforcements throughout the side.

It is for that reason, the 'Jaissle effect' could be important during the final month of the summer window. Here are seven players who worked under Jaissle and fit Newcastle's squad requirements.

Nicolas Seiwald (Defensive Midfield)

Appearances under Jaissle: 91 (6 goals, 14 assists)

No outfield player featured more frequently for Jaissle during his trophy-laden tenure at Red Bull Salzburg than Austrian midfielder Nicolas Seiwald.

Functioning as the engine of Jaissle’s midfield diamond, Seiwald reigstered 91 appearances under the German, offering press-resistance and defensive coverage. Newcastle's midfield lacks depth in the holding role, making Seiwald a candidate to rejoin his former boss.

Gabri Veiga (Attacking Midfield)

Appearances under Jaissle: 66 (12 goals, 10 assists)

After making the switch from LaLiga to Al-Ahli, Spanish playmaker Gabri Veiga began working under Jaissle.

Across 66 matches together in Saudi Arabia, Veiga contributed 12 goals and 10 assists before joining FC Porto last summer. With Newcastle seeking a goal-scoring midfielder capable of unlocking low blocks, Jaissle could provide 24-year-old Veiga with the platform for a top-five league reboot.

Oumar Solet (Centre-Back)

Appearances under Jaissle: 66 (2 goals, 4 assists)

Jaissle’s aggressive, high-line defence at Red Bull Salzburg relied heavily on recovery speed and composure of his central defenders, of which Oumar Solet was one.

Featuring 66 times under Jaissle, Solet knows how to play in his backline that routinely dominated domestically and competed admirably in the Champions League. With Newcastle needing long-term athleticism and ball-playing quality at centre-back, Solet fits the tactical profile.

Amar Dedic (Right-Back)

Appearances under Jaissle: 52 (4 goals, 6 assists)

Bosnian full-back Amar Dedic enjoyed his breakout under Jaissle at Salzburg, making 52 appearances and contributing direct to 10 goals from right-back.

His ability to invert into midfield or overlap down the right aligns with Jaissle’s tactical flexibility. Given Newcastle's need to refresh their options at full-back after Kieran Trippier's exit and Tino Livramento's persistent injuries, Dedic could be an option given he already knows the manager's demands.

Mohamed Camara (Defensive Midfield)

Appearances under Jaissle: 43 (1 goal, 5 assists)

Before earning a move to AS Monaco, Malian midfield enforcer Mohamed Camara was the defensive anchor of Jaissle’s 2021/22 domestic double-winning Salzburg side.

Playing 43 games under the soon-to-be-named Newcastle coach, Camara demonstrated excellent ball-winning capabilities as well as decent ability in possession. His tenacity in duel-heavy games would instantly bolster Newcastle's stability in the middle of the park, which is in need of some experience and steel.

Enzo Millot (Attacking Midfield)

Appearances under Jaissle: 40 (9 goals, 7 assists)

French midfielder Enzo Millot worked closely with Jaissle at Al-Ahli, making 40 appearances and registering 16 direct goal contributions.

Millot’s tactical nous, exhibited whilst in the Bundesliga with VfB Stuttgart, and pressing energy make him a coach's dream in a high-intensity transitional system. Newcastle's squad would benefit from his quality between the lines.

Karim Konate (Centre-Forward)

Appearances under Jaissle: 10 (5 goals, 2 assists)

Ivorian striker Karim Konate made his initial top-flight breakthrough under Jaissle at Salzburg, netting 5 goals and laying on 2 assists in just 10 appearances.

Despite that limited sample size before the manager's departure, Konate showed good goalscoring efficiency that foreshadowed his more recent rise as a top striking talent in a mid-tier European league.

While bringing in Jaissle’s trusted former players makes sense on paper, fans would be wise to temper expectations of an instant transformation.

Moving on from almost five years of stability under Eddie Howe marks a significant structural shift, leaving a dressing room very much in a state of flux and notably lacking in natural on-pitch leadership. That will be a responsibility that Jaissle himself must bear while adapting to the demands of English football.

Rebuilding a squad in transition is rarely as simple as importing a cluster of familiar faces. While players like Seiwald, Veiga, or Solet know Jaissle’s style, few will arrive with an immediate grasp of the unique weight, culture, and expectations that come with representing Newcastle or a Premier League club.

Recruiting players who know the manager's playbook can certainly help with tactical implementation, but assembling a reshaped squad under a head coach who is still figuring out the club for himself is a delicate process.

Signing Jaissle's former players may well prove the evolutionary route Newcastle take in 2026/27 and beyond, but it is by no means a guaranteed blueprint for instant success.

Across his spells at Larnaca, Mirandes, Rayo Vallecano and Bournemouth, streakiness has always been a hallmark of Andoni Iraola’s sides – but most of them will tell Liverpool fans that if he gets off to a bad start, he can still prove to be well worth the wait.

In Cyprus, Iraola had Larnaca in fine form in the Europa League qualifying rounds and started the league campaign well, only to hit a run of just one win in nine games in all competitions that cost him his job.

At Mirandes in the Spanish second tier, it was the other way around: Iraola’s side won just one of their first ten games, but then lost just five of their next 33 games.

