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Jude Bellingham is already England’s most powerful player brand, as totemic off the pitch as he is on it. Were AI to fashion a hero of global appeal it could barely improve on this fella, good-looking, athletic, polite. Crikey, he even thanks journalists for their time after matches before wishing them good evening, and over in Spain conducts interviews in passable Spanish only nine months after his unveiling at the Santiago Bernabeu.

England is not short of exhilarating youth. Think Phil Foden, Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka, yet Bellingham appears yoked to a trajectory of even greater dimension, one that stretches beyond football’s narrow parameters to penetrate the imagination of those for whom the beautiful game holds little attraction.

His appearance at the Laureus Awards, where he added the Breakthrough Star accolade to the Ballon d’Or Under-21 prize, caught the attention of men’s lifestyle magazine GQ, who marvelled at his striking appearance in threads chosen for him by Selfridge’s stylist Sunny Kaur.

The article’s author, Fedora Abu, noted with glee that Bellingham’s earlier migration to the catwalk at Pharrell Williams’s inaugural menswear show for Louis Vuitton, again dressed by Kaur. Bellingham’s crossover appeal, it must be said, is a serious upgrade on those referenced by Abu, Dominic Calvert-Lewin and Hector Bellerin, neither of whom have quite the same footballing gravitas.

That Bellingham should be making his debut in a Champions League final for Real Madrid is as Jude as it gets, and at Wembley too, as if the whole thing were following a meticulous plan chronicled at birth. Bellingham describes the occasion as a fairytale end to a fairytale season. “Being back home in England, playing against Dortmund, a lot of factors that could make it emotional. I have to take that out of it and focus on the plan for the game. The build-up should help with that.”

The Wembley connection also allows the nation to reclaim ownership of him and glory in his Englishness. Football’s mother country has recovered its status as a leading power in the game with the universal spread of the Premier League. Yet, despite its historic football culture and powerful club brands, the one thing permanently beyond England’s reach is the pre-eminence of Real Madrid.

It seems that to strike the ultimate career note, to burnish brand Bellingham, England’s greatest player felt compelled to align with Los Blancos, thus denying the Premier League an association with football’s next global hallmark. In a stunning debut season Bellingham scored home and away in the Clasico, ended the season as the club’s top scorer with 19 league goals, La Liga’s player of the year, made Luka Modric surplus to requirements and retired Tony Kroos.

Some liken Bellingham to Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo. I would dip deeper into the past to one of the founding fathers of Madrid’s identity, Alfredo di Stefano. Before the muscular matador Ferenc Puskas arrived in 1958 it was the graceful Argentine who laid the foundations of the club’s European Cup legend, leading them to victory against Reims, the first of five successive wins following the tournament’s launch in 1956.

Clips of Di Stefano are limited to grainy videos from the nascent television age, but the likeness to Bellingham was unmistakable in his ability to crash through the middle of the park at speed, borne along by a beautifully balanced stride, impeccable control and a capacity to score with either foot.

As the great ones do, Bellingham gained the immediate respect of his A-list teammates with his leadership qualities. He is enthused to be in Madrid, respectful of the tradition yet not cowed by it. The sense that Bellingham is an epochal talent radiates from the group. Vinicius Jr dotes on him in sundry social media posts. Antonio Rudiger has been twice around the block, a rugged bulwark at Stuttgart, Roma and Chelsea before Madrid. He is not given to deference, yet even he doffs his cap.

“He’s just professional in everything he does. A good lad,” Rudiger said, dipping into the English football vernacular. “About skills we don’t need to talk. Outside the pitch I’m not worried. He has great parents. They keep his feet on the ground. You have a fantastic player, 100 per cent.”

Bellingham has mapped out a 10-year career at Madrid. Why not? It is a relationship of mutual benefit, loaded with galactico heft, each party reinforcing the other. Bellingham is already valued higher than any other footballer on earth according to the CIES Football Observatory. Yours for £228m.

A Champions League winners medal would propel him towards the ultimate symbol of star quality, the Ballon d’Or. And should he lead England to European Championships victory in Germany this summer, English football would have a new global ambassador, a modern-day Bobby Charlton, the very mention of whom evoked the highest form of Englishness.

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“There’s a lot of heavy lobbying on people to be quiet, so I understand why most people refrain.” The words are Gary Lineker’s and they came during a recent interview with the US-based British broadcaster Medhi Hasan about Israel’s assault on Gaza.

It was Lineker’s admission about crying at the images of death and destruction that created headlines. Yet his observation about the pressure on high-profile figures to keep quiet about this hugely polarising conflict was intriguing.

After Black Lives Matter and the visible shows of support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, football – in this country at least – has been largely silent on the Israel-Hamas conflict.

However, in the last week a “Stop Genocide” message was paraded on a Palestinian flag by two pitch intruders ahead of the Women’s Champions League final in Bilbao and some high-profile footballers, such as Arsenal’s William Saliba, joined tens of millions in sharing the “All Eyes on Rafah” image on their Instagram accounts.

This weekend brings a more significant occasion still in the form of a charity match at Barnet’s The Hive stadium to raise funds for the children of Gaza.

Less than five miles separate Barnet’s ground from Wembley, where the global gaze will fall on the Champions League final on 1 June. Yet the hope at The Hive will be to divert that gaze back to Gaza and the game will begin with an emotion-charged gesture.

