Manchester United are ‘ready to make their move’ for Viktor Gyokeres and will offer Sporting cash plus a player in return for their star striker.

Ruben Amorim’s appointment as the new Manchester United boss has inevitably led to widespread rumours of a move the Sweden international, who’s scored 66 goals in 68 games for Sporting since his move from Coventry City in the summer of 2022.

That incredible form has led to significant interest from across Europe in Gyokeres, with Arsenal, Chelsea, Real Madrid and PSG all keeping tabs, according to the Daily Briefing, but it’s Manchester United who are getting their ducks in a row ahead of a move.

Amorim was asked about a move for Gyokeres after agreeing a contract with Manchester United.

“I can’t make fun of it, right now, it was hard for me to leave, if I start joking about this Gyokeres situation I’ll get in trouble,” Amorim said on TNT Sports. “This is my city, this is my country, so I’ll respect it.

“Viktor has to stay until the end of the season, and then his life maybe is going somewhere else.”

Sporting appear to be willing to sell the prized asset, and have reportedly dropped their asking price for Gyokeres to £63m to encourage bidders in the summer.

United are very wary of FFP sanctions though having had to pay compensation both to Erik ten Hag and his team, and Sporting, as a result of their managerial change.

In a bid to reduce the price for Gyokeres further, the Daily Briefing claims Joshua Zirkzee’s ‘future could already be in doubt, with a move to Sporting looking like a serious option’.

Zirkzee has also been linked with a return to Serie A despite only moving to Old Trafford in the summer, with reports in Italy claiming Amorim has already decided that the Netherlands international is ‘not adequate’.

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Gyokeres would be the first choice among the majority of Manchester United fans, but Louis Saha reckons the “pressure” would be too much for him at Old Trafford.

“It might be surprising, but I don’t think Man Utd should go after Viktor Gyokeres,” Saha said.

“I think he is a good player in an incredible run of form, even in the Champions League, but he won’t get the same luxuries as he does at Sporting.

“Sporting are not under the same pressure as Manchester United, it’s a completely different animal. Right now United have Rasmus Hojlund and Joshua Zirkzee and at times the pressure has looked to be a lot for them to handle too.”

Instead, Saha has called for Man Utd to “spend £120m on Harry Kane” amid reports suggesting they have already made a record ‘offer’ to sign the England international, who could replace two ‘resounding failures’.

Saha added: “It’s hard to find players who can do what Mohamed Salah and Erling Haaland can do, United need to find players that can really hurt the opposition and are proven in doing so and that’s a big task.

“United have spent a lot of money and I don’t think Gyokeres is the answer, if you can spend £120 million on Harry Kane then they should do it tomorrow, there are very few guarantees in football but that’s what a club like United needs.”

Four Premier League clubs have met the six-year deadline to formally register for compensation if Manchester City are found guilty of serious charges among their 115 alleged breaches of Premier League financial rules.

Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal and Tottenham all lodged legal notices ahead of a potential statute of limitations deadline last week, reports The Times.

City’s case is still being heard by an independent regulatory commission and the outcome isn’t expected until early next year.

The commission can order City to pay compensation but because of laws around time limits to register such claims, the four clubs were concerned they may miss out if they wait for the case to be resolved.

The report states:

‘The compensation notices were served after the four clubs were advised by lawyers there was a potential six-year statute of limitations period dating from November 5, 2018, when the German website Der Spiegel first published the Football Leaks documents.

‘Although City’s alleged rule breaches date from 2009, the 1980 Limitation Act’s six-year period for legal claims for breaches of contract in the UK allows an exception where that breach has been concealed. That would allow the six-year period to begin when details of the alleged breaches were made public.

If the charges against City are proven, clubs could claim for loss of income for missing out on the league title, qualification for the Champions League or other European competitions over the course of several seasons, which could total hundreds of millions of pounds.

‘Clubs cannot sue each other through the courts under Premier League rules but they can do so through arbitration under Rule X. Five clubs applied for compensation when Everton were sanctioned for breaching Profitability and Sustainability Rules last season — Leeds United, Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Burnley and Southampton — but those claims have since been withdrawn or are unresolved.

‘In the City case, lawyers are understood to have advised clubs that if they waited until the outcome of the hearing into the 115 alleged rule breaches then there was a risk any compensation claim could be deemed to be out of time.’

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Chelsea are conspicuous by their absence among the compensation-seeking clubs, but they have their own Premier League investigation looming that could also lead to similar claims from clubs, which may be a factor in them not lodging legal notices against City.

City are charged with not providing accurate financial information for nine separate seasons, with the full details of Roberto Mancini and Yaya Toure’s pay among the points of contention.

They’ve also been charged with failing to co-operate with the investigation and failing to hand over documents over five seasons from 2018-19 to 2022-23.

Roy Keane says Alejandro Garnacho should “get a job somewhere else” if he “can’t celebrate a goal” for Manchester United.