Streaky clean

That included going on an impressive run to the semi-finals of Copa del Rey, claiming three top-flight scalps from Celta Vigo, Sevilla and Villarreal along the way – but the return to action after the covid-enforced stoppage to the season saw Mirandes finish the season with a run of two wins in nine games and fall out of play-off contention.

Iraola stayed in the Spanish equivalent of the Championship the following season, this time with Rayo Vallecano, and the streakiness continued: three wins from the first four was followed by just two wins in the next eight before they rallied and achieved promotion via the play-offs.

His most extreme start of all came at Bournemouth in 2023. With Iraola installed as Gary O’Neil’s successor, the Cherries didn’t win any of their first nine Premier League games under Iraola, with a 3-0 defeat to a troubled Everton side who had scarcely started the season a particular lowlight.

Much of the criticism was aimed not at Iraola, but at Bournemouth, who were heavily criticised for having made the change in the first place. The Telegraph tipped them for the drop, accusing the club’s decision to replace O’Neil as an act of ‘self-mutilation’ after he had led them away from relegation the previous season.

And who inflicted the defeat in that ninth league game of Iraola’s tenure? O’Neil’s Wolves, of course. The pressure was now on.

But tellingly, the Bournemouth board kept the faith – and despite their awful results, Iraola’s style was already starting to draw a ‘well, actually’ reaction from analysts.

They pointed out that Bournemouth had been handed the toughest opening fixtures of any side in the division – they also faced Liverpool, Tottenham, Chelsea, Brighton and Arsenal in the run – and yet ranked in the top half on their pressing stats and were consistently getting touches in the opposition box. The implication was that this was a side still adapting to a difficult but potentially rewarding style of play.

Bournemouth fans were generally still on board, too, citing the trickiness of that run, a spate of injuries, late arrivals in the transfer market, and some genuinely excellent passage of play at Anfield and against Tottenham as reasons to stay behind Iraola.

That faith proved to be well-placed. Bournemouth won eight of their next ten Premier League games, with Manchester City the only side to beat them. Not only that, but Bournemouth claimed those wins in style, scoring three against Sheffield United, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and away to Manchester United.

Then came a seven-game winless run, followed by a run of four wins in five games that essentially confirmed a mid-table finish was on the cards.

That first season set a pattern for Iraola’s Bournemouth, who continued to veer back and forth between long unbeaten runs and much more underwhelming periods.

Just consider last season: second in the table after losing just one of their first nine – and they deserved to get something out of that opening-day defeat to Liverpool, in truth.

Bournemouth didn’t win at all in November or December, and lost star man Antoine Semenyo to City in the January transfer window – only to finish the season with an 18-game unbeaten streak that included just slightly too many draws for them to pip Liverpool to Champions League qualification.

Those who watched Bournemouth closely will tell you they often played scintillating stuff.

The Cherries were, for this writer, the most entertaining side in the division for much of the past two seasons, and those poor spells very much felt like the inevitable result of Iraola playing an ultra-intense modern gegenpressing style without having the squad depth required to sustain it at its best over an entire season.

Liverpool should be able to provide that, but whether they actually will or not is another question.

It is clear that the squad needs work, particularly in defence; and for as much as the players who served under Jurgen Klopp are likely to embrace Iraola’s similar style, Liverpool still look from the outside like a club going through a belated transitional period.

The expectation on Iraola will be much higher than it was on the Dorset coast, and yet more winless runs like the ones they suffered through under Arne Slot last season would not go down at all well.

There is real potential for Iraola to end up being made into the fall guy for several years of weird transfer business at Liverpool – but if his prior track record is anything to go by, a bit of patience could go a long way.

Real Madrid clearly do not subscribe to football’s adage about never going back.

Second honeymoons are a common occurrence for Real Madrid, with 13 of the 52 managers appointed as either interim or permanent hires in the club’s 116-year history afforded returns, some multiple times. Nearly half of that figure, including the likes of Carlo Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane, did so across the previous three decades alone.

Such romanticism is particularly on brand for a club nicknamed ‘La Casa Blanca’ with a familiar face back in the Bernabeu’s dugout considered more of a hallmark than a habit.

A third 'do-over' for the Special One

Jose Mourinho is the latest beneficiary of a homecoming in the Spanish capital, 13 years after his original spell ended in acrimony. Attempting to finish what he started is a recurring pattern in the Portuguese’s coaching career, with Madrid becoming the third club he has managed more than once after do-over spells with Benfica and Chelsea.

Still, it was a move which raised eyebrows, just months since clashing with his former employers over the alleged racist abuse of Vinicius Junior by Gianluca Prestianni in the second leg of February’s tempestuous Champions League knockout round play-off tie.

Even before that controversy, little love had been lost during Mourinho’s near decade-and-a-half away. His Bernabeu afterlife became a source of derision as much as intrigue. In 2018, fresh from Manchester United’s Champions League exit to Sevilla, Madrid-based daily sports newspaper MARCA likened him to ‘a washed-up rock star, one of those guys who goes around holiday hotels for pensioners, playing old hits on an organ with the base and percussion playing on a tape recorder’. As similes go, there have been fewer more damning for the now sexagenarian ‘Special One’.

