Back in the summer we set every Premier League team a target for the season. Some teams have hit those targets perfectly, some have exceeded them by comically wide margins. Others have failed miserably to listen to good common sense and ignored our suggestions to their own great and terrible cost.

Here we have a quick check-in on how everyone is getting on with regard to that initial goal, offering revised and updated ones where necessary for those teams who have outperformed expectations marvellously as well as those with the most conspicuously beshatted beds.

The full pre-season targets can be reviewed here.

Arsenal
Pre-season target: Season-long title challenge, silverware
Mid-season target: Silverware

The season-long title challenge thing was really predicated on the then-obvious, now-fanciful idea that Man City would once again win it. So while Arsenal may be just about meeting the strict definition of that task, they haven’t really achieved the spirit of it.

With no City to worry about, they should be doing far more than clinging to the coat-tails of a phase-one transitional Liverpool side under Arne Slot. It’s a very good Liverpool team, but it shouldn’t really be a romping-to-the-title unopposed one.

Arsenal still have time and opportunity to change that, of course, and showed last year that they can absolutely go on a second-half-of-the-season rampage if need be. It wasn’t enough to reel in City, but might be enough to cause more stress to a Liverpool side less accustomed to winning the league year upon year upon year.

With the FA Cup out of the picture and Carabao hopes hanging by a thread, the target for Arsenal therefore crystallises between now and the summer. Win the league, or win the Champions League. Brutal – unfair even – as it may be, anything less will see awkward questions being asked about what tangible outcome there is to show for all the transformative work Arsenal have done under Mikel Arteta.

READ: Arsenal surrender inexplicable as Liverpool handed title by Arteta’s biggest liability

Aston Villa
Pre-season target: Champions League knockouts, top-six finish
Mid-season target: Deep Champions League knockout run, top-six finish

It’s not always been plain sailing for Villa this season, with Unai Emery’s side not the first and surely not the last to discover that combining Champions League and Premier League tasks is even more tricky than they’d imagined.

But thanks in large part to their own resourcefulness and toughness and in smaller but still significant part to the utter collapse of some anticipated rivals, Villa can approach the remainder of the season with at least matching that August target very much within range.

They are going to be in the Champions League knockouts and could yet dodge the play-off round by finishing in the top eight. Something like the quarter-finals would now appear to be a reasonable marker for success based on what we’ve seen in that competition so far.

Domestically, Villa sit eighth and two points off the top six. Very doable, then.

Bournemouth
Pre-season target: Top-half finish
Mid-season target: Top-six finish

The upward shift in targets is itself a pretty neat measure of what Andoni Iraola and his team have achieved already. To use a technical term, they are proper.

So good and consistent have they become that just meeting that pretty stiff pre-season target would now be distinctly underwhelming; they hold a nine-point lead over 11th-placed Brentford with little evidence to suggest it’s about to be frittered away.

Before Saturday’s spectacular win at Newcastle, we’d probably still have only nudged their target up as far as top eight, but having moved to within a point of the sixth-placed Magpies and made a significant dent in their goal-difference deficit as a lovely bonus, it seems perfectly reasonable to set the aim higher yet.

Brentford
Pre-season target: Avoid any repeat of last season’s relegation flirtation
Mid-season target: Be good at home and away at the same time

Pretty safe tick for that August challenge, we’d say. Brentford have never really drifted too far from a mid-table course this season and now sit a cosy 12 points above the bottom three with an awful lot of very stupid football clubs between them and any genuine peril.

What they have done, though, is go about that mid-table course in unusual fashion. They spent the first half of the season absolutely smashing everyone at home and getting paddled every time they left TW8.

Yet they’ve now lost four of their last five home games – with largely reasonable claims about the calibre of opposition involved scuppered slightly by one of those defeats coming against Championship strugglers Plymouth in the cup – yet picking up four of their five away points for the season in their last two games.

So the challenge is clear: just try to be good in home games and away games at the same time. Simple. To be honest, we don’t know why they didn’t think of this before. They are fools not to have even considered it, frankly.

Oh, and if reports knocking about this week are to be believed there is a second goal for the months ahead: keep Thomas Frank out of Tottenham’s greedy paws.

Brighton
Pre-season target: Top-half finish
Mid-season target: Top-half finish

Brighton have developed a bit of a pattern. They start the season really well, then it all goes a bit wrong and they end up being somewhere in mid-table. Sometimes it’s good, upwardly-mobile mid-table but often it’s slightly underwhelming mid-table. Because of the start.

Also, this standard season upon which Brighton have settled over the last few years includes the apparently compulsory element of beating Manchester United at Old Trafford, which we can surely all agree is a really good bit.

Needless to say, Brighton are currently doing their Brighton season absolutely perfectly. They lost just one of their first nine games, managed an eight-game run without a win that nobody even really noticed because it had some decent-ish draws in it but mainly went unnoticed because it is Brighton, and sit entirely correctly in ninth and looking slightly short of what’s required for a European challenge but absolutely rock solid for that top half.

Chelsea
Pre-season target: Win the Europa Conference and complete the set
Mid-season target: Win the Europa Conference and complete the set, plus top-four finish

Two things are true here. We underestimated Enzo Maresca. Everybody else also underestimated Enzo Maresca.

Although there has been a fair bit of evidence recently of Chelsea reverting to the mean, and also that with all that money spent actually they probably should be challenging for the title, absolutely nobody back in August was seriously tipping Chelsea as title contenders after they’d seemingly tossed away even the promise of last season’s brilliant end to the season by binning Mauricio Pochettino for a manager Leicester fans weren’t even that sad to see go.

They sustained a title challenge for half a season, though. And while failing to sustain that can be explained away, it would be awkward now if they don’t even finish in the top four having spent a good chunk of the season looking like Liverpool’s main challengers. Man City not really the team you want breathing down your neck here.

To return to our apparent need to make two points about Chelsea, here are two bits of very good news. One, fifth place will probably be enough for a Champions League spot anyway, which helps, and a big part of the reason for that is the merciless way Chelsea are steamrollering the opposition as they go about what already appears to be the formality of completing that August goal we set them. Well done.

Crystal Palace
Pre-season target: 50 points
Mid-season target: 50 points

Crystal Palace’s list of points totals since they returned to the Premier League for the 2013/14 season remains one of our very favourite stats in the game. Those points totals are: 45, 48, 42, 41, 44, 49, 43, 44, 48, 45, 49.

It truly freaks our nut how you can be that consistently mediocre. It’s somehow far more impressive in its unlikelihood than consistent excellence. Man City getting 90 points every season does nothing for us, certainly not in comparison to Palace’s ability to get 40-something anyway. It’s just that relentless refusal to throw in even one rogue season where everything goes right or everything goes wrong.

For the first eight winless games of this season, it did look like it might all go wrong for a Palace side that under Oliver Glasner had sprinted to the finish line last season to come so close to finally smashing through that 50-point ceiling.

