Lionesses continue their 23 game unbeaten run... 🦁

Good afternoon football fans,

No early kick-offs today so no early WU.

Today's newsletter bring you:

• Lionesses 2-1 US Women's Team 🦁

• Jack Leslie given posthumous cap for England 🧢

• We preview this weekend's actions ⚽

Headlines ⚽

Lionesses 2-1 US Women's Team: The European champions continued their 23 game unbeaten run by beating the US team (ranked number one in the world) last night. The game was the fastest selling England game at Wembley, selling out in less than 24 hours. Sold out show.

Highlights of the game cane be seen here.

Whilst the game itself was a great spectacle for the women’s game, this week has seen a report describe sexual misconduct and emotional abuse as ‘systemic’ in US women’s soccer.

Nottingham Forest, on the back of a humiliating 4-0 defeat to fellow Premier League strugglers Leicester are trying a novel approach to improving performances by renewing Steve Cooper’s contract.

The Football Association is awarding Jack Leslie, the first black player to receive an England call-up, a posthumous honorary cap. The inside left, who scored 137 goals in 400 appearances for Plymouth between 1921 and 1934, was called-up to the national team in 1925. A statue of Jack was also unveiled yesterday at Home Park (Plymouth Argyle's stadium).

Manchester City have been fined £260,000 or less than a third of Haaland’s reported weekly wages for the pitch invasion at the end of last season following confirming the PL title.

Spurs' fitness coach Gian Piero Ventrone sadly passed away this week.

The Papers 🗞️

The Guardian headlines focus on the the corruption around the Qatar World Cup, with the most significant piece by Barnay Ronay looking at how the tournament was awarded to Qatar in the first place.

On the back of last week’s newsletter where we looked at Hummel and Denmark’s shirty protest, the Guardian says that these World Cup gestures are not enough and provides us a full list of those who voted for both the Qatar and Russia World Cup (spoiler: they are banned from football for life or dead).

On a lighter note, Jonathan Liew talks about Xhaka being a living symbol of Arsenal’s journey - “one of the last remaining links between Arsenal’s banter era and its baller era”.

The Times talk about Emirates finding its voice after 16 years (£) and the Financial Times look at the potential of a European Super League reboot (£) as Fiorentino Perez continues his attack on UEFA, with the European Court of Justice deciding whether UEFA operates a monopoly on pan-European football competitions sometime early next year.

Premier League 🏆

Bournemouth - Leicester: After their first win on Monday over Forest, Leicester will hope to have kick started their season ahead of their game with Bournemouth. Maddison has been taking the headlines with his performances and talk of him being sold to Newcastle, Liverpool or Madrid and making the England team have protected the team from long reads about their demise. For a newly promoted club that sacked their manager early, you’d be surprised to see Bournemouth in 13th place with as many wins (2) as Liverpool. A win against Leicester could have them in 7th.

Chelsea - Wolves: Todd Boehly continues restructuring the foundations at Chelsea with plans to hire Christopher Vivell as their new technical director. The ex-RB Leipzig director, sacked by them last Friday has had a meteoric rise at Redbull (previously he held several roles at RB Salzburg). Wolves will be without Neto for the foreseeable future as he needs ankle surgery and is likely to be out until the new year. Steve Davis and James Collins (Under-18 and Under 21 coaches, respectively) will be the men in the dugout for Wolves following the sacking of Bruno Lage.

Man City - Southampton: Man City will look to temporarily be top of the table as they take on Southampton at 3pm today. Southampton will be too busy thinking about getting a point from the game to worry about Haaland. Bournemouth are still the only team to stop him from scoring this season. They lost that game 4-0. Haaland has now scored over 1.0% of all Man City goals in PL & CL history.

Newcastle - Brentford: It's one-year since the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United. It’s fair to say, in footballing terms, the year would be considered a success. The hiring of the much-sought Eddie Howe and successful purchase of players that 13 months ago would not have been realistic (see: Guimarães).

