Marked for Manfred Ugalde
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match12 Dec 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Manchester City have 9 straight wins of it.
Match12 Dec 2026
Wolverhampton will want this one forgotten quickly: 6‑2, every duel lost, and a long ride home. Manchester City were ruthless in the way good sides are ruthless.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.68, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
2 goals, and the second was the one that settled it. Marked 8.55, and he could have had a third with better luck at the near post.
Match14 Dec 2026
First, on 36 points. The table is a fact and a fact is allowed to be enjoyed, which is as far as anybody at the club is prepared to go in public.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Two goals and a mark of 8.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Tyler Dibling, 20, steals the show — 8.48
Marked 8.48 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Enzo Fernández was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match28 Nov 2026
3‑0, and Erling Haaland took the headlines on an afternoon when everything Manchester City tried came off. Days like this are retold all winter.
Match30 Nov 2026
Manchester City refuse to drop out of the race
Position 2, 30 points, and the result everyone checks first is now theirs. The word is still not being said around the ground, which is how you know everyone is thinking it.
Match28 Nov 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Manchester City have 6 straight wins of it.
The dugout30 Nov 2026
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Squad30 Nov 2026
Enzo Fernández and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
A performance of 8.60 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Ninety minutes of Jérémy Doku at his very best
Marked 8.12. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Manchester City.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Marked 8.11 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
Player ratings30 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 17. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad9 Nov 2026
The match ball belongs to Nico O'Reilly, whose 4 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
A brace, and Manfred Ugalde takes the afternoon — 8.60
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Manfred Ugalde provided it, and the 8.60 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Player ratings9 Nov 2026
Tyler Dibling, 20, steals the show — 8.35
Marked 8.35 at 20, in a side that makes no allowances for age. He did not need any, and he looked the least nervous man on the pitch.
Match7 Nov 2026
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Manchester City have 4 straight wins of it.
Market9 Nov 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Manchester City heard it as anything else.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Erling Haaland was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad9 Nov 2026
11 call-ups is a compliment to the squad and a headache for the man running it. He will get them back in a fortnight, tired, in various states of repair.
Match3 Nov 2026
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 7 goals between Manchester City and Cheltenham Town, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad31 Aug 2026
10 saves, and a scoreline the ten men in front of him had no right to. Goalkeepers only get noticed on the bad days; this was one of the other ones.
Market31 Aug 2026
Oliver Braude arrives at Twente in a $5.3M statement of intent
There comes a point where a club either backs its own ambition or admits it does not have any. Twente have paid $5.3M for Oliver Braude, which is the loudest way there is of saying which one it chose.
Transfer targets31 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Twente go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market31 Aug 2026
Max Bruns hands in a written request
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Twente can pretend not to have heard.
Player ratings31 Aug 2026
Benjamin Nagel, 18, plays like he has been here for years — 7.75
A mark of 7.75 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 18-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Squad31 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Twente this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The terraces31 Aug 2026
He is 18 and the ground already sings his name, which is a thing that happens to local boys and almost never to signings. Everything from here is measured against an affection he did nothing to earn except be from here.
Match29 Aug 2026
Fortuna Sittard made Twente work for it, but the scoreboard read 2‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Squad31 Aug 2026
4 Twente players away with their countries
The training ground goes quiet for a fortnight. 4 men have gone off to be somebody else’s players, and the manager is left with the ones nobody has called.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market24 Aug 2026
The chase for Olivier Boscagli ended with $44.1M changing hands and Brighton out of reasons to say no. The supporters will judge the fee the only way that matters: on Saturdays.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
$37.6M was the most the club would pay and Liverpool were asking for more. Deals like this are revived in the last week of a window roughly half the time, and everybody involved knows it.
Market24 Aug 2026
The fee is $16.7M, the contract is signed, and the argument about whether he is worth it can begin. Spartak Moscow drove a hard bargain; time will say who won it.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market24 Aug 2026
Rayan is 20, and Manchester City have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A move Olivier Boscagli would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Olivier Boscagli is living that version at Manchester City, and it tends to show in the first month.
Squad24 Aug 2026
Enzo Fernández falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
At 22 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Match22 Aug 2026
1‑0 against Dinamo Moscow, and the songs went on long after the whistle. League positions come and go; days like this get retold at family dinners for years.