But they’ve had one of the most rejuvenating Dr Tottenham experiences we’ve ever seen. Having got their first win from the good doctor they’ve gone on to win five more games and lose just twice since late October.

They now sit happily in their customary position just below halfway with 27 points from 22 games, which would average out at a final total of 46. We’d bloody love them to do that, because it is simultaneously none-more-Palace but also a specific 40-something total they’ve never actually landed on.

But we’re sticking with our pre-season plea. From that first win onwards they’ve picked up 24 points from 14 games. If they can maintain that PPG of 1.71 from now until the end of the season, they’ll hit 54 points.

Somewhere in between their overall season record and their fine record since that horrible start would seem like a reasonable target for the remaining months of the season. And what’s somewhere right between 46 and 54? Exactly.

Everton
Pre-season target: Keep all the points they win
Mid-season target: Make sure that’s enough points to stay out of the bottom three

They really should be fine here now. Especially if David Moyes’ new-(returning?-)manager bounce continues to involve playing like 2009 Barcelona. We do suspect that particular surprising element of the bounce may have had slightly more to do with the specific stupidity of a specific opponent, but time will tell.

The slightly facetious yet undeniably smart August advice to not have any points deductions does appear to have been taken on board at this stage, so that’s good. Here’s hoping Everton continue to very sensibly listen to our good advice and now ensure they secure more points than at least three other teams in the division.

We cannot stress enough what a key metric that is for teams aiming to avoid relegation.

Fulham
Pre-season target: Just keep Fulhaming away
Mid-season target: Top-half finish while Fulhaming away

We were clear with Fulham that what we wanted/expected/rudely demanded was not just predictable mid-table security but predictable mid-table security achieved with wildly unpredictable results like last season.

Our gut feel was that this year’s predictable mid-table security had been slightly down on the wildly unpredictable results front, but looking back on those results now this may simply be greediness on our part. Okay, it probably isn’t quite as good as last year where they struggled horribly against Burnley and Sheffield United while taking four points off Arsenal and so forth, but by any reasonable standards it’s still been pretty good.

Back-to-back draws against Arsenal and Liverpool, for instance, coming a few short weeks after a 4-1 home paddling off of Wolves and just before another draw against a Southampton side making a genuine stab at becoming the worst Premier League side of all time. And then following that result with a first win at Chelsea in living memory.

In summary, then: bang on track.

Ipswich Town
Pre-season target: Be the new Luton
Mid-season target: Stay up

Huge tick for that pre-season target. To the extent that survival is now a perfectly reasonable target over the closing months of the campaign for a side that has had its inevitable paddlings off some of the big boys but remained impressively competitive in the vast majority of games.

One further target, of course, is that if they do go down as still seems probable they will then need to stop following the Luton path. It becomes a bad path.

Leicester City
Pre-season target: Survive
Mid-season target: Survive

Hmm. Those four points from Ruud van Nistelrooy’s first two games after Leicester were blinded by the sheer charisma of the man as he interimmed his way to two wins against them with Manchester United seem a long time ago now despite somehow only in fact being last month.

That new manager bounce was brief and now long, long gone, with the dawning reality that Leicester have now left themselves fighting relegation with an inexperienced manager who doesn’t have the same plot armour and main-character energy at the King Power as he does at Old Trafford.

Somehow, a run of seven straight league defeats for a team that was already in huge trouble hasn’t cast them adrift; they remain incongruously a mere two points behind 17th place and safety. But it could happen soon.

If upcoming six-pointers against Tottenham and Everton don’t deliver something in the points column it seems likely the Foxes will be searching for another new-manager bounce in a subsequent nine-game run featuring Arsenal, Chelsea, both Manchester clubs, Newcastle, Brighton and Liverpool.

READ: Who will be the next Premier League manager to be sacked?

Liverpool
Pre-season target: Reach season’s end with no doubts around Arne Slot
Mid-season target: Win the title

Our rationale in August here was that if nobody was seriously questioning Slot’s suitability as Jurgen Klopp’s successor come May then by definition the season must have gone quite well.

We will cheerfully and gladly admit we didn’t mean or expect it to be quite this well.

The temptation here is to put ‘Quadruple’ as a target even though it is a silly target because it never actually happens. But if you reach the end of January even being able to talk about it as a viable option, then you are having a very good time of it.

And to be clear, this isn’t ‘on course for the quadruple’ as it’s usually used because technically you remain in all four competitions. Liverpool are odds-on favourites to win the league, favourites for the Champions League after a flawless run through the league stage thus far, still favourites for the Carabao despite a narrow defeat at Spurs in the first leg of the semi-final and second favourites for the FA Cup behind a resurgent Man City.

It’s going very well, is the point here.

But while there’s every chance that this season now brings multiple trophies, there’s little doubt it is the league that must be the main priority and big prize. For Slot to become only the second Liverpool manager to win the Premier League and do it in his very first season would be huge. Anything else – and there very possibly will be – is a bonus.

READ: Liverpool crash European power rankings with Forest just behind Real and Premier League leader

Manchester City
Pre-season target: Win the league, don’t get point-penaltied into oblivion
Mid-season target: Win Champions League

So that’s a no and a TBC on those August targets, then. Disappointing, Pep. Very disappointing.

But City are potentially the biggest winners of the new Champions League format, because in any other season their autumn collapse would likely have seen them facing the mortifying prospect of dropping into the Europa League. How ghastly.

Now, with things having improved to an acceptable approximation of usual City standards, they still have plenty of scope to save their season in the Big Cup and the potential advantage of being able to unapologetically prioritise it with no title fight to bother them this time around.

It all starts tonight against PSG, a game which not only gives City the chance to effectively secure their own place in the play-off safety net but push the Paris side to the brink of elimination. The reverse is also true, but best not to think about that right now.

Manchester United
Pre-season target: Be proved right on Erik Ten Hag
Mid-season target: Be proved right on Ruben Amorim

Ah. Well! Nevertheless,

In a truly shocking turn of events that literally nobody could possibly have predicted, it came to pass that completely revising Ten Hag’s end-of-year appraisal on the back of one result against Man City was not in fact a good idea. And nor was spending an entire summer publicly undermining him before seemingly reluctantly and uncertainly deciding to kind of sort of back him a bit and then also spend another bunch of money on players for him.

But we did at least think they’d got a good one when replacing Ten Hag with Ruben Amorim. That too now looks decidedly dicey with Amorim already appearing to feel the strain of struggling for the first time really in his coaching career.

His response to the latest setback against Brighton was to call his team the worst Manchester United team ever – which is only accurate if we play the ‘football was invented in 1992’ card. So it really isn’t that bad is it? Ruben? We said, it’s not that bad. Ah, he can’t hear us because he’s smashing a telly.

Not sure that’s the best idea, to be honest, fella. For one thing, Sir Jim will definitely make you pay for its replacement.

