Friday News (includes West Ham)
Posted: 03 Oct 2025, 09:45
BBC
Real Madrid's senior management are having doubts about pursuing a deal for Liverpool and France defender Ibrahima Konate, 26, who is out of contract at Anfield next summer. (Fichajes - in Spanish), external
Liverpool have lined up Crystal Palace's France centre-back Maxence Lacroix, 25, as an alternative to his club team-mate, England defender Marc Guehi, 25. (Football Insider) , external
Manchester United have added 21-year-old Brentford and Ukraine defensive midfielder Yehor Yarmolyuk to their list of transfer targets. (Caughtoffside), external
Manchester United's out-of-favour striker Joshua Zirkzee is still of interest to Juventus and AC Milan, with the Netherlands international, 24, also a January loan target for Como. (ESPN), external
Manchester United have finalised a deal to sign 17-year-old Colombian midfielder Cristian Orozco from Bogota club Fortaleza. (Fabrizio Romano), external
Tottenham and Manchester United are ahead of Fulham in the race to sign Middlesbrough's 23-year-old English midfielder Hayden Hackney. (Teamtalk), external
Newcastle are keen on Athletic Club's 25-year-old Spanish attacking midfielder Oihan Sancet. (Mundo Deportivo - in Spanish)
Real Madrid will consider Paris St-Germain and France midfielder Warren Zaire-Emery, 19, as an alternative transfer target to Manchester City and Spain midfielder Rodri, 29. (Fichajes - in Spanish), external
Arsenal, Manchester City, Real Madrid and Barcelona are among the elite clubs tracking Club Tijuana's 16-year-old Mexican attacking midfielder Gilberto Mora. (Teamtalk), external
Liverpool's Italian defender Giovanni Leoni, 18, is not expected to be back in action until the end of 2026 following knee ligament surgery. (Mail - subscription required), external
Manchester City striker Erling Haaland's patience with the club's predicament is wearing thin, despite the 25-year-old Norway international signing a lucrative contract until 2034. (Star), external
Former Liverpool interim sporting director Jorg Schmadtke is being lined up to take on the same role at Borussia Monchengladbach. (Kicker - in German), external
Manchester City midfielder Phil Foden, 25, is pushing for an England recall, but Everton's on-loan City winger Jack Grealish, 30, looks set to miss out. (Guardian)
Sky Paper Talk
THE SUN
Sir Gareth Southgate fears he would not be given the time to transform Manchester United into a force again if he became their next manager.
Rory McIlroy has been sent a formal apology after his wife Erica Stoll was hit by beer at the Ryder Cup.
Premier League boss Richard Masters has given the biggest hint that the Saturday 3pm blackout is here to stay.
DAILY MIRROR
Manchester United chiefs reportedly gave thought to turning to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer before landing Ruben Amorim last year.
Gabriel Martinelli claims Viktor Gyokeres is capable of scoring up to 40 goals for Arsenal this season - because of the wizardry of captain Martin Odegaard.
Oliver Glasner's future at Crystal Palace is uncertain after the Austrian declined the chance to sign a new contract with the club.
THE TIMES
Bars are expected to extend trading hours next summer as England matches could begin as late as 2am under FIFA's plans to combat extreme heat in North America.
DAILY MAIL
Crystal Palace are showing interest in highly rated AZ Alkmaar prospect Kees Smit.
Tottenham are among the clubs following Vasco da Gama's young forward Rayan Vitor.
Christian Horner has approached a Formula One team about a return to the sport - but with little success, according to reports.
The Welsh Rugby Union has admitted it won't have resolved whether or not to cut the number of Wales' professional club sides from four to two before the start of the national side's November Tests, raising the likelihood of a significant distraction for new head coach Steve Tandy.
THE ATHLETIC
Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson will likely be out until the November international break after sustaining a hamstring injury.
Premier League chief Richard Masters believes domestic leagues are in a "struggle" with FIFA for fans' attention and players' time, with the global governing body still not listening to concerns about fixture congestion and player welfare.