Market24 Aug 2026
Manchester City pay $16.7M, and the deal is done. The number reads well on a balance sheet; whether it reads well on the pitch is next season's question.
Squad24 Aug 2026
A move Tomáš Chorý would have made for nothing
There is a version of every career where the player ends up somewhere he chose rather than somewhere that chose him. Tomáš Chorý is living that version at Spartak Moscow, and it tends to show in the first month.
The terraces24 Aug 2026
Supporters turn on the $16.7M sale of Manfred Ugalde
He is going to Manchester City, the club has $16.7M it did not have on Friday, and the phone-ins have already decided how they feel about that. Selling well and selling somebody they loved are not the same skill.
Market24 Aug 2026
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Spartak Moscow, and it is not being withdrawn.
Market24 Aug 2026
The offer from Rostov for Ilja Pomazun was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Player ratings24 Aug 2026
There are goals, and then there are goals against that particular opponent. The Spartak Moscow support have their bragging rights for a year and they know exactly whose name is on them.
Transfer targets24 Aug 2026
No thanks: Orkun Kökçü rejects the move
Spartak Moscow had done everything except persuade the man himself. He stays at Besiktas, and the manager goes back to the drawing board with the money still in the bank.
Squad24 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match15 Aug 2026
The longest week starts now for Spartak Moscow
Beaten 0‑2 by Lokomotiv Moscow in the one fixture that is never just a fixture. Work, school, the corner shop — there will be no getting away from this one.
Market17 Aug 2026
The last thing about a transfer that is still about the player is his signature on his own terms, and it is there. Spartak Moscow have lost him in all but the paperwork.
Market17 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The paperwork begins on Tomáš Chorý
A medical, a signature, a shirt held up in front of a sponsor’s board. Spartak Moscow have done the hard part with Slavia Prague, and the part that remains is the part supporters actually see.
Squad17 Aug 2026
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Spartak Moscow this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad17 Aug 2026
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Pablo Solari was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Transfer targets17 Aug 2026
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The dugout17 Aug 2026
“I pick players who do the work. All of it.” No name was spoken; every camera still turned to Alexandr Maximenko, and the manager let it.
Player ratings17 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 19. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Market3 Aug 2026
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Samuel Adegbenro arrives at the club he grew up with
Every footballer has an answer to the question about his boyhood club, and most of them never get to act on it. Samuel Adegbenro has, at Spartak Moscow, and the first month will show what that does to a man.
Squad3 Aug 2026
10 seasons and 310 appearances, all of them here. Careers like this are not designed; they happen to a certain kind of man at a certain kind of club, and this town has one.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Spartak Moscow heard it as anything else.
Market3 Aug 2026
The general version of this complaint is that a player wants more. The specific version names the thing: he wants to walk out under floodlights against clubs from other countries, and he has stopped pretending otherwise.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Esequiel Barco and Spartak Moscow agree another 4 years.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Gedson Fernandes and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Player ratings3 Aug 2026
Successful dribbles: 22. He went past people as if he had been told there was a prize for it, and by the end the full-back had stopped pretending to try.
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Spartak Moscow asked and Slavia Prague said no without discussing a figure. It is the least ambiguous answer in football and the one clubs most often come back to test.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets3 Aug 2026
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Spartak Moscow have kept their man, and Twente go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
Market3 Aug 2026
The phone has started ringing about Bart van Rooij again, and this time the name on the line is AZ. Twente are listening politely and promising nothing.
Market3 Aug 2026
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Twente heard it as anything else.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“The easiest signature of my career.” Lars Unnerstall and Twente agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad3 Aug 2026
Tempers go at Twente
Lars Unnerstall was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market3 Aug 2026
The shirt still fits. Mees Hilgers is back at Twente, and half the ground remembers him in these colours already. Some signings need selling to the town; this one sold itself.
Squad3 Aug 2026
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Twente are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Market3 Aug 2026
“We are a long way apart, and pretending otherwise helps nobody.” Neither side is close, and the calendar is not on the club's side.
Squad3 Aug 2026
The system has changed and his position has not. A footballer can improve his form; he cannot improve the manager’s formation, and that is the whole of the problem.