That is me done for the day. But fear not, plenty else to get stuck into.
Our clockwatch of the afternoon kick-offs has just gone live, helmed by John Brewin while Alex Reid is giving updates to the WSL match between Everton and Arsenal.
Thank you for tuning in and sharing your thoughts. We will also be back tomorrow morning for Sunday’s matchday live. Enjoy all the football until then!
Premier League: Afternoon kick-offs are soon approaching. Here is our predicted lineups for the weekend.
Sunderland v Newcastle: Earlier, a commenter below mentioned their dismay in the Tyne-Wear derby getting a bit lost with coverage of everything else. Eddie Howe believes Sunderland could be a tougher test for his side than Champions League matches while Régis Le Bris has also been made aware about how important a win over Newcastle could be.
The fans have been talking about it since I first came here. At the beginning of this season, one told me: ‘If you beat Newcastle you can be relegated.’ I’m not sure about that but I know it’s really important.
The two teams have been on different ends of the spectrum for the past 10 years, with Newcastle definitely having the upper hand. Is tomorrow the start of tides a turning?
Women’s FA Cup: Wolves, of the National League North, have just kicked off their FA Cup third round match. Their win over Stoke in the previous round was one for the books with late goals from Beth Merrick and Racheal Quigley, the latter scoring her 13th goal in 18 FA Cup games.
They face Forest, who are fifth in the WSL2 but have won just one of their last six fixtures across all competitions.
Everton v Arsenal: A reminder of the standings before kick-off which is in … one minute!
Follow along with Alex Reid below.
Interview: Chloe Kelly gets her chat on with Rebecca Nicholson to discuss back-to-back Euro wins with England, working with sports psychologists, her dark end at Manchester City and better days at Arsenal.
And more via email, all on Salah.
Dave is in the ‘get rid’ camp:
So you can publicly criticise your club and manager, be pictured laughing and joking in training a few days later, post loaded selfies instead of applauding your teammates after a hard fight result in Europe and still be picked a week later. That money-grabbing mercenary has got Slot by the short and curlies and Liverpool have now just set a precedent that having a public paddy about not playing to try and engineer a move in order to get more money is perfectly acceptable. He should be sacked or made to train with the reserves till his contract runs out. Absolutely hilarious state of affairs.
Walid believes Slot (and the summer spending) is the problem:
Last season Liverpool won the league not because of Mr. Slot but with the team put together by Mr. Klopp. The team was working brilliantly. Mr. Slot ripped the fabric of the team by buying too many strikers in one go. He should’ve known that if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.
Jack tries to put himself in Salah’s shoes:
Thoughts on Salah: no, they aren’t original, or insightful, but they are mine. There is no way to know what goes on in the mind of an elite performer like Salah, unless you are Salah himself, or on his level. Few are. That said, it seemed out of character and not the act of a player who thought the team, the club, was more important than him. It is. It always will be. He’s my favourite EPL player and his legacy is secure, but his outburst was wrong because it made him sound as if he was putting himself above the team. No one, not even Bono, is bigger than the band. Maybe Paul McCartney. No, not even Macca. Good luck today, Mo!
And Mark is off to Anfield:
Going to Anfield today with some mixed feelings but not many. Mo Salah of course has been phenomenal for Liverpool especially numbers-wise over the years and merits legendary status on that basis. But choosing to voice his frustrations in public rather than privately, especially at a time when the team and particularly Arne Slot were under great pressure, is unforgivable to me.
Mo has form on this of course, choosing to air his contract renewal grievances in public every three years to put pressure on the club by indirectly appealing for fan support. In truth he has shown poor form for quite a few stretches over the last three seasons, his best form coming while angling for contract renewal last season, and if I can criticise Slot for anything it is not benching Mo sooner this season.
While I’ll be forever hugely grateful for all his goals and assists contributing to Champions League & Premier League titles (and his numbers are truly incredible for a player with such a limited skillset), my lasting view of him will be of a player who always prioritised his own ambitions above the club. Looking forward to seeing if Slot keeps Salah on the bench today …!
Let’s get to some of your comments. As always, thank you for your contributions!
Re: Salah I think there is still potential for him to stay.
If you think he’s basically devalued himself in the transfer market because everyone knows he wants to leave, his form isn’t great and he’s on massive wages.
