Ronaldo’s second coming, Premier League team news and more – as it happened (2024)

“I would caution the West Ham manager against using that nickname for his star striker,” emails Peter Oh of those earlier Hammers quotes. “It runs the risk of making the club sound like a Micky Moyes operation.”

And that’s all from me today. Thanks for reading, have a lovely weekend (while trying to contain your excitement at the return of Cristiano Ronaldo to the Premier League), and see you next time.

Nick Ames previews Brentford v Brighton:

Ligue 1 fixtures

As I mentioned earlier, Messi and Neymar will not feature for Paris Saint-Germain against Clermont tomorrow but Kylian Mbappé is raring to go, according to head coach Mauricio Pochettino.

Friday
Lorient v Lille

Saturday
Paris Saint-Germain v Clermont
Monaco v Marseille

Sunday
Montpellier v St Etienne
Bordeaux v RC Lens
Brest v Angers
Metz v Troyes
Rennes v Reims
Nantes v Nice
Lyon v Strasbourg

Chelsea Women boss Emma Hayes will not be underestimating Everton this weekend despite their 4-0 loss to Manchester City in their opening Women’s Super League fixture of the new season. “I think it was just a 10 to 15-minute period ... the second half, I thought it was a much different game,” she said of Everton’s defeat.

Asked if the Toffees should be aiming to put themselves in among the likes of Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal this season, Hayes added: “They’d hope so, especially the amount of money they’ve spent. I’m sure Willie [Kirk, manager] will expect that of his group and I think you’ll see that with the amount of football on show for everybody this year. I’m sure there will be some indifferent results throughout the season. Yes, of course Arsenal started the fastest, but we are one game in.”

Hayes is not one to panic at the fact her Chelsea side lost 3-2 at the Emirates Stadium last Sunday. “As always they are a great group,” she said of the mood in training this week. “They’re brilliant and it is just one game of the season, it’s a long way to go. We have had really good sessions. It is great to have all the players back together in the last couple of weeks so (we are) just preparing as we normally would and just looking forward to being back with our home fans on Sunday.” (PA)

Crunch time for Arsenal and Norwich, writes Nick Ames in his match preview:

According to this, a footballer sticking his tongue out, or doing a ‘thumbs up’ gesture to camera, qualifies as a ‘blooper’. Personally I don’t think any of this would have made the cut for TV’s It’ll be Alright on the Night:

Encouraging words from Daniel Farke, the Norwich manager, for his Arsenal counterpart Mikel Arteta. They meet at the Emirates tomorrow, and neither side has a Premier League win on the board.

“It is not my style to comment on the situation for other clubs or circ*mstances, all I can say about Mikel Arteta is he is a fantastic guy, we have met several times,” said Farke. “He has unbelievable football knowledge with unbelievable experience, who tries to bring his own handwriting on to this team. In this business there is always pressure, and Mikel knows it - especially as he has played for some of the best clubs in the world. He has handled this pressure as a player and believe me, he will not crack under any pressure as a coach. He is much too smart, intelligent and such a good person. Without judging the Arsenal situation, I think he will have a great career as a manager.”

In Scotland, Steven Gerrard is back from his isolation period following the Covid-19 cases at Rangers before their lunchtime trip to St Johnstone tomorrow. “It’s not ideal and I don’t want to experience it again,” said Gerrard after having to isolate. He also confirmed that Ianis Hagi will miss tomorrow’s match after testing positive for Covid-19.

“I am here to manage from the sideline, I feel I can be a bigger help from the side and I like to be hands on. I’m here every session. I could obviously still contribute in terms of preparation, picking the team and making the decisions but to do that remotely was frustrating. What made me the most proud was how we all stuck together during these challenging times ... It showed the strength of us as a club, that we could deal with adversity when we were pushed and we coped extremely well.”