As organiser Ebadur Rahman explains, there will be no mascots to lead the players on to the pitch; rather the estimated “17,000 children killed” in Gaza have been assigned that role.

“It will be a poignant day but we want to show the children of Gaza that they aren’t forgotten and will be remembered for years to come,” says Rahman. “We’ve received messages from children in Gaza to say they’ve seen about the game. It’s a humanitarian gesture from the players and every penny from ticket sales will go to the children there.”

The list of participants includes a number of Premier League footballers: Crystal Palace duo Jeffrey Schlupp and Jairo Riedewald, Everton midfielder Abdoulaye Doucoure, Fulham’s Adama Traore, Leicester City’s Hamza Choudhury and Donny van de Beek of Manchester United.

The teams have been assembled by Anwar El Ghazi, the former Aston Villa and Ajax winger and Rahman’s Nujum Sports, a charity supporting Muslim athletes. The Nujum XI will include ex-Arsenal and Manchester City defender Bacary Sagna, and former England striker Emile Heskey, as well as current Ipswich Town captain Sam Morsy.

Morsy is that rare thing, a footballer who has spoken publicly about the conflict during a post-match interview, as he did after Ipswich’s Boxing Day fixture against Leicester.

“While the plight continues in Palestine we’re the lucky ones, we get to play football for a living,” said a player who later draped himself in a Palestinian flag when celebrating Ipswich’s promotion to the Premier League.

As for the other players taking part, Choudhury for example posts regularly about the conflict on X – his timeline includes posts showing Celtic fans displaying Palestinian flags and a string of broken-heart emojis after this week’s killings in Rafah.

By contrast, the most high-profile Muslim player in the Premier League, Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mohamed Salah, has posted nothing about Gaza on X since December. Yet such reticence may seem understandable given the example of the above-mentioned El Ghazi, the ex-Dutch international who was released by German club Mainz on 3 November for “comments and posts” about the Gaza conflict on social media.

Mainz originally suspended him in mid-October, saying he had posted and then deleted a message about the war that they deemed “unacceptable.” He shared a post which included the phrase “from the river to the sea” – a contentious pro-Palestine slogan – but has denied this was the reason his contract was terminated and is currently suing the Bundesliga club in a case which is set to conclude in June.

Similar situations, it should be added, have arisen with Israeli players, notably when defender Sagiv Jehezkel left Turkey’s Antalyaspor in January after celebrating a goal by revealing, on a bandage on his arm, the Star of David and a reference to the hostages taken by Hamas on 7 October.

A sympathetic view of El Ghazi’s situation comes from Katarina Pijetlovic, a sports law expert forced to leave her role as general secretary of the Union of European Clubs in October after a row over social-media posts highlighting the Palestinians’ plight.

“Now you can see how political football actually is,” argues Pijetlovic, who is supporting the Palestinian FA in its call for Fifa to impose sanctions on Israel. “It should be obvious to anybody what’s going on. You look at [Lionel] Messi and [David] Beckham and ask why on earth they’ve been silent as Unicef ambassadors.

“Beckham was quite outspoken on Ukraine and for the children of Ukraine but why be a Unicef ambassador if you’re going to speak only when white kids are killed?” For the record, in the wake of Israel’s bombing of safe areas in Rafah, a Gaza-related Instagram story from Unicef did appear on Beckham’s account this week.

A Palestinian perspective comes from national team footballer Mohammed Bassim Rashid who, viewing Europe from afar, tells i he sees a double standard in Arsenal’s Oleksandr Zinchenko talking about the war in Ukraine when his Belgium-based Palestine team-mate Oday Dabbagh is instructed to say nothing political.

In this context, it is interesting to cite the example from one Premier League club where players have received no other direction than a single message to the squad WhatsApp group reminding them, ahead of the period of silence for victims on both sides of the conflict on 21-22 October, that they represented a football club with a worldwide reach and fans of all faiths and backgrounds.

According to an experienced sports lawyer, another factor for players to consider are sponsors, whose contracts tend to stipulate that no actions are committed that may offend the sensibilities of a significant group in society.

To return to those footballers helping raise funds for children in Gaza this weekend, there have been similar games held in Qatar, says Palestine midfielder Bassim, but “this one is more special because it’s taking place in England. It is very important because it’s bringing more attention to the situation. Many times there’s been bombing and war in my lifetime and I’ve never seen the world moved like this. It’s a lot different than before.”

That said, he cannot but question the cost, which, among the Gazan football community alone, surpasses 200 deaths. Among those killed is his friend Noor Al-Kurd, a goalkeeper who was studying for a Physical Education degree.

“Sometimes I forget and I still call him on WhatsApp,” he admits. “It’s really good to see that many football players are standing with the cause but at what cost? This is what bothers me most. Why did it have to go to this much death and hurt and destruction? For me, the cost is really not worth it.”

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There is a reason Turkish football has become a kind of warped pagoda to preserve the memory of once great players and managers, but it is not necessarily the obvious.

From a distance, the Turkish Super Lig has become a parody of itself, retirement home to the washed-up and the has-been. The reality is more complex and Turkey remains so attractive because it is a league full of colour, it offers European qualification and respectable wages, as well as unmatched fan ferocity.

