“Declan Rice took the captain’s armband after Bukayo Saka was substituted, charged down a loose ball and seconds later Arsenal were ahead through Noni Madueke in the 69th minute. Gabriel Martinelli then made it 3-1 seven minutes later, with Bayern Munich cut apart by a through ball and the substitute doing the rest. Winning, it seems, is becoming a habit for Mikel Arteta’s side. Arsenal struck first through a set piece (naturally), when Saka’s first assist of the season — a menacing corner — was glanced into the net by Jurrien Timber in the 22nd minute. …”
NY Times/The Athletic
YouTube: Arsenal vs. Bayern: Extended Highlights | UCL League Phase MD 5
Arsenal 3 Bayern Munich 1: Mikel Arteta’s winning machine marches on
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“Liverpool fell to a shock 4-1 loss to PSV Eindhoven on Wednesday night to make it three defeats in a row. After a handball by Virgil van Dijk, Ivan Perisic scored a sixth-minute penalty to put PSV Eindhoven ahead. But the hosts levelled in the 16th minute after Cody Gakpo dribbled down the left before cutting inside on his right foot. His shot was saved, but the ball fell to Dominik Szoboszlai, who fired home to level the game. …”
“Tottenham may have put in a more positive display against PSG than against Arsenal on Sunday, but they came away from Paris defeated in an eight-goal thriller despite twice taking the lead. Richarlison headed in during the first half after a great team move from Spurs before an incredible strike from Vitinha just before half-time drew the hosts level. Randal Kolo Muani, playing against his parent club, put Spurs back in front before Vitinha again drew the teams level with another lovely finish. Two poor goals to concede followed, though, as the early promise from Spurs evaporated. Kolo Muani made it 4-3 before Vitinha completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot after a handball. PSG then had Lucas Hernandez sent off in stoppage time. …”
“As television money has transformed the landscape of European football in the 21st century, the challenge has fallen on big clubs in smaller markets to innovate, or face being left behind. Ajax, the most successful club in the Netherlands, have proven that invention does not require abandoning tradition. In fact, their history has provided the blueprint for continued success. In the early 1970s, legendary coach Rinus Michels built Ajax into the best club team in Europe. In 1973, they became just the second team to win three successive European Cups, with Michels’ 
“Andres Iniesta’s first night at Barcelona’s renowned La Masia youth academy was one of the worst of his life. Aged just 12, and having spent his whole upbringing until then surrounded by family in his small village of Fuentealbilla (population 2,400, in the southern Spanish province of Albacete), he was now alone, hundreds of miles from home. He was fulfilling a dream, but the experience left a mark on him. Iniesta says the ‘traumatic’ change ‘took its toll’ and he believes it may have played a role in the depression he would later suffer at the peak of his career, even if ‘things returned to normal’. …”
“It is 30 years since Liverpool smashed the British transfer record to sign Stan Collymore, a brilliant, brutally effective centre-forward with the build of a cruiserweight boxer and skills that, on his day, made him almost unplayable. He was the match-winner on his debut against Sheffield Wednesday, conjuring an eye-catching goal out of nothing, and scored another beauty against reigning champions Blackburn Rovers a month later, but, behind the scenes, cracks soon appeared. From an early stage, he felt out of place at Anfield, cold-shouldered in the dressing room and an awkward fit in a team whose commitment to pass-and-move football was at odds with the strengths he had showcased at Nottingham Forest. …”
“The next men’s FIFA World Cup is now 200 days away and 42 nations — including its co-hosts the United States, Canada and Mexico — have secured their places in the expanded 48-team competition. Seventy-five per cent of matches will be played in the U.S. across 11 cities. Mexico will host the opening matchday in Mexico City and Guadalajara, but the involvement of both it and Canada, in terms of venues anyway, will cease after the round of 16, with all games from the quarter-finals onwards to be played in the States, including the final at MetLife Stadium in the state of New Jersey, a few miles west of New York City. …”
“Liverpool’s season goes from bad to worse. A wretched 3-0 home defeat to Nottingham Forest, who were entrenched in the relegation zone ahead of kick-off, dealt a further blow to 
“Manchester City missed an opportunity to put pressure on Arsenal in the title race, falling to a 2-1 defeat to Newcastle United at St James’ Park. The result leaves Pep Guardiola’s team in third, a point behind Chelsea, and potentially seven points behind Arsenal, should Mikel Arteta’s side beat Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday. The game was decided in a dramatic seven second-half minutes. Both sides had missed an abundance of chances before Newcastle opened the scoring in the 64th minute. A smart interchange in midfield between Bruno Guimaraes and Harvey Barnes ended with the latter shooting low and hard past goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma. The lead only lasted five minutes, however, as Newcastle struggled to clear from a corner and Ruben Dias equalised, his shot squirming between the legs of Fabian Schar. …”
