Manchester United boss Jose Mourinho has hinted that Victor Lindelof and Chris Smalling will be his centre-back pairing for the European Super Cup against Real Madrid on August 8.

Man United have already played five pre-season matches this summer – beating Los Angeles Galaxy, Real Salt Lake, Manchester City and Real Madrid, before losing their final tour match to Barcelona on Wednesday night.

Next up for the Red Devils is clashes with Valerenga and Sampdoria, before they travel to Macedonia to take on Champions League winners Real Madrid in the European Super Cup.

Eric Bailly, arguably Mourinho’s first-choice centre-back, will be suspended for the clash with Los Blancos after picking up a red card in the semi-finals of last season’s Europa League, and Mourinho has suggested that Lindelof and Smalling will be his pairing in Macedonia.

Mourinho told MUTV:

“I think we will understand the reason in a couple of days. Bailly is suspended for the first two matches in Europe as you know, and in the next couple of days you will have the understanding of why I am playing Lindelof and Smalling.”

Man United have already signed Lindelof and Romelu Lukaku from Benfica and Everton respectively in this summer’s transfer window.

However, the Red Devils are expected to bring at least one more player to the club before the window closes for business.

Arsenal have been relatively quiet in the transfer market over the last few weeks.

The Gunners made a statement by bringing in Sead Kolasinac and smashing their club-record fee to land Alexandre Lacazette for a reported £52m early in the window.

Transfer activity has since slowed down at the Emirates, with suggestions that the club are trying to offload their fringe players in order to make room for new arrivals.

Monaco midfielder Thomas Lemar is one of those players who Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger is reportedly keen to sign.

A report in the Daily Mail last month claimed that the North London outfit want to sell some of their unwanted stars in order to fund a move for Lemar.

The 21-year-old’s club are said to be reluctant to strike a deal given that they have already sold Bernardo Silva, Tiemoue Bakayoko and Benjamin Mendy.

It seems more and more likely that Lemar will not be arriving at the Emirates within the next two weeks, and the bookies seem to agree, with Sky Bet offering 8/13 on the midfielder staying put.

Arsenal rarely match the likes of Manchester City and Manchester United in spending vast amounts of money on a handful of players.

However, their capture of Lacazette suggested that the Gunners were ready to loosen the purse strings.

As it stands, though, the club look no closer to bringing in a new face before the transfer deadline.

Having been seemingly overlooked by plenty of big clubs over the last few years, it’s legitimate to ask if William Carvalho is any good.

Linked perpetually with the Premier League, both Arsenal and Manchester City have been singled out as potential destinations for the Portuguese Euro 2016 winner, but after years of links to Champions League level clubs, the biggest suitor of the summer seems to be West Ham United.

Clearly, the Hammers are a side who have designs of breaking into the top six and their monopoly on the Premier League’s European spots, but after a disappointing first season at their new home and a disastrous start to the new campaign, Carvalho could be forgiven for thinking that his direct route to the top has been closed off, and that he’ll have to take a more scenic route.

But even this move to London has been on the cards for a while, and it still hasn’t managed to get over the line. Well before the first game of the season, Carvalho was touted as a Hammers target, and in that game it was obvious that the Sporting midfielder was the kind of player Slaven Bilic’s side really needed to have in his ranks, as Nemanja Matic spent the afternoon robbing West Ham midfielders and setting up United counter-attacks.

Since then, he still hasn’t arrived, and although the most recent reports are positive from a West Ham point of view the longer it drags on, the less likely the deal looks.

If he does arrive, though, is there some reason that the bigger clubs haven’t waded in for him? Is there a reason that, with their seemingly infinite money over the last few season, even before the latest TV rights deal came into effect, the likes of Manchester City didn’t sign Carvalho?

The jump from Sporting in the Portuguese Liga Nos to the Premier League is a big one, and perhaps that’s also why Ruben Neves joined Wolves, and not one of the Premier League clubs who seemed to want his signature when he was at Porto.

There’s also an accusation around Carvalho that, even though he is a gifted midfield player with a good first touch and an impressive range of passing, he can sometimes be lazy on the pitch. That’s certainly never been something to admire in a midfield player, but in this era of high-intensity pressing it seems even more of a turn off.

And yet, just because the Premier League’s elite turn their noses up doesn’t mean that Carvalho isn’t of the required standard, nor does it mean that he never can be. But perhaps the fact that he’s yet to move from Lisbon shows the power of interest from one of the Premier League’s big boys.

