Key events
The Premier League managerial press conferences have already started – more news from them in due course – but meanwhile here’s some reaction from last night’s Champions League games, with Andy Brassell watching Marcus Rashford remind England, and specifically Newcastle, of his ability at St James’ Park:
It was the day that Uefa confirmed, as kick-off approached in Barcelona’s Champions League season, that La Liga’s champions would begin their home campaign in the competition against Paris Saint-Germain next month where they ended the last one, at the Estadi Olímpic Lluís Companys. With their supporters getting ready to renew their journey up the slopes of Montjuic that few of them care for, their climb to potential glory mirrors the hopes of one of their new arrivals.
And how he has arrived. Flags do not get planted at the summit much more emphatically than this, and Marcus Rashford could not have picked his moment better to announce himself with Barcelona.
Much more here:
Miguel Dantas has written this morning about José Mourinho’s return to Portugal after more than two decades.
Less than three weeks after being dismissed by Fenerbahce, José Mourinho is back in the dugout. The “Special One” has taken over at Benfica, marking his return to his home country more than two decades after his move from Porto to Chelsea. In an unusual twist he has signed a contract to June 2027 with a break clause next summer related to October’s club presidential election. Will this be a fresh start for Mourinho, or another step down in his career?
Hélder Postiga, a former Tottenham forward and one of Mourinho’s key players at Porto, regards the appointment as a win for an entire nation. Postiga, who scored five goals in Porto’s triumphant 2003-04 Uefa Cup campaign, believes the coach’s return will elevate Portuguese football. “It will be great for the game here,” he says. “Mourinho is more than a man – he’s a global brand.”
Much more here:
Hello world!
As the sun sets on a busy week of European football, with three full nights of Champions League action throwing two different English clubs into continental competition on each of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, a hectic weekend dawns.
Tonight Middlesbrough, the current Championship leaders, play fifth-placed West Bromwich Albion, who could overtake them with a healthy win. Tomorrow the Premier League action starts with a lunchtimely Merseyside derby at Anfield and continues with a couple of meaty-looking encounters between sides currently struggling, with bottom club Wolves hosting Leeds, and a Burnley side unlucky to have only three points welcoming a Nottingham Forest team seemingly approaching full wheels-off mode. And while it’s way too early to pay much attention to any of the league tables and the WSL most of all, their season being just two games old, Sunday’s game between Manchester United and Arsenal, two of the teams with 100% records so far and last year’s second- and third-place finishers, is a guaranteed cracker.
So, I hear you ask, is there anything to look out for in the Premier League this weekend?
That, my friends, is a question I can answer.