That’s the other thing United could do with at some point. As well as some evidence that they’ve replaced an unloved, unsuitable manager with a better one, it would ease at least some of the fraying nerves around the place if there were even one shred of evidence cartoon supervillain Scrooge McRatcliffe is any kind of improvement on the Glazers. Who are still there in the background anyway.

Other possible targets for United include: fixing the roof, not getting relegated. Yeah, it really hasn’t gone well.

MAILBOX: Was appointing Amorim ‘stupidest’ move or relegation plan genius from Ratcliffe?

Newcastle
Pre-season target: Get back in Europe
Mid-season target: Get back in Europe, silverware

There have been sticky moments this season, but they appear to have settled in to a good thing now with the Guimaraes-Tonali-Joelinton midfield axis clearly among the very best in the league and Alexander Isak hitting top form to show once again the crazy value that having one of the few genuinely elite strikers knocking around the league brings.

Last weekend’s thumping home defeat to Bournemouth was a significant setback for sure, but one Newcastle do appear capable of riding out. They sit sixth, level on points with Manchester City in fifth, and a return to Europe should be achieved now.

Put simply, there is nobody currently below them you would currently expect to finish above them.

But while that league target remains perfectly valid, there has to be an extra one now. With Newcastle playing this well (the best team in Europe right now) and with one foot in the Carabao final and a kindly enough fourth-round draw in the FA Cup it’s not unreasonable to ask for this to be the season the most absurd major trophy drought in English football comes to an end. Especially with no continental action to distract and weary them.

Nottingham Forest
Pre-season target: Keep all the points, don’t get relegated
Mid-season target: Champions Actual League

Yeah, going to have to lose an awful lot of the points from target one to bring target two back into doubt, aren’t they?

With 44 points in the bag, we’re going to go right ahead and say Forest aren’t going down this season.

But can they really secure Champions League football? It would be an incredible thing to see the two-time European Cup winners back in the biggest of big times, and there really is absolutely nothing about the way Forest are currently going about things to suggest it’s not very, very on.

If we work on the reasonable if not definite assumption that fifth place will be enough, then Forest don’t even have to worry about City going full second-half-of-the-season City.

That’s where Forest have positioned themselves. Even if they lose their two-point advantage over Chelsea and their six-point advantage over City, they could still be in the Champions League. It’s Newcastle, also six points back, who Forest really need to keep an eye on. And possibly Bournemouth, because this season is great.

Southampton
Pre-season target: Don’t go full Burnley
Mid-season target: Don’t go full Derby

They just don’t listen, do they? Truly don’t know where these Premier League teams get the nerve, to think they can just sit there and know their own business better than a formerly good website that should leave the politics out of it and stick to the football but also not stick to the football because we are also always wrong about that.

Southampton thought they knew best, didn’t they? ‘Don’t go Full Burnley’ we said. So what did they do, presumably out of some stubborn foolish pride? They didn’t just go Full Burnley. They went Double Burnley. They insisted on playing even woker football under Russell Martin and doing so even less effectively.

And now they’re left with no chance of survival and desperately hoping to just scrape together enough points to at least avoid a seat at Derby County’s table of shame.

But now we’ve told them to get more points than Derby they’ll probably just deliberately get less than them, won’t they? No helping some people. Don’t know why we bother.

Tottenham
Pre-season target: Win a bloody trophy, any trophy
Mid-season target: Win a bloody trophy, any trophy (but also maybe don’t Spurs your way into the Championship in the process, yeah?)

Just brilliantly, impossibly and perfectly Spurs that they find themselves in the midst of a season worse even than almost all their very deepest 1990s lows and yet despite that – and even to some extent because of that – in great shape to actually hit a season target that banter convention dictates must actually be noted as the toughest thing we asked of anyone. Because Spurs and trophies, you see. They don’t win them, do they? Spurs? The trophies? Never win them.

Ange Postecoglou does, though. He wins the trophies. He said it, didn’t he? He said he wins trophies in his second year, and to be fair to the big guy he never said he would also avoid relegation. Just that he would win trophies.

It is mind-meltingly absurd that the only other club in England that at this time retains the same chances in as many competitions as Spurs do is runaway Premier League and Champions League pacesetters Liverpool. Utterly ludicrous. But true.

Spurs have a semi-final lead in the Carabao. They are in the fourth round of the FA Cup, just about. They are pretty much assured of a Europa League play-off spot at worst despite failing to win any of their last three games in that competition and pretty much running out of players altogether for this week’s trip to Germany.

They have three entirely plausible routes to removing an albatross that has hung around their neck for 17 years. And if they can just manage to avoid going completely insane and getting dragged into the relegation fight for real, a rare chance to focus what energy/players they do have available at those cup competitions rather than a financially-mandated need to put that focus on the more lucrative if less romantically Glory, Glory target of finishing fourth. Because they will not be finishing fourth.

Maybe Ange has been playing 4D chess all along by torpedoing the league season to the extent that even Daniel Levy can’t ask him to put all his eggs in that fourth-place basket.

READ: Premier League winners and losers: Bournemouth, Van Nistelrooy, Moyes, Postecoglou, Liverpool sub

West Ham
Pre-season target: Better football yielding similar results
Mid-season target: Any football yielding similar results

There’s been a bit of ‘careful what you wish for’ bumwash around West Ham this season. It’s bumwash not because things haven’t got worse after binning off David Moyes, but because this was specifically not what West Ham fans wished for.

They didn’t want rid of Moyes because his football was just so avant-garde and daring that they pined for a dull Spaniard to pare things back to the very basics. They wanted something to make them feel alive again in their dead, soulless, bubbly athletics stadium.

Julen Lopetegui was not what Hammers fans were wishing for. Graham Potter, though: he might be. It absolutely could now get a bit better. But firmly extricating themselves from the fringes of that busy-looking relegation fight is still priority one. Then some better football and upward mobility again.

Wolves
Pre-season target: A good start
Mid-season target: A good finish

Another team that inexplicably failed to take our excellent advice and paid a heavy price. In the case of Gary O’Neil specifically, a price paid with his job.

We couldn’t have been clearer, really. We told Wolves to have a good start or find themselves in a relegation fight. What did they do? Win none of their first 10 games. And where are they? A relegation fight. The great big dafties.

They kind of had an okay middle, with a curious run of two wins followed by four defeats and then two more wins. But they do now appear to have exhausted the new-manager bounce from Vitor Pereira and have lost their last three games in a row, conceding three in each of them.

The caveat is that those three games have been against Forest, Newcastle and Chelsea, who are all quite good.

The counterpoint to that caveat is that Wolves’ next four Premier League games are against Arsenal, Aston Villa, Liverpool and Bournemouth. Which means they’ll have played seven of the current top eight back-to-back and might be in a whole world of pain by that point.