Off the pitch, the story is slightly different (see: human rights record of Saudi Arabia and what they think of journalists). This has meant that the suits and Eddie Howe have had to deal with a lot of awkward questions. Yesterday, Eddie Howe relinquished moral judgment to the Premier League by defending the ‘directors’ and owners’ test, ratified by the Premier League - “I have to have faith in that process”.

The biggest news coming out of Brentford this weekend is that Romeo Beckham is training with their B Team.

• Newcastle United, FFP and the next 'target' for Saudi owners facing 'ludicrous' £250m problem

Brighton - Spurs: De Zerbi praised Conte’s Spurs like Pep does after battering a team by 6 -

“I think Tottenham are in the right condition to win the Premier League.”

On the back of a great debut for the Italian manager, he’s not been given an easy intro to the Premier League as he faces his compatriot and a side 3rd in the Premier League. You’d think Spurs were in crisis after the NLD with lots of criticism of Conte and his team’s style of play, but even a loss to Brighton (4th) today could still see them maintain 3rd place.

Palace - Leeds: Bamford is likely to return for Leeds this afternoon. Leeds co-owner Paraag Marathe hit back at Gary Neville calling the US investment in English football "a clear and present danger" to the game. Marathe said English football is so "special, unique and rare", and so it’s the responsibility of the club to be respectful of that and "protect it”. Joachim Andersen has resumed training once more ahead of Sunday’s game.

West Ham - Fulham: Mitrovic is a doubt for the London derby. 6 goals for the season and well on his way to beating his record of 11 in the Prem for one season, he would have found himself competing with Harry Kane for the Golden Boot most seasons. Instead, he's currently eight goals behind Haaland. After a slow start, Scamacca has made it two in his last two with West Ham starting to look like a competitive side once more.

Arsenal - Liverpool: The stats in this fixture do not flatter top of the table Arsenal, having won only one of their last 14 Premier League matches against Liverpool (D4 L9). Liverpool have scored 29 goals to Arsenal’s 9 in the last 10 Premier League games alone. Arsenal can go 14 points above Liverpool with victory at the Emirates on Sunday.

• ‘The whole system has failed’: five Liverpool fans on the Reds’ rocky start

Everton - Man Utd: Only 4 teams conceded more than Everton last season. Currently Everton have the best defensive record in the Premier League. With some positive form, no losses in their last 6 games (W2, D4), and with both wins coming in their last two games, Lampard is seeing some tangible progress in his team.

• Premier League team news: predicted lineups for the weekend action

Der Klassiker 🇩🇪

Der Klassiker Day in Dortmund today as Dortmund take on Bayern this afternoon in the weekend’s biggest clash.

Dortmund (5th) and Bayern (3rd) both with 15 will look to put pressure on the leaders (Union Berlin) in one of the biggest games of the calendar. Today's game will be the first for 13 years in which neither Bayern nor Dortmund have been top of the league. 

Team news and preview podcast from the Bavarian Podcast Works here.

The Highest Paid Footballers 🤑

The Forbes list of highest-paid football players is this:

• Mbappé, 23, is estimated to earn $128m (£115m) for the 2022-23 season before agents’ fees. This is the first time someone not called Ronaldo or Messi has been in first place since 2014.

• PSG teammate Messi second at $120m (£115m) and;

• Manchester United’s Ronaldo ($100 / £90m) occupying third spot.

• PSG’s Neymar ($87 / £78m) and

• Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah ($53m / £47m) rounded off the top five.

• Erling Haaland, makes his debut in the top 10 with earnings of $39m (£35m) with reported earnings of £900k per week (with bonus’).

The full list above does not include bonuses (apart from Haaland’s) and it’s also kinda made up as no one really knows what these extremely private contracts really hold.

Competition Time 🎁

We've had a slight delay but the competition winner for September will be emailed this evening. Don't forget to subscribe and then share (below) the WU with friends to increase your chances for October's competition:

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