Los Blancos witnessed the beginning of his villain arc and, arguably, its most volatile state in a three-year period where just one LaLiga title and a Copa del Rey constituted major silverware. Unlike the redux periods of Ancelotti and Zidane, president Florentino Perez staked a successful re-election campaign on lightning not striking twice with the two-time European champion’s second coming as he is again tasked with halting Barcelona’s latest period of domestic dominance.

But the signs already appear ominous. The Catalans cantered to last season’s title with an eight-point cushion which would have reached double figures had Hansi Flick’s side not taken their foot off the gas in two of the final three games after seeing off their arch-rivals in the latest El Clasico meeting. Confidence remains high that they can secure further bragging rights against Madrid with the teams all-square on 106 victories apiece in their regular contests while Barca could soon equal, and even overtake, their foes’ previously unparalleled haul of 105 major honours after moving to within two with their 29th title success.

Mourinho, meanwhile, inherits a squad devoid of confidence and discipline as evidenced by the unedifying end of Xabi Alonso’s brief tenure and a stumble to the finish line with his interim replacement Alvaro Arbeloa. The advancement of Father Time also has done little to dim his abrasive tendencies which reared an ugly head in his first spell. High-profile fallouts with Cristiano Ronaldo, Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos pockmarked the end of that tenure as he openly lampooned Perez’s vision for a team of ‘Zidanes y Pavones’, mixing stars such as Zidane with homegrown talents like Paco Pavon. In one fractious press conference, he savaged youngster Pedro Leon – one of Pavon’s successors as inferior to both ‘Zizou’ and Diego Maradona.

Hindsight suggests that Mourinho would have done well to endear himself to a more impressionable crop of players instead of an already powerful dressing room clique. A cursory glance at Madrid’s early summer business follows a similar theme to that dynamic with Bernardo Silva, newly minted World Cup winner Marc Cucurella and Ibrahima Konate among the strong personalities that Mourinho will need to bring on side at their Valdebebas training base. There is also the small matter of ingratiating himself with Vinicius after suggesting he had provoked the racist abuse he routinely suffers, even if the imminent arrival of Yan Diomande has seemingly put the writing on the wall for the Brazilian’s long-term future.

He is, at least, hoping a break from some old habits will avoid past mistakes. Mourinho has already turned down a formal media unveiling, which previously guaranteed a box-office entrance and soundbites aplenty. Shunning the flashbulbs has seen him instead working diligently on the training pitches with the club’s less established players while their household teammates were toiling at the World Cup earlier this summer.

The only utterances that Madridistas have heard from their new manager came in the form of a bite-sized social media clip on the club’s official channels during which he insisted ‘Words aren’t enough, because this feels like a mission. This isn’t about me or whether I win, more or less. I’m here to help everybody become better.’

Mourinho knows that Madrid will be his last big job in elite-level management, having only attracted offers from Roma, Fenerbahce and Benfica after his last spell in the Premier League ended in all-too-familiar fashion five years ago. Failure is not an option but he is likely to have little choice with the deck already stacked against him.

Manchester United target and Crystal Palace attacker Ismaila Sarr looks to be leaving the Premier League.

In two years at Selhurst Park, the Senegalese forward has made a huge impact, helping the club to their first three pieces of silverware in the FA Cup, Community Shield and Europa League.

Now, it's being reported by Tuttomercatoweb that the star is “very close” to leaving Crystal Palace – and it looks as if Manchester United could be left disappointed, too.

Manchester United to miss out on Ismaila Sarr, following Crystal Palace exit

According to the report, Fenerbahce are advancing to sign Sarr within the “next few hours”, as they look to reach an agreement with Palace.

According to Foot Mercato, United enquired about Sarr earlier on in the transfer window, with FourFourTwo understanding that the interest has failed to materialise into a formal bid.

Foot Mercato even quoted Senegalese social media account Joueurs SN, which relayed a quote in July from Sarr in July that “there's only one” dream club of his, adding that the winger said, “I love Manchester United with all my heart, and I'm a huge fan” in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

While that would certainly explain how often he's scored against Liverpool in his career, a more sober quote was relayed by APS in Senegal, with Sarr saying, “I have a three-year contract with Crystal Palace; it’s up to them to decide” on his future.

Sarr has been a big hit since moving to back to the Premier League, replacing Michael Olise for the Eagles.

Palace are yet to spend any money this summer, but new manager Pierre Sage may well have to make big moves after losing Marc Guehi in January – and with the long-term futures of Jean-Philippe Mateta and Adam Wharton still far from certain.

United, meanwhile, are still expected to land an attacker before deadline – with FourFourTwo even referencing Sarr as the dream option for Carrick recently.

Sarr appears to be the back-up option following the collapse of Rafael Leao's move to Turkiye.

The Milan forward rejected a move to Fener, who made a formal offer to bring the Portuguese to the Super Lig.

Sarr is valued at €45 million by Transfermarkt. United travel to Hull City on August 22 to kick off their Premier League campaign.

Last week, Eddie Howe called time on his Newcastle United tenure – a luxury that not many managers get these days.