The response to the counterpoint to that caveat is that by definition that gives them an easier run-in than most.

So having so damagingly failed to heed our advice about having a good start, let’s hope they listen a bit more carefully this time as well them to have a good finish, yeah?

Ruben Amorim is speaking out when he should keep quiet and Man Utd are a mess. Where do they go from here?

Send your mails to theeditor@football365.com

Is Amorim trying to get sacked?
I am just considering the fact that possibly Amorim wants to get sacked to go home to Sporting and out of the hideous spotlight and sh*t show that is Manchester Utd..

He has thrown players under the bus at every chance possible, he has admitted the results are worse under this manager than the 1 they just sacked

Now he has called them the worst Man U team in history..

Not exactly filling the players, fans or execs full of confidence?

Seems odd.

Seems like he has a lovely pay day waiting if they sack him (though with Ratcliffe’s penny pinching I am sure he’s screwed Amorim over somehow) and he can go home to Portugal and be great again.

Just seems like a defeated man, admitting defeat and being quite accepting of it.

Very weird.
Al – LFC. Darwin, It’s the hope that kills, Nunez, paying back a mill or 2 of his 64mil fee (let’s be honest he’s not hitting any of those add ons is he!) But I cant help but love him. He has the right attitude, Marcus could take a lesson

MORE MAN UTD COVERAGE ON F365…
👉 Ruben Amorim: Sack calls for ‘mid-tier manager’ making things worse
👉 Mediawatch: Man Utd are actually ‘worst team in the world’ if you are desperate for clicks
👉 Robbie Savage’s Winners & Losers: Brilliant Bournemouth; Amorim re-think at Man Utd?

Man Utd but also the world…
I can’t help feel that the downfall of United is emblematic of the way in which everything in the world feels awful these days.

The club was financially and sportingly successful, generating a profit and managing its ecosystem in a responsible way whilst maintaining its links with its community and being generally aware of its importance within it. Cue the rapacious takeover of the Glazers. Debt was added, prices went up and infrastructure ignored for years.

The decline disenfranchised the core support whilst paying out millions to already very rich people. Eventually the footballing output nosedived.

Brexit Jim and his buddies come in, slash jobs and raise prices further. The rich shareholders continue to reap benefits and the output still is awful for everyone. The fans continue to be ignored and disenfranchised and their concerns not addressed in any way. The word “ensh*ttification” was made to describe this very process.

We seem to perpetually be in thrall to the rich whilst we see everything that once worked well turned to, well, sh*t. Someday, we’ll remember to think about people first. Today is very much not that day.
Andy (A bit blue this morning)

Ten Man Utd conclusions
10 United conclusions that no one cares about anymore:

1. That result was predictable. Brighton are a better side than United.

2. We are 13th in the league and that is an accurate reflection of our standing.

3. Relegation talk is fun for the oppos (and F365), but a bit silly. There are 4 teams with at least 10 fewer points than us at this stage. I’m afraid it’s not going to happen, lads.

4. The potential Garnacho sale is sad, but probably a helpful sign that the club is starting to realise that a lot of our ‘stars’ are in fact not top-level players.

5. We only have one ‘very good’ player at United – Bruno. We will need at least 3 more ‘very good’ players to drag up the overall level and get the best out of the few ‘good’ players we have.

6. We are now playing a system that revolves around the use of dynamic wingbacks. However, we don’t have any dynamic wingbacks. This seems like an obvious issue.

7. People will look back at the Ten Hag era with incredulity. Vast sums spent on average/poor players, which now leaves us with no money to rebuild the squad. I genuinely can’t think of another example of a club investing so poorly.

8. Amorim is probably not a bad coach, but he won’t succeed at United. The multitude of factors working against him is too much for any one man. Most significantly, the Glazers won’t buy him any good players.

9. New ownership remains the only long term solution for United. It is now apparent that the Ineos deal has changed nothing, with Glazers still dismantling the club bit by bit.

10. It is most odd to think that, despite the utter doldrums we find ourselves in, we have won trophies in each of the last 2 seasons. How the f*ck did that happen? Football is mad.
RQT (MUFC)

Stop calling for Ange’s head
I feel I’ve written in with similar sentiments over the past few weeks… but if Dave Tickner can get away with repetition, why can’t the rest of us!

Yesterday’s most recent (awful) Spurs defeat has inevitably sparked a quick copy-and-paste of the standard ‘naive Ange’, ‘Ange out’, ‘who’s silly enough to replace Ange at this circus’ content at F365 Towers.

I must say, I’m disappointed in F365. F365 likes to sit high above the classic red-tops like the Mirror and the Sun, who it loves to mock in its Mediawatch column.. but increasingly, F365 relies on the same outrage-bait, panic-induced articles that almost always centre on someone who *must* be sacked. I understand it, and obviously there’s a market for this kind of stuff, but I think it’s a little rich of F365 to rely so heavily on this, when they’re quick to mock the red tops for much of the same.

A quick look at Dave Tickner’s ‘Who’ll replace Ange article’ tells me from the comments that it was first published on October 7th, and has been re-released this morning with some tweaks. Does it not get tiring?

The sad part is, I know the writers here (and plenty of other places) know that Spurs sacking Ange probably won’t help. If it’s Terzic, or Allegri or (God help us) Southgate, it’ll be the same articles being recycled again this time next year. These posts skip the logic of patience and actually sticking to a project, and just go for the modern formula: write what gets clicks.

Ange-criticism is absolutely warranted. Going 3-0 down at Everton is a farce for anyone this year. But Ange out? Is it fair? Must every bad result or bad run of form absolutely mean someone *must* be sacked? Would it really help?

Spurs played yesterday without 8(!!!) starters (Vicario, Romero, Udogie, Van de Ven, Bissouma, Bentancur, Johnson, Solanke). Crazy stuff. Add to that, not only are you missing those players, but it also means the ones who are ‘fit’, like Kulusevski, Son, Gray have to play every minute, and the fatigue means their form suffers and they become more injury prone themselves (Solanke). This problem is not one that will be solved by 6 weeks of Ryan Mason and 16 vanilla months of Eden Terzic.

This isn’t just a Spurs problem. After each defeat, I see more and more crazy abuse for Mikel Arteta, who has honestly done wonders with that Arsenal team. I already see the ‘Amorim out’ posts looming. Crazy.

At Spurs, and at F365, I’m simply asking for patience. Sometimes sacking the manager isn’t the only solution.
Andy, Spurs, Eire

The trauma of being a Liverpool or Arsenal fan
If you’ve only started watching Premier League football this season you’d be forgiven for thinking it was just your normal season. Teams dropping points at random moments to teams that they should potentially be beating. Isn’t that what makes football such an attractive sport to watch? The uncertainty.