The West Ham manager David Moyes admits he found it impossible to recruit a capable understudy for Michail Antonio. With a Europa League campaign an additional consideration, Moyes was eager to ease the burden on Antonio. “We have to manage him,” said Moyes, whose unbeaten side go to Southampton tomorrow. “But I do think he’s in a better place than he’s been before: his level of professionalism, the way he’s looking after himself. But obviously you can get an injury that can put you out and we’ve got to always be careful with Micky. We’d have liked to have brought in someone who maybe directly could replace Micky, who could possibly help him out but we just couldn’t find it ... But keeping Micky fit is really important for us, we’ll not play him in all of the games, we’ll try and use him at the right times. He’s been terrific for us and long may that continue.”

See Also

'I'm back where I belong' - RonaldoGoals, trophies, assists, style - How Ronaldo has changed since he left Man UtdRonaldo is finally back at United - but his future remains unclear

Yes! It’s another photo of Salomón Rondón, who looks absolutely thrilled to have signed for Everton during the recent transfer window.

As Andy Hunter reported then, it’s the third time that Benitez has had Rondon in his squad, after Newcastle, and the Chinese Super League side Dalian Pro:

A bit of vintage Dele Alli, via Tottenham’s Twitter:

Bundesliga fixtures

Saturday

FC Union Berlin v Augsburg
Bayer Leverkusen v Borussia Dortmund
Greuther Fürth v Wolfsburg
Hoffenheim v Mainz
Freiburg v Cologne
RB Leipzig v Bayern Munich

Sunday

Eintracht Frankfurt v Stuttgart
Bochum v Hertha Berlin
Mönchengladbach v Arminia Bielefeld

MATCH PREVIEW!

Watford v Wolves, the battle of the ‘W’s:

In Germany, Julian Nagelsmann takes his Bayern Munich side to his former employers, RB Leipzig, tomorrow:

Some WSL team news from Manchester City. Filippa Angeldahl, the Swedish midfielder, is in line to make her debut against Spurs on Sunday.

WSL fixtures

Saturday
West Ham United Women v Aston Villa Women

Sunday 12th
Chelsea Women v Everton Women
Birmingham City Women v Brighton and Hove Albion Women
Leicester City Women v Manchester United Women
Reading Women v Arsenal Women
Manchester City Women v Tottenham Hotspur Women

Gregg Bakowski rides to the rescue with today’s Fiver, in which Cristiano Ronaldo is the talk of the town:

Andy Hunter reports on Everton’s transfer window trials and tribulations:

In Italy, tomorrow afternoon’s encounter between Napoli and Juventus at the Stadio Diego Armando Maradona is the pick of this weekend’s fixtures. Juventus are 12th in the early table with a defeat and a draw on the board so far. Luciano Spalletti’s Napoli have two wins from two, are fifth in the table, and following the meeting with Juve are due to visit Leicester in the Europa League next Thursday.

Saturday
Empoli v Venezia
Napoli v Juventus
Atalanta v Fiorentina

Sunday
Sampdoria v Internazionale
Cagliari v Genoa
Spezia v Udinese
Torino v Salernitana
AC Milan v Lazio
Roma v Sassuolo

Monday
Bologna v Verona

Takehiro Tomiyasu, the defender who Arsenal signed from Bologna, pictured in training today:

“It’s all about money.”

Liverpool’s Jurgen Klopp doesn’t like the idea of a World Cup every two years.

The unfailingly modest Tottenham coach Nuno Espírito Santo says his August manager of the month award is for everybody at the club, and especially the players:

Confirmed: Wolves have struck a deal with the Mexican FA, and the forward Raúl Jiménez is available to face Watford.

“Personally I didn’t talk (to the Mexican FA) but I know the club talked and that’s why we have arrived at a good solution,” Wolves coach Bruno Lage said. “I think it’s a good decision for everyone, especially for Mexico, so we think that we can use Raul because I think the game is about putting the best players on the pitch. So everyone understands that - it is a difficult moment but at this time, the best players from both sides should be on the pitch. So for us we’re very happy to receive that news and thankful for the Mexico decision to help us in this situation.”

Almost two-thirds of Britons are opposed to having a World Cup every two years, according to a new YouGov poll. Sixty four per cent of the 1,000 fans surveyed this week have come out against Fifa’s plans to cut the gap between its showpiece event, joining fans’ groups, Uefa and the world’s major leagues in giving the proposals the thumbs-down. European Leagues, a group which includes the Premier League and the EFL, said its members “firmly and unanimously” opposed the plans brought forward by Fifa’s head of global development Arsene Wenger, the former Arsenal manager.

