.png)
7 hours ago
5
Key events
While football is truly back today, we did also have football last night and there was even a Premier League team involved.
Ryan Naderi’s second-half strike gave an unconvincing Rangers a narrow 1-0 win in the first leg of their Conference League playoff tie against Czech side Jablonec at Ibrox.
Brighton generously repaid the cost of their travelling fans match ticket for the hardy souls who made it to the far north of Norway to watch the Seagulls draw 0-0 with Tromsø in their Conference League playoff. Those watching back home had to shell out £12 for something called SolidSport and did not get refund.
Also in Conference League qualifying action, Hearts managed a 2-2 draw at home with Rapid Vienna and Hibs drew 0-0 away in Gent.
Full roundup here:
One of my favourite things for any new season is the first month when referees try to enforce a new directive, make a couple of harsh decisions on bookings or red cards and then slowly go back to the old ways after the first international break. A couple of years ago it was lengthy extra-time periods, but see also ‘preventing the restart’ or ‘high threshold’ for VAR. This season we have some new ones and Sarah Rendell has been looking at them and some other fresh items here:
Tottenham close on deals for Manchester City’s Savinho and Marmoush
Jamie Jackson
Manchester City are close to agreeing the transfer of Savinho to Tottenham for £85m, with a separate deal of around £75m for the arrival of Omar Marmoush from the FA Cup-winners to the north London club also being worked on.
Full story:
Why not start the day right with some transfer tittle-tattle? There’s some tasty morsels in today’s Rumour Mill, including this little treat:
After Vinícius Júnior signed a shiny new deal at Real Madrid, Arsenal are having to look elsewhere for a new winger. Turkey’s Kenan Yildizm who plies his trade with Juventus, is of interest to Mikel Arteta and the Gunners hierarchy. One potential way of getting the deal done is to send Gabriel Martinelli in the opposite direction.
Will Unwin has the full rumour roundup:
Preamble
Football is back! Well football has been back for a couple of weeks now (we see you, Carabao Cup and EFL), but by football I mean over-financed, TV-entertainment product we call the Premier League. Rejoice!
Have you watched your season recap? Are you up-to-date on the latest character developments? Have you heard of Pierre Sage? Well don’t worry if not, there’s plenty of time today to get ready before Arsenal take on Coventry in the Friday night curtain-raiser at 8pm (BST). Yes, it’s still summer time.
My colleagues and I will be keeping you abrest of all the latest football news and previews on this Fridau buildup blog.
