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Ed Aarons was at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this afternoon:

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Click here for John Brewin’s match report from Molineux:

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Premier League results

Chelsea 2-0 Fulham

Wolves 2-3 Everton

Tottenham 0-1 Bournemouth

Manchester United 3-2 Burnley

Sunderland 2-1 Brentford

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Championship results

Stoke City 0-1 West Brom FT

QPR 3-1 Charlton Athletic FT

Middlesbrough 1-0 Sheffield United FT

Oxford United 2-2 Coventry City

Bristol City 4-2 Hull City

Ipswich Town 2-2 Derby County

Sheffield Wednesday 0-2 Swansea City

Millwall 0-2 Wrexham

Blackburn Rovers 0-2 Norwich City

Portsmouth 1-0 Preston North End

Watford 2-2 Southampton

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League One results

Doncaster Rovers 1-0 Rotherham United

Cardiff City 4-0 Plymouth Argyle

Burton Albion 0-3 Luton Town

Wigan Athletic 1-1 Stockport County

Stevenage 1-0 Wycombe Wanderers

Exeter City 3-0 Peterborough United

Reading 1-0 Port Vale

Bradford City 3-2 AFC Wimbledon

Barnsley 3-1 Huddersfield Town

Blackpool 1-1 Bolton Wanderers

Lincoln City 1-1 Mansfield Town

Leyton Orient 0-1 Northampton Town

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League Two results

Barrow 0-1 Fleetwood Town

Crewe Alexandra 0-3 Swindon Town

Oldham Athletic 0-1 Gillingham

Tranmere Rovers 1-2 Notts County

Bromley 2-0 Harrogate Town

MK Dons 0-1 Walsall

Shrewsbury Town 0-0 Accrington Stanley

Grimsby Town 0-1 Bristol Rovers

Barnet 1-1 Colchester United

Cambridge United 2-0 Newport County

Chesterfield 2-2 Crawley Town

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Updated at 18.14 CEST

Full-time

It’s full-time in the Premier League. Here are the results:

Chelsea 2-0 Fulham

Wolves 2-3 Everton

Tottenham 0-1 Bournemouth

Manchester United 3-2 Burnley

Sunderland 2-1 Brentford

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Championship: Ipswich have just scored an equaliser in the 16th (yes, sixteenth) minute of added time against Derby through Jack Clarke!

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GOAL! Manchester United 3-2 Burnley (Bruno Fernandes, 90+7)

Fernandes converts the penalty to all-but win it for United!

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Updated at 18.06 CEST

Premier League: Penalty to Manchester United following a shirt pull on Amad Diallo from Jaidon Anthony!

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Premier League: A VAR review is currently ongoing for a potential Manchester United penalty…

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GOAL! Sunderland 2-1 Brentford (Wilson Isidor, 90+6)

Late drama alert! From 1-0 down, Sunderland come back and are now on the verge of winning it thanks to Wilson Isidor!

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Updated at 18.04 CEST

All four Premier League games are still live. We’ve reached full-time in some fixtures across the country, but there could still be some late drama…

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Premier League: It’s been pretty quiet at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this afternoon. Bournemouth still lead 1-0 with just under five minutes left to play.

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GOAL! Sunderland 1-1 Brentford (Enzo Le Fee, 81)

Le Fee equalises from the penalty spot, sending Caoimhin Kelleher the wrong way and slotting his shot into the bottom-right corner!

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Updated at 17.50 CEST

GOAL! Wolves 2-3 Everton (Rodrigo Gomes, 79)

Wolves are back in it thanks to Rodrigo Gomes! Can they find an equaliser now with just over 10 minutes left to play?

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Updated at 17.49 CEST

Championship: And just like that, Watford are level again! Nestory Irankunda with the goal against Southampton!

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Championship: Southampton lead Watford once again thanks to Ryan Manning. Elsewhere, Bristol City have increased their advantage against Hull.

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GOAL! Sunderland 0-1 Brentford (Igor Thiago, 77)

Thiago breaks the deadlock at the Stadium of Light! The forward heads past Robin Roefs following a cross in from the right.

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Updated at 17.45 CEST

GOAL! Manchester United 2-2 Burnley (Jaidon Anthony, 66)

Burnley are level once again! Jaidon Anthony with the strike from close range following a long throw from Kyle Walker.