Crystal Palace manager Patrick Vieira said: “For me I think that it will lose a little bit of its importance to have the World Cup every two years,” the 1998 winner of the tournament insisted. “I think Arsene Wenger is always ahead of everybody, you know. He is a visionary. He has these ideas and worked on this idea to hold a World Cup every two years and he just put it in media for people to discuss.

“It is really interesting, people will come and say it is a good idea, a bad idea and there will be a debate, a conversation. But I believe there is a panel who will make the right decision. Something we need to take into consideration is the physical aspect and what we are asking the players to do. We have to evaluate the risk of having the players play so many games with so little rest.” (PA)

Here is Sean Ingle’s story from yesterday on Uefa threatening a World Cup boycott if the plans are approved:

Everton manager Rafael Benitez says he did not expect to be so limited in the transfer window by financial fair play constraints when he took the job. The Spaniard spent just £1.8m – the fee paid to Bayer Leverkusen for Demarai Gray – with four other players arriving on free transfers.

He said: “We didn’t spend a lot of money, but we had good signings. It could be better, yes, because if you have more money you can do it, but the financial fair play rules were killing us in this window. I was not expecting [this] at the beginning because I was thinking maybe we could sell some players and then we could do well in the window.

“Hopefully in the next window it will be different, but the players we brought in were players that we needed ... We have to start working now, thinking about how to improve the squad, first of all on the pitch, and then afterwards bring in players if we can.”

Turkey have parted company with head coach Senol Gunes by mutual consent, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) said on Friday, after the team were thrashed by the Netherlands in their World Cup qualifier this week amid a run of poor form.

Gunes, 68, was brought back in March 2019 after previously being in charge for four years from 2000, during which he led Turkey to third place at the 2002 World Cup. Despite qualifying for Euro 2020, following a dismal Nations League campaign in which Turkey managed one win, he faced mounting criticism over poor performances that saw Turkey exit the European Championship with three defeats. On Tuesday, the Netherlands ran out 6-1 winners over 10-man Turkey at the Amsterdam Arena to take over at the top of World Cup qualifying Group G, while Turkey fell to third behind Norway, albeit only two points off the leaders.

Jacob Steinberg previews Chelsea v Aston Villa:

WSL news: Aston Villa boss Carla Ward has warned her side they will need to go up another level when they continue their Women’s Super League campaign against West Ham. Villa came from behind to beat newly-promoted Leicester 2-1 on the opening weekend, with debutant Remi Allen on target against her former club. Ward wants a focused display when they go to Dagenham for tomorrow’s televised match.

“We are delighted we have walked away with three points, but the performance needs to be better in order for us to get another win (against West Ham),” Ward said. “For 30 minutes (against Brighton) I thought they were very good. They went down to 10 players, and it was then a different game plan. It will be tough.”

Midfielder Allen left Leicester during the summer after not agreeing a new contract. Ward is confident the 30-year-old can make a major impact on the Villa squad this season. “[She brings] leadership, experience, quality, energy,” Ward said. “She drives standards and gets after people. She will be invaluable for us this season.”

Peter ‘Crouchy’ Crouch, who is now involved in an official capacity at Dulwich Hamlet, has just been doing a Twitter Q and A. He says he believes the south London club can become a Football League team:

Hamlet meet Hungerford Town on Sunday in National League South, the sixth tier of the Football League structure.

If by some freak chance you missed ‘10 things to look out for this weekend’, here it is again:

Tottenham’s Giovani Lo Celso, Cristian Romero and Davinson Sánchez will not return to the club until next Saturday after they defied Premier League rules to go on international duty. Argentinians Lo Celso and Romero and Colombia’s Sánchez travelled to South America for World Cup qualifiers last week, despite the clubs being allowed not to release them due to the games being in red-list countries.