But such has been the utter dominance of Man City over the last decade or so that it has skewed the reality for some fans. Namely Liverpool and Arsenal who have attempted to go toe to toe with the alleged financial dopers. So much so that for fans of those teams (of which I am one and my brother is the other) that dropped points feels like the end of days, that any chances of even challenging for the title are gone because you’ve drawn a game.

It’s utter madness if you think about it. It’s the 20th of January and Liverpool are 6 points ahead of Arsenal and Forest (albeit with a game in hand they’re not guaranteed of winning) and people are already writing off Arsenal that there’s no chance they can win the title because we’ve just grown so accustomed to Man City knocking out 15-16 wins in a row.

I think Liverpool fans are getting carried away less as we’ve been on this journey of trying to reach the unattainably perfect season for longer than Arsenal but the fallout from a draw or a loss smacks of some level of post traumatic stress syndrome (obviously I’m exaggerating for comedic effect).

Obviously we live in an age where people are looking for clicks and so we get more than the fair share of vitriol and exaggerated fallout thrust in our face on social media but even speaking to normal fans on the street (or in WhatsApp groups) feels like we’re all suffering from the last ten years.

Hopefully the Premier League realizes the monster they’ve allowed to be created in Man City and that it has become detrimental to the spectacle of what they want to be the greatest league in the world. Let’s go back to a league where you don’t need high 90s to win the league, where a draw doesn’t feel like the end of the world and where cheaters get punished.

There’s still almost half the season to be played and yes Liverpool look like the most consistent team right now but this is football and while it hasn’t been the case since the City juggernaut has warped our perception, anything can happen. A couple of injuries here and there, a couple of bad results and who knows what can happen?

Not that I want it to happen but it’s a possibility in a season where finally things are returning to some sort of normal. Although with City spending like money is going out of fashion again this month and Pep having no reason to go home anymore, the Premier League looking like it’s going to probably not punish the 115ers heavily, next season might see the return of mind-numbing tiki-taka and 100 point winning seasons.
Pete, LFC, Cyprus

READ: The Premier League and UEFA will be sickened by Forest and Bournemouth success

…I don’t recall a match weekend that got every faction of the Premier League vis-à-vis the title race losing the plot:

Recap for everyone:

– Apparent Title Favourites were heading for another draw but their chaotic striker who doesn’t score won the game at the death.

– The second favourites blew a two-goal lead at home; and have been written off (?)

And the floodgates of lunacy opened;

From a Liverpool POV: Our club fans still calling for caution, almost (figuratively) screaming that nothing is won yet (PTSD of past races for sure)

From an Arsenal POV: Where divided Arsenal fans are attacking each other over Arteta, attacking Liverpool and their fan base and branching into other arguments

And the neutrals just piling on Arsenal from every lens possible (Probably that’s what’s got their fan base annoyed)

We have a title race on that doesn’t involve Pep and his oil money squad.

Can we all just take a breath and enjoy the ride as well as hope that Man City do get relegated right after they handed out contracts to Pep and Haaland?
M. Nair. Mumbai

The case for Kostas
With all the talk of Liverpool needing a new left back (they do) due to the slow decline of Andy Robertson, I think its right that Kostas Tsimikas shouldn’t be dismissed completely in all the conversations as simply Robertson’s back-up.

I think since he arrived he has been as good as Robbo on the pitch (Robbo had peaked by then I feel) – and it’s probably only Robbo’s personality and stature off the pitch that has gained him the more game time when both are fit. I certainly hope Kostas stays as players like him and Joe Gomez are absolutely worth their weight in gold due to the amount of times they are needed.

Every successful team needs players like these who maybe will never be 1st choice but are needed so often that they are crucial. Utd had Phil Neville who never ever had a permanent position in those glory years but always seemed to be playing somewhere. We need to nail Joe Gomez down to a new deal – almost as importantly as your Salahs and VVD’s.

Anyway back to the main point – I do think Robbos time is up but I dont think its a formality that whoever we get will and should be instantly ahead of Tsimikas. I’ve rarely if at all seen him perform anything less than a 7/10. He is decent, reliable and has good delivery – way better than Robbo.
SH – LFC

Lauding Bournemouth
First of all – we looked knackered on Saturday. I was a bit nervous before the game as Bournemouth are absolutely our bogey team and I felt this great run we were on was becoming a hindrance. The signs were there against Wolves, we were giving chances away, but we always felt like scoring. Going on a run like we had was brilliant, especially in this wildly inconsistent season of Barclays, but it barely got us to 4th because of how inconsistent we’ve been early in the season. We need to brush it off, re-focus and get the energy back.

I have a 3% niggle about Eddie in that we play a certain and when things are going bad we don’t seem to have the tactical genius to sort it out, but that’s also the pessimism that comes with supporting this b*stard club for so long.

However – Bournemouth, wow. What a team. Best team I’ve seen at St. James this season, and yes I count that against Liverpool, Arsenal, City etc. Yes we played better against those and our fatigue may have played a part in my thinking, but what a brilliantly coached team full of athletic beasts.

A superb defence – Huijsen and Zabarnyi are fantastic, they shackled Isak well (although he was supplied with absolutely nowt). Cook is the type of stalwart every club needs and Kerkez is incredibly assured. They kept picking pockets of space in midfield really well and Semenyo gave Livramento his toughest game in a long time (I don’t think he played as poorly as some made out though). David Brooks however gave Lewis Hall a humbling. He’s had a hell of a season for a young full back who has had to adapt to the positioning in a hard league, but he probably needed a game like that to work out what he needs to improve on. And Kuivert, well…. a very well taken hattrick and man of the match. Far better than his overweight half-arsed Dad managed to do in his short time here.

We made errors, we gifted them goals, and from minute one we looked off it. But sometimes you just have to hand it to the opposition. It could have been more. It’s a credit to the league that clubs like Bournemouth and many others have been able to build such an effective squad that will get into Europe this season.

I don’t want to get all ‘my club is bigger than yours’ but Semenyo is exactly what we need at NUFC (I keep calling him Caster Semenyo by accident). But Bournemouth need to keep this unit together, especially the manager, as the vultures will start to circulate. Every one of that first 11 on Saturday would improve a hell of a lot of teams in the league. For us, we need to beat Southampton who look like they’re playing with a carefree vibe, which is quite dangerous, and then we’ll be back on track. We badly need a right winger though, badly.
Harry, York

We can’t lie, watching this weekend’s football made us feel a bit queasy. The sight of two players we’re not afraid to admit are among our favourites – Raheem Sterling and Son Heung-min – appearing completely washed has made us feel quite sad and very old. The passing of time really is a massive prick.

There’s a famous Big Ron quote – no, not that one – about a struggling footballer ‘playing from amnesia’. It came to mind watching those two this weekend.

So anyway, we decided to wallow in that misery more fully with those two and eight other players who were good at football and now no longer appear to be good at football. Enjoy. If that’s the right word. Which it isn’t.