“The scene was a school in west London, the weather was overcast and, for what felt like the first day of a new term, the mood was horribly tense. It was the Premier League’s official launch event for the 2015-16 Premier League season. Eddie Howe led a contingent from Bournemouth, all of them wide-eyed with excitement on the eve of their first top-flight campaign. The Swansea City lot were happy to be there, too. The delegation from reigning champions Chelsea? Not so much. …”
“The excitement of Jamaica potentially qualifying for just their second World Cup was palpable on the gridlocked streets of Kingston three hours before kick-off. Fans in a variety of yellow shirts, with flicks of green, creating a joyous kaleidoscope of expectation. Wafting through the air was the smell of the jerk chicken and curry goat being cooked outside the city’s National Stadium, while inside dancehall blasted over the speakers. …”
“You might walk past the International Dispute Resolution Centre (IDRC) in central London a hundred times without noticing it. Dwarfed by nearby St Paul’s Cathedral, the smart office building where arbitration rooms can be hired by the day for up to £5,000 ($6,580) seems unassuming. But the IDRC has emerged as a key battleground for some of English football’s most compelling contests over the last 12 months. It is where 
“Arne Slot led Liverpool to a league title in his first season in charge with a defined plan and a team that had a clear identity. After a summer of change involving significant turnover of the squad, the current version of Liverpool, who have lost seven of their last 10 games, could not look and feel more different. Following the 2-2 draw against Arsenal in October 2024, Slot complimented the job their coach Mikel Arteta had done during his time at the club in his post-match press conference: ‘They always play 4-3-3, but the way they position themselves, they can do — I think he said it once himself — 40 different setups.’ …”
“Turkish football was already reeling from the betting scandal that implicated hundreds of their match officials last month. Now, it is the turn of the players to be at the centre of the storm, after 
“Before getting into the meat and bones of this, it is important to recognise that while everyone has waited two years for a new Football Manager game, they will all be coming to it from a different perspective. I play on PC with a mouse and keyboard, not a laptop or Mac, and came into Football Manager 26’s advanced access beta after most people. It was released on the evening of Thursday, October 23. I was out playing seven-a-side that night, so had to wait until the Friday evening before getting stuck in. In the meantime, I had seen the overwhelming criticism of the game’s new user interface (UI) and bugs on social media. With some people going as far as refunding their purchases after playing for just a couple of hours, I wondered what I would see when I loaded up the game. I’ve since played 18 hours and, for the most part, have not been swept up by the frustration that seems to have dominated the online discourse over the past week. That is not to say this is the perfect Football Manager game, though. So let’s get into it. …”
Tottenham fans have been underwhelmed by their team’s style of play this season
“This was the weekend when 
“There are two reasons you might encounter the four letters ‘doku’ on the back page of your newspaper. The first is when preceded by the letters ‘Su’. The second is when preceded by the word ‘Jeremy’. Sudoku, for those uninitiated, is the Japanese logic game that suddenly exploded in English-language media two decades ago. Players are given a 9×9 grid, which is also divided into nine squares. Some numbers are already written in. The player must complete the grid by entering the numbers 1-9, but each individual number cannot appear twice in any row, column or square. …”
“Illegal streaming of football is on the rise in the UK and most fans want the Saturday 3pm blackout lifted, a new podcast released by The Athletic has revealed. The Underground World of Illegal Streaming — a special episode of 
“There are few neater points of the Premier League season than when the 20 clubs are all 10 games in — 100 matches, 200 results, infinite opinions. At that point in 2025-26, there have been 22 penalties, 268 goals, 801 shots on target, 86,473 passes and one 15-year-old. Far too much to explain in its entirety, but plenty of information to boil down into a statistical vignette of the campaign so far. So let’s do precisely that. …”
“Barcelona came from behind three times against Club Brugge in the Champions League on Wednesday, drawing 3-3 in Belgium in what will surely be one of the games of the season. Sometimes matches take a while to get going, but not this one. Nicolo Tresoldi put the hosts one up after six minutes, only to see Ferran Torres equalise two minutes later. But the home side quickly realised that Barcelona’s defensive line was very much there to be got at, and the excellent Carlos Forbs restored Club Brugge’s lead after 17 minutes thanks to a swift transition. …”
“If 
“Newcastle United have travelled nearly 1,300 miles for a meagre return of three points, two goals and no wins from five Premier League away trips this season. Head coach Eddie Howe was brutally honest after defeat at the London Stadium, where West Ham United recovered from a fourth-minute Jacob Murphy goal to beat Newcastle 3-1. … This week has encapsulated Newcastle of late. A dominant 2-0 victory at home to Tottenham Hotspur in the Carabao Cup was followed by a defeat against a West Ham side who had not won at home since late February. …”
“Mohamed Salah scored his 250th Liverpool goal to help Arne Slot’s side end a run of four consecutive Premier League defeats by beating Aston Villa at Anfield. Villa started strongly, with Morgan Rogers striking a post and Matty Cash crashing one against the woodwork, but it was Liverpool who took the lead. 