The latter has fed neatly into the in-joke about how seriously it should be taken, but an entire footballing landscape should not just conjure images of rioting and hooliganism.

Shortly before losing the league title to rivals Galatasaray, Fenerbahce fans unveiled a giant blue and yellow tifo reading: “We are proud of you.” They have had a remarkable season, finishing one shy of a century of goals and losing only once in the league. The job vacated by Ismail Kartal at the end of his third spell is an attractive one for some reasons, and an impossible one for many others.

Which brings us to the arrival of Jose Mourinho, who is set to be announced on a two-year deal in a move that is only surprising because it is not the long-inevitable contract in Saudi Arabia that might have been expected.

Mourinho’s appointment comes five months after he was sacked by Roma, and two after Fenerbahce threatened to withdraw from the Super Lig altogether, citing their unhappiness at their perceived treatment from the authorities.

The tipping point was a match against Trabzonspor, when fans invaded the pitch at the final whistle and tried to attack Fenerbahce players. Goalkeeper Dominik Livakovic had been hit with a coin and Edin Dzeko and Dusan Tadic were also hit with missiles during the second half, causing the game to be halted. Alex Djiku said afterwards that he feared for his life.

Jayden Oosterwolde and Irfan Can Egribayat decided to fight back, and were subsequently handed a one-game ban apiece. Trabzonspor were made to play six games behind closed doors.

Ordinarily, first on Mourinho’s to-do list might be the job of instilling the customary siege mentality, a trick that worked wonders at Porto, Chelsea, Inter Milan and Real Madrid.

In Istanbul he has met his match. Fenerbahce’s relationship with the authorities has never fully recovered from the 2011 Turkish football match-fixing scandal, in which they were one of a number of clubs accused of wrongdoing. It took years for those under suspicion to be cleared after prosecutors found the allegations were brought about as part of a conspiracy.

Where the club has seen itself as the victim of injustices, in the cases outlined above they have been right.

There are also exceptions to that rule. In the last two months alone, Kartal’s son was accused of throwing punches in a recent brawl against Galatasaray.

In April, Uefa fined the club €80,000 (£68,000) and stopped them selling tickets for an upcoming game as punishment for crowd disturbances, lighting fireworks, throwing objects and damaging seats against Union Saint-Gilloise. The match had to be halted within seconds of kick-off. Another recent punishment was a fine in 2022 for pro-Putin chants against Ukraine’s Dynamo Kyiv.

They have had one Super Cup date postponed – both Fenerbahce and Galatasaray refused to play in Riyadh in December, because they were banned from commemorating the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk – and in the rearranged fixture on 7 April, Fenerbahce fielded their U19s in protest. The Turkish Football Federation decided this amounted to a forfeit, and Galatasaray were handed a 3-0 victory.

Mourinho is walking into an environment that is now beyond toxic. Tensions cannot be stoked any more.

Fenerbahce are already furious with Turkish referees. That was hinted when Kartal, their outgoing head coach, delivered his final day assessment of the campaign: “It is very clear what happened with us losing the championship, I don’t need to say it.” Enter a manager who has probably had more run-ins with them than training sessions.

On the pitch, it is not immediately clear what there is to gain. It will either be a disaster, if Fenerbahce do not win anything, and he will be derided as a dinosaur whom the game has moved beyond. Perhaps there will be more claims that his players have “bad blood” as he once said of some members of his Manchester United squad, or that the troops have “betrayed” him as they did at Chelsea. And should the opposite transpire, it will be greeted with shrugs of “well, it’s Turkish football”.

First, Mourinho has another job to complete. This weekend, he will be on punditry duties for the Champions League final between Borussia Dortmund and his former employers Real Madrid – a parting glance at the very pinnacle of European football.

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Last week at St George’s Park, when England manager Gareth Southgate was discussing his squad selection for the European Championship this summer, someone asked him if he had spoken to Jadon Sancho about not being part of the group.

It provoked a flicker of surprise, virtually imperceptible, as if Southgate had not expected the question. Oh yeah, him. The reaction was both entirely expected, given Sancho’s long international absence, and deeply telling given that he missed a penalty in England’s last European Championship match.

Wembley has become the pulpit of Sancho’s fluctuating career to date. It was there where he started his first England game, at 18, and where the campaign grew for him to be a starter at Euro 2020 after he scored against Ireland, when Manchester United too were making clear their intention to bring him back to England.

A year ago this week, Sancho and United both appeared at England’s national stadium to face Manchester City and played in a major final. Run it again, only this time we’re doing it in instalments a week apart. From starting the FA Cup final, his last in a United shirt, to starting the Champions League final in the space of 12 months. Nothing about this makes much sense.

Watching the FA Cup final with Sancho might just have been the only thing more exciting than watching it at Wembley. A Manchester United right winger scores one goal and helps to create another and he’s only 19. At 24, Sancho is thus still young and suddenly yesterday’s man.

And yet his only present commitment is preparing for the biggest game of his life and the biggest game in club football. It’s all a little *record scratch* *freeze frame* “Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I got here.”

A cavernous gap exists between his two spells – Sancho & Dortmund: You’re Gonna Hear Me Ruhr and Sancho & Dortmund 2: Judgement Day. Then, Sancho was the leader of an entire movement, a young winger who had grasped the nettle and taken control of his own future. He was the boy wonder. That pathway from English football to Westphalia inspired Jude Bellingham to do the same and we all know what happened next.