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Updated at 17.40 CEST

Championship: Watford are now level with Southampton thanks to Kwadwo Baah. Meanwhile, Rhian Brewster has fired Derby ahead against Ipswich in the 70th minute.

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GOAL! Manchester United 2-1 Burnley (Bryan Mbeumo, 57)

Well, that didn’t take long. Just one minute and 33 seconds after Foster’s equaliser, Bryan Mbeuno restores United’s lead!

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Updated at 17.29 CEST

GOAL! Manchester United 1-1 Burnley (Lyle Foster, 55)

Foster gets the equaliser for Burnley at Old Trafford! The forward breaks free in the box to flick in a cross from Jacob Bruun Larsen.

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Updated at 17.24 CEST

Premier League: Brentford have a penalty and Kevin Schade steps up to take it, but his attempt is saved by Robin Roefs!

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Championship: The deadlock has finally been broken at the Den. Kieffer Moore fires Wrexham into the lead against Millwall.

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GOAL! Wolves 1-3 Everton (Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, 55)

Dewsbury-Hall makes it three for Everton with a powerful strike into the top-left corner! Another assist for Grealish.

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Updated at 17.24 CEST

Championship: Carlton Morris has fired Derby level against Ipswich from the penalty spot. Meanwhile, Swansea have taken a 1-0 lead against Sheffield Wednesday thanks to Zan Vipotnik.

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We’re back under way in the 3pm games.

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Scottish Premiership

Motherwell 1-1 Kilmarnock

Livingston 1-0 Hearts

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Premier League

Chelsea 2-0 Fulham FT

Wolves 1-2 Everton

Tottenham 0-1 Bournemouth

Manchester United 1-0 Burnley

Sunderland 0-0 Brentford

Leeds United v Newcastle (5:30pm)

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Championship

Stoke City 0-1 West Brom FT

QPR 3-1 Charlton Athletic FT

Middlesbrough 1-0 Sheffield United FT

Oxford United 1-2 Coventry City

Bristol City 3-1 Hull City

Ipswich Town 1-0 Derby County

Sheffield Wednesday 0-0 Swansea City

Millwall 0-0 Wrexham

Blackburn Rovers 0-1 Norwich City

Portsmouth 1-0 Preston North End

Watford 0-1 Southampton

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League One

Doncaster Rovers 1-0 Rotherham United FT

Cardiff City 4-0 Plymouth Argyle FT

Burton Albion 0-2 Luton Town

Wigan Athletic 0-1 Stockport County

Stevenage 1-0 Wycombe Wanderers

Exeter City 1-0 Peterborough United

Reading 0-0 Port Vale

Bradford City 1-1 AFC Wimbledon

Barnsley 2-0 Huddersfield Town

Blackpool 1-0 Bolton Wanderers

Lincoln City 1-0 Mansfield Town

Leyton Orient 0-0 Northampton Town

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League Two

Barrow 0-1 Fleetwood Town FT

Crewe Alexandra 0-3 Swindon Town FT

Oldham Athletic 0-0 Gillingham

Tranmere Rovers 1-0 Notts County

Bromley 0-0 Harrogate Town

MK Dons 0-0 Walsall

Shrewsbury Town 0-0 Accrington Stanley

Grimsby Town 0-1 Bristol Rovers

Barnet 0-1 Colchester United

Cambridge United 1-0 Newport County

Chesterfield 0-2 Crawley Town

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Half-time

And that’s the half-time whistle around the grounds. Let me bring you some scores…

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Championship: Sean McLoughlin has been shown a red card and Blackburn are down to 10 men against Norwich. The Canaries are also awarded a penalty and Josh Sargent converts to give them a 1-0 lead.

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Championship: Portsmouth lead Preston thanks to a goal from Andre Dozzell. Meanwhile, Bristol have extended their advantage against Hull through Emil Riis.

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Championship: Ipswich have taken the lead against Derby at Portman Road. Oxford have drawn level against Coventry and Bristol lead Hull 2-1 at Ashton Gate.

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Premier League: Nightmare for Manchester United. Matheus Cunha goes to ground holding his hamstring and will not be able to continue. He is forced off. Will Benjamin Sesko replace him? No. It’s Joshua Zirkzee.