Given the potential for an enquiry from a rich English club, Sporting have set their asking price quite high. And when there are no takers, especially for a few seasons, perhaps that means Carvalho was stuck, unable to move to a club slightly further down the food chain than one of the Premier League’s big boys simply because the rest had been priced out.

And now that every club in England seems to have enough money to pull off a transfer of that magnitude, and that most clubs in Germany, Spain, France and Italy don’t, West Ham aren’t competing with many clubs in European competition for his signature.

And so perhaps, if that’s the case, worries about Carvalho’s ability after the refusals of richer clubs are unfounded. And although they still give cause for some concern, it’s probably even more concerning that the deal has taken this long to get over the line.

Judging by the transfer gossip columns, Chelsea are far from finished with regards to their summer activity.

The Premier League champions’ business so far has attracted criticism, particularly after they allowed Nemanja Matic to join rivals Manchester United.

So far, the club have recruited Tiemoue Bakayoko, Antonio Rudiger and Alvaro Morata, but with nine days left before the window shuts, the Blues are believed to be eyeing some more new arrivals.

Danny Drinkwater has been one name linked with a move to Stamford Bridge in order to bolster the team’s midfield options.

The Leicester City man has been part of the Foxes’ setup since 2012 when he joined from Manchester United.

He was a crucial member of Claudio Ranieri’s team that stunned the football world to lift the Premier league title in the 2015-16 campaign.

According to the Daily Mail, Chelsea and Leicester are struggling to come to an agreement over price, with the Blues willing to pay £30m, which is £10m off the Foxes’ valuation.

Despite this, the bookies still have the English champions as favourites to land Drinkwater’s signature.

In fact, Sky Bet have the club firmly at the top of the betting market with odds of 4/6.

With N’Golo Kante, Cesc Fabregas and Bakayoko as options in midfield, Drinkwater may have to fight his way into Conte’s first team.

From the club’s perspective, the ex-United man’s arrival would add strength in depth to a squad that is battling on all fronts.

While Celtic Park has played host to some of the most memorable Champions League matches in recent times, Tuesday evenings match-up against Paris Saint Germain will be a game that the club and fans will want to forget as quickly as possible.

Three first half goals from Neymar, Kylian Mbappe and Edinson Cavani effectively ended the game before the break and, despite some decent spells, Celtic simply couldn’t match the incomparable offensive talent of the Parisian side.

And the defeat turned to embarrassment when a Mikael Lustig and a second Cavani goal made it 5-0 to the visitors. While few expected Celtic to claim any points from this match-up, the manner and size of the defeat will be a concern, especially with a number of tough European games on the horizon for the Glasgow club.

In the wake of the defeat, Celtic fans took to Twitter to express their disappointment…

It was not a game remembered for the football. Sometimes the soap opera takes over the story.

When we look back on Manchester City’s 2009/10 season, what stands out is a late Peter Crouch goal pipping them to the final Champions League spot, or Manchester United winning a League Cup semi-final over their noisy neighbours.

But it was a seminal season for City. It was the season where, despite being knocked back in the final hurdles like a cup semi and what was effectively a Champions League play-off with Spurs, the Blues seemed to announce that they were capable of actually getting that far at all. Failure was, for so long, in City’s DNA, and coming quite so close to breaking down the door didn’t seem like failure at all.

And there were times when the season’s narrative only served to mask the real progress that was being made under Roberto Mancini by the end of the his first half season in charge. Perhaps the game which is most emblematic of that phenomenon is City’s trip to Stamford Bridge in February.

After losing to Manchester United in the League Cup semi-final, Roberto Mancini’s side went on a run of one win in four Premier League games at the start of February. And then came the trip to Chelsea, a big game for lots of reasons.

Perhaps the biggest had nothing to do with football, masking City’s progression under Mark Hughes and then Mancini: and it all came to a head before the kick-off.

After revelations about the private lives of Chelsea captain John Terry and City left-back Wayne Bridge, the pre-match handshake was scrutinised massively. And when the pair didn’t shake hands, the furore was unsurprising.

What happened next, though, was that City came from behind to score four goals, the first in stoppage time at the end of the first half and the rest in the second to seal a 4-2 victory and their second win over Chelsea of the season.

Carlos Tevez scored twice, as did Craig Bellamy, for a City team whose starting XI included eight players who would go on to play crucial roles in the title winning side of 2012. But in 2010, it was just three years since a Stuart Pearce-led City side lost 6-0 at Stamford Bridge. Doing the double over Chelsea clearly marked a step up.