This time, restoration and redemption. Sancho left Borussia Dortmund with goodwill and best wishes, but he would have hoped never to have needed to return when his trajectory faced upward to the moon. Nobody here would want him to place his tail between his legs, but that’s how it felt anyway. Grass wasn’t greener eh, kid – there is still a place for you.

Who is most to blame is a messy, unedifying argument of which there is little to be gained from thrashing your way to the bottom. Certainly the conditions were not ideal: Sancho played under four different managers, in four different positions, in a team that had the most options in his favourite role and at a club that was going through an existential ownership crisis.

Nor can Sancho ignore all of those opportunities that came and went. United never saw his peak and, if the style or the substance or the situation were not to his liking, he never seemed able to make the best of it. Six assists in 82 games is a pitiful return for someone of his evident creative potential. Maybe German football just works better?

For if the framing is starkly different, the effect of being here is the same. Both times, Sancho headed to Germany because something had broken and he was in search of a fix, within himself and within the environment he found. First it was experience, then convalescence. Both times, it seems to have worked out beautifully.

Dortmund’s yellow wall is regularly held up as the Mecca of football spectatorship, a pilgrimage after which your soul for the sport will be recuperated. For Sancho, that has happened on the pitch in front of it. He came alive in this team and has been reborn in it, albeit slowly after the bruises of life at United. There is an emotional muscle memory for him in this shirt. Few get the chance to turn back time and it has afforded Sancho a career reboot.

Whatever your club allegiance, this should be considered a cause for celebration. You can criticise Sancho for picking the wrong club at the wrong time and getting it wrong when he got there. You can lambast a young kid for being late to training and for allowing a familiar city to offer similar distractions.

But ultimately, what’s the point? Given a choice between a talented footballer being happy and being discontented, only a fool or a bully would pick the latter.

What happens next is dependent upon a number of moving parts, not least what United decide to do with a manager whose relationship with Sancho is evidently broken beyond repair. You do not loan out a £73m signing at the age of 23 unless something has gone seriously wrong. Erik ten Hag’s potential replacement may see easy value in a rekindling.

That only makes Saturday more intriguing, for it exists as an island. It doesn’t matter what came before, the slings and arrows and social media huffs. It doesn’t matter what will come next, whether it be in this country or Germany on a permanent basis. For now there is only the final and only Dortmund matters. For now, Wembley is ready to host the next big event of Sancho’s career.

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As fans celebrated Manchester United’s shock FA Cup final win and resulting Europa League spot, they probably didn’t realise entry to Uefa’s secondary competition was not set in stone.

United could still be demoted to the Conference League with Chelsea promoted in their place if an ownership dispute with Uefa is not solved by 3 June.

Manchester City are also impacted by the same rule, although their place in the Champions League is not under threat as a result.

Why Man Utd could be kicked out of the Europa League

As of Christmas Eve last year, Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos own both 27.7 per cent of United and a majority share of French side Nice.

By finishing fifth in Ligue 1, Nice have also qualified for the Europa League, which could violate Uefa’s stringent regulations on teams under the same ownership.

Uefa do not allow two teams with more than 30 per cent ownership by the same group to compete in the same tournament.

While this would not appear to impact United given Ineos’s lower ownership, the same rule applies to a person or group who have “decisive influence” over two clubs.

This decisive influence refers to individuals who have a role in the governance of both clubs – i.e. shared chief executives or sporting directors – or those who have the power to remove key figures at both clubs.

This could lead to United being demoted to the Conference League as the team which finished lower in their respective league is the one who loses out.

As a result, Ineos issued a statement saying: “We are aware of the position of both clubs and are in direct dialogue with UEFA.

“We are confident we have a route forward for next season in Europe.”

There are also regulations over transferring players between partner clubs in the same competition, which would restrict United from buying any players from Nice before the end of the 2025 season.

How Man Utd can avoid being kicked out of Europa League next season

As it stands, it appears clear that United and Nice would be in breach of Uefa regulation and at risk.

Ratcliffe and Ineos director of sport Dave Brailsford are directly involved at both clubs, and Ineos very publicly bought their share in United in order to take control of the footballing operations.

Although there are unrelated individuals at the top of both clubs – including new hires Jason Wilcox and Omar Berrada at United – there is enough crossover to make this a serious concern.

The cleanest solution to this problem would likely entail Ineos selling all or most of their controlling share in Nice, which they may view as the less important and profitable asset of the two.

Yet this would be both a complex and challenging process, an avenue Ratcliffe and his team are clearly keen not to go down, especially by the deadline of 3 June.

Assuming diluting their control of United is out of the question, this would then mean Ineos must ensure there is no crossover of controlling staff at the two clubs.

This would mean Brailsford and Ratcliffe need to step away from their roles at Nice, something they would then have to convince Uefa they had done – another challenge in its own right.

The third option is the most desirable for Ineos and United but appears unlikely as it stands – that Uefa allow both to continue in the competition as an exception.

Yet this was not allowed in two similar recent cases. Aston Villa owners Wes Edens and Nassef Sawiris were forced to reduce their ownership of Vitoria de Guimaraes, while Brighton chairman Tony Bloom sold part of Union Saint-Gilloise.