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Updated at 17.14 CEST

Key events

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Kick-off

Sarr gets us under way as Spurs kick for the corner. Nick the optimistic Spurs fan says: “I don’t dare switch the notifications on.”

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I wonder if Kevin De Bruyne is watching today, perhaps from a hotel room in Emilia-Romagna as his Napoli team prepare to kick off their Serie A season at Sassuolo later on. The Belgian scored three and assisted three in his 14 league games against Spurs while at City.

Kick-off is five minutes away at the Etihad!

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The managers have been speaking to the TV mics:

Frank says he has “laser focus” on picking his Spurs team today amid the transfer noise surrounding Eze’s move to Arsenal. He is asked about Palhinha, who he says is a “top player” and Richarlison, who he says is a “top striker” – consistent, at least.

Guardiola says it was a “difficult selection” to pick Trafford over Ederson today given that Ederson has given City “massive things” in the last decade. As for Rodri, it will be “step by step” in terms of his re-introduction into the team.

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Rúben Dias starts for Manchester City today. He signed a two-year contract extension with the club this week to take his stay through to 2029:

I love Manchester – it is my home now – and I love the Manchester City fans. Their support from day one has been absolutely unbelievable, and I appreciate them a lot. When I think about the trophies we have won and the way we have played our football during my time, I couldn’t imagine playing anywhere else.

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This fixture was a sort of nadir (as nadirs go) for Manchester City last season, thumped 4-0 by Ange Postecoglou’s Spurs – it was their fifth defeat in a row and knocked their already faltering title defence even further sideways.

Maddison scored twice for Spurs that afternoon, with further goals for Pedro Porro and Brennan Johnson. Even Timo Werner was enjoying himself. Spurs will have to do without their No 10 today and for the foreseeable future after his anterior cruciate ligament injury over the summer. The same goes for Dejan Kulusevski, who has been ruled out until the new year with a knee injury of his own.

Now, though, City appear to have recovered some of the swagger that has defined them under Guardiola. Their ruthless display against Wolves last weekend, when new signings Cherki and Reijnders opened their accounts for the club, was ominous for their rivals for the Premier League title.

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Eze is the elephant in the room as far as Spurs are concerned today. Without the injured James Maddison, their squad is lacking in creativity and you’d imagine they’ll try their luck in the transfer market again before the window shuts.

With Eze on his way to the other side of north London, Frank is keen to recruit players who actually want to play for Spurs:

That’s very clear and I’m also pretty sure that the fans will feel the same. If they [the signings] don’t want to put the fantastic shirt over their head, play for the badge, play for the club, really enjoy it, no problem. We don’t want them. I think that’s a key message.

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James Trafford keeps his place for City, then, despite the return of Ederson from injury. Rodri and Phil Foden are only fit enough for a place on the bench after missing the opening win at Wolves. Omar Marmoush and Rayan Cherki replace Bernardo Silva and Jérémy Doku in the lineup.

Thomas Frank sticks to the four-man defence that played against Burnley having deployed three centre-backs in the Super Cup against PSG. Rodrigo Bentancur and João Palhinha come into the midfield for Lucas Bergvall and Archie Gray.

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Team news

Guardiola and Frank have played their first cards:

Man City (4-2-3-1): Trafford; Lewis, Stones, Dias, Aït-Nouri; Reijnders, González; Bobb, Cherki, Marmoush; Haaland

Subs: Ederson, Aké, Doku, Rodri, Silva, Nunes, O’Reilly, Khusanov, Foden

Tottenham (4-3-3): Vicario; Porro, Romero, Van de Ven, Spence; Sarr, Palhinha, Bentancur; Kudus, Richarlison, Johnson

Subs: Kinsky, Danso, Tel, Gray, Bergvall, Vuskovic, Solanke, Odobert, Davies

Referee: Peter Bankes

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Updated at 12.40 CEST

Preamble

Hello and welcome to minute-by-minute coverage of Manchester City v Tottenham in the Premier League. Both teams come into this one off the back of impressive wins in their opening fixtures last weekend – Spurs against Burnley and City at Wolves.