Tottenham Hotspur are confident in reaching an agreement with midfielder Rodrigo Bentancur over a new contract.
SCOTTISH SUN
Celtic could face disciplinary action from UEFA after fans unfurled a banner accusing the governing body of being "complicit in genocide".
DAILY RECORD
Legendary manager Rafa Benitez has been endorsed as a perfect option for Rangers or Celtic - six months on from being linked with the Ibrox hotseat.
Borussia Monchengladbach have opened talks with Lutz Pfannenstiel to appoint him as their new sporting director. Pfannenstiel had previously held talks with Aberdeen and declared his interest in their vacant director of football position.
The Athletic
Graham Potter and a sacked manager’s next steps. What if he just did… nothing?
By Nick Miller
The most striking thing about The Athletic’s interview with Jurgen Klopp this week was just how at ease he seems with not being a manager anymore.
“Not. At. All,” he responded when asked if he was fully across the previous weekend’s football, going on to extol the virtues of spending time with his grandkids, going to the cinema and attending weddings.
“I don’t want to work as a coach anymore,” he said, while adding the caveat that he might change his mind in the future.
It was interesting reading in the aftermath of Graham Potter’s departure from West Ham United, and the question that has come up in the intervening days: What now for him?
Potter’s position is a tricky one. It’s difficult to see him getting a Premier League job next, and he might consider a Championship job as too much of a step down at this stage in his career. The most likely destination feels like a mid-range European club: a Hamburg or Club Brugge, or possibly one of the multi-club groups’ outposts; a club where the standard is still good but without the same crushing pressure that comes with an Englishman in the Premier League, where the stink of failure that now (perhaps unfairly) hangs over his head will be less pungent and will be allowed to clear a little.
But here’s an alternative suggestion for what he could do next: nothing.
Or, at least, something completely different. Because he doesn’t need to be a football manager. There are other things out there.
Perhaps he should follow the lead of Klopp, and indeed Gareth Southgate, by opting out. Klopp still has a job in the game, as overseer of the Red Bull Group, which seems to consist of giving advice here and there, watching games, assessing potential signings and then persuading those signings to, erm, sign. Aside from the fact that most fans in Germany now seem to dislike him for his association with the fizzy drinks brand, it sounds like a pretty sweet gig.
Southgate, since stepping down as England manager after a second straight European Championship final appearance in summer 2024, has floated around what might reductively be called the LinkedIn-o-sphere: giving speeches, popping up at conferences, being a guest lecturer at Harvard University, writing another book about leadership, presumably a sequel to his previous book about leadership.
Again, he seems happy. Like Klopp, Southgate said earlier this summer that he doesn’t miss the stresses of his previous employment. Last year, he told the European Club Association conference that he was “enjoying life”.
The common factor there is a relative lack of stress. Both men are doing stuff that keeps them occupied, interests them on some level and pays the bills, but doesn’t consume their every waking thought. Sounds nice.
Granted, there is a difference between them and Potter, legacy-wise. Being sacked by Chelsea and then West Ham in less than three years is slightly different to winning league and European trophies and being a statue-level hero at three different clubs, or taking England to two major finals and making the national team likeable again. There may well be a strong sense of dissatisfaction and ‘unfinished business’ about his managerial career, which he may want to, well, finish.
But there doesn’t need to be. Potter may not have won any trophies in England, but reaching the point he did, considering his humble coaching beginnings in the Swedish fourth tier with Ostersund, unquestionably makes his career a success.
Perhaps Klopp and Southgate opting out of the coaching game, when they were surrounded by speculation about their next move and could very easily have hopped onto the first likely opportunity after leaving Liverpool and England respectively, will in some way ‘de-stigmatise’ the idea of not chasing the next job, just for the sake of it.
