“How do you properly assess, evaluate, and explain Manchester United’s 4-4 draw with Bournemouth without descending into well-worn football verbiage (‘Football, bloody hell!’) or frequent repetitions of the word ‘chaotic’? Ruben Amorim’s men entered Old Trafford on Monday on the precipice of change. The upcoming Africa Cup of Nations (which begins on December 21) will see him lose two of his best attackers in Bryan Mbeumo and Amad. Earlier in the day, The Athletic reported the head coach had spent a significant amount of recent training ground sessions preparing his team to play in a 4-3-3….”
NY Times/The Athletic
How do you explain the craziest game of the Premier League season?
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“Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday The Athletic discusses three of the biggest questions posed by the weekend’s 
“The cold nights are drawing in, hopes and dreams from those optimistic, innocent, bright summer days are long gone. Reality has bitten. With the Premier League table still tighter than the proverbial camel’s backside in a sandstorm, with just six points separating fifth from 15th (this time last year the gap was 12 points), it’s hard to judge which clubs and which fanbases are happy with what they’ve seen so far. A week of wins can lift you from relegation concerns to a European push, while successive defeats can take you from the Champions League places to looking downwards to the Championship. It’s temperamental. Far more reliable than the actual league table, then, is The Athletic’sHappiness Table, in which we accurately summise each club’s xH (expected happiness) level, but without the xH bit because that’s a bit silly. …”
“Welcome to The Athletic’s 2026 Transfer DealSheet — covering the January and summer windows. Our team of dedicated writers will take you inside the market to explain the deals being worked on. The transfer window will reopen on January 1, 2026 — at which point The Transfer DealSheet will return to its weekly in-window format. The information found within this article has been gathered according to The Athletic’s sourcing guidelines. Unless stated, our reporters have spoken to more than one person briefed on each deal before offering the clubs involved the opportunity to comment. Their responses, when they were given, have been included. …”
“This was the weekend when 
“The Premier League returns this week after the final international break of the calendar year. At the top, Arsenal are four points clear but have suffered further injuries, including to key defender Gabriel, before the north London derby against Tottenham on Sunday. Second-placed Manchester City visit Newcastle on Saturday evening, with Eddie Howe’s home side as close to rock-bottom Wolves in points terms as they are to Pep Guardiola’s team. …”
“This was the weekend when 
“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, 
“… Welcome to The Athletic’s 2025 agent survey, which analyses a 
“Happy birthday, Sir Bobby Charlton. Arguably Manchester United’s most important modern player and perhaps England’s greatest — the emblem of their World Cup-winning team of 1966, the year he won the Ballon d’Or — Charlton would have been 88 today. He died two years ago this month, the news breaking on a Saturday afternoon. It seemed appropriate, as does Charlton’s birth date falling on an international weekend. As does coming across a rare old book of his: Bobby Charlton’s Book of Soccer. It was published in October 1960, coinciding with Charlton’s 23rd birthday. …”
“Welcome to the seventh edition of The Alternative Premier League Table, where each Thursday, Anantaajith Raghuraman analyses the entire division through a specific lens. After looking at each club’s usage of long balls last week, this time our qualifier is expected goals and how teams have performed against the metric so far. As usual, the article that follows is long but detailed, so please settle down and enjoy it all — or search for the side you want to read about. …”
“… This was the round when 
“Excluding goalscoring, Manchester United’s open-play problems under Ruben Amorim mainly come when they don’t have the ball. What you do out of possession also affects your in-possession game, and vice versa. While it is too early to properly judge their 2025-26 efforts, it is possible to explore issues that were present last season and are creeping in again after five games of the current one. 
“This summer, the traditional ‘Big Six’ clubs signed more players from the rest of the Premier League than in any of the previous 15 seasons. 
“The transfer window is over. Over 150 senior players have been signed by Premier League clubs. Others have moved on to the continent. Much like every year, a club’s transfer window will likely be judged a success or a failure based on the season that follows — that big-money striker who fires his new side into the Champions League or the huge (and unresolved) hole in defence that means a club slips into a relegation scrap. But with the window having just closed, we asked The Athletic’s club reporters for their view on how it panned out for their side, and what grade they would give the club’s window. …”
“There was something quite poignant in Jose Mourinho and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, two of the managers who ultimately tried and failed to make sense of the post-Sir Alex Ferguson Manchester United, both being sacked by Istanbul clubs within 12 hours of each other. 