Spurs, though, are somewhat licking their wounds after their move for Crystal Palace’s Eberechi Eze was hijacked by Arsenal, trumping the embarrassment they suffered in their failed pursuit of Morgan Gibbs-White of Nottingham Forest.

Pep Guardiola, meanwhile, is avoiding talk of “revenge” in the buildup to this one. He’ll surely have been studying the tapes of last season’s 4-0 reverse at the hands of today’s opponents. But Spurs, of course, are a very different proposition to last November. Thomas Frank is not Ange Postecoglou, etc.

Feel free to get in touch with your predictions, thoughts and opinions on today’s game – you can do so via this email.

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There were no banners, no chants, no renewed social media campaign and neither manager was asked to comment on Partey after the game. The whistles were not sufficient to be registered by everyone. Cadena Ser radio’s local correspondent, who sat high in the main stand, reported that he had not heard any.

When I was 27 of course I thought I could do everything but I also found out that as a leader I am 1,000% better now, so he also needs to learn and become better and better, so I will do my best to guide him. His aggression is phenomenal. He is fantastic in the duels. When he gives that to the team, he can transform the team and give energy to the team so I think that’s extremely important.

Thomas Frank talks to TNT Sports, and is first asked to wax lyrical over the new Tottenham captain Cristian Romero. “He is a leader … a very experienced player … we are going into a final, and he has been in a few finals, and been very successful … he knows what it is about … on and off the pitch he will lead the team … we are facing a very good team but we are confident in ourselves … it is one game and we see an opportunity … we want to be brave, aggressive and go forward … there needs to be a foundation … solidness … togetherness … very difficult to beat … that’s the minimum criteria and then we go from that … I just showed a picture to the players, that they are winners … they proved it three months ago … they won a very important trophy … of course they can do it today … go out and enjoy it.”

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Preamble

The sashaying, swaggering, record-breaking champions of Europe take on the winners of last year’s distinctly underwhelming Europa League final. That being the case, Paris-Saint Germain, the first side to win a European Cup / Champions League final by five clear goals, are hot favourites in Udine tonight to swat aside a seriously-below-par Tottenham Hotspur who just about got the better of a Manchester United selection plumbing depths adjacent to rock-bottom.

But! However! And yet! PSG might have seen off Manchester City, Liverpool, Aston Villa and Arsenal en route to Champions League glory last season, but they didn’t have it all their own way against the English, and had their shorts freshly laundered, neatly pressed and handed back to them in the Club World Cup final by Chelsea. That will give them pause. Meanwhile nobody ever made good money predicting which Spurs would turn up on any given day, and while they’re coming off the back of a 4-0 humbling by Bayern Munich, they’ve also recently beaten their arch-rivals Arsenal. So pooh-pooh the scattergun irrelevance of pre-season if you must, but this is technically pre-season too, so good luck calling it.

PSG are looking to add a first Super Cup to their fast-expanding resumé. They’ve only contested it once before, in 1996, and will hope to do significantly better this time round, having lost that two-legged tie 9-2 on aggregate to Juventus. Spurs meanwhile are in their very first Super Cup; their previous European wins during the competition’s existence, the Uefa Cups of 1972 and 1984, came during a period where the holders of the Cup Winners’ Cup got to play instead. So we’re breaking new ground tonight one way or the other.

Crystal Palace have just proved that trophies are like proverbial London buses: you wait long enough for one, then another arrives swiftly after. Can Spurs, who slaked their 41-year European thirst just three months ago, do the same? Kick-off at the home of Udinese Calcio is at 8pm UK time, 9pm in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. It’s on!

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Morgan Gibbs-White’s anticipated £60m move to Tottenham is on hold because Nottingham Forest are considering legal action over an alleged illegal approach for the player.

Forest are also preparing a complaint to the Premier League, arguing that Spurs’s conduct surrounding the proposed transfer has been inappropriate. It had been expected that Gibbs-White would undergo a medical on Friday before completing the move.

Forest are consulting lawyers about possible legal action because they believe they have not granted Spurs permission to speak with Gibbs-White and also feel there has been a breach in confidentiality regarding the release clause in the England midfielder’s contract.