What does this mean for Manchester City?

Manchester City also appear to be in breach of the current Uefa regulations due to City Football Group’s (CFG) ownership of Girona.

The Spanish side qualified for the Champions League for the first time this season, as did City.

CFG own a majority share in the Premier League champions as well as a 44.3 per cent share in Girona, which goes against Uefa rules.

Girona have also signed three players from CFG clubs this season, including former City right-back Yan Couto, another potential issue in assessing how interlinked these clubs are and any decisive influence on both.

Txiki Begiristain is also director of football at CFG alongside City, which gives him a degree of influence over Girona alongside their individual sporting director Quique Carcel.

Uefa have offered CFG the option to reduce their ownership of Girona to below 30 per cent, which would likely be considered enough to allow both teams to compete in Europe’s top club competition.

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Graham Potter has emerged as the frontrunner to become the next Brighton head coach, just 20 months after leaving the club for Chelsea.

Bookmakers have Potter odds-on for a return to the south coast and the prospect of the move is already dividing Brighton’s fanbase.

In the blue, more forgiving corner, there are those recognising Potter’s previous achievements at Brighton, who enjoyed a first-ever top 10 finish in the top-flight under his watch in 2021-22.

And in the red, far angrier corner, there are those pointing towards his “easy life” comments while at Chelsea, where Potter is viewed to have undermined the Brighton job.

“If I wanted a nice, easy life, I could have quite easily stayed at Brighton in the Premier League, signed a new contract and been absolutely okay,” Potter said two months into his Chelsea stint, five months before he was sacked.

Having gutted Brighton’s backroom staff before head of recruitment Paul Winstanley joined Chelsea to boot, Potter could therefore find a return is anything but “easy”.

The hostility is evident across social media and forums, with Jack Stephenson, one of two Brighton fans stabbed in Italy before their match against Roma in March, joking on X he would set fire to himself outside the Amex if Potter returns – to which one reply said there was a “0.000001% chance” of this reappointment happening.

Now, it looks a little more possible, and given in Potter’s own opinion this represents a step down, the more disgruntled Brighton supporters are within their rights to fear it is a backwards step for the club as well, having reached greater heights after he left.

Comments from Brighton chairman Tony Bloom are worth dissecting too. At the end of the 2022-23 season, after Roberto De Zerbi led the club to sixth and European football for the first time, Bloom said: “In all my years following Brighton & Hove Albion, I’ve never seen us play football of such quality and style. We are undoubtedly watching the best Albion team we have ever had and it gives me such pleasure to make that statement.

“Not only is it aesthetically pleasing on the eye, we are also playing with a real purpose, a real desire to take the game to the opposition, and we are dominating games. There’s a new dimension to the way we play and it’s been a joy to watch.”

A chairman revelling in his club’s most purple of patches is perfectly understandable, but it could lead to further scrutiny should Bloom return to a coach that offers a downgrade on quality and style.

Of course, the simple get-out clause for Bloom would be to claim Potter laid down the foundations for De Zerbi’s side to flourish, while in Potter the chairman may find a coach more accepting of the Brighton way.

De Zerbi left Brighton “so that the club and I can continue to work in the way that suits each of us best, following our own ideas and visions,” a roundabout way of saying there was a clash of ideas over the club’s recruitment policy – which largely combines the pursuit of young talent from across the globe with signing experienced Premier League players.

Potter witnessed this approach first-hand in 2020-21, when the club signed “veterans” Adam Lallana and Danny Welbeck, as well as a 17-year-old Evan Ferguson from Bohemians and an 18-year-old Moises Caicedo from Independiente del Valle.

He was also there for the beginning of the great, and profitable, exodus, kickstarted by Ben White a year before Marc Cucurella, Yves Bissouma and eventually Potter himself left.

It led to a Premier League record profit of £122.8m in 2022-23, an impressive feat but one that De Zerbi wanted to see reinvested into big-money players in their prime.

While sustainability does not get fans out their seats, as Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) constraints affect other Premier League clubs this summer, Brighton are undeniably in rude health ahead of what could be the second coming of Potter.

Leaning towards the blue corner, Brighton could do much worse than returning to a coach who knows the club inside-out and guided them to ninth.

There are some who prefer Henrik Rydstrom, the Malmo coach who has foregone strict positional play to great success, but this represents a gamble that Brighton look unwilling to take.

And with primary target Kieran McKenna staying at Ipswich, also forcing Manchester United to potentially rethink their plans, Potter is arguably the best man for the job.

It is a good fit on account of what he has achieved there already, while a drop from sixth to 11th also provides Potter with a platform upon which he can improve.

Evidently, though, he will have fires to put out from the get-go should he return. Those in the red corner will have little patience in this regard, and so a positive start would be essential.

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The Manchester United staff reeling from Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s redundancy sledgehammer might want to contact their Scottish counterparts at Grangemouth, where the Ineos boss is also driving devastating change. They might at least squeeze a few quid more out of their terminator.

Scotland’s last remaining oil and gas refinery is set for a change of use next year when it is scheduled to become a fuel import terminal. This inevitably involves the shedding of staff. Up to 80 per cent of a workforce of 500 is expected to go. Union leaders raged, calling the move a “kick in the teeth for workers and the community”. To which the joint owners Petroineos (an amalgam of PetroChina and Ineos) responded with an improved package, but redundancies nonetheless.

