Key events
News just in: it’s very hot. And very dry and very sticky … and the Time Out wafer I got out of the fridge a bit ago has already melted.
Sporting fixtures and events, particularly at amateur level, are being postponed and cancelled due to heat warnings and the risk to health.
Here’s a fairly eye-popping gallery illustration of the changing sporting scenery in the UK as drought conditions persist.
Good day, blog readers. I could have sworn I watched teams do their end-of-season laps of honour about four blinks ago. But onwards …
That’s it, my stint on the blog is up. To keep the ball rolling it’s Stuart Goodwin.
I have a major soft spot for the Allsvenskan, it always chucks up great stories. Last year it was Mjällby and this season it’s Sirius, which combines not only the narrative of an unlikely title challenger but also the rise of a relative unknown in Scottish striker Robbie Ure, who has now departed to see if his Sweden-based goal plundering can translate to La Liga. Great piece by Will Magee:
Pretty proud of 12/16. Reckon you can do any better?
The news about Jarrell Quansah has seen the dispatch of an email from disgruntled Liverpool fan Graeme Neill: “Whether it’s overpaying for Isak, failing to address key gaps in the squad and now failing to activate the buyback on Quansah given several of our CBs are injured (and inexperienced), I imagine most Liverpool fans will be quite glad when Richard Hughes buggers off to Saudi Arabia.”
Any more thoughts on any and everything football, send me an email via the link at the top of the page.
Decorated Aston Villa goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer dies aged 78
Aston Villa’s 1981 First Division title-winning goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer has died at the age of 78.
Rimmer, who was ever-present as Villa were crowned champions of England, is best remembered for being forced off with a neck injury after only nine minutes as the team won the European Cup the following year, beating Bayern Munich 1-0 in the final in Rotterdam.
It was the second time he had had to watch his teammates triumph without him in the final having previously been on the bench 14 years earlier when Manchester United beat Benfica at Wembley.
In a statement, Villa said: “Aston Villa is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of European Cup winner Jimmy Rimmer, who has died at the age of 78.
“The thoughts of everyone at the club are with Jimmy’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time.
“Rimmer was one of the finest goalkeepers of his generation, and arguably one of the unluckiest when it came to big occasions. Despite collecting two European Cup winner’s medals, he wasn’t on the pitch at the end of either final.”
The one-cap England international was replaced in the Rotterdam final by understudy Nigel Spink, who kept a clean sheet as Peter Withe hit the second-half winner to see Villa crowned champions of Europe for the first and so far only time.
Spink went on to establish himself as No 1 at Villa Park whilst Rimmer was sold to Swansea a year later in 1983, having made more than 200 appearances for the club.
He began his career at Old Trafford but struggled to displace first-choice keeper Alex Stepney, and was sold to Arsenal in 1974 before joining Villa three years later.
Reporting courtesy of PA Media
Will Unwin
Lincoln trust in double act as second-tier return starts at Middlesbrough
The last thing the Championship needs is another spying scandal, so when a lorry emblazoned with KGB parked up alongside Lincoln City’s training ground on Tuesday lunchtime there was laughter as staff pondered whether the Soviet Union was examining their set pieces. It shows the relaxed atmosphere at one of the second tier’s newest clubs, one that has had a summer of change yet maintained continuity by appointing joint head coaches.
Tom Shaw and Chris Cohen have replaced Michael Skubala, who led the Imps to 103 points and promotion back to this level after 65 years away before leaving for Bristol City. It was a symbiotic appointment because while the former assistants were devising a sales pitch to the club’s hierarchy, the wheels were already in motion to promote from within. Their plan is to banish English football’s memories of Liverpool’s ill-fated pairing of Roy Evans and Gérard Houllier. The duo are doing final preparations for Saturday’s season opener at the Riverside against Middlesbrough, who have spent more than £20m on summer signings – Lincoln have spent a quarter of that across their 142-year history, indicating the task ahead.
Arsenal in talks over €5om deal for Quansah
Ed Aarons
Arsenal are in talks with Bayer Leverkusen over Jarell Quansah. The asking price for the England defender expected to be at least €50m (£43m). He joined the German club from Liverpool last summer for an initial £30m, with the Reds inserting a buy-back clause in the deal.
Seven players we’re excited to watch in the Championship this season
Lorent Tolaj (Bristol City)
This will be a fourth successive season of progression for Tolaj. He played in the National League in 2023-24 for Aldershot (scoring 19 goals), moved to League Two with Port Vale during 2024-25 (when he scored 14 goals), then jumped up to League One last season, scoring 18 goals – one for Port Vale and 17 for Plymouth. Now he’s going to test himself in the Championship after a £4m move to Bristol City.
Not only did Tolaj finish last season as the fourth top scorer in League One, he also made eight assists (a tally only beaten by six players). Only Dom Ballard (27) was involved in more goals than Tolaj (26) in the third tier; they will be teammates this season after Ballard joined Bristol City from Leyton Orient.