Spurs, who signed Mohammed Kudus from West Ham on Thursday, still plan to proceed with the deal as they look to boost Thomas Frank’s squad. This summer they have also tracked the Crystal Palace and England midfielder Eberechi Eze, who is wanted by their rivals Arsenal, Brentford’s Bryan Mbeumo and Southampton’s Tyler Dibling.

Forest and Tottenham declined to comment when contacted. Forest consider the deal to be off but their anger may delay and not veto the move.

Tottenham are poised to sign Morgan Gibbs-White from Nottingham Forest after triggering a £60m release clause. The England midfielder is expected to have a medical on Friday and could complete the move in the next 24 hours.

Gibbs-White has also attracted interest from Manchester City since excelling at Forest, whom he joined from boyhood club Wolves in 2022 for an initial £25m in a deal that was worth up to £42.5m.

Spurs have also signed Mohammed Kudus from West Ham for £54.5m as well as the 20-year-old Japanese defender Kota Takai from J League side Kawasaki Frontale.

The France forward Mathys Tel, who spent the second half of last season on loan at Spurs, was Thomas Frank’s first permanent signing after arriving from Bayern Munich.

Tottenham have tracked the Crystal Palace forward Eberechi Eze, the Brentford pair of Bryan Mbeumo and Yoane Wissa and Southampton’s Tyler Dibling. Spurs are thought to be at the front of the queue to sign Saints teenager Dibling,who enjoyed a breakthrough campaign despite relegation.

Tottenham have reached an agreement to sign Mohammed Kudus from West Ham for £54.5m.

Kudus is due to undergo a medical on Thursday and will sign a six-year deal. The Ghana attacker will become the first player to leave West Ham for Spurs since Scott Parker in 2011.

West Ham’s decision to sell Kudus to their London rivals is down to their needing to revamp their squad without inviting a potential breach of the Premier League’s profitability and sustainability regulations. Sources at the London Stadium are adamant that West Ham must sell to buy. They want a goalkeeper, a left centre-back, a left wing-back, at least two midfielders and a striker.

Kudus had an £85m release clause valid for Premier League sides for the first 10 days of July but West Ham were always likely to accept a lower fee. He was deemed the club’s most sellable asset and has attracted plenty of interest. Spurs have made the strongest push for the 24-year-old and had a £50m bid rejected last week. The payment is to be spread over three years.

West Ham are comfortable with allowing Kudus to leave, reasoning that he is best playing on the right – the same position as the captain, Jarrod Bowen. Graham Potter does not feel that Kudus is capable of playing in a central role in the Premier League. It is understood Kudus was twice late for training this week and had requested a transfer.

Kudus impressed after joining West Ham from Ajax for £37m two years ago but struggled last season. He clashed with Potter’s predecessor, Julen Lopetegui, and managed four goals in all competitions. He served a lengthy ban after a red card during a 4-1 defeat by Spurs last October.

That dismissal has not stopped Tottenham from going for him. Kudus will boost Thomas Frank’s options in the final third and his arrival represents a show of intent as Spurs look to rebuild after replacing Ange Postecoglou with the Dane.

Leeds are inching closer to signing the midfielder Sean Longstaff from Newcastle for an initial £10m, potentially rising to £12m. The 27-year-old, who joined Newcastle’s academy almost 20 years ago, lost his first-team place to Sandro Tonali last season. With one year on his contract, the clubs have spent recent weeks discussing a long-mooted move.

A transfer that will be registered as pure profit for Newcastle under the Premier League’s spending rules, given Longstaff’s homegrown status, appears imminent. With Longstaff keen on relocating to Leeds, personal terms will not represent a problem for a player whose experience should help Leeds adapt to the top tier after promotion.

While Newcastle’s pursuit of the Burnley goalkeeper James Trafford continues – the fee remains a sticking point – Eddie Howe is close to welcoming one of his top summer targets, the Nottingham Forest right-winger Anthony Elanga.

With the final touches being applied to Elanga’s £55m move, the Swede is expected to undergo a medical in the next 48 hours and be reunited with his international teammate Alexander Isak.

Newcastle remain in the market for a right-sided central defender and retain an interest in the Atalanta 21-year-old Giorgio Scalvini, who impressed in Serie A last season.