All three are currently at a training camp in Croatia from where they can travel to England after 10 days and circumvent hard quarantine. If they had travelled straight home they would have had to stay in a government-approved hotel for 10 days.
They will miss the game against Crystal Palace on Saturday, the Europa Conference League game with Rennes on Thursday and most likely the match with Chelsea next Sunday.

Nuno Espírito Santo said: “I can tell you that they are in Croatia. That’s what we decided to do to try to avoid more problems. So the solution was to try to get them in a country where after that they can join the group. Now they are working with the sports science, a physio, in Croatia. They will arrive the day before the match against Chelsea so they will not be available for the Conference League game.”

An interesting line from that Bielsa press conference: he said the Saturday 3pm TV blackout for football in the UK is ‘magnificent’ because it prioritises the game over commercial interests.

Some more on those issues, of greed in football and too many matches being played, via PA:

Bielsa said the root cause of the problem was that players worldwide were being asked to play too much football. The 65-year-old Argentinian said that greed was affecting players’ welfare and harming the game. He said: “To ignore the preparation and rest needed for the spectacle and the players is absurd. To ignore the effect on players, the accumulation of the games and long hours of flying, that will end up injuring any player, so clearly there is no way to resolve this by protecting football. They protect the commercial arm, but the game goes unprotected. Football is going to waste in such a way and there will be (a) time when it becomes less attractive.”

It’s what you’ve all been waiting for. Thomas Tuchel’s take on the player availability furore:

Thomas Tuchel has criticised Fifa’s possible ban for Thiago Silva as a no-win situation. Silva did not travel to South America for Brazil duty in the international break, and could now face a five-day suspension. The 36-year-old could miss Chelsea’s Premier League meeting with Aston Villa on Saturday and Tuesday’s Champions League encounter with Zenit St Petersburg. Tuchel revealed Chelsea chairman Bruce Buck is in negotiations to try to avoid a ban for Silva, but lamented the overall situation. Asked if Silva faced a no-win situation, Tuchel said: “Yes, I don’t understand it, it makes no sense from either side.

“Did it make sense from the Brazilian national team? No. Did it make sense for us? No. Because now we are in danger that he maybe cannot play the next two matches, because of a ban. If we would have sent him he would be out for 10 days in a hotel room, not able to train. Which I can understand because these are the travel restrictions at the moment. And nobody wants that. So these solutions where we are right now, these discussions, I don’t know if any fan or anybody involved in the game can understand the positive effect of it. There is simply none. The chairman is still in negotiations, and I’m still positive and he is not out yet officially.” (PA)

Yet more news on Premier League player availability post-international break. Wolves this time:

Wolves manager Bruno Lage suggested the club had come to an agreement with the Mexico football federation over the availability of Raúl Jiménez. After Brazil instructed Fifa that their players must not play for five days, Mexico also wanted the governing body to apply the restrictions. The forward was not allowed by Wolves to travel for the most recent international break as Mexico is on the UK red list.

“I think it’s a good decision for everyone, especially for Mexico so we think that we can use Raul because I think the game is about putting the best players on the pitch,” Lage said. “So everyone understands that – it is a difficult moment but at this time, the best players from both sides should be on the pitch, so for us we’re very happy to receive that news and thankful for the Mexico decision to help us in this situation. Because I want to see the best players from Watford and I also want to see the best players from our side play in the game and I think for the fans, for both clubs, it’s special to see the best players on the best pitch.” (PA)

While checking Manchester United’s website for the press conference time a bit earlier, I came across this absolute belter of a news story:

WOULD CAVANI EVER CUT HIS HAIR SHORT?

Edinson Cavani was he was asked if he would cut his hair short by Louis from the UK as part of a brand-new fans’ Q&A.

“Funnily enough, this is a question that I hear a lot amongst my friends and family when they ask: ‘Can you ever see yourself having short hair, Edi?’ ‘Edi, have you ever thought of getting your hair cut shorter?’” Cavani said. “So, this topic quite often does come up when chatting with friends and family. And I just don’t know, I’m not sure.”

Marcelo Bielsa has expressed frustration at the club v country row which could see players banned from playing in the Premier League this weekend. The Leeds manager may be without Brazilian winger Raphinha for Sunday’s home tie against Liverpool, if Fifa invokes the five-day rule, which prevents players who failed to report for national team duty from appearing for their clubs.