Staff at Old Trafford were forewarned of the possibility of cuts when Ratcliffe sent in management consultants to comb the organisation for “efficiencies”. Sure enough the nuclear email dropped on Tuesday inviting all non-playing staff to consider “voluntary resignation”.

This follows the mandate for all staff to return to the office. Indeed the offer might be seen as encouragement for those reluctant to give up working from home, a protocol which ends on 1 June across all United sites in Manchester and London. Staff have until 5 June to accept a deal that will see them paid their annual bonus in full when they have completed their notice period.

This is Ratcliffe operating at warp speed to cut costs. This is how it works in the world of mergers and acquisitions, where companies like Ineos devour lesser beasts, pare them to the bone and sell on for profit.

Though in the case of United this does not appear to be the motive, you would not rule it out. Were results on the pitch to improve following the FA Cup success and the brand to increase further in value, United could easily attract another bid from a nation state or private equity monster.

Ratcliffe might be sincere in his love of United, but he is driven more by profit than affection for a football team. You can imagine the opprobrium that would come the way of the Glazers, arguably the most reviled owners in football, were they to wield the scalpel so mercilessly.

No saving is off limits, as those travelling to the FA Cup final last week discovered. As joyous as that day turned out, any staff attending did so without recourse to former privileges.

They were asked to contribute £20 a pop towards travel costs that previously came as a perk of the job – and this, imposed by the richest man in Britain, a Monaco tax exile worth an estimated £12bn.

Whilst Ratcliffe will argue his personal wealth is irrelevant, which in the context of football’s financial sustainability regulations it is, the optics aren’t great when a club that generated record revenues of £650m in the last accounts is engaged in a nickel-and-dimes ram-raid on the perks of ordinary staff.

I’m sure if Ratcliffe asked nicely, some of those banking upwards of £300,000 a week would have had a whip round to cover the costs. Then again, he might have charged the players too.

Ratcliffe is protected from criticism by the euphoric narrative surrounding his investment in the club and his objectives to restore United to the summit of the game. In that context the slashing of jobs to bring staffing levels below 1,000 and into line with the likes of other top clubs Liverpool, Manchester City and Arsenal, hardly lands with supporters.

The fans are far more engaged with the fate of another review into the performance of the team and the consequences for coach Erik ten Hag. What looked a losing position before the victory against City at Wembley appears to have swung back in Ten Hag’s favour.

His stewardship of the day and his control of the script in the aftermath layered this week’s review with more positive sentiments.

Letters of support from fan groups making plain their desire to retain Ten Hag, backing from the dressing room and a lack of convincing alternatives suggests a stay of execution might be his reward.

However, being influenced by one win, however significant it might have felt, would constitute a betrayal of the core principles outlined by Ratcliffe when he took over. Namely, that decisions will be made on evidence assessed by experts, newly appointed to bring about transformational change.

Beating City in the manner they did was a considerable achievement, but the Premier League table paints a different picture, and it cannot be erased by Ten Hag’s smart manipulation of one good day. Thankfully for him, Ten Has hag far more heft than the administrative staff beneath him, many of whom will definitely not be back in the office next season.

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Bayern Munich have confirmed Vincent Kompany will be their next head coach following Thomas Tuchel’s departure at the end of the season.

Kompany leaves Burnley after two seasons having overseen a record-breaking Championship promotion campaign followed by relegation from the Premier League.

Bayern failed to win the Bundesliga for the first time in 12 years last season, finishing third with Bayer Leverkusen storming to an unbeaten league season under Xabi Alonso. Tuchel’s exit was initially announced in February.

Burnley said in a statement: “Whilst we were initially confident in retaining our manager, the changing dynamics of the situation made this impossible. We understand the allure and prestige of a club like Bayern Munich and respect Vincent’s ambition to explore new opportunities.

“We wish only the best for Vincent and would like to put on record our appreciation for his dedication every single day he was a part of this football club.

“Our priority remains the stability and success of Burnley FC, and we will continue to take the necessary steps to ensure that our ambition is realised – namely our return to the Premier League. We have started the search for a new manager and will make an announcement in due course.”

Kompany won praise for his team’s attractive style of play when coaching Burnley in the English Premier League last season but was relegated as the team finished in next-to-last place. He had been under contract at Burnley through 2028.

Even though he arrives at a low point for Bayern, Kompany will still be expected to win trophies and potentially reach the 2025 Champions League final, which is to be played at Bayern’s own Allianz Arena.

Additional reporting from the Associated Press

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In a line which would have been genuinely unimaginable not two weeks ago, it appears Enzo Maresca will become the Chelsea manager before May is out.

Maresca has managed just 67 senior games across an underwhelming 14-game stint with Parma in Serie B and the title-winning 2023-24 Championship season with Leicester.

Yet the Italian’s greatest selling point is his history with Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City, first as manager of their Elite Development Squad (EDS) and then as assistant manager of the senior team.

Given the success of former Guardiolan disciples across Europe of late – whether that’s Xabi Alonso’s unbeaten-but-one Bayer Leverkusen side or Mikel Arteta’s Arsenal – Chelsea have attempted to find one of their own.

