Seeing as they haven’t got one, at least there should be no danger of Nuno Espirito Santo falling out with his latest club over their transfer strategy.
That is pretty much the only measure by which West Ham’s new manager can seriously feel he has moved in the right direction since exiting Nottingham Forest. The baptism has been as shocking as it has shambolic.
It is statistically the worst start after four games by any permanent manager in the club’s history.
Had you not watched a minute of it, a summary would suffice: both full-backs playing on the wrong side, a midfield of Tomas Soucek and Andy Irving, and Lucas Paqueta unsurprisingly has now had enough and will try to leave as soon as possible.
The team selections have had a distinct “Lee Carsley against Greece” vibe, except Carsley was an interim manager not expecting to be in place for very long. Then again…
To give Nuno a little grace, he is still experimenting. By the end of the defeat to Leeds United, he was closer to his best XI, albeit 90 minutes too late. Five players have been playing out of position. It took Graham Potter two games to ditch the three-at-the-back but Nuno has already shifted between two different systems.
West Ham are winless under Nuno (Photo: Getty)
From Julen Lopetegui to Potter and now to Nuno, West Ham are inexplicably finding innovative ways to fail.
The undying loyalty shown to James Ward-Prowse under the previous manager is gone. Unsurprisingly, given their relationship at Forest, Nuno has axed him from the squad altogether; an assertive but dangerous move with a popular member of the dressing room. Potter would not bring back Jean-Clair Todibo to replace Maximilian Kilman – now Nuno has them both at centre-back, together.
Soucek-Irving was a disaster against Brentford and nothing changed against Leeds. Brentford, incidentally, went all in on an unproven but progressive manager in Keith Andrews. Nuno was supposed to be the safe option.
Under a coach renowned for defensive organisation, set pieces have not improved. West Ham have conceded nine – three times more than any other Premier League side – this season. Potter’s answer was to drop Mads Hermansen; Nuno has no such obvious ace.
There is always a danger that once he has decided on his team, he will stick with it. At Tottenham Hotspur he had a clear “A” team for big games and a “B” team for the cups, which meant the “B” team were stripped of any motivation to get into the main XI. Callum Wilson is already feeling the pinch, completely frozen out until Oliver Scarles fractured his collarbone and the shape had to change.
So it is hard to know what West Ham’s floor looks like. How bad can it get? Relegation is a serious prospect – they are 19th, with their one win coming against Forest (who were, at the time, managed by Nuno).
The toxicity around the club – the board, the stadium, the signings – is all encompassing. The Conference League papered over it for a time but even David Moyes could not dine out on its goodwill forever – he was sacked not just because of the football, but after winning five of his last 25 matches.
Nuno has the potential to be different. He has come at West Ham with fresh eyes, bringing on 22-year-old Freddie Potts three times. Mohamadou Kante feels like an untapped resource. Crysencio Summerville has shown glimpses of quality. The substitutes did enough against Leeds that they should be in contention to start at home to Newcastle.
None of that is enough on its own to lift the apathy around the husk of the London Stadium. The recruitment has been so poor that both Tim Steidten and Kyle Macaulay have gone, leaving David Sullivan with more control than ever.
It is easy to see why, like Ange Postecoglou, Nuno rushed back. Management is a drug and withdrawal leads to the scrapheap. But as Postecoglou could tell him, getting your return wrong gets you compared to Liz Truss, not trophies in your second season.
That little hope which Nuno’s arrival brought did not take much extinguishing. Where he has fixed Potter’s errors, West Ham have impressively found a string of new and interesting things which can go wrong.
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The curious case of Harvey Elliott has left both Aston Villa and Liverpool asking themselves questions ahead of