Even the best among them face the sack: since Sir Alex Ferguson retired at the top of the game with a Premier League title, five championship-winning bosses have been sacked, including Claudio Ranieri (who achieved the impossible by winning the league) and Arne Slot (who was employed by a club that famously gives a long leash to their managers).

Even the likes of Sir Bobby Robson, Jose Mourinho and Marcelo Bielsa have been utterly adored in English football by fans of Newcastle United, Chelsea and Leeds United respectively, with each of them forced out of their roles.

The elite club of managers to have NEVER been sacked

When you're the best, you often get to leave on your terms – and there's no finer example than Pep Guardiola, who stepped aside from Manchester City of his own accord earlier this summer.

Of course, the Catalan did the same thing at Bayern Munich to take the City job, and was a rare case of a Barcelona manager choosing to leave himself, after four years of winning everything in the game at Camp Nou.

Jurgen Klopp, meanwhile, has technically left his last four jobs: recently swapping his advisory role at Red Bull for the German national team, just a couple of years on from amicably splitting from Anfield.

Despite a tricky final season at Borussia Dortmund, he had enough credit in the bank to choose to go himself, while in 2008, a 40-year-old Klopp resigned from Mainz 05, after failing to secure promotion.

Howe's career shows something similar, with his Newcastle departure mirroring his Bournemouth exit of 2020, after the Cherries failed to secure survival on the final day of the season in lockdown.

Remarkably though, Howe has never been sacked: in 2012, he explained the “personal reasons” that had led him to resign at Burnley and return to Dean Court, less than two years after the Clarets had agreed compensation to hire Howe at Turf Moor.

It's fitting to remember the recently passed Kevin Keegan, too, while talking about those never sacked.

In 1997, Keegan took the bold step of stating he had taken Newcastle as far as he possibly could, before taking the Fulham job later that year.

Keegan would be in charge in West London for two years, eventually stepping aside when the England job became available in 1999 – but despite the disaster of Euro 2000, he actually quit himself, infamously resigning in the tunnel months later, following a 1-0 loss to Germany.

He would retire from management in 2005 at Man City, and in 2008, he resigned from a second stint at St. James' Park over disagreements with his employers. Truly, an anomaly in the modern game.

Can you think of any other elite managers who were never sacked? Let us know in the comments…

Incoming Newcastle United boss Matthias Jaissle tended his resignation at Al-Ahli over a contractual dispute, according to reports in Saudi Arabia.

Newcastle are in advanced talks for the German manager to come in as Eddie Howe's successor after the latter's decision to walk away from the post on Thursday.

Howe quit the post after holding discussions with the club's hierarchy following a disappointing 2025/26 campaign and the sale of key players Anthony Gordon to Barcelona and Sandro Tonali to Tottenham, with captain Bruno Guimaraes also expected to make a move to Arsenal

It quickly emerged that Newcastle were in talks with 38-year-old Jaissle to make the move to St James' Park.

Jaissle has just led Al-Ahli to back-to-back AFC Champions League Elite triumphs, having previous won two Austrian Bundesliga titles while in charge of Red Bull Salzburg.

Saudi outlet Al-Riyadh write that Jaissle has handed in his resignation at Al-Ahli, although it does not yet appear to have been accepted and officially he remains in the post.

Al-Ahli are now said to be in the process of finding a replacement and Jaissle's departure is now expected to be a formality.

However, it seems that his resignation was not specifically with a view to taking the Newcastle job, but rather over a disagreement in terms on a contract renewal.

Al-Riyadh report that Jaissle wanted a clause dictating that he would be paid his salary in full in the event he was dismissed from the post.

The club were not so keen on that, instead offering a maximum of six months' salary, leading the head coach to submit his resignation to the club.

Newcastle are now looking to rebuild their squad in a bid to improve on last season's 12th-place finish.

United had earned Champions League qualification by finishing fifth the previous season.

The club have already reinvested some of the money they brought in by selling Gordon and Tonali, with goalkeeper Ewen Jaouen, winger Bazoumana Toure, and midfielders Sean Steur and Aladji Bamba all joining for a total outlay of £111m.

Newcastle United are set to appoint a successor to departing manager Eddie Howe, who has left the Tyneside club after five years at the helm.

Matthias Jaissle is the manager lined up to take over. Like Howe, he moved into management very young after a modest playing career as a defender. The 38-year-old will become Newcastle boss with both he and the club having a point to prove.

Jaissle, from southern Germany, is currently the manager of Al-Ahli in the Saudi Pro League. The Royals are one of the clubs majority-owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), also owners of Newcastle.

Who is Matthias Jaissle?

The former centre-back played for Hoffenheim in Germany’s lower divisions before following compatriot Alexander Zorniger to Denmark to become his assistant manager at Brondby.

After two years in Denmark, Jaissle was snapped up and absorbed into the Red Bull football machine, where he had been involved as part of the RB Leipzig set-up.

18 months after returning to the multi-club operation as the manager of Red Bull Salzburg under-18s, Jaissle was bumped up to the senior side at Salzburg finishing school FC Liefering and very quickly to Red Bull Salzburg as the successor to Jesse Marsch.