Here’s what former West Brom midfielder Maresca could bring to Stamford Bridge.

Guardiola and the 3-box-3

Maresca’s formative coaching years were spent under Mauricio Pellegrini at West Ham, before joining Guardiola’s City set-up in 2020.

In his first season with the EDS, Maresca won Premier League 2 by 14 points with a team led by Liam Delap and current Chelsea star Cole Palmer.

This led Guardiola to say in May 2021: “We are delighted with Enzo Maresca, all the organisation he has done with the EDS, he showed he will become an extraordinary manager in the future. Extraordinary.

“I feel it. Like I felt it when I saw Mikel Arteta I see it with Enzo, [he] will be an extraordinary manager and he helped to develop many, many young players.”

Guardiola is clearly the greatest influence on Maresca’s tactical ideology, focused on control and possession across the pitch.

One full-back inverts at all times, although they can alternate to vary the shape throughout games and keep the opposition guessing.

This works to create an in-possession shape pioneered by Rinus Michels and Johan Cruyff and advanced more recently by Guardiola, Arteta and Xavi – the 3-box-3.

While Maresca’s sides will present as a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1, the inverting full-back will move into the midfield, where a holding midfielder will stay back to partner them ahead of a three-man defence.

This creates a five-man defensive block to stop transitions developing and allow the team to maintain as much control as possible at all times.

This is why Leicester had the best defence in last season’s Championship, conceding just 41 goals in 46 games, as well as the second-highest share of possession behind Southampton.

It is also why some fans complained at times about staid football from Leicester and why, when it was not properly executed towards the end of the season, they appeared vulnerable to effective pressing sides.

A telling quote comes from Maresca’s thesis while studying at famed Italian coaching school Coverciano, where he wrote a paper entitled “Football and Chess”.

“There are a lot of similarities [between the two games],” he said. “The most important is positional play and strategy. For a coach, it’s important to have the mentality of a chess player: develop a plan, study counter moves, choose the arrangement of the pieces.”

How Maresca could reignite Enzo Fernandez’s Chelsea career

One problem Chelsea’s owners have been keen to solve with their new managerial hire has been Enzo Fernandez’s perceived underperformance this season.

Also suffering from an inguinal hernia for most of last season, Fernandez struggled to form a solid relationship with fellow £100m-plus man Moises Caicedo, who looked significantly improved alongside Conor Gallagher at the end of the season.

Yet Maresca’s possession-heavy game will likely suit Fernandez’s slower passing style, with one of the two advanced midfield positions in the central box earmarked for the Argentine.

Alongside either Palmer or Gallagher, Fernandez can play a similarly valuable role to Harry Winks under Maresca at Leicester.

“He’s by far the best manager I’ve worked for,” Winks told Sky Sports last March.

“He’s incredible. I think everybody will say he’s going right to the top in [terms of] managerial stature. He’s got everything.

“He’s a great man-manager. He’s tactically incredible, some of the decisions that he tells us to do before the game and how he views the match is something I’ve never experienced before in football.”

A true head coach

Another key trait of Maresca’s is his willingness to hand over control of transfers and simply work with the players provided.

While he will still be able to provide input, final say with remain with co-sporting directors Laurence Stewart and Paul Winstanley.

Given Mauricio Pochettino’s departure was fuelled in part by his desire for greater control over off-pitch affairs, this will have been a serious bonus for Chelsea’s owners and co-sporting directors.

And with Chelsea set to lose the likes of Gallagher and Trevoh Chalobah this summer to aid Profitability and Sustainability Regulations (PSR) difficulties, a decision Pochettino did not agree with, this is another potential battle Todd Boehly and Behdad Eghbali can avoid by hiring Maresca.

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Newcastle United have confirmed the departures of five first team players as their summer revolution began with a cull of fringe players.

Paul Dummett and Matt Ritchie – who have made 428 appearances between them – leave at the end of their contracts, along with back-up goalkeeper Loris Karius, midfielder Jeff Hendrick and Kell Watts.

A revamp of the squad was anticipated but the need for an overhaul was illuminated after Newcastle failed to qualify for Europe. A seventh-placed finish in the Premier League looked to have secured European football until Manchester United won the FA Cup, thus claiming the final Europa League spot and demoting Chelsea down to the Conference League.

“I’d like to say a huge thank you to each of the players leaving the club this summer,” said manager Eddie Howe.

“They have all given so much to the cause in their own ways, and I know our supporters will join me in wishing them every success with the next step in their careers.

“It’s easy to judge players by appearances and goals, but the contribution made to the club by Paul and Matt in particular really has been immeasurable over many years. They have had a huge influence on our progress as a team and as a club.

“They have been incredible people and players to work with. Their dedication, professionalism and leadership in the dressing room during my time here has been first class, and they will bring undoubted quality and experience to their next clubs.

“It’s also a significant moment for Kell, who has been with the club since he was eight. Kell is a top professional with an outstanding attitude, and his next club will be incredibly fortunate to have him.”

As reported by i, Newcastle will target three “high impact” signings this summer.

Newcastle’s summer transfer plans

The five departures signal the start of a summer where Newcastle are focusing on quality over quantity in terms of recruitment.