That game may not have announced City as a title contender, though, but it did show that they were a threat that they hadn’t been before. But analysis wasn’t based on that. Instead, the Bridge / Terry handshake, and Bellamy’s announcement after the game that he was unsurprised that Terry wouldn’t shake the City defender’s hand was the story. And because of that, Mancini’s Blues went under the radar somewhat.

City would lose three more times before the end of the season, once fatally to Tottenham. But the moral victory had been gained, and City had made real progress, mostly under the radar.

The next season, they wouldn’t be pipped by Spurs.

According to reports in The Times, Amanda Staveley is expected to launch a bid for Newcastle United imminently after signing a non-disclosure agreement with the club’s owners.

It was announced on Monday that Mike Ashley had put the Tyneside outfit up for sale after 10 years at the helm, and it seems as though a deal could be done soon with The Times saying that Staveley is looking for a speedy purchase.

The 44-year-old attended the recent draw against Liverpool at St James’ Park to fuel talk that a takeover was close, and it seems more progress has been made since the start of the month.

While Sky Sports reports that Ashley is looking to sell for around £400m, Reuters says that Staveley is considering a bid of around $400m (approximately £303.7m), with a promise of investing £150m over the course of the next two seasons.

However, the Daily Mail says that the financier could pump as much as £300m into Rafa Benitez’s transfer kitty, which would be sure to please the Spaniard following a disappointing summer transfer window.

While it seems safe to say that no source knows the exact figures involved, the potential takeover and investment could allow Benitez to build a squad that is capable of not only staying in the Premier League consistently, but also look to compete for a spot in Europe.

Newcastle have made a positive start to the Premier League season following their promotion from the Championship, taking 11 points from their opening eight top flight fixtures this term.

Maribor may not represent the strongest of opposition, but that shouldn’t take away from what was a record-breaking victory for Liverpool in midweek, claiming their biggest ever winning margin on the road in Europe.

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That bodes well for their Premier League clash with Tottenham this weekend, especially considering the Reds haven’t lost to the Lilywhites since 2012 – a run that spans ten games across all competitions.

With that in mind, we asked Reds supporters earlier this week whether Jurgen Klopp should keep exactly the same starting XI for the trip to Wembley on Sunday, ensuring he doesn’t disrupt the rhythm of a side that proved so potent against Maribor.

And according to our poll, the majority of Liverpool fans want Klopp to name an unchanged starting XI versus Spurs. That, however, will mean excluding captain and England international Jordan Henderson from the line-up.

Would you back the decision to leave Henderson on the bench? Let us know by commenting below…

Tottenham Hotspur fans have been waxing lyrical about manager Mauricio Pochettino this season due to the team’s positive start to the campaign.

Harry Kane is in fine form having scored 13 goals in all competitions so far, while the team indicated that they will be Premier League title challengers this season by convincingly beating Liverpool 4-1 last weekend.

It seemed that for a while Pochettino could do no wrong, but the Argentine is now facing some criticism from the fans due to Wednesday night’s result in the Carabao Cup.

The North London outfit took on West Ham United at Wembley and ended up letting go of a two-goal lead to lose 3-2 on the night.

A handful of regular first-team stars, including Hugo Lloris, Christian Eriksen and Kane were rested from the starting lineup, but Pochettino fielded a team that had enough experience to get the job done.

The former Southampton boss has made no secret of the fact that the Carabao Cup is not a big priority for the club this season, which for some fans has not gone down well.

After the final whistle, Pochettino told Spurs TV that it was difficult to explain what went wrong, so the fans did it for him.

Rangers continued to put the Pedro Caixinha era behind them on Saturday, thrashing Partick Thistle 3-0 at Ibrox and closing the gap on Aberdeen above them.

Graeme Murty has again given the club a boost in the wake of a managerial departure and his side looked as good as they have all season against their Glasgow rivals with Ross McCrorie, Daniel Candeias and Josh Windass all getting on the scoresheet.

Fans were positively delighted with the impact of McCrorie, who was boldly selected ahead of the experienced Bruno Alves, with the Euro 2016 winner having to settle for a place on the bench.

The teenage defender excelled throughout and having netted his first goal has taken a major step towards making himself a regular in the first-team.

Supporters are tipping him for big things in the game with some saying he’ll be a future Rangers captain and others predicting he’ll end up winning over 50 caps for Scotland.

They took to Twitter to share their thoughts on his performance…

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