The Red Bull system is loathed by many football supporters but has become a prolific pathway for young players. Jaissle has coached Benjamin Sesko, Karim Adeyemi and Strahinja Pavlovic, to name just a few.

Some of Red Bull’s success is down to its similar outlook on coaching and management, where the development of talent in line with a particular strategy takes precedence.

Marsch’s immediate predecessor at Salzburg was Marco Rose, now about to embark on his own first season in the Premier League as the manager of Bournemouth. Pep Lijnders is among the managers who’ve held the post since.

Indeed, former Hoffenheim boss Ralf Rangnick steered that system for a period and introduced Jaissle into the fold. The new Newcastle boss prefers principles over a strict systematic approach, learning under Red Bull’s feted 4-2-2-2 philosophy but generally eschewing the formation itself.

“I think it’s important that every club has a philosophy about the way they want to play. But what is also important for me as a coach: Here in Salzburg are guardrails – but within these guardrails, each coach can bring his own signature,” Jaissle said in 2022.

“The question is always how do I get the best team on the pitch? It is important to maintain a certain tactical flexibility. For me, the tactical formation plays a subordinate role. It is crucial that we get our principles on the pitch.”

Jaissle can stand by his record in Austria before he swapped Salzburg for Jeddah three years ago. He won the Bundesliga twice and gave the Red Bull club a foothold in the Champions League, a frontier that has proved difficult in light of the increasing primacy of RB Leipzig in the stable.

Al-Ahli have won the last two AFC Champions League Elite titles, twice defeating Japanese opposition in the final with Riyad Mahrez, Franck Kessie, Edouard Mendy, Ivan Toney and former Hoffenheim teammate Roberto Firmino in their ranks.

They finished third in the Saudi Pro League in 2025-26, matching their best finish under the German.

Newcastle are three weeks out from the new season and set to welcome Matthias Jaissle to the club as Eddie Howe's replacement.

Howe is leaving the Magpies after almost five years at the helm, a period in which he has led the team into the Champions League twice and lifted a trophy for the first time since 1969.

The much-loved head coach is calling time on his Newcastle stint, months after the first knockings of discontent.

Eddie Howe calls time on Newcastle spell

In truth, the writing was on the wall long before the 2025/26 season had begun. Howe had become de facto sporting director and chief spokesperson during the long absence in which Newcastle had neither the former or a chief executive after Darren Eales had stepped down due to health reasons.

Alexander Isak's protracted exit last summer and the trolley dash that ensued to replace him suggested there were key elements and figures at St James' Park that were far from aligned.

Confirmation of a 12th place finish following a long and arduous season should have been the time Howe walked away, but for whatever reason, he remained throughout this summer.

FourFourTwo understands Howe was ready to walk after Newcastle's 3-2 defeat by Brentford back in February. The Toon Army had surrendered an early lead, which had become a theme throughout 2025/26, before conceding a late Dango Ouattara winner.

Howe was persuaded to stay on but all was not well. Before long, rumours about the futures of key players Anthony Gordon, Sandro Tonali and Bruno Guimaraes began to emerge in the media, from credible sources no less. Two have already left this summer, with a third highly likely to be on his way.

Within the corridors at Newcastle's Benton training base, there has been talk that Howe hasn't been the same since suffering with a bout of pneumonia. He was hospitalised in April 2025, spending four nights under the watchful eye of doctors and missed three Newcastle matches.

Re-discovering the same vigour which led Newcastle to two memorable Champions League campaigns and a Carabao Cup triumph, it would appear to some, proved too great a task.

This summer, Newcastle have been proactive in the transfer market, with signings spearheaded by new sporting director Ross Wilson.

The experienced football executive has a track record when it comes to unearthing and capturing hidden gems. Newcastle's business has reflected that, although at this stage, many of the additions still have plenty to prove in the game, never mind the unforgiving nature of English football which they are about to enter.

They have not been what one might call 'Howe signings', and that has probably played a part in his decision to leave.

Ewen Jaouen, Aladji Bamba, Sean Steur and Bazoumana Toure have arrived for a combined £111 million, the club reinvesting the money recouped from Tonali and Gordon's sales. Plainly, the new faces are not at the level of those they are replacing in the Newcastle squad just yet.

The true reasoning behind Howe's exit will remain unknown, until a time in which he discusses the departure but there are myriad factors. Firstly, there is an ownership group who have spent the past 18 months appearing somewhat disengaged, misalignment between the coaching side and executive apparatus at St James' Park, as well as Howe seemingly having to relinquish his role in player recruitment this summer, following a disastrous window this time last year.

Howe earned the right to walk away on his terms, and although it is a sad day for Newcastle supporters, many will take the view that it is a necessary step - if only the timing was a little better.

He will remain a legend in the eyes of Toon fans for what he has achieved with the club, lifting the team from relegation certainties in 2021/22 to regular contenders for Champions League football and finally ending the trophy drought.

Where Newcastle go from here is anyone's guess, except for the identity of the man filling the biggest shoes on Tyneside. German coach Matthias Jaissle, schooled under the Red Bull umbrella and has spent the past three seasons in Saudi Arabia, looks to be the man taking to the dugout. Make your own assumptions about that appointment.