10) Christian Eriksen
All manner of Man United players could be here, with the squad-building and general club strategy that has left Eriksen and Casemiro as two of United’s primary midfield options under a manager who specifically requires energy and agility from his midfielders something that needs to be studied.

The frustrating thing is that Eriksen still has magic in his boots if you can accommodate him in a system that emphasises what he can still do rather than brutally highlights things that were never really his strengths even in his very best days.

We’ve seen as much even this year, when in the chaos of those frantic closing minutes against Southampton he possessed the serenity and still the ability to find that achingly beautiful clipped ball over the defence for Amad Diallo to put United improbably ahead in a game they had appeared certain to lose. It was a fleeting moment where the past and the future seemed to meet in a way so perfect that you thought maybe despite it all United are going to be okay.

Then they immediately lost at home to Brighton.

9) Kieran Trippier
Mild spoiler: lot of full-backs on this list. Maybe the extreme expectations of both attacking and defensive contribution in an era where wide forwards who cut inside have replaced paint-on-the-boots wingers makes it impossible to maintain deep into your 30s. Maybe full-backs who don’t manage to turn themselves into centre-backs by the time they’re 32 are done for.

Trippier has had a pretty incredible career, really. We’re not sure how many people were looking at him and going “now there’s a man who’ll win La Liga and win 54 England caps while becoming the first Englishman to score in a World Cup semi-final since Gary Lineker” when he was eased out of Man City as a young man.

But a career that has taken in Burnley, Tottenham and Atletico Madrid – and there are far worse career trajectories out there – appears to be winding down with a bit-part role at Newcastle.

Again, worse ways to spend your final days at the top of the game, but ‘final days’ is absolutely where Trippier now finds himself.

8) Lucas Paqueta
There are, ahem, reasons why Paqueta’s head may not have been entirely in the game this season but he’s still been one of this campaign’s most conspicuous disappointments.

Over the course of the last five months, the narrative around Paqueta has shifted from ‘How is he still playing for West Ham?’ to ‘How is he still playing for West Ham?’.

And getting his fifth booking of the season at just the right time to get Christmas off was a bit on the nose as well.

7) Jack Grealish
We’re absolutely certain the real Jack Grealish is still in there somewhere. We’re really confident Salford City isn’t actually his level. It would be really, really helpful if he’d scored a Premier League goal since 2023 in order for us to have something to base this on beyond our own pathetic hopes and dreams.

6) Ben Chilwell
Not as exciting as some others on this list, but most of the others still get to at least play some actual football even if they no longer do so quite as well as they once did. Ben Chilwell has gone from being one of the most reliable left-backs in the Premier League for first Leicester and then Chelsea to not even being worth a starting place in the Carabao. However you frame it, that’s quite the drop-off.

We’re really not quite sure how Chilwell ended up still at Chelsea when the transfer music stopped in the summer. We’re not sure he knows, either, with every other member of the infamous Bomb Squad finding at least a temporary exit route. And now here we are, three weeks into January, and he’s still at Chelsea, still not getting a game and still seemingly no closer to the exit door.

5) Marcus Rashford
Perhaps the saddest name on this list because he’s still only 27. The flipside of that, of course, is that it means there is still bags of time for a redemption arc and happy ending to this tale.

But he has been struggling for ages, and that happy ending if it does come will almost certainly not be at Manchester United, where he has spent all the good times and bad of his career so far.

There were vaguely ludicrous attempts to smear him as the primary culprit for United’s struggles this season. The conspicuous failure of their season to improve in any real tangible way whatsoever – they have won just two of nine games since his banishment, both requiring absurd late drama – confirms the obvious fact that United’s woes run far deeper than one man. It wasn’t even all Erik Ten Hag’s fault, or all the Glazers’ fault. It was never going to be all Rashford’s fault.

But it has maybe been a little bit his fault. We’ve got everything crossed that whatever happens next works out for him.

4) Andy Robertson
There have been few better investments than the £8m Liverpool slung Hull’s way for the Scottish left-back eight years ago. He and Liverpool have won the lot in the years that have followed, with Robertson spending a good chunk of that period holding strong claim to being the best left-back in the world.

Never quite as attention-grabbing as Trent Alexander-Arnold on the opposite flank, Robertson has nevertheless been absolutely key to so much of Liverpool’s success with his ability to cover seemingly limitless ground up and down the left flank providing both defensive security and attacking width.

We cannot ever really remember any doubts or concerns around him ever before, until this season. There is mitigation; missing pre-season under a new manager after so many years of success under the previous one is clearly sub-optimal.

But it doesn’t entirely explain the struggles of a man who has lost that precious ability to be wherever Liverpool have needed him. The odd individual defensive mistake is more easily explained away than the near total disappearance of Robertson as an attacking outlet. A player who has nearly 60 Premier League assists for Liverpool has this season managed not one in a team that is doing really quite well.

READ: Premier League winners and losers: Bournemouth, Van Nistelrooy, Moyes, Postecoglou, Liverpool sub

3) Kyle Walker
Leave the football before the football leaves you indeed. It’s always unfair when one player becomes the focus of wider problems at a club, but it doesn’t usually happen for no reason. There were multiple reasons for City’s bizarre collapse in form, one from which they are only now tentatively emerging, but there’s no denying that Walker was one of them.

He has, in truth, always been a defender capable of a dozy moment or a lapse in concentration. It’s just that until now he’s always been a defender capable of getting away with it by simply running much faster than anyone else on the pitch. It was a useful gift to possess, and one he exploited fully.

It made him one of the most dynamic defenders around for far, far longer than should have been the case. Like Jamie Vardy, a player whose primary asset was pace seemed unlikely to have this kind of longevity.

But while it has taken far, far longer than anyone could have expected, that pace has now gone. And the lapses have continued. Among many harrowing moments this season, one stands out above the rest: the sight of Walker, in added time of a game City were already losing 3-0 to Spurs, literally daring Timo Werner to run past him and Werner simply… running past him to set up number four.

It was an act of bravado in a game situation against his former club where it really wasn’t called for and revealed so many insecurities. He is on his way out of City now, and while we understand and even admire his sniffiness around heading into Saudi semi-retirement we’re also wondering whether it might be an idea. He’d still be quite quick in that league.

2) Raheem Sterling
This one hurts us bad. We’ve always had a great deal of fondness for Raheem here at F365, and for a long time there calling out the genuinely insane media BS that swirled around him was close to being the site’s raison d’etre. He never was a FOOTIE IDIOT.

Sterling at his best was a vital cog in Pep Guardiola’s City machine at its purring, well-oiled best. There was an extended period where it really did seem like City could create a Sterling far-post tap-in at will, and chose to only do so once or twice a game to avoid raising suspicion and/or breaking the whole sport entirely. Sterling at his best when City were at their best made creating and scoring goals look absurdly easy.

There were great days with England, too, as well as undeniably trickier, tabloid-enraging ones. He and Harry Kane had one of those intuitive connections rarely seen between players who never played club football together.