There is an assumption that any manager who leaves one role will naturally just try to find the next one. Yet there’s something quite bleak about the cycle for the out-of-work manager now, in England at least: there’s the initial period of self-reflection out of the limelight; the feelers being put out to see what jobs might be available; easing back into the public eye with the odd media appearance; the interview with a trusted print journalist; the inevitable appearance on Monday Night Football, pushing around virtual counters on the big screen as Jamie Carragher nods approvingly.
Potter has already done that once, between leaving Chelsea in April 2023 and joining West Ham in January this year. The prospect of doing it all again feels exhausting for those of us watching from the outside, never mind what he must feel.
This is not intended to imply that Potter is terrible at management and thus shouldn’t do it anymore. It’s also not the same as retiring, or ‘doing an Alan Curbishley’ by drifting out of relevance to the point where the phone simply stops ringing. This would be opting out, making an active decision to do something else.
What could that be? Anything.
He could take a Klopp-esque ‘overseer’ role somewhere; he could set himself up as an advisor to other managers; he could write a book; he could give speeches; he could become a sort of roving consultant; he could start a podcast in which he discusses coaching, a more cerebral version of Sean Dyche’s Utter Nonsense; he could do something completely unconnected with football; hell, he could just roam the Earth if he wanted to. Without prying into his financial circumstances, after three Premier League contracts and nice pay-offs from two of them, it’s safe to assume he doesn’t need the money.
There would be inevitable criticism of Potter, or anyone in his position, if they chose not to pursue another job. They would be charged with a lack of ambition, of giving up, of choosing the easy path. But as a life decision, it increasingly looks like the most sensible option.
Because being a football manager increasingly seems a disproportionately stressful experience, and more difficult to control than ever before. Most are dropped into a club, usually because, at best, something has gone wrong, or at worst, due to the club being rotten to the core. They are then immediately battered from all sides by competing interests and expectations, are presented with a set of players they didn’t choose and won’t have the final say on any future recruits, and in the face of all this, are expected to get results straight away.
There’s a randomness to it which suggests there are very few definitively good and definitively bad managers, just a series of circumstances in which some people fit and some don’t, almost regardless of how skilled they are.
And what about some sort of work/life balance? What about their loved ones? When do these managers see their families and friends? Wouldn’t it be nice to think about what would be best for those closest to them? Or at least have the option of several lives other than their own not being governed by the vagaries of the football industry?
Maybe Potter still needs to be a manager. Maybe his soul is still fired by the idea of coaching, and he can’t imagine doing anything else. Maybe he is genuinely enthused by the next opportunity, whatever that might be.
But just like some of the others, he should be able to do something else, to choose another path.
How interesting and refreshing that would be.
C&H
No Recall Option a Bitter Blow For Nuno
Sean Whetstone
Since taking up his place in the West Ham dugout, Nuno Espirito Santo might have begun to look at how he can improve his squad in January. Aside from the obvious transfers, it has been suggested the Hammers could look to exercise a loan recall but Claret & Hugh has exclusively learnt this morning that Nuno could be stopped in his tracks.
Edson Alvarez’s loan deal with Fenerbahçe contains no recall clause for January, meaning Espirito Santo cannot unilaterally bring him back from Turkey when the winter transfer window opens.
Public falling out with previous West Ham manager
It is now public knowledge that Alvarez is one of several first-team West Ham players who fell out with Graham Potter, which led to his season-long exile in Turkey being approved.
The 27-year-old Hammer suffered a hamstring injury while on International duty for Mexico against Japan at the beginning of September and is just recovering, which has seen him excluded from Mexico’s upcoming friendlies against Colombia and Ecuador.
Alvarez has made just one appearance in the Turkish Super Lig for Fenerbahçe on the last day of August against Genclerbirligi in a 3-1 win.
His only other appearance for the Turkish club came as a Europa League cameo appearance against Nice in a 2-1 win when he came on in the 64th minute.
While Nuno can’t recall Alvarez unilaterally in January, it is still possible to rip up the season-long loan contract mutually, but only if both sides agree to do so. Any such deal would likely include a small amount of money changing hands but as we saw with Maxwel Cornet and James Ward Prowse last season, these things can happen.