The club's hierarchy have been able to line up a replacement, because they know Howe reached his limit some months ago. On the surface, what finally convinced the Newcastle boss to walk away appears to be a 4-1 pre-season friendly defeat to Championship side Bristol City, but this was far from the decisive blow.

Alex Ferguson’s influence on English football is unmatched and more complex than it might appear at first glance.

Manchester United won 13 Premier League titles in the 27-year Ferguson era, adding a pair of Champions League wins and a vast collection of domestic cups. The Red Devils were feared for decades and everything they touched turned to silver.

Beneath the surface, Ferguson helped to nurture a generation of managers. Many of them played under him at Old Trafford but others did not. Ferguson’s willingness to offer advice and guidance to managers making their way in the game is legendary.

"He came straight over and gave me his number"

Sean Dyche was among them. After a short spell in charge of Watford, where he had been a player, Dyche was appointed by Burnley in 2012 and spent the next 10 years in charge at Turf Moor.

Ferguson extended his generosity to the rookie boss.

“It started very quickly,” said Dyche on The Good, The Bad & The Football, in partnership with Midnite.

“I went to a charity gig just after [landing] the Burnley job and to be fair, to his credit, [Ferguson] came straight over and gave me his number.

“It wasn’t really mentoring because that presupposed as though he was ringing me all the time. It wasn’t like that.”

The Clarets have a proud history of success but Dyche was responsible for their biggest modern achievements, leading them to the Premier League in 2014 and again, as Championship winners, two years later.

“He did give me a brilliant bit of advice,” said Dyche.

“When we were pushing for promotion the first time at Burnley and we got to about March, I was thinking, ‘How much longer can we keep this [promotion charge] going?’

“I was fearful it was going to hit the wall. So I rang him and I said, ‘What do you think?’

“He said: ‘Tell everyone how fit you are, how strong you are, and how you’re going to be relentless this season. I said that about Manchester United and I had no foundation – I just put it out there. Keep saying it, and saying it, and saying it.’”

Inspired by Dyche and facilitated by 21 league goals from Danny Ings, Burnley won automatic promotion in second place behind Leicester City, ending the 2013-14 season with 93 points and finishing eight points clear of Derby County in third.

They lost just two Championship matches after the turn of the year, both at home, and started 2014 on an unbeaten run of 15 league games.

“We just kept winning, and winning, and winning,” recalled the former Burnley boss.

Dyche’s team were relegated from the Premier League in the following season but won the Championship – again with 93 points – in 2015-16. They remained in the top flight until 2022 and were relegated weeks after Dyche was sacked.

Burnley have been promoted or relegated in every season since.

Italy legend Andrea Pirlo’s hopes of being named as the Azzurri’s new boss have been denied at the last minute following a political controversy over his potential hiring.

The former AC Milan and Juventus icon appeared to be set for the top job following a protected search for Gennaro Gattuso’s replacement, which had seen former Manchester City boss Pep Guardiola in a three-day discussion for the role only to turn down the position.

But as 116-capped Italy international Pirlo closed in on the job, he hit political resistance, which has now ultimately derailed dreams of managing his country.

Pirlo's hopes of landing Italy job denied

Italy’s search for a new boss came after they failed to qualify for the 2026 World Cup under Gattuso, meaning that the four-time winners had missed out on the tournament for a third consecutive time.

Italy U21s boss Silvio Baldini was handed the role as caretaker manager following Gattuso’s sacking in April, and after Guardiola turned down the role, it looked like the Italian Football Federation (FIGC) were ready to call on another iconic former Azzurri midfielder to fill the void.

However, as Pirlo closed in on the job, the 47-year-old’s commercial ties to a Russian betting company came to the fore, with senior figures in the organisation, plus Italian parliamentarians, expressing their concerns.

Pirlo’s potential appointment has now been called off, with FIGC president Giovanni Malago pulling the plug on the deal at the 11th hour, before the former Italy skipper confirmed on Sunday evening that he is no longer in the running for the role in a lengthy statement on social media.

“Over the past few days, I have watched with great bitterness the debate that has unfolded regarding my name and the possibility of taking on the role of Head Coach of the Italian national team,” he posted on Instagram.

“Out of respect for the institutions, the Federation, and all those involved, I chose to remain silent until now. However, I feel it is necessary to clarify a few points. Throughout my career—first as a player and now as a coach—I have always conducted my work in full compliance with the laws of the countries where I have worked and the contracts I have signed. The professional collaboration at the heart of the recent controversy arose during my time working in the United Arab Emirates and is purely commercial and sporting in nature. Attributing political significance to this collaboration implies that I hold views I have never expressed and do not share.

“I would like to thank Maldini and Leonardo for the esteem and trust they have shown me. I am well aware of their expertise, their professionalism, and the love they have always dedicated to Italian football.

“It is regrettable that a decision based on sporting grounds was quickly dragged into a public dispute that ended up attributing motives and intentions to me that are not my own. My love for Italy does not depend on a specific role. It is part of my history and my identity, and it will always remain with me.