Chelsea had always seemed an odd next step for Sterling when the City project moved on without him. He wasn’t bad for them, but it never really felt like the right fit. Arsenal did. We had enormously high hopes for Sterling at Arsenal. It seemed like just the right kind of opportunistic late-window move that could prove to the be the one thing both player and club were missing.

It has not been that. He has been either unused or ineffective and we’re really not sure what happens next.

Maybe we should all have seen the writing on the wall when even Gareth Southgate, loyal to a literal fault, realised it was time for England to move on without Sterling. We just really, really didn’t want to.

1) Son Heung-min
Son’s season is mirroring Spurs’ own: appallingly, abysmally miserable yet still putting up some really quite absurd numbers as their world falls apart.

One of our very favourite players to watch over the last decade or so of Barclays is now one of the hardest. It is painful to watch this version of Son, all heavy first touches and ponderous, attack-deadening uncertainty where once there was precision and snap and joy. And above all that some of the most clinical finishing in the division.

If you needed a player to score a one-on-one for your life, Peak Son would absolutely have been in your thoughts, along with “What an absurd premise, how on earth did I find myself in this ludicrous situation?”.

There were a great many astonishing and painful sights for Spurs fans on Sunday afternoon at Goodison Park, none more so than that of Son presented with the sort of run through on goal from which he has scored dozens and dozens of goals in Spurs lilywhite except this time he was so hesitant, so unsure, so bereft of the conviction that once defined him that he didn’t even get a shot away before James Tarkowski was able to reel in a five-yard headstart that should have left him a bystander.

Everton fans didn’t, because there was one time he did a foul several years ago, but most would sympathise with Son’s plight. The man is going to complete a decade at Tottenham this summer, and his release date has been put back a further year by Spurs activating an extension in his contract. There are serious criminals who have served less time.

But Son really does seem to love Spurs, the big dafty. Think about how good he has been and for how long, and then think about how the club he plays for is Spurs. Then think about how many times you’ve seen a serious transfer rumour about him over the last five or six years. Doesn’t make sense, does it?

He’s scored 10+ league goals in each of the last eight seasons and will probably just about scrape his way to nine given that Spurs still insist on scoring a great number of goals even when losing all of the games.

He is, though, a shell of the player he once was at a club collapsing around him.

The Champions League is back and Manchester City and Darwin Nunez need to continue where they left off at the weekend, while Arsenal need to get it together. Strap in for a Big Midweek.

Game to watch: Paris Saint-Germain v Manchester City
The best thing about the switch from groups to a mammoth league table in the Champions League is seeing European juggernauts face off every week before the knockout stage. Nobody expected there to be much jeopardy involved but here we are, two matches from the end of the league phase, with French champions PSG and English champions Man City knowing defeat could see them miss out on a play-off spot.

During City’s horrendous run in November and December, they played three Champions League matches, losing 4-1 at Sporting, throwing away a three-goal lead to draw at home to Feyenoord and losing 2-0 at draw experts Juventus. They are in a very precarious position and a trip to PSG is a daunting task, but thankfully Pep Guardiola’s side have picked things up in recent weeks and are going to Paris off the back of a 6-0 win at Ipswich Town.

Still, defeat for City could be catastrophic. It would take PSG above them, and at least a point for PSV Eindhoven at Crvena Zvezda and win for Stuttgart at Slovan Bratislava would do the same for both, leaving City outside the play-off spots going into the final matchday, which should theoretically be light work at home to Club Brugge; we say that as if the Belgians aren’t above them in the table. A point for Dinamo Zagreb at Arsenal would also be enough for them to leapfrog City should they lose at the Parc des Princes.

Defeat is far from a foregone conclusion; in fact, the Cityzens are the favourites. Luis Enrique’s side are somehow doing even worse in Europe and sit 25th out of 36 teams with two wins from six matches. They have been brushed aside by Arsenal and failed to beat PSV and Atletico Madrid at home, while losing 1-0 at Bayern Munich. Their schedule has been tougher than City’s but a team of PSG’s stature should be doing a lot better, especially in their home games.

There is a lot on the line here and it should be a fantastic game, if both managers don’t approach it cautiously, which wouldn’t surprise us. PSG came from behind to win 2-1 at RC Lens on Saturday and have not lost since their trip to Munich on November 26, though their performances have left a lot to be desired.

PSG face City at a bad time but the ability throughout Enrique’s squad is clear – Achraf Hakimi, Bradley Barcola, Vitinha, Nuno Mendes and Joao Neves are all fantastic players. However, City have better players and we fancy them to do the business here.

Team to watch: Arsenal
Arsenal have to win a match comfortably to help pick up some momentum and get confidence throughout the squad again and Dinamo Zagreb at home is a prime opportunity.

Too many players are underperforming and Bukayo Saka’s influence is more notable than ever with him out injured. Mikel Arteta’s attack looks toothless and bereft of ideas, with even Martin Odegaard out of sorts without his partner on the right flank. Benjamin White has also been sorely missed on that side.

Kai Havertz is under more scrutiny than ever and Gabriel Martinelli has not stepped up in Saka’s absence. A big performance and convincing win against Zagreb is necessary and could be the shot in the arm Arsenal’s title challenge so desperately needs.

Dinamo have only been playing friendlies this year due to a winter break in Croatia and Wednesday’s clash at the Emirates is their first competitive encounter since beating Varazdin 3-2 at home on December 22. They are only third in the Croatian top flight, behind Gennaro Gattuso’s Hadjuk Split and Rijeka. Oh, and they are managed by Italian legend and the last defender to win the Ballon d’Or, Fabio Cannavaro.

There will be an element of rustiness but even if Dinamo had beaten Rijeka 5-0 at the weekend in a cup final, there would be no excuse for Arsenal not winning this game.

Player to watch: Darwin Nunez
Liverpool have a perfect record in the Champions League this season and Arne Slot should rotate against Lille as a result. Surely Darwin Nunez will start after his match-winning brace at Brentford on Saturday. If he doesn’t, then the player to watch is still him when he comes on and plays like a bull in a china shop.

Captain Chaos saved Liverpool’s bacon at Brentford, scoring a 91st-minute winner before adding an unexpected second to calm any Scouse nerves. Darwin is a player some Reds fans have lost patience with but he remains adored by a huge chunk of a very loyal fanbase. Say what you want about Liverpool fans but they know how to stick by a player, especially a striker, struggling and getting slagged off by rival fans. They stood by Peter Crouch and they are doing the same with Darwin.

It is all about backing up a super sub appearance with a solid showing and another goal or two from the start. You never know what you are going to get with Darwin and that is the beauty of it; he could get sent off, score a hat-trick, miss seven open goals or all of the above. The Uruguayan could and probably should be our player to watch every weekend/midweek Liverpool are playing but there is more substance this time around given his rescue job on Saturday.

