Opinion

It's never a good idea to pay much attention to football's annual awards ceremonies. These glorified popularity contests drag on for far too long and trying to wrap your head around the lack of logic involved in the voting process is an exercise in futility. However, it was impossible to ignore The Best FIFA Men's 11 for 2025 - because the omission of Raphinha made so little sense.

While still coming to terms with Liverpool's inability to defend a 2-1 lead with less than three minutes of stoppage time to go at Fulham on Sunday, Virgil van Dijk insisted that there was no reason for the Reds to approach their midweek clash with Arsenal with any sort of trepidation. "First of all, we will recover from this and, from Tuesday on, we will definitely look at the strength that they have," the Dutchman said of the Premier League leaders.

In the end, Ruben Amorim could not handle being told what to do by other people. Despite being the first man in Manchester United's history to be appointed under the title of 'head coach' rather than 'manager', he decided that he wanted the latter role. What he ultimately meant is that he wanted control, and he certainly did not want others meddling in his business.

Ruben Amorim has become the sixth Manchester United manager to be sacked in less than 13 years, with the Portuguese's hugely disappointing tenure coming to an end on Monday in acrimonious circumstances. Amorim lasted less than 14 months in charge at Old Trafford, making his stint the second-shortest of all the coaches to step into the Old Trafford dugout on a permanent basis.

Manchester United have finally put Ruben Amorim out of his misery. On Monday morning, the 20-time champions of England announced that the Portuguese had "departed his role as head coach" and that the decision had been "reluctantly" made to "give the team the best opportunity of the highest possible Premier League finish". Of course, the table doesn't make for particularly poor reading for United.

The jig is up for Ruben Amorim. After 14 unforgettable months as head coach, he has been sacked by Manchester United. He broke many records for the wrong reasons, lost a European final to Tottenham and was dumped out of the Carabao Cup by fourth-tier side Grimsby Town. Yet it is only now that those upstairs at Old Trafford have decided to pull the trigger.

It was a mic drop moment that came out of the blue and yet seemed to have been brewing for a long time. Ruben Amorim was getting through a potentially difficult press conference after drawing at Leeds with little fuss, giving the assembled journalists little to feed on. But then came the bombshell moment which has led to him ultimately being sacked just 14 months after taking over at Old Trafford.

We reached the midway point of the Premier League season on Thursday night, with Arsenal holding a very promising four-point advantage at the top of the table as the Gunners look to end an agonising, 22-year title drought, and their chances of doing so have only increased after Saturday's hard-fought win at Bournemouth. Of course, Manchester City are very dangerous chasers - as Arsenal know to their considerable cost - and Aston Villa will obviously be hoping to stay in touch even after their chastening 4-1 defeat at the Emirates on Tuesday.

Premier League clubs splashed out £3 billion ($4bn) on transfers in a record-breaking summer window, more than those in the Bundesliga, La Liga, Ligue 1 and Serie A combined, with Liverpool accounting for £415m ($561m) of that eye-watering amount on the back of their 2024-25 title success under Arne Slot. Mega-money was also spent by the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Tottenham, with Aston Villa, Crystal Palace and Fulham the only three clubs to invest less than £50m ($67m) in strengthening their respective squads.

January is often described as the grimmest month of the year, but it can also be a time of renewal, a moment to make a fresh start. And for football clubs, the opening of the January transfer window provides an opportunity for clubs to breathe new life into their disappointing campaigns and invest for the future.

The Christmas period is upon us, which means we are somehow already more or less at the midway point of the 2025-26 football season. As many of Europe's leading leagues pause for the winter break, it's time to take stock and reflect on four scintillating months of action. It's also the opportune moment to assess those players who completed transfers across the continent in the summer, now that they have a decent sample size of games under their belts.

With the halfway stage of the season upon us, the time has come to shine a spotlight on the players who have made the biggest impact across Europe's major leagues. But first, let's run through the lay of the land.

As we reach Christmas and approach the midway point in the Premier League season, the time has come to reflect on the first half of a campaign that has delivered drama and unexpected twists in abundance. It's also the opportune moment to assess those players who completed a transfer to, or within, the English top-flight back in the summer, with a decent sample size of games now under their belts.

Pure excitement has been the theme of this Premier League season. Arsenal, Manchester City and Aston Villa are locked in a three-way title race while practically the rest of the division is competing for a European place. Indeed, the table is so crowded it feels more like the Championship than the top-flight, with back-to-back wins being all it takes to propel teams from 15th to the top five.

Manchester United are a better footballing side under Ruben Amorim, that is undeniable. They move the ball far quicker and with a purpose that was largely lacking under the Portuguese manager's bumbling predecessor Erik ten Hag, whose poor decision-making set the club back years. Fans are getting proper entertainment in exchange for their money and time again, which means Amorim has hit the minimum requirement 13 months into his reign.

After Chelsea's hard-fought Carabao Cup win in Cardiff on Tuesday, Enzo Maresca went to applaud the travelling support. They responded by singing the Italian's name. At most clubs, there would be nothing remotely remarkable about a pretty perfunctory display of mutual affection between a fan base and a trophy-winning manager. Chelsea are not most clubs, though.

Mohamed Salah bid farewell to Anfield on Saturday - but was it for good? The fact that he'd even made it onto the pitch was clearly a positive sign. After Salah's extraordinary attack on Arne Slot and the club the previous weekend, there was a very real fear that 'The Egyptian King' might not even make the squad for Liverpool's final fixture before he headed off to the Africa Cup of Nations in Morocco.