Pirlo, who is currently in charge of Emirati club Dubai United, signed an ambassadorship deal with Russian bookmaker Fonbet in October, with scrutiny of this agreement being raised when he appeared alongside his former Italy team-mate Marco Materazzi during an event organised by the bookmaker at Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium. This visit coincided with aerial attacks on Ukraine, prompting widespread criticism, with Pirlo defending his involvement, insisting that his presence there was strictly non-political, yet a number of Italian politicians have hit back at this.

"After yet another defeat and another missed World Cup qualification, Italian football desperately needed a cultural, ethical and managerial revolution,” Pina Picierno, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said on social media. “The choice of Andrea Pirlo goes in the exact opposite direction.”

Jurgen Klopp has warned the German media that he is more than ready to walk away from the national team job if they subject him to the kind of treatment they gave his predecessor Julian Nagelsmann.

The former Borussia Dortmund and Liverpool boss has returned to management as Germany head coach two years on from departing Anfield.

In the interim, Klopp has served as head of global football for Red Bull, leading to understandable scepticism in Germany about his appointment to his latest role, given Red Bull's unpopularity in the country following the foundation of RB Leipzig in 2009.

Just like the English media towards their own Three Lions boss, the German media can be brutal towards Die Mannschaft's head coach, with Bild particularly renowned for going after managers whose methods they don't prefer.

And despite signing a four-year deal with the DfB, Klopp has warned that he will walk away from the post if the media get too personal.

Speaking at his first press conference, Klopp said: "If you behave badly and don't leave my family in peace then I'll be gone, I'll just turn away.

"I know there are other countries where national team coaches are treated even worse.

"I'm not doing this job for myself, I'm doing it for you. I'm taking this job even though I've seen how you've treated [former Germany boss] Julian Nagelsmann and [England manager] Thomas Tuchel.

"I love this job but I am always ready to call it quits if need be."

Klopp did hint that this role may well be his last in football, however, feeling that becoming the head coach of his country leaves him with no more mountains to climb.

He said: "Jurgen Klopp is not going to have any career after the national team.

"This is the pinnacle, the absolutely high point of my footballing career as coach. I will give everything I have got.

"Over the last few days it has almost been like a movie happening to myself.

"I have always thought the job of Germany head coach is really big, but now it is really dawning on me what being the national team head coach is all about.

"For many, many years it was unimaginable for me to take on this role. As the years went by, it became more or less evident that sooner or later I would be asked to do this job. Now I think the time is right."

New Germany manager Jurgen Klopp is assembling his coaching set-up at Die Mannschaft.

The legendary Liverpool boss was appointed as head coach of his country, following the Germans' devastating defeat to Paraguay in the last-32 stage of World Cup 2026.

With Klopp leaving his role at the Red Bull group to enter international football for the very first time, the 59-year-old is set to appoint a couple of former friends for the task, as attentions turn to Euro 2028.

Jurgen Klopp to welcome familiar face to his Germany coaching team

Ahead of his official unveiling as Julian Nagelsmann's replacement, The Mirror have relayed information from Sky Germany that Klopp is set to appoint Pep Lijnders to his coaching team.

Lijnders famously worked with Klopp at Liverpool, helping to bring the Premier League back to Anfield for the first time in 30 years and winning a sixth Champions League title – but made the somewhat eyebrow-raising move of crossing the divide and joining Manchester City last summer.

Having left Merseyside at the same time as the German, Lijnders took charge of Red Bull Salzburg in 2024, with his tenure lasting just 29 matches and Die Roten Bullen's 10-year streak as Austrian Bundesliga champions ending after his appointment.

The Dutchman returned to football in 2025 to join Pep Guardiola's City coaching staff, facing questions about Klopp's opinion on the move – though his former manager ultimately told him, “If you don’t do it, I will take the job.”

“The moment Pep called, and the feeling he gave me about what he wanted to do with the team by bringing me in, the trust he already had before we discussed how it would look, that made the decision much easier,” Lijnders said of his conversation with Guardiola.

“But you cannot put away 10 years of Liverpool that easily.“

Lijnders is not the only former Liverpool coach set to be appointed to Klopp's team, with Peter Krawietz expected to take a role in Die Mannschaft's set-up, too.

World Cup 2026's disaster means that Germany have failed to win a knockout game at the competition since they lifted the trophy in Rio De Janeiero for the fourth time in 2014.

Nagelsmann replaced Hansi Flick for Euro 2024 on home soil, with his 26-man squad ultimately eliminated by eventual champions Spain in the quarter-finals, while the previous Euros saw long-serving Joachim Low bow out a round earlier at the hands of Gareth Southgate's England.

After exiting the World Cup, Nagelsmann resigned from his role, pre-empting a potential sacking.

Thomas Tuchel is expected to stay on as England manager despite heavy criticism after the Three Lions World Cup semi-final defeat to Argentina on Wednesday.

Anthony Gordon’s goal early in the second half put England on course for a first final since 1966, but defensive substitutions and a low block allowed Argentina to dominate the final stages, until Enzo Fernandez equalised and Lautaro Martinez headed in Lionel Messi’s cross in added time.