With Callum Wilson having departed, a striker to understudy Isak is required and Newcastle have been offered Dominic Calvert-Lewin, who has left Everton. Although Howe has previously expressed interest in signing Calvert-Lewin, a move is unlikely until later in the transfer window.

Kota Takai has completed a £5m move to Tottenham from Kawasaki Frontale in Japan to become the first signing of the Thomas Frank era. The 20-year-old centre-half, who is 6ft 3in and known for his strength, speed and comfort on the ball, has signed a five-year contract.

Takai swells the club’s extensive options in the middle of the backline, which start with the first-choice partnership from last season – Cristian Romero and Micky Van de Ven. Frank will also be able to call upon Kevin Danso, Radu Dragusin and Luka Vuskovic, the 18-year-old who has joined for £12m from Hajduk Split.

Romero’s future at Spurs is unclear. The Argentina international, one of the vice-captains under Frank’s predecessor, Ange Postecoglou, has made no secret of his desire to play in Spain and he has been openly courted by Atlético Madrid. Spurs, though, would not sell for less than £60m, a figure that may prove beyond Atlético. Romero is under contract to 2027.

Takai came through the youth ranks at Kawasaki Frontale, the club that produced the Brighton winger Kaoru Mitoma, making his debut for them as a 17-year-old. He won the Japanese Cup in 2023, was named as the J-League’s best young player in 2024 and this year helped his club to reach the AFC Champions League final – which they lost to Ivan Toney’s Al-Ahli.

Takai played in every minute of the knockout rounds and won plaudits in the semi-final victory over Al-Nassr when he kept Cristiano Ronaldo and Jhon Durán quiet. Takai made his Japan debut last September and has four caps.

Which transfer fee blew your mind? It was probably Spurs signing Gazza for £2m in the summer of 1988. TWO MILLION. No one is worth that kind of money. The following year, I distinctly remember running into the living room – Spurs had just signed Gary Lineker. I was preparing for the season ahead, invisible football at my feet, commentating to myself: “Gascoigne, to Waddle, in for LINEKERRRR.” The next moment I switched on the TV and someone (let’s say Ray Stubbs) was telling me that Spurs had sold Waddle to Marseille. I was bereft. There was no warning. For me, or for Lineker it turns out.

I heard the striker talking about the transfer recently on the excellent What Did You Do Yesterday? podcast hosted by David O’Doherty and generic broadcaster Max Rushden (perhaps the second-best podcast he hosts).

I asked Lineker whether he was as sad as I was when Waddle left. “I imagine I was considerably sadder. I signed for Spurs and then I went on holiday and I got the news; my agent called me and said: “They’ve sold Chris Waddle to Marseille.” Honestly it was like someone stealing 15 goals from my back pocket. He was so good, so good …”

This may be the most self-indulgent way to illustrate the blind beauty of transfers back then – for fans and teammates. They just appeared out of nowhere like the Dungeon Master (press the red button for other more youth-friendly references). Patrick Bernal, Hugo Lambert and I playing Championship Manager 93 on the Amiga, flicking on the radio to hear Tottenham had signed Jürgen Klinsmann. No warning. No rumours. Just bang. Klinsmann.

For Cambridge United signings you had to wait for the Cambridge Evening News to see Steve Claridge’s beaming face holding a scarf aloft. I was not allowed, and too square, to ring ClubCall, an 0898 number, 90p a minute, to find out whether we were selling Alan Kimble to Wimbledon.

That guy recording messages from a shed on an answerphone must be sitting somewhere now thinking if only he’d been born 30 years later, he’d be earning a fortune writing “Here We Go” on X to announce Everton’s purchase of Thierno Barry.

At the lower reaches of the EFL, transfers do still pop up nostalgically from nowhere. A picture of a man’s face, straight to Wikipedia to find out who Ben Purrington is, and then finding a mate who supports Charlton to ask whether he’s any good. Elis James still hasn’t got back to me about whether the former Swansea under-21 keeper Ben Hughes can do a job between the sticks in the Vertu Trophy.

At the top of the Premier League, though, with TV and radio shows hosted by professional transfer influencers, and with flight tracking of private jets, almost nothing is unknown. Either that or you just keep linking a player with every possible destination so that eventually you say the right thing. “My understanding is …” “I’ve just exchanged a message from someone close to the club.” “All my sources tell me the player is determined to push this through.” Maybe some people with more self-control manage to ignore this stuff and watch Chris Woakes moving it perfectly off a length for hours at Edgbaston without reaching for the second screen and typing “Eze Spurs”.