If Liverpool are wanting to get a fee that’s been torpedoed imo. Then it’s a question of where does salah see himself next, you get the impression he backs himself at the highest level, he clearly still wants to play top level football, so is a Saudi destination really a foregone conclusion?
Would he take a pay cut to go elsewhere? Would Liverpool sanction a loan move ? Would they accept a bid to buy from another premier league club ?
There are other big teams in Europe that could be interested in him and would look at him as somewhat of a bargain.
But it depends on what Liverpool want for him, his wage demands and the market itself. If Liverpool are absolutely set on wanting to sell him they might have to end up paying a portion of his wages.
Do FIFA not realise that by charging this much for the games then the atmosphere will be terrible for most matches, or do they know and just not care?
Knowing Gianni they will pipe crowd noise from a Trump rally into stadiums to cover the abject lack of singing.
This is the first time since I was 14 that Scotland have made it to the world cup, with no guarantees we will make it to another. Trust us to make it to one that threatens to be historically awful
Altrincham away at Telford in the fa trophy is today’s main focus ! 40 years since “ the robins “ last appeared at Wembley so obviously worthy of everyone’s attention
Team news: Everton v Arsenal (WSL)
Everton XI (4-3-3): Brosnan; Kitagawa, Fernandez, Mace, Ishikawa; Wheeler, Hayashi, Momiki; Vignola, Payne, Gago.
Arsenal XI (4-2-3-1): Borbe; Fox, Wubben-Moy, Catley, McCabe; Little, Cooney-Cross; Mead, Caldentey, Foord; Russo.
Follow along with Alex Reid in our minute-by-minute.
Women’s Super League: The only match today in the WSL is Everton v Arsenal at Goodison Park as Renée Slegers’ side will be hoping to head into the mid-season break on with two wins against Merseyside opposition after last weekend’s victory over Liverpool. Arsenal sit one point shy of the top three and only two behind second-placed Chelsea.
Everton impressed with a massive away win at Chelsea last Sunday to end the defending champions 34-match unbeaten run. Brian Sørensen’s side are ninth in the table and will want to build on that momentum. Team news to come for the noon kick-off.
Wrexham’s owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have sold a stake in the company to the US private equity investors Apollo, less than three months after the football club was given £14m in state aid. Barney Ronay writes that this was just another project, as it always was.
Apollo Sports is a legit fund, provides a necessary service, and has purged itself of its seemingly dodge-pot founder. We know how this world works. All hedge funds seem dirty at one remove, because money is dirty. And all football clubs at this level are owned by people who have money.
The most obvious point of dissonance is the grant of public funds. Why is the Welsh administration giving money to an entity now part-owned by US financiers? Why are they doing this at a time when the NHS is ailing and infrastructure in decline?
The new minority owners have limitless finance available to them. They can build a stand and fix some floodlights. If the world were run on morality and fairness this money would now be returned to the public purse. It isn’t and it can’t, so it won’t.
Interview: Christian Fuchs gets his chat on with Ben Fisher and reveals all on his new life as Newport County manager.
The former Leicester title winner also reminisces on the 5,000-1 Premier League win and all that came with it including lessons from Claudio Ranieri and crosswords with Thomas Tuchel.
When you look at Claudio you picture an elder gentleman, so long in the business, maybe a bit old school, but he’s so not.
He just said he was going to observe training in Austria for the first week. He didn’t get involved at all. After that week we had a meeting and he said: ‘I’ve watched you for a week and I’m not going to change anything.’
Newport host Fleetwood at Rodney Parade today hoping for their first home win in just the 273 days … Read the full interview below.
Fifa’s demand that the most fervent supporters cough up a minimum of £5,000 in advance just for tickets is scandalous, writes Philip Cornwall, who has been to nine European Championships and five World Cups – dating back to Euro 92.
Talk of paying upwards of £5,000 is not a case of England fans, or anyone else, being presumptuous about their side going all the way. It’s right that you have to pay the £500 or so for the guaranteed matches – the three group games – now if you want to go to them. But judging from some of the comments on social media, it may be less apparent that if you want to have a ticket from that 8% allocation, you have to pay the £4,500 for knockout games in advance too, however slim your team’s chance of progress may be. I would have to pay that five grand on my credit card in January, and if England faltered I might not get the refund until September; the terms and conditions give Fifa 60 calendar days to cough up once a team is eliminated – minus their $10 admin charge, naturally.