Being a high-volume shooter helped his goal tally, with Tolaj’s 113 shots more than any other player in League One last season. He averaged 3.7 shots per 90 minutes – a figure that only Aaron Connolly bettered.
For the rest, check out the latest from the Opta Analyst here:
Has anyone had a better summer than Djed Spence? He’s gone from having his jaw broken in May to becoming one of England’s cult heroes during the World Cup and now he’s swapping being Pedro Porro’s stand-in to signing for Inter Milan. There’s a few videos of Spence waving to cameras as he goes through his Italian medical tests knocking about on social media and he looks pretty pleased. I’m happy for him.
In the red half of Manchester (which is currently in County Kildare), Michael Carrick has ruled out Manchester United making a £100m signing this summer due to their finances. Asked how United can compete, Carrick said: “Money’s money. I get that. It’s still about football and that’s where the competition lies. What we feel naturally as a group is to try and win games. So there’s a lot that goes into that, but certainly the situation is what it is as well, whether that’s finances or whatever.”
Despite the forward and club preferring him to depart, Carrick was also effusive about Marcus Rashford: “He’s our player and has trained really well. It’s been good to have him around the group again.
“He’s a very good player, Marcus, and if you’re going to have a career over 10 or 15 years, there’s going to be times when things go in a direction and maybe a different direction. All right, that happens. There’s ups and downs, and that doesn’t judge you as a one-off kind of [state]. It’s what happens over time, and now we’re in a positive place as a group, and Marcus can offer us so much. He has done, and he can do again, so it’s quite exciting.”
More from the transfer market, the bods at Chelsea are hitting refresh on their inboxes after setting a deadline of 5pm today for Manchester City to make a bid for Enzo Fernandez. The Argentina international is being lined up as a replacement for Rodri, who has been the subject of an initial €45m bid from Barcelona. Strikes me as an expensive way to downgrade your midfield from Enzo Maresca, but he did see the best of Fernandez when he was Chelsea.
Galatasaray wanted Gabriel Martinelli. In the following 24 hours things changed a bit, creating greater complexity, something we do not approve of. Arsenal have supposedly been offered the chance to involve the Nigeria striker Victor Osimhen in exchange for the Brazilian, which could be temptong for a side looking for a new No 9. To further sweeten any potential, Ethan Nwaneri could be chucked into it too to make it a mega swap.
Get this kind of tittle-tattle and more fluff in today’s Rumour Mill:
Got a minute to spare? Why not try our daily Premier League trivia game, On the ball? Every day a star player past or present is hidden behind nine clues. How many will you need to identify them? It’s available in the Guardian apps
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Play our football trivia game, On the ball
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The Guardian’s daily football game, On the ball, is now live in the app for both iOS and Android. Can you identify the Premier League star from the clues?
Ben Fisher
Trippier: ‘The Championship is relentless … it’s totally different to the Premier League’
“I’m not going to sit here and lie, I wasn’t expecting it,” Kieran Trippier says. “But it’s the club’s decision. I had good chats with Rob, of course, but I’m here to play for Wolves. There are many surprises in football and that certainly was a surprise, I’m not going to deny that. But I just cracked on, I was with my kids on holiday, training in Mallorca and just looking forward to day one in pre-season.”
Read Ben Fisher’s full interview with the former England international:
OFC boost for Infantino
Matt Hughes
First up, big news in the murky world of football politics from Matt Hughes this morning:
Oceania declares support for Infantino in boost for Fifa president but New Zealand breaks ranks
The Oceania Football Confederation (OFC) has declared their support for Gianni Infantino following demands for the Fifa president to resign from Uefa, Concacaf and the Asian Football Confederation in a development that further highlights world football’s civil war.
After a meeting of its executive committee in Fiji on Wednesday, the OFC issued a statement on Friday praising “the progress achieved over the last decade” by Fifa in its first public comments since the abandoned World Cup sell-off plan emerged this month.
In another sign of division however, the OFC’s biggest member and only nation to qualify for this summer’s World Cup, New Zealand, broke ranks with the confederation by withdrawing their backing for Infantino and calling for an independent review of the Fifa Forward Enterprise plan, which has been demanded by the three rebel groups.
Full story:
Preamble
I’m not sure I’m ready for this, are you ready for this? Surely it’s too hot for the EFL to be back. Can we push it until after another Test series or some more balmy nights of athletics?
Ready or not, tonight Wolves striker Raúl Jiménez will likely be jeered by the travelling Blackburn Rovers support for daring to be on the field as Mexico lost to England at the Azteca, shirts will be removed and we will be one game closer to finding out if César Peixoto can cut it ‘over here’. The only green grass in the country right now can be found at football stadiums, so it will be nice to see that at least.
With the Championship leading the EFL’s return this evening, several strings loose in transfer tapestry to be tidied up and the ongoing shenanigans at Fifa, it is not quiet in football land. I’ll be across the latest news this morning, but I’m also keen to hear your thoughts on all things football, drop me a line via the email link at the top of the page.