New transfers are fun and exciting. But the hype machine ignores a few basic realities. There is no guarantee of it working out, even if you spend more than anyone’s spent before. In fact, a cursory look at the most expensive transfers of all time suggests they are more likely to fail.

In purely football terms – I’m not checking the shirt sales numbers – Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain for just under £200m (that’s a hundred 1988 Gazzas!) didn’t deliver the Champions League. Ditto Kylian Mbappé (for about £160m). The rest of the top 10: João Félix to Atleti, Enzo Fernández to Chelsea, Philippe Coutinho to Barça, Antoine Griezmann to Barça, Florian Wirtz to Liverpool, Moisés Caicedo to Chelsea, Declan Rice to Arsenal, Jack Grealish to Manchester City. Perhaps it’s a little early to judge Wirtz. But with all the caveats of how you define success, how many of them have been worth the money? Or even taking the money out of it, how many have delivered consistently on the pitch? Maybe Rice is the only one? OK, Mbappé’s 256 goals in 308 games seems pretty good, but … look at PSG now, look at Real Madrid now.

Taking inflation into account, of course money is sometimes well spent: £80m for Ronaldo in 2009 feels like good business for Real Madrid – a few million less than United spent on Antony 13 years later . Poor Antony, always getting mentioned in these articles; he’s taken a lot of the heat off Nicolas Pépé.

Is it just the pressure of such a high fee? Or the fact we judge someone who cost a hundred million in a different way to someone who commands half that? Fifty million pounds still seems quite a lot for, say, Richarlison. Out of the most expensive 100 transfers of all time, if generous you could make a case that about 40 have worked out.

What a terrible hit rate. Why are so many of us blind to the possibility that a new face won’t work out? You’ve seen a seven-minute heavily edited YouTube video to early 2000s Europop. There’s no way they’ve made Ricky van Wolfswinkel look like Kaká. He simply is just that good.

There is actually a chance that someone already at your club will get better at football. Most of them train every day. It remains baffling how often a manager is praised for being able to improve players. Feels like a prerequisite.

Of course relentless 24-hour coverage of existing squad players would be even less interesting than the rumour mill. “My understanding is that Joelinton was good last year and might be good again this year.” Official club accounts making big reveal videos for a centre mid you signed three years ago may not get the numbers. But there’s every chance they’ll be more important this season than the guy you just signed for £30m from Strasbourg.

Nevertheless, in a month or so someone will have won the transfer window. It would be great to have a life option to switch off rumour notifications, reject those cookies and select the 1988 discovery option.

The English coach Martin Ho has signed a three-year deal as Tottenham Hotspur’s head coach until 2028, the Guardian understands.

The 35-year-old had been in charge of the Norwegian club Brann’s women’s team for two years, since leaving his role as the assistant coach at Manchester United women in July 2023.

Ho is Spurs’s replacement for Robert Vilahamn, who was sacked in June after the club finished second from bottom in the WSL last term.

He leaves Brann second in the Norwegian top flight midway through their 2025 season, after a second-placed finish last year. He took Brann to the 2023-24 Women’s Champions League quarter-finals, where they were eliminated by the eventual champions, Barcelona, which was the furthest a Norwegian side have progressed in the competition.

Ho had spent three and a half years at United, initially working with the under-21s in the second half of the 2019-20 season alongside the now Bristol City head coach, Charlotte Healy. Ho then moved up to be Casey Stoney’s assistant with the first team in July 2020 and, after Marc Skinner replaced Stoney as head coach in 2021, he spent two years as Skinner’s No 2, including a second-placed finish in the WSL in 2023.

Born and raised in Mossley Hill in Liverpool, Ho previously had spells working at Everton – as assistant manager – and at Liverpool, where he was the under-21 women’s team’s head coach.

Spurs are understood to have been impressed by Ho’s passion and his track record of player development, as well as by his results in the Women’s Champions League with Brann. Sources have told the Guardian that the club received strong references from around the world in support of Ho.