The FA will pass on England supporters’ concerns about high 2026 World Cup ticket prices to Fifa. However, despite the growing outrage, it is understood none of the international federations expect world football’s governing body to change its policy.
Anger among supporter groups continued on Friday after it emerged that the cheapest tickets will cost 10 times the price promised in the original bid for the United States, Canada and Mexico to host the tournament. For England fans it will mean having to pay at least $220 (£165) for group games – when the bid document’s ticket model stated the cheapest seats should be $21 (£15.70).
Scotland fans also face paying prices almost as high as England, having qualified for their first finals since 1998.
Will you be going to the World Cup? And if so, what sort of generational wealth do you come from? I kid, I kid, but these 2026 World Cup ticket prices are no joke … Here was Niall McVeigh’s verdict in yesterday’s Football Daily.
On Thursday, it emerged that the cheapest ticket available for the final in – and you’ll like this – the “supporter value tier” will cost $4,185 (£3,120). Fans hoping to watch their team’s entire journey through the draw are looking at a minimum cost of about $7,000 (£5,240) – and that’s just for match tickets.
Throw in the price of flights and accommodation, and most supporters are looking at an enormous £10,000 outlay – more than five times the cost of following your team in 2022. The Fifa chief suit appears to have finally got his wish: making us look back at the Human Rights World Cup with the tiniest degree of fondness.
Messi’s India tour starts in chaos as angry fans throw seats on pitch
Lionel Messi’s tour of India kicked off on a chaotic note on Saturday as fans ripped up seats and threw them on to the pitch after the Argentina and Inter Miami forward’s brief visit to the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, the ANI news agency reported.
Messi is in India as part of a tour during which he is scheduled to attend concerts, youth football clinics, a padel tournament and launch charitable initiatives at events in Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Delhi.
According to reports in Indian media, the 2022 World Cup winner walked around the pitch at the stadium waving to the fans, but was closely surrounded by a large group of people and left 20 minutes after his arrival.
Video from ANI showed fans throwing ripped up stadium seats and other objects on to the field and the athletics track at the site, with several people that had climbed over a fence surrounding the playing field hurling objects.
“Only leaders and actors were surrounding Messi … Why did they call us then?” A fan at the stadium told ANI. “We have got a ticket for 12,000 rupees [£100], but we were not even able to see his face.”
More of our Premier League coverage before the weekend of action can be found below, including 10 things to look out for across the grounds and a roundup of the best lines from the pre-match press conferences.
Arsenal v Wolves: The final Premier League match of the day sees first meets worst as the league leaders host bottom of the table at the Emirates Stadium. Mikel Arteta has insisted Gabriel Jesus will not be sold and can be his first-choice No 9 after Jesus made his injury comeback as a second-half substitute in the 3-0 win against Club Brugge on Wednesday following 11 months away.
The Brazil international, 28, brings an extra dimension to Arteta’s frontline but he has just 18 months to run on his contract.
After splashing out £64m on Viktor Gyökeres and with Kai Havertz, albeit sidelined with a knee injury, another striking option, Arsenal could have been tempted to cash in on Jesus before his deal expires but Arteta denied those discussions were taking place at the club.
No, I don’t consider that [selling him], especially with the situation that we have right now.
Gabriel has a lot to offer to the team and he’s proven that straight away in the first minute that he was available to play. He’s put so much to be in this position again and now the focus is to be with us.
Arteta was without eight players for their midweek Champions League clash. The Spaniard would not comment on whether any of Declan Rice, who missed out on the trip to Belgium through illness, and some of the other shorter-term absentees such as William Saliba, Leandro Trossard and Jurriën Timber would be available to face Wolves.
Burnley v Fulham: Marco Silva has challenged Fulham to end their long wait for a win at Burnley; the last time Fulham triumphed at the Clarets was back in 1951 and they have only won once during the last nine meetings between the clubs.
I’ve been trying and learning all the moments and all the challenges, but every single week that we play, the numbers are not amazing for us, but we have been breaking so many of those numbers as well, it’s been incredible.
I love this type of challenge. I love it, because if the club didn’t achieve it in the past, there is a reason and right now, we can change the story. Simple as that.
The numbers are there and they are there for a reason, but they are there to be broken as well. PA Media
Burnley v Fulham: Scott Parker has called on Burnley’s fans to maintain their “crucial” role in the club’s fight against Premier League relegation.