“In the Premier League, if you are having difficulties in a certain phase of play, the top teams will always punish you. This season, under Thomas Frank, Tottenham Hotspur have been experiencing some issues when progressing the ball up the pitch, leaving them overly dependent on 
“Amid 
“With 100 minutes on the clock, there was still one more opportunity for Liverpool to search for an equaliser in their clash with Brentford last weekend. Alexis Mac Allister received the ball on the left side before opening up his body and whipping in an excellent cross to the far post. Mohamed Salah watched it every step of the way. He even made contact with the ball — but he got his angles all wrong. Rather than attack the cross with an open body shape, Salah decided to contort his frame to make contact with his stronger left foot — sending the ball skyward and somehow keeping it in play from the most unlikely of angles. …”
“A year ago today, Manchester United announced Ruben Amorim as their new head coach on a contract running until summer 2027. Now, after the club’s bumpiest ride for half a century and a 15th-place league finish, things are finally looking like they may be turning a corner. Amorim was not a name United initially considered to replace the sacked Erik ten Hag, but the seeds of his appointment had been sown six months earlier. …”
“On Tuesday, 
“In the aftermath of losing his first Premier League match as Nottingham Forest head coach at Bournemouth at the weekend, Sean Dyche claimed his new side were not yet in the physical condition he wanted. ‘I am not knocking any other manager,’ Dyche said after the 2-0 defeat. ‘But I have been in the Premier League for 11 years and I know where I want my team to be physically. I don’t think the players are where they need to be for my way of working.’ …”
“Crystal Palace haunted Liverpool yet again but that might be the least of Arne Slot’s worries should his decision to field a weakened team in the Carabao Cup fail to pay dividends in the coming days. Aston Villa and Real Madrid are on the Anfield horizon and so is trouble should this slump deepen. The FA Cup and Community Shield winners eased into the 
“Long throws are the hot new thing. Well, sort of. They are not really that new, and whether they are hot or not is a matter for debate. They are certainly a thing, though. 
“Nuno Mendes placing 10th in this year’s Ballon d’Or vote was the award’s highest recognition for a left-back since Roberto Carlos came second in 2002. Given that Paris Saint-Germain head coach Luis Enrique said ‘it means nothing’ that their talisman Ousmane Dembele won football’s most-coveted individual honour that night, he will care even less about team-mate Mendes making the top 10. Luis Enrique, though, has said Mendes is the best left-back around — and likewise with PSG’s right-back Achraf Hakimi, in his position — and utilises the Portugal international in a very modern way: making underlapping runs. …”
“Arsenal have been undeniably superb defensively so far this season, conceding just three goals in the eight Premier League games they have played. Every single one of the 19 other clubs in the division has let in at least twice as many as this and the London side are also the only outfit yet to concede more than once in a match in the 2025-26 English top flight. Another clean sheet last weekend, 
“If Liverpool thought they had put their early-season struggles behind them, they were wrong. Arne Slot’s team may have ended their run of 
“‘I don’t read the papers,’ Igor Tudor insisted. But the Juventus coach clearly does pay attention to what is said about him and his team. An innocuous question about how he planned to approach Wednesday’s game against Real Madrid got a six-minute answer. Tudor wanted “intellectual honesty” from the press pack that followed Juventus from Turin. Analysis of a six-game winless streak had, in the papers he doesn’t read, been unfair and lacking in context. …”
“Mohamed Salah didn’t hang around. The Egyptian attacker briefly applauded Liverpool’s jubilant away end inside Deutsche Bank Park after the final whistle before turning and making a beeline for the tunnel as the celebrations continued. His body language spoke volumes. 
