The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic’s daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox.
Hello! After two matches, one PL club is already feeling the heat. Happy new season…
On the way:
🔵 Fear and loathing at Everton
🤏 Man Utd home in on Ugarte
🤔 FIFA’s odd legal fight
🎤 City super fan breaks internet
Sweepstake time. If you picked day nine of the new season for the first Premier League meltdown, step forward and collect your prize.
Even if you didn’t, there’s a fair chance you had Everton down as the club in which patience would wear thin most quickly. Weekend two was as far as they got before the infighting began.
Or, more accurately, before the infighting resumed. Because there’s been an ominous vibe at Everton for longer than is healthy and they’re circling the drain again. Their 2024-25 record reads played twice, lost twice, conceded seven goals and scored none.
Four of those goals flew in at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, after which a group of Everton fans were videoed berating the squad as they boarded a train home from London. The vitriol was vicious and personal. Neal Maupay bore some of the worst of it and bit back on X, writing: “Imagine another job where it’s normalised to get abuse like this.”
Bottom of the league after two games usually means very little. In this case, it’s the biggest red flag going. Sean Dyche wants a central midfielder before Friday’s transfer deadline. He needs Houdini.
(Marc Atkins/Getty Images)
Searching for a saviour
Dyche had 15 senior players with him at Spurs. He’s badly under-resourced and while he has a track record for sneaking Everton out of tight corners, there are only so many tricks he can pull.
The club are crying out for a takeover, but two bids have already fallen apart. While neither of those suitors looked in any way perfect, they complicated matters by leaving behind two huge loans, to the tune of around £400million ($530m). Now, Crystal Palace shareholder John Textor is trying to get a deal over the line. He’s not the perfect owner either, but nor are Everton the perfect investment.
At this juncture, they’re a picture of cumulative pain: results, performances, points deductions and stagnation, going back way beyond Saturday. They are, Nick Miller writes, the Premier League’s bleakest entity. And to paraphrase Homer Simpson, this is only their lowest ebb so far.
A bold new dawn was supposed to be coming, underpinned by the new stadium Everton are building. It’s due to open next season. In a sweepstake of the first away team to appear there, anybody with sense would be choosing from the Championship.
📺 Carabao Cup, round two: Everton vs Doncaster Rovers, 2.45pm/7.45pm — Paramount+, Sky Sports.
Transfer talk
(Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images)
Ugarte set for Man Utd medical, Liverpool thinking on Chiesa move
Come Saturday, the summer transfer window will be closed to Premier League teams. They either twist in the next 72 hours or hold their peace.
And here’s some hot news: Manchester United have chosen to twist. They’ve agreed a £42m ($56m) fee for Paris Saint-Germain midfielder Manuel Ugarte and he’s on his way to England for a medical. I like Ugarte and we’ve explained if he is the right stylistic fit for United. I’m fascinated to see how he goes.
Elsewhere, our last DealSheet edition contains all you need to know about how the market is likely to rock and roll over the next few days. This is what’s cooking:
📲 Transfer live blog
🎙️ TAFC podcast: Ugarte, Sancho and Chelsea’s fire sale: Ornstein’s transfers to watch.
FIFA sues Google
FIFA is the gift that keeps on giving and that’s not a quip about its love of the green stuff. Matt Slater’s latest Business of Football column has highlighted a particularly odd PR move by the game’s high-and-mighty world governing body. (Matt either received no reply or “no comment” from all those contacted for his article.)
The drama concerns an obscure website I’d never heard of, you’ve never heard of and none of us were in the habit of reading. It’s based in Africa and FIFA says it contains defamatory content about the organisation and certain FIFA employees.
FIFA is therefore suing Google, claiming the American technology monolith is allowing the spread of libellous articles by refusing to remove the site from its search results. It’s FIFA’s prerogative to fight its corner, but legal action has predictably turned more eyes towards the material it wants to remove. It’s the Barbra Streisand effect. FIFA must be a fan.
Around The Athletic FC
(Clive Mason/Getty Images)
Catch a match
It’s been slow in coming, but we might just get Dani Olmo’s Barcelona debut tonight.
La Liga: Rayo Vallecano vs Barcelona, 3.30pm/8.30pm — ESPN+, Fubo, Premier Sports 1.
Carabao Cup, round two: Birmingham City vs Fulham, 3pm/8pm — Paramount+, CBS Sports, Sky Sports.
Champions League qualifier, second leg: Galatasaray (2) vs Young Boys (3), 3pm/8pm — Paramount+, Fubo, Amazon Prime.
And finally…
Nowhere in the world has there been a harder negotiation than this one, but it’s official: Oasis are reforming. Manchester’s Britpop icons are delivering music’s most sought-after reunion.
The Gallagher brothers, Noel (he who does not Poznan) and Liam, have found a way to bury the hatchet, and not in each other’s backs either. Today’s announcement is an invitation to revisit The Athletic’s recent interview with Noel about his love of all things Manchester City. A few sentences in and you’ll understand why he and Liam could fall out at the drop of a hat.
Tickets go on sale on Saturday. The queues will break the internet. See you there.
(Top photo: John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)