Newcastle have held talks with Valencia over goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili, with Martin Dubravka’s future increasingly uncertain.

Dubravka is one of seven players out of contract next summer, likewise Dan Burn, Trippier and Callum Wilson.

Newcastle could therefore be willing to listen to offers for those players, especially as profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) mean they likely have to sell before any significant incomings.

Nevertheless, they are hopeful of sealing a move for both Bournemouth’s Lloyd Kelly and fellow free agent Tosin Adarabioyo, who is leaving Fulham.

Newcastle face competition from Chelsea and Manchester United for Adarabioyo, but made “concrete” progress last week in their attempts to lure the defender to St James’ Park.

Meanwhile, the disappointment of no European football next season should not impact the futures of Bruno Guimaraes and Alexander Isak.

There had been fears the club may be forced to offload one of their star players earlier this year.

However, with PSR concerns somewhat eased, there is no need to sell Isak or Guimaraes on the cheap.

Guimaraes’ future will be dictated by whether Arsenal or Manchester City decide to trigger his £100m release clause before the end of June, while it would take some offer to tempt Newcastle into selling Isak.

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Wembley is braced for the biggest security operation in the stadium’s history at this weekend’s Champions League final, with organisers determined to avoid a repeat of the scenes that have marred previous Uefa showpieces.

Real Madrid and Borussia Dortmund supporters have been assured that lessons have been learned from the Euro 2020 final – which an FA-commissioned review described as a day of “national shame” – and from the previous two Champions League finals.

In Paris in 2022, thousands of Liverpool fans were penned in against fences and pepper-sprayed in the build-up to a final which was delayed by 37 minutes. A subsequent report said that the chaos could have led to a “mass fatality catastrophe”. A year later in Istanbul, Manchester City fans also experienced huge difficulties reaching the stadium in time due to transport issues and many missed kick-off.

An 18-month operation has been undertaken to ensure the 2024 final passes off without incident, with over 2,400 stewards expected to be deployed on the day.

i understands additional practise drills have been taking place to test security workers at matches in the months leading up to the game.

Since the Euros final in 2021, when thousands of ticketless fans stormed the ground and there was widespread drug use and violence in the surrounding area, the FA has spent £5m on implementing new safety and security measures and create a “robust perimeter”.

Ahead of what is expected to be the biggest Champions League final ever, Wembley’s director of tournaments & events Chris Bryant said: “Between ourselves and Uefa we absolutely have embraced the learnings from Paris in the delivery of this event. That is clear.

“One of the things we’ve done is increase the strength of all of the doors. At the Euros final we found people trying to rip the emergency exit doors [off]. Those doors are locked with a magnetic lock system because we need the ability to open them from the control room – what we’ve had to do is put a further lock system on every single door around the stadium now.

“We never saw events like the Euro final, I’m not sure if we’ll ever see them again. But it’s obviously incumbent upon us to ensure that we’ve learned the lessons and implemented additional measures. You’ll have seen the delivery of new gates and fencing around the stadium.”

A review into the Euros final led by Baroness Casey recommended a number of changes to the way Wembley hosted games. Fans this weekend will have their tickets checked three times – at the outer perimeter, before entering a queue into the ground, and at the turnstile entering the stadium. A new control room will also monitor far-reaching CCTV outside even stretching out to the local pubs, rather than just the immediate vicinity of the ground itself.

Brent Council’s public space protection policy forbidding the consumption of alcohol on Wembley Way has been deemed “hugely successful”, and additional sniffer dogs will be in place to detect drug use.

The number of body cams worn by stewards has been increased, and a greater proportion of stewards are now specially trained in security. Many of them are already familiar with Wembley and worked at Saturday’s FA Cup final between Manchester United and Manchester City.

Extra measures have been taken in the “B2” areas around the ground to allow the stadium to be locked down in the event of an emergency, with many of the physical improvements to the ground having been made in time for February’s Carabao Cup final.

The governing bodies organising the match – including the FA – hope a successful final will be a positive sign that the UK is ready to host Euro 2028 alongside the Republic of Ireland.

They are also confident that fans travelling without tickets will be contained and will not present any logistical issues going into the ground.

Champions League finals traditionally attract thousands of fans travelling to the host city without tickets – despite clubs advising them not to do so – but organisers are awaiting intelligence as to how many supporters from Madrid and Dortmund are set to arrive.

A decision on whether the match will be shown on big screens in fan zones – with Dortmund fans based in Hyde Park and Real Madrid along the Embankment – has not yet been taken. Meanwhile Dortmund fans are set to stage a “fan march” to the ground to add to the spectacle.

Following ticketing issues in Paris two years ago, all tickets will be digital, lessening the threat of ticket touts. Police are understood to be “ready for all eventualities” but are not expected to adopt the heavy-handed approach that has overshadowed previous finals.

“We’re always mindful of the idea that there might be some people out there that don’t have tickets that want to come to a big event, a big occasion at Wembley Stadium, that’s not uncommon,” Bryant added.

“And it’s not like we don’t see ticketless fans at other events as well that need to be managed. All I can say is the plans we’ve put in place to manage ticketless fans are robust and tested and we are prepared for that eventuality. The volume to which it might materialise, we’ll see at the weekend, but I wouldn’t expect it to be anywhere near what we saw on the Euro final.”

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