Garnacho scored a fine goal for United in their 3-0 win over Leicester on Sunday, cutting inside on his right before curling the ball into the far corner.

But the Argentinian didn’t celebrate having been criticised by some sections of the United fanbase this season, as captain Bruno Fernandes revealed after the game.

“Garnacho scored a banger but didn’t celebrate like he should because he thinks he has lost faith from some fans,” Fernandes told the BBC. “I told him people will always moan but lots of people like you and enjoy what you do.

“I told him to celebrate, it was something special. He is a special player and we have difference makers. They are the ones who win us games.

“We want them to score every game but that isn’t going to happen.”

But Keane believes “there should be nothing else on your mind” when you’re playing for United and score a goal.

“If you can’t celebrate a goal, there is something drastically wrong with this game,” said Keane, speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet.

“Whatever has gone on off the pitch for any player – it could be family stuff – you work all week, you’re playing the game to score a goal.

“When you score a goal, there should be nothing else on your mind. You’ve got fans who have travelled, paid fortunes to get there, and he’s on about people having a go at him.

“People make sacrifices to travel to watch Manchester United, he scores a brilliant goal, they are having a tough time – and if a younger player can’t enjoy scoring a goal for Man United, then get a job somewhere else.”

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Ian Wright defended Garnacho, claiming the winger is “going through a journey”, but Keane believes he should be able to separate on and off field pressures.

“He’s [Alejandro Garnacho] probably under pressure from outside sources,” Keane added.

“Every player is under pressure from family, for tickets, your performances, your fitness, your contract – there’s all sorts of pressures on players but for that moment, or for that weekend when you’ve scored a goal, you should be going, ‘Whatever happens for the rest of my life, if it finishes tonight, I’m going to enjoy this moment.’”

Garnacho has scored seven goals this season, three more than any other Untied player, and is currently on international duty with Argentina for their World Cup qualifiers, ahead of a return to Old Trafford to play under new manager Ruben Amorim.

Brighton are doing even better than we think, Tottenham are doing worse and Wolves are more Arsenal than Arsenal.

We’ve been terrible at plugging the soon-to-be famous F365 Tables, which we’ve had a lovely time poring over to bring you 16 Conclusions. You can get to them from a tab on the homepage, there’s 21 of them in total, and they’ve got nifty filtering options and all sorts of other user-friendly features.

1) Brighton in the Champions League race
We all cooed when Fabian Hurzeler arrived at Brighton, fresh-faced and eager, and said he wanted to “challenge the establishment”. ‘Good for you, young man,’ we all thought. ‘Best of luck with it.’

Off to a pretty good start, to be fair. No team in the Premier League has picked up more points against teams in the top half than Brighton (11), who have beaten Manchester City, Newcastle and Tottenham.

They’ve also played more games against teams in the top half (7) than any team other than Wolves (8), which goes a long way to explaining the struggles of Gary O’Neil’s side and bodes extremely well for Brighton, who are level on points with Chelsea in third and have a very gentle run-up to Christmas, which may very well grant them breathing space in the race for Champions League qualification.

2) 11-way Champions League qualification battle
You’ve probably seen what we like to call the ‘Full Table’ before. It’s where the Premier League teams are ranked according to how many points they win in Premier League games.

Liverpool are top and five points clear of crisis-club Manchester City, slumming it in second, with three points between them and Chelsea in third, but then wonderfully, only another three points separates the Blues and Manchester United in 13th.

We’re big fans of bunching to the extent that it’s not as simple as saying United could go third with a win, because there are so many teams between them and Chelsea, and some of those teams will have to pick up points by dint of them playing each other.

3) Tottenham the odd one out
Other than Ipswich, who would require a simple swap with Crystal Palace just below them, every Premier League team bar Tottenham is in precisely the right spot according to their goal difference. Liverpool have the best, Southampton have the worst; hopefully we need not explain that further.

Spurs are currently tenth in the Premier League but have the second-best goal difference (10) having scored more goals than anyone (23), with only five teams conceding fewer (13).

Ordinarily a team with such superior goal difference to those around them would feel as though they’re in a false position, as it suggests big wins and defeats by fine margins; Tottenham’s results do indeed show that. But you can’t tell us when looking at Big Ange’s big grumpy face after the defeats to Ipswich and Crystal Palace that he thought his players deserved anything less than no points and the rocket he surely gave them.

If we have any advice to the Tottenham players it would be to spread the goals out.

4) The Bees hive
Glorious, this. Brentford are two points off third and haven’t won a single point in the five games they’ve played away from home. Not a sausage.

They’re bloody brilliant at home though. Not only are they unbeaten but have won five of their six games, with the Gtech undoubtedly the place to go as a neutral, with 29 goals coming in those six games. 4.83 goals per game, compared to the league average of 2.88.