“After half an hour of Wednesday’s Champions League game at Eintracht Frankfurt, Liverpool were facing the prospect of losing five straight matches for the first time in 72 years. Trailing to a crisp strike from former Leeds United defender Rasmus Kristensen, Arne Slot’s decision to make five changes and leave Mohamed Salah on the bench looked questionable. But three goals in nine first-half minutes transformed this match, which Liverpool’s head coach will hope can be a defining moment for a team that has been struggling to find its identity after a summer of change. One of the new arrivals, Hugo Ekitike, drew Liverpool level, scoring on the counter-attack after a piercing through ball from Andrew Robertson. …”
“This season, Arsenal’s in-possession shape has mainly featured a 
“The advanced plans to stage a La Liga match between Villarreal and Barcelona in Miami in December spectacularly and suddenly crumbled on Tuesday. Villarreal executives learned the game would no longer take place in the middle of their 2-0 home Champions League defeat by Manchester City, while Barcelona were shocked out of their celebrations having just beaten Olympiacos 6-1. …”
“Chelsea thrashed Ajax in the pouring rain in London on Wednesday night to record back-to-back wins in the Champions League. Manager Enzo Maresca rang the changes and he was rewarded with a superb attacking display, though the visitors were reduced to 10 men early in the first half after a wild challenge from Kenneth Taylor on Facundo Buonanotte. Goals from Marc Guiu, Moises Caicedo and a penalty apiece from Enzo Fernandez and Estevao had Chelsea 4-1 up at half-time before Tyrique George added a fifth after 48 minutes. In what was Chelsea’s 200th Champions League match, it was as comfortable an evening as they could have imagined — though still one packed with incident. Here, Mark Carey and Simon Johnson analyse the action. …”
Arne Slot has staggered Isak’s introduction at Liverpool
“Villarreal and Barcelona’s La Liga match in Miami has been postponed, with promoters Relevent saying there is ‘insufficient time’ to organise the event. A Relevent statement, first published by The Athletic on Tuesday evening, read: ‘Relevent has informed La Liga of the need to postpone the planned match between Villarreal CF and FC Barcelona in Miami on December 20. Given the current uncertainty in Spain, there is insufficient time to properly execute an event of this scale. It would also be irresponsible to begin selling tickets without a confirmed match in place.’ …”
“The weirdest aspect of Ange Postecoglou’s 40-day reign at Nottingham Forest was how inevitable it all felt. The only shock was that he was sacked on Saturday, within minutes of a 
“When you have spent 17 years stuck behind the Electrical Contractors’ Association, the Edinburgh College of Art, and the European Cockpit Association in Google’s search results for the acronym ‘ECA’, it probably is time for a makeover. So, when the hundreds of delegates arrived at the European Club Association’s 32nd general assembly in Rome this month, they actually found themselves at the first general assembly of European Football Clubs, which is a good name for a lobby group that represents European football clubs. …”
“Looking tanned and refreshed after a family holiday in Dubai, Arne Slot cut a relaxed figure at Liverpool’s Kirkby training base on Friday. Three straight defeats, the worst run of the Dutchman’s managerial career, may have cranked up the pressure externally, with the inquest into the Premier League champions’ shortcomings continuing throughout the international break, but Slot remains unshaken. …”
“It is lunchtime, Newcastle United’s academy is a hubbub of people and Steve Harper is conducting an impromptu tour, slap-bang in his element. The club’s former goalkeeper, its longest-serving player and now the academy manager knows everybody and their backstories. There is encouragement, feedback, a steady stream of dad jokes. … What they do is produce footballers for Newcastle — the primary objective — and along one internal wall there is a mural of academy graduates who made their way into the first team. Sean Longstaff is open-jawed after scoring, Andy Carroll is in an England shirt, arms outstretched, Elliot Anderson is there. But what they do is way more than football. But what they do is way more than football. …”
Scissors Kick 