Bielsa said: “If a player leaves his club of origin for 10 days, comes back one day before the (Premier League) game, can’t play and has to quarantine for 10 days, he did not leave for 10 days, he left for 21 days. So for the four weeks in a month there’s going to be three weeks that he won’t be able to play for the club he belongs to.

“If there are international breaks in September, October and November, in those three months the player is going to participate (for his club) for three weeks. When you face that reality, it is impossible to think that nothing’s going to happen.”

Lionel Messi and Neymar will miss Paris Saint-Germain’s Ligue 1 match against Clermont on Saturday having just returned from international duty but Kylian Mbappé is expected to be in their squad after recovering from a calf injury.

Mbappé picked up the injury during France’s 1-1 World Cup qualifying draw against Bosnia & Herzegovina last week and missed Les Bleus’ two other games against Ukraine and Finland. PSG coach Mauricio Pochettino, however, is confident he will play for the first time since the transfer window closed after media reports he wanted to join Real Madrid.

“Kylian is happy, he is emotionally stable and before the end of the transfer window he stayed in a positive mindset,” Pochettino said. “He wants to play football and enjoy himself. He has been training and recovering well so we hope he will be involved with the squad.” (Reuters)

The Everton manager Rafael Benítez says the club’s good relationship with the Brazil Football Confederation will allow him to pick Richarlison to face Burnley on Monday. The Toffees were under no obligation to allow the forward to play in the Olympic Games in Tokyo after his involvement in the Copa America just a couple of weeks previously but took a wider view of keeping the player and his association happy.

That appears to have paid off as the 24-year-old will not be subject to the same five-day ban Fifa are imposing on other Premier League clubs for not allowing their players to travel to South America for World Cup qualifiers due to concerns over quarantine restrictions on their return.

“I think we are in a much better position than anyone because when we allowed him to go to the Olympic Games we were in contact with them (Brazilian FA),” said Benítez. “We told them it was a complicated situation for us but we could understand how important the Olympic Games were for the association. We have a very good relationship with them and they said they understand and Richarlison was not an issue. Maybe other players but not Richarlison because we are good with them and they are good with us at the moment.” (PA)

And here is our very own match preview for Manchester United v Newcastle:

Here is Louise Taylor’s story on Steve Bruce’s frustration at the lack of signings at Newcastle:

Crystal Palace may include new signings Will Hughes and Odsonne Édouard in their squad for the visit of Tottenham tomorrow. The pair signed late in the transfer window but have spent the last week getting accustomed to their new surroundings and life under Patrick Vieira. On Hughes and Edouard, Vieira said: “The international break helped them to take time to work and know the team, the players and the way we want to play. I am happy with the two players.”

Michael Olise, who joined from Reading in July, is also fit again after a back injury and could debut against Spurs. Vieira added: “He has been working well in the last two weeks and trained all week with the squad. He will be involved in the game tomorrow. “It’s good news for the football club, good news for him. He was really frustrated but we had to go through a process to get him fit and he has been doing really well.”

Vieira played down his rivalry with Tottenham from his playing days when he captained Arsenal. But the Palace manager did admit he considers ex-teammate Thierry Henry a better player than Spurs forward Harry Kane. “No, no. I am not a player any more so this thing between Arsenal and Tottenham is in the past,” Vieira said. “Kane can finish inside box, outside box, can create chances. He is a modern number nine and can change position. But Thierry Henry, I am sorry he is in a different level. I love Kane, he is a fantastic player but Thierry is Thierry.” (PA)

The Manchester City manager Pep Guardiola admits he is still unclear whether Brazil duo Ederson and Gabriel Jesus will be able to play this weekend. The Brazilian football federation has requested the pair be barred from facing Leicester in the Premier League after the club did not release them for international duty. City, in common with a number of other English top-flight clubs, did not want the players to travel because of quarantine restrictions on return to the UK. Guardiola said at a press conference on Friday: “Right now, at 1.35pm, it is unclear. I don’t know, hopefully they can play. We are going to wait to see if they can play or not.” (PA)