5) Arsenal bottom on form
Thank goodness the F365 tech nerds were able to provide the option of creating ‘Form Tables’ up to six games, granting us the opportunity to select the perfect number of fixtures (4) to see Arsenal prop up the rest of the table.

6) Ipswich giving up leads
Brentford, the undoubted heroes of this 16 Conclusions, would currently be top of the Premier League on 30 points if they had held on to every lead they’ve had this season. They’ve only failed to open the scoring in one of their 11 games, but in all four in which they’ve taken the lead away from the Gtech they’ve gone on to lose. Ridiculous football team.

But Thomas Frank’s team have had enough of the limelight. Before their trip to see Dr Tottenham on Sunday, Ipswich had taken the lead in five games and failed to win any of them (D3, L2). That’s 12 points that would currently see them ahead of The Bunch, level on points with Manchester City, one of the teams they took the lead over before the champions got angry and scored four.

7) Manchester United more creative than Manchester City
The narrative has been re-written somewhat in recent games, with United enjoying an interim-manager bounce under Ruud van Nistelrooy and City enduring their worst-ever run under Pep Guardiola, but this suggests United weren’t that bad and City weren’t that good even before the script was ripped up.

The absence of Kevin De Bruyne and the struggles of Phil Foden go a significant way to explaining why City have created just 26 Big Chances, the same number as Brentford, while as Erik ten Hag was at pains to point out before being given the boot, it wasn’t United’s creativity that was the problem, but their inability to convert enough of their 27 Big Chances to date.

8) The world’s best goalkeeper?
Consecutive Yashin gongs for Emi Martinez but he’ll be hard-pushed to make it three on the trot at this rate, keeping just one clean sheet in 11 games, and without the benefit of a major tournament for Argentina to draw eyeballs, acclaim and opportunity for lewd trophy demonstrations.

9) The Southampton Way
Vincent Kompany was criticised over his lack of pragmatism last season but Burnley were in the middle of the pack in the Premier League with 47% possession. Russell Martin has taken the Get Promoted And Play Our Way philosophy to a whole new level, with bottom-of-the-table Southampton currently seeing more of the ball than all but two Premier League teams (Manchester City – 63%; Tottenham – 61%), level with league-leaders Liverpool on 57%.

10) Wolves more Arsenal than Arsenal
We’ve heard more than enough about Arsenal’s excellence from set-pieces and way more than enough about Nicolas Jover, the first of what is now far too many set-piece coach celebrities. One would be too many.

What we haven’t heard so much about is how reliant Arsenal are on said set-pieces. Arsene Wenger will be turning in his FIFA Chief of Global Football Development grave at the thought of his beloved Gunners going all Stoke City and scoring fewer open-play goals (13) than Brentford (16), Fulham (15) and Wolves (14).

11) Crystal Palace missing Michael Olise
Only Southampton (7) have scored fewer goals than Palace (8), which is obviously the key concern for a team that’s only conceded 15, just two more than Manchester City and Chelsea.

An added worrisome and incredible element of their lack of goals is them scoring just two of them from open play, which is an extraordinary return from 11 games. Everton, Manchester United and Southampton have the next fewest on six.

12) Tottenham have had it easy
Glass-half-full Spurs fans – there must be some somewhere – will look at the table and their goal difference and think it won’t take much for them to be back up challenging for the Champions League spots. A reasonable assertion without considering who they have and haven’t played.

No Premier League side has played fewer games than Tottenham (4) against teams in the top half of the table. And it’s not just that they’ve had it easy, they’ve also been rubbish when it’s not been so easy, losing three of those four games against the better sides.

They play seven games up to and including Boxing Day; just two of those games are against teams in the bottom half (Bournemouth and Southampton). Postecoglou sack before Christmas, anyone?

13) Don’t make Manchester City angry
Liverpool were The Comeback Kings last season, losing just four of the 16 games they conceded first in, but it’s Manchester City whom opposition sides should now avoid poking early doors, with the champions winning four of the five games in which they’ve conceded the opener.

14) Newcastle slow starters
Not really worth turning up to a game as a Newcastle fan until half-time. They’ve scored just four goals in the opening 45 minutes, compared to nine after the break, and would currently be 16th in the Premier League if games only lasted that long.

They’re worst away from home, where they’ve scored just once in the first half of their six games and have been behind at the break in five of them.

15) Boring, boring Slot
We’re not finding it as easy as we suspected we might to find fault with Arne Slot after he took over from Jurgen “c*nt” Klopp, but they’re bottom of one table, tied with Manchester United for games in which both teams score (4). The difference between them and Manchester United being that Liverpool have only failed to score on one occasion, with their own clean sheets culpable for the other six wins-to-nil.

Both teams have scored in 36% of Liverpool games this season compared to 68% last term.

16) Leicester as creative as Newcastle
Big wins over Nottingham Forest and Arsenal for Newcastle in their last two but a side presumably chasing Champions League football should probably be creating more Big Chances than Leicester. They’re tied on 18, below Ipswich (20).