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Manager to watch: Ange Postecoglou
By the time Hoffenheim v Tottenham rolls around on Thursday, Ryan Mason could be in caretaker charge of Spurs following the sacking of Ange Postecoglou, making this nothing but a waste of time. But we can’t live in fear of the traffic gold mine that is ‘Postecoglou sack’ being manifested.

Losing 3-2 at Everton probably should have been the last straw after needing extra time to beat non-league Tamworth and losing the north London derby at Arsenal, but it looks like Daniel Levy will not pull the trigger… yet. Spurs are ahead in their Carabao Cup semi-final against Liverpool, which is probably the reason why the Australian has not been sacked, which is kind of fair given the importance of ending the trophy drought and Postecoglou’s brazen “I always win in in my second season” claim, but the way this team is playing and approaches matches under their head coach, they will get bloody crucified at Anfield.

Then there is the FA Cup, which brings a tricky fourth-round tie at Aston Villa, and the Europa League, with Ange’s men currently ninth, which is a play-off spot. That is where Postecoglou’s immediate focus lies, with a tricky trip to Hoffenheim their next adventure. Spurs’ form away from home has been abysmal. Amusingly, their only away wins in the 2024/25 Premier League have come against Southampton (0-5), Manchester United (0-3) and Manchester City (0-4).

Hoffenheim are a standard Europa League/Conference League team with a couple of dangerous players like Andrej Kramaric and Anton Stach. They are 26th out of 36 teams and Spurs should prevail, but lads, it’s Tottenham.

They could really do with winning this with the two teams directly above them, Manchester United and Rangers, playing each other and anything less can be regarded as another poor result under Postecoglou, who needs to get his side back on form before it’s too late.

Europa League game to watch: Manchester United v Rangers
“Get ready, everybody. He’s about to do something stupid,” will be the quote of the night when Man United host Rangers in the Europa League on Thursday. Gosh, it is going to be a horrendously fascinating watch.

Rangers have been a shambles domestically this season, particularly away from home, but have found some respite in Europe, which has been a familiar story of late. They should have beaten Tottenham at home and their only Europa League loss was a humbling one v Lyon. They made amends with a 4-0 home win over Romanian side FCSB (the fake Steaua Bucharest) and an even more impressive 4-1 win away to Nice.

The Red Devils have done just fine in Europe. They are unbeaten in six games, drawing their first three and looking largely underwhelming in their three victories, which is how they tend to win games these days. Ruben Amorim will be after a reaction to Sunday’s miserable home defeat to Brighton and Rangers in Europe are not the team you want to face when you are feeling vulnerable, even if they are as wildly unpredictable and flimsy as United.

That sheer unpredictability is what we live for and Thursday’s clash between two very funny football teams guarantees entertainment.

Football League game to watch: Wrexham v Birmingham City
Oof, now we’re talking. Screw United v Rangers, this is the true Battle of Britain.

There is proper needle between these two teams. Americans love drama and there should be plenty of that at the Racecourse Ground on Thursday evening with the clubs’ US superstar owners in attendance.

Birmingham have only lost two of their 24 League One matches this season and are five points above third-placed Wrexham with two games in hand. Promotion is inevitable as the Welsh side chase second place right behind them, with Wycombe Wanderers currently occupying that spot.

The atmosphere is sure to be electric, which it might not have been for a less significant fixture considering Phil Parkinson’s side lost at Shrewsbury Town at the weekend. Birmingham have won their last four League One matches in a row and victory on Thursday would be perfect going into the home stretch.

READ NOW: Premier League winners and losers: Bournemouth, Van Nistelrooy, Moyes, Postecoglou, Liverpool sub

Napoli are ‘very close to closing’ a deal for top Man Utd target Patrick Dorgu in a deal that could see the winger remain at Lecce for the rest of the season, according to reports.

The Red Devils have had a nightmare season so far with Erik ten Hag sacked at the end of October and replaced by Ruben Amorim in November.

However, the new Portuguese head coach has struggled to turn things around at Old Trafford and called his side the “worst team maybe in the history” of Man Utd after their latest defeat to Brighton.

That loss against the Seagulls saw Man Utd remain in 13th position in the Premier League with just seven wins in 22 matches this term.

And now the Red Devils board are hoping to provide Amorim with some reinforcements to improve the squad and Lecce wing-back Dorgu is one of their top targets.

On Monday, transfer expert Fabrizio Romano revealed that Dorgu wants to join Man Utd, he wrote on X: ‘Manchester United are set to open formal talks with Lecce for Patrick Dorgu, no bid has been sent so far.

‘As exclusively revealed two weeks ago, he’s high on list as Kerkez and Nuno Mendes are still too expensive. Dorgu, 100% keen on move… Lecce want around €40m.’

But now Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio claims that Napoli ‘wants to block’ the Lecce star from leaving in January and their ‘desire would be to buy him and leave him on loan at Lecce for the rest of the championship’.

It is understood that all parties ‘are very close to closing but if Manchester United were to actually offer 40 million then the scenario would change’.

Explaining the situation with Man Utd and Dorgu, Di Marzio added:

‘At the moment, no formal offer for Patrick Dorgu. Just a phone call from the Red Devils (not to Lecce, but to the agent) to understand the situation. Lecce, as anticipated, values ​​him at 30/35 million plus bonuses, for a total of approximately 40 million.

‘The player’s agent, resident in Manchester, is expected in Milan in the next few hours for talks with the various clubs interested in the 2004-born right winger. Among these, Amorim’s Manchester United are also present.’

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ESPN have revealed the other left-backs on the Red Devils’ list if a deal for Dorgu doesn’t come off with Man Utd making enquiries for two Premier League left-backs.

The report added:

‘According to sources, club recruitment staff have drawn up a list of possible options at left-back including Lecce’s Patrick Dorgu. Enquiries have also been made about Wolves’ Rayan Aït-Nouri and Crystal Palace left-back Tyrick Mitchell.

‘United have also shown interest in Nuno Mendes at Paris Saint-Germain, but sources have told ESPN he is not considered a viable target in this window.

‘Sources have told ESPN that United are still having internal discussions about the size of squad Amorim will need for the rest of the campaign.’

While West Ham attempt to smash their transfer record, can you name every club’s most-expensive signing?

The Hammers have once again tried to sign Jhon Duran from Aston Villa, but the Villans have rejected their latest bid, said to be worth around £59million.

Can you recall all 20 Premier League clubs’ record signing? And can you do it in 365 seconds?

Don’t forget to leave your times on the scoreboard or brag in the comments. Crack on…

If you enjoyed that and need more reasons to dodge work, we’ve got plenty more quizzes here. And our friends at Planet Football have even more.

In the meantime, make sure you don’t miss these…

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Missing Men: Liverpool | Arsenal | Chelsea | Man City | Man Utd | Spurs