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Hello! I hope you haven’t eaten yourselves to a Christmas standstill. There’s a full day of football to gorge on, and a stack of tasty transfer treats coming up too.
On the way:
Transfer Dilemmas: Man City and Real Madrid may be forced to move in January
(Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)
Europe’s biggest clubs prefer to swerve the January transfer window, which is why next month might be more compelling than usual. Who foresaw Manchester City needing urgent reinforcements? Who thought Real Madrid would be in a similar boat?
Strategic recruitment has failed both the reigning Premier League champions and the Champions League holders — City more than Real, it’s fair to say — and The Athletic’s transfer DealSheet update today suggests both are about to get active. Value and options in January are notoriously limited but neither team has much choice.
City’s wish list epitomises how their form has dropped off a cliff. They want additions in defence, in midfield and up front — demands indicative of a squad crying out for an overhaul. A central midfielder has to be paramount because the loss of Rodri to an anterior cruciate ligament injury in September kicked off a crippling domino effect. What Pep Guardiola would give for a player like Newcastle United’s Bruno Guimaraes.
The pressure on Real, after a spate of injuries, is largely defensive. All the noise around centre-back Aymeric Laporte (not to mention his own come-and-get-me remarks) makes you think a deal to bring him over from Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia might be feasible. Like City, January is not a time when Real like to get busy — but La Liga’s uber-tight table necessitates it.
One to watch: Marcus Rashford
The same reality applies to players: the happiest and the most settled have no interest in mid-season moves. Marcus Rashford is neither of those things, and our transfer wizard David Ornstein is picking him out as his one to watch in the weeks ahead.
The obstacles to a permanent transfer away from Manchester United are obvious. Rashford’s wage is hefty and he would command a fee. But given he cannot hold down a place in Ruben Amorim’s matchday squad, a loan makes sense. It would render the forward more affordable — and United have form in sending an unwanted Jadon Sancho on loan to Borussia Dortmund and Chelsea.
Tottenham Hotspur have been linked with Rashford, although Ange Postecolgou didn’t make a deal sound likely. Finding a taker for him — even temporarily — might be the right call for United’s dressing-room harmony.
Will MLS teams want Pogba?
(Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
Here are some other notes that caught my eye in the DealSheet:
🖱️ Most clicked in Christmas Eve’s TAFC: the extreme pressure of management ruining Guardiola’s diet and sleep patterns.
Swedish success story: But will Malmo thriving ruin domestic league?
Malmo’s Norwegian forward Erik Botheim (Tofik Babayev/AFP via Getty Images)
A couple of months back, I spent time in Sweden piecing together a book chapter on Johan Cruyff (yes, he’s Dutch, but the Swedes were the victims of his most famous Cruyff turn). Without scratching beneath the surface, you don’t immediately get the sense of a country where domestic football is thriving.
But Rory Smith has scratched for The Athletic and his excellent feature on Malmo opened my eyes to just how popular, productive and healthy Sweden’s Allsvenskan (top division) is. It’s fighting the good fight at a time when people are so easily seduced or distracted by sexier products, such as the Premier League.
Ownership rules are strict. Broadcaster schedules actually pay due respect to travelling fans. But there’s a problem: Malmo have been so successful, and sucked in so much revenue from European competitions recently, that there’s a risk of them pulling away from the field. It would be sad if that happened because true domestic competition can be elusive — and Malmo themselves understand the importance of it. Hard-earned credibility is easily lost.
Amazon’s screen break: No more Premier League coverage after tomorrow
Presenter Alex Aljoe speaks with Sean Dyche and former Everton footballer Leon Osman on Amazon Prime Video (Alex Livesey/Getty Images)
TV rights to the Premier League are sold in a way that prevents a monopoly. No broadcaster can acquire every game, regardless of how much money it offers. Coverage is deliberately fragmented.
As a result, Amazon got in on the act six years ago. Over the next 48 hours, UK viewers will find all 10 Premier League fixtures scheduled for December 26 and 27 on its schedule. But once those matches are done, Amazon is bowing out. It didn’t pitch for a slice of the latest domestic broadcast deal, which runs from 2025 to 2029 and is worth a whopping £6.7billion ($8.42bn).
Unfortunately for Amazon, the 20-game package it liked was no longer available. It saw no value in pushing the boat out further. This is no existential crisis for the Premier League — but it’s interesting to note that even the biggest companies have a point where they’ll draw the line.
Catch a match
(Selected games ET/UK time)
Premier League: Manchester City vs Everton, 7.30am/12.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/Amazon Prime; Wolverhampton Wanderers vs Manchester United, 12.30pm/5.30pm — USA Network, Fubo/Amazon Prime; Liverpool vs Leicester City, 3pm/8pm — NBC, Fubo/Amazon Prime.
Championship: Stoke City vs Leeds United, 3pm/8pm — CBS, Paramount+, Amazon Prime/Sky Sports.
Scottish Premiership: Hearts vs Hibs, 7.30am/12.30pm — Paramount+/Sky Sports.
Top team: My selection of the season (so far)
We’re not quite at the halfway point of the Premier League campaign but Boxing Day is a decent juncture for picking the division’s best XI so far.
Our writers had a go and a few things from their selections jumped out. Everybody (and I mean everybody) went for Cole Palmer. Manchester City don’t get a look-in. Chris Wood is flavour of the month and you’ll rightly conclude that the USMNT’s Antonee Robinson is having a storming season at Fulham.
For my own choice of line-up (above), I’m banging Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo up top. Ten goals in 17 games is impressive and he has negated Ivan Toney’s lame exit. The attacking presence of Palmer, Mohamed Salah and Bukayo Saka behind Mbeumo is all killer, no filler. One of them will get their hands on the title in May.
Quiz answers
You’re a clever bunch so I expected nothing less than 100 per cent records all round with the quiz questions we gave you on Christmas Eve. Let’s debrief and see how you went:
- Who scored the goal pictured above? It was Jude Bellingham, with that sensational overhead kick against Slovakia for England at Euro 2024.
- When USWNT head coach Emma Hayes said, “Very French. Quirky, to say the least. But I like quirk,” she was talking about the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Paris. Not tarte tatin.
- The player who set a Premier League record by being substituted 29 times in one season? Fulham’s Andrea Pereira.
- You must have nailed the unusual aspect of Botafogo’s Copa Libertadores final win. Their midfielder Gregore got himself sent off for a first-minute abomination of a tackle. Let’s relive the moment one more time…
(Top photo: Yasser Bakhsh/Getty Images)