Tuchel claimed he will remain in charge for Euro 2028, when England will be one of the host nations, but there have already been calls from some quarters to dismiss the German.

Play our FREE match predictor below and win £1k

Bookies odds for next England manager

If England do choose to move on from Tuchel, Newcastle manager Eddie Howe is currently the bookies’ favourite to replace him.

Betfair have Howe at 5/2 to be the next Three Lions boss, ahead of Pep Guardiola at 10/3.

Guardiola is now a free agent after ending his decade-long, trophy-laden spell with Manchester City at the end of last season.

While Howe and Guardiola are the clear frontrunners according to the bookies, several other names are in the frame.

Mauricio Pochettino, whose USA side were knocked out in the last 16 by Belgium, is 7/1 to be the next England boss.

Former interim manager Lee Carsley, meanwhile, is 15/2 to get the nod, having continued to impress with the Under-21s.

And in case the FA suddenly realise they didn’t appreciate what they once had, Gareth Southgate is 10/1 to take the job for a second time.

Sweden head coach Graham Potter is 11/1 to switch international jobs, while Frank Lampard is 12/1 after an excellent spell with Coventry City.

Kieran McKenna, after leaving Ipswich Town following a second promotion from the Championship in three years, is 16/1.

As for the outsiders, Aston Villa boss Unai Emery is 20/1 to become the next England manager, and ex-Villa manager and Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard is 22/1.

For now, though, it seems Tuchel will continue, with odds of 1/5 that he will be in charge for England’s first Nations League match against Spain in September.

Did no one at The FA think to flag how much Thomas Tuchel’s head resembles a certain vegetable? A bad omen if ever there was.

However, with the inquest in full swing, I feel it’s important not to rest the blame solely at the feet of the German while others choose to set pitchforks alight. England came into the tournament with some of the purest quarter-final vibes I can ever recall, but were handed a winnable game in the last eight which they won, after extra-time.

The semis felt like nosebleed territory for this team and a final would have certainly been a game too far and not nearly as close as the Euro 2024 final turned out to be.

Hard to get excited about England in 2026

In seven games at World Cup 2026, we saw two good halves of football from England: The second vs Croatia and the first vs Mexico. Apart from that, it was hard to get excited about this team.

The main difference between Tuchel and Gareth Southgate seemed to be their approach to media interviews. Southgate, the politician, Tuchel, the irritable stepfather.

“Sloppy, a lot of technical mistakes, not fast enough, not repetitive enough,” was his assessment of England's victory vs Norway. Hard to imagine Southgate even thinking in that manner, never mind saying it out loud on live television, but such is Tuchel’s style. You presume that was the thinking behind his hiring. To not be Southgate. To be different.

Tuchel’s point on technical deficiencies is as valid as it is concerning, particularly in midfield. Where Porro, Cucurella, Ruiz and Rodri tik and tak, England’s equivalents swash and buckle. That’s not the fault of Tuchel, who took over at the top of English football two years ago. That issue lies a couple of decades back, when Tuchel was coaching Stuttgart’s U19s, having been working as a bartender just a few years before that.

Tuchel arrived as England manager ready to issue the b*llockings he had become famous and successful for. It raised eyebrows, it demanded egos be left at the door.

At one stage, Jude Bellingham looked like he might be left at home. Trent Alexander-Arnold was. Tuchel was bold with his handling of personnel, and the hope was that he would follow suit tactically.

He largely did until 70 minutes into England’s semi-final vs Argentina. After Anthony Gordon scored England’s first and only chance of the game, England and Tuchel entered sliding doors territory.

At this stage, it would’ve been worse not to score a second than to concede a first. Against Mexico, England were forced into low block mode by Jarell Quansah’s sending off. But vs Argentina, it was a choice. Ezri Konsa came on for Anthony Gordon, a move straight out of the Southgate playbook. England fans were reacquainted with sinking feelings experienced during second-half capitulations vs Croatia in 2018, and Italy at Wembley in 2021.

England 2.0 would, you think, have introduced Marcus Rashford for Gordon at this stage and maybe even Bukayo Saka on the right wing to increase the sense of dread among Argentina players and supporters. Swapping both wingers is something Tuchel has done consistently during games this tournament.

But Tuchel knows this team better than anyone and knows they aren’t Spain. Has England ever really looked in control of a game apart from in the second half against a distinctly average Croatia team? Against Messi in a World Cup semi-final is an entirely different dimension.

Have you ever had the feeling England could push on and add to a lead? They had 7 touches in the opponent's box the entire game vs Argentina who had 28 in England’s. Their xG was a paltry 0.53.

They didn’t look like a team that could score again, but as we saw vs Mexico they had proved they are a team that can defend a lead, so Tuchel went with that. You can at least see where he was coming from with a place in the World Cup final at stake.

Ultimately: wrong decision. We will also never know if Rashford/Saka would’ve been the right decision, but after 2018 and 2021 England fans this morning would’ve rather gone out knowing.

Thomas Tuchel shouldn’t be sacked; he should be given the opportunity to learn from this error. If he ever finds himself in this exact situation again (like Southgate was in the Euro 2020 final) he will act differently.