His side sit second from bottom in the table after winning just three of their first 15 matches and will aim to halt a six-game losing run today at Turf Moor against one of Parker’s former clubs Fulham.
They’re massive for us, to be honest. The fans are crucial and they have been crucial for us. I understand there’s a hard-working fanbase that pays hard-earned money to come to support this team and are fundamentally desperate for a result. And we’re equally as desperate.
We need their full backing. We need their full support. We need them right behind this young group, through thick and thin. We need to make Turf Moor a really difficult place to come and I’m hoping that will be the case at the weekend.
Kyle Walker is one of three Burnley players who will miss out through suspension – Hannibal Mejbri and Lucas Pires are also banned – and Parker said the England defender’s absence will be sorely felt.
It will always leave a big gap no matter what team Kyle Walker is playing in. There’s always going to be a gap there because of his quality, his experience – his understanding of certain situations.
So of course, he’s going to be a miss for us at the weekend. It gives another person an opportunity as well, but a player of Kyle’s ability and what he brings will be a big miss for us. PA Media
Chelsea v Everton: David Moyes has admitted James Tarkowski needs to tread more carefully with video assistant referees after barging into Dan Ndoye during Everton’s 3-0 victory over Nottingham Forest.
Forest have made a formal complaint to PGMO after Tarkowski escaped punishment for knocking down Ndoye in the 11th minute last Saturday. Sean Dyche said he was “amazed” his former captain at Everton and Burnley was not shown a card of any description.
The referee, Chris Kavanagh, did not see the incident on-field while the VAR, James Bell, could not intervene in what might have been considered a yellow card offence.
Four wins out of five have moved Everton to within a point of Chelsea and a rare victory today – they have not won at Stamford Bridge since 1994 – would lift them into fourth place overnight.
Chelsea v Everton: Enzo Maresca has said Cole Palmer remains troubled by a groin problem and is still unable to play three games a week, raising fresh doubt over whether the Chelsea attacker will force his way into England’s World Cup squad.
It’s something that is a little bit day by day. You can see if he’s getting better, some days it can be worse. For instance after Leeds, he was completely bad the day after. And he played half an hour. After Bournemouth, he was OK. He played one hour. There’s not any sense [to it]. It’s day by day that decides how he feels.
Palmer’s struggles has allowed Jude Bellingham, Eberechi Eze, Phil Foden and Morgan Rogers to move in front of him in the fight to earn a spot in attacking midfield for England.
Have any thoughts on Salah? Do his comments post-Leeds harm his legacy? Has his time on Merseyside come to an end? Do you have an opinion on the situation that somehow, miraculously has not been said yet? Sound off in the comments below the line or send us an email.
Liverpool v Brighton: The reaction from Salah’s comments in the UK and in his home country could not be on two further ends of the spectrum.
The true measure of Salah’s cultural weight became clear in the breadth of national conversation, as talk around his interview spilled beyond the confines of football punditry. One of Egypt’s most known news presenters, Amr Adib, whose loud, brash political and economic opinions often go viral for all the wrong reasons, staunchly came to Salah’s defence. Political commentators dissected Salah’s words through the lens of negotiation tactics. Even YouTube film critics and foodie TikTokers felt compelled to offer their analysis. “It feels as if every public voice has an opinion to air,” says the president of one of Liverpool’s oldest fanclubs in Egypt, Ahmed Fahmy. “The dramatics of it all proves that a crisis involving Salah is a crisis for the nation.”
What Egypt thinks of the Salah saga and their choice words aimed at Jamie Carragher below (in what I must warn you feels like a shameless self plug).
Liverpool v Brighton: It is unclear whether Salah will start, come off the bench or even make an appearance at all. And how will supporters react if he does make it on to the pitch?
Here are five Liverpool fans’ thoughts on the saga that may help gauge how the Anfield faithful react.
The biggest story of the week was Mohamed Salah’s comments after Liverpool’s 3-3 draw at Leeds and the subsequent fallout. Yesterday it was confirmed he would be back in the squad to face Brighton after he had been omitted from Tuesday’s Champions League win at Inter.
The Egyptian will depart for the Africa Cup of Nations on Monday.
Preamble
Hello, football. A jam packed day awaits. Readers, any football plans for the day? What ground are you heading off to? How optimistic are you that your team will get the win this weekend? Let me know in the comments below the line or via our dedicated matchday live email.
Join me as we get stuck in with the buildup to today’s matches and as we go through any breaking news and big stories.