“Welcome to the 13th edition of The Athletic’s Transfer DealSheet for the summer 2025 transfer window. Our team of dedicated writers, including David Ornstein, will take you inside the market to explain the deals being worked on. The transfer window is open and will run until September 1. The information found within this article has been gathered according to The Athletic’s sourcing guidelines. Unless stated, our reporters have spoken to more than one person briefed on each deal before offering the clubs involved the opportunity to comment. Their responses, when they were given, have been included. We aim to bring you analysis you can trust about what is happening at Europe’s leading clubs and the latest information we’re hearing from across the market. This year, The Athletic’s football finance writer, Chris Weatherspoon, will be adding to our analysis of the transfer market. …”
“Football quite often shows that it isn’t aware of its own absurdity, and a prime example of that came last week when Enzo Maresca was discussing Levi Colwill’s knee injury. Colwill is likely to miss most of the season after rupturing his anterior cruciate ligament, which given he started 35 league games in the 2024-25 campaign, is enough to put a wrinkle in anyone’s plans. Maresca’s immediate solution was to suggest that Todd Boehly further loosened the already pretty loose Chelsea purse strings and furnish him with a new signing to plug the gap. …”
“Arsenal began their attempt to go one better in the Premier League title race this season with a 1-0 win over Manchester United at Old Trafford thanks to a ‘new’ set-piece routine. Avram Glazer was in attendance at Old Trafford and saw the team he co-owns line up without fit-again goalkeeper Andre Onana and striker Rasmus Hojlund, who 
“As the new season gets under way, the 20 Premier League managers will be grappling with key selection decisions that could make the difference between a good or bad start to the campaign. So to help them, The Athletic’s dedicated club correspondents and experts have picked their own strongest XI — and justified the reasoning behind it. So without further delay, here they are. …”
“Tactically, the Premier League is in a real state of flux. After four consecutive title-winning years with a distinct, possession and territory-based style, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City were reduced to a third-place finish on 71 points in 2024-25 — their worst since Guardiola’s debut campaign of 2016-17. Meanwhile Liverpool cruised to the title in their first season post-Jurgen Klopp, with Arne Slot’s side developing a reputation for their flexibility and adaptability. They had 25 wins and only lost twice across the first 34 matches, by which point the trophy was theirs. Nottingham Forest showed European football can be earned with a throwback, defend-first and counter-attack strategy, while for the second season running all three promoted teams were relegated. So what might we expect from 2025-26? …”
“Will the return of Rodri propel Manchester City back to the top of the table? Is this the year Manchester United finally regain their status as a genuine Premier League power? How will a tragic summer affect Liverpool on the pitch? Can the promoted teams break the pattern of recent seasons and stay up? The 2025-26 season kicks off on Friday and what better way to start the week than by looking ahead to what might be in store over the coming months. We asked all of our writers to submit their predicted Premier League table — you can see that a little further down this article. …”
“
“… The map shows the average attendance of the 20 clubs that comprise the 2025–26 Premier League. The main map [of England & Wales] shows the locations of 13 of the clubs; the Inset-map shows the locations of the 7 clubs that are based in Greater London. The larger the club’s average attendance from last season [2024-25], the larger their circle-and-badge are on the map(s). Each club’s home venue-name, and regional location, are also shown. Clubs are grouped by region (that is, by City or County). The location of Everton’s former home (Goodison Park) is shown, as well as the club’s new home on the docks of the River Mersey (
“There may be two months to go until the 2025-26 Premier League season gets underway, but the release of the fixture list has whetted the appetite of fans across the division. Consisting of 38 rounds of matches over nine months, with each team playing their 19 rivals once at home and once away, the opening few games are often decisive in building momentum to set the tone for the campaign, or derailing it through diminishing confidence. These early matches alone will not define a season but they play a significant role in shaping its course, and naturally attract the attention on fixture-release day. …”
“It’s that time of year again. Liverpool have finally lifted the Premier League trophy after securing the title last month, but the main prize is not the only thing being handed out. Mohamed Salah hoovered up the individual awards, with 29 goals securing the Golden Boot and 18 assists grabbing the Playmaker award for the second time in a Liverpool shirt. Golden glove? That goalkeeping accolade was shared between Nottingham Forest’s Matz Sels and David Raya of Arsenal, with 13 clean sheets apiece. …”
“Manchester City’s dominance finally came to an end, Liverpool were able to celebrate the title in front of their fans for the first time in 35 years, two of the ‘Big Six’ finished in the bottom six and the promoted clubs all went straight back down.Those might be the raw headlines from 2024-25 but this Premier League season offered so much more — this was the campaign, don’t forget, when a player got booked for imitating a seagull. Seb Stafford-Bloor, Tim Spiers, Nick Miller, Oliver Kay and Stuart James reflect on the highs and the lows as another year of English top-flight football reaches its conclusion. …”
“For a lot of this season, the Premier League has been light on compelling, competitive narrative. It was pretty clear that Liverpool would be champions from fairly early on, and it was even more obvious that Ipswich Town, Leicester City and Southampton were going to go down. Stakes seemed low, attention could easily wander, the summer loomed. But then, emerging over the hill to save us all as winter turned into spring, was the race for the Champions League places. The fact that the Premier League had five places this season rather than four gave things an added element of spice, so as Nottingham Forest faltered, Manchester City started to look more like themselves and both Newcastle United and Aston Villa found some form, it was all headed inexorably towards high drama and teeth-chattering tension on the final day. …”
“In football, we obsess over which team is going to win every competition, where every side will finish in the league and the future transfer destinations of top players. What we talk about far less is where managers will end up, other than in the unemployment queue — which, obviously, is only a metaphorical image because in reality they’re all multi-millionaires and set for life financially. Which club will Marco Silva call home after he leaves Fulham? Ever wondered where Crystal Palace’s Oliver Glasner will work next? Nope, us neither. But maybe it’s time we started. …”
“At the end of the first half of extra time against Lyon, the TV cameras caught Ruben Amorim with his tactics board out. You might not be far wrong if you believed that the board merely had one straight line on it, bottom to top, indicating for Manchester United centre-back Harry Maguire to move to centre-forward, and little else. ‘We’re probably short on attackers,’ 
“Anthony Elanga scored a thrilling solo goal to tighten Nottingham Forest’s grip on a surprise Champions League place next season and leave Ruben Amorim’s Manchester United side languishing in 13th in the Premier League. The former United forward covered 85 metres of the City Ground pitch in nine seconds, taking seven touches, the last of which was a shot past Andre Onana to give Forest the lead after five minutes. United, like many teams against Forest this season, had plenty of possession but Diogo Dalot hit the crossbar and Ryan Yates blocked well from Alejandro Garnacho and they could not find a way to level the scores, with Murillo also clearing the ball off the line from Harry Maguire at the death and celebrating in style. …”
“One-touch passes are hard. As the great Johan Cruyff once said, ‘Technique is passing the ball with one touch, with the right speed, at the right foot of your team-mate.’ The truth is first-time passes are dying out, with Premier League sides increasingly prioritising controlled possession. Manchester United playmaker Bruno Fernandes, though, has never been one to follow convention. His one-touch, no-look assist in last season’s FA Cup final win against Manchester City would surely have earned Cruyff’s seal of approval. From the edge of the box, Fernandes slid a first-time ball between John Stones and a recovering Kyle Walker, teeing up Kobbie Mainoo for the side-footed finish, as United ran out 2-1 winners, denying City a second successive league-and-cup double. …”
“Manchester United’s wait for back-to-back Premier League wins this season goes on after Declan Rice’s fine second-half strike earned Arsenal a point at a raucous Old Trafford. This game lacked the quality that was once associated with this fixture, with Bruno Fernandes’ goal shortly before half-time — a precise free kick from 25 yards — the outstanding moment in a poor first half. Arsenal improved after the break and levelled with Rice’s powerful long-range effort, their first goal in 257 minutes of Premier League action. And despite that shortage of quality, the closing stages had plenty of drama as both sides pushed for a win, Fernandes coming closest in the dying seconds. …”
“Premier League clubs will already be planning who they want to bring in this summer when the transfer market reopens, but making sure they hold on to key players is also a major part of successful squad building. As 
“Last season, the
“You could argue that Emile Smith Rowe’s goal did not stand out in last weekend’s wider collection of finishes. Fulham ran out 2-1 winners against Nottingham Forest, with their opener coming from a well-worked sequence that saw Adama Traore cut inside onto his left foot before delivering a delightful ball for the onrushing Smith Rowe to head home. …”
“Gunnar Nielsen’s 
“.Over halfway through the 2024-25 season, for fans of certain teams outside the traditional ‘Big Six’, the first item is all they need. Specifically, that is, a table of the current 
“Living on the doorstep of footballing monoliths can come in handy sometimes. With Greater Manchester in the grip of a cold snap last week, Salford City were left without anywhere to train. The pitches at their Littleton Road base were frozen solid. Salford rent the pitches from 
“The quality was not the same, but 
“When the post-match discussion focuses on the player who has been dominating headlines in the previous days, it’s fair to question if that analysis is reasonable, or whether it’s simply a convenient narrative to keep everyone talking. On this occasion, the analysis was entirely fair: 
“Welcome to The Briefing, where every Monday during this season The Athletic will discuss three of the biggest questions to arise from the weekend’s 
“English football in 2024 served up a bit of everything: stunning strikes, comical own goals, baffling errors, refereeing controversies, promotions, relegations, trophies lifted, CVs sifted and much more besides. So as 2024 draws to a close, we have decided ignore those opposed to calendar-year stats and unify all 94 teams (yes, Sutton United and Forest Green Rovers, you may no longer be in the 
“This week brings up the midway point of the 2024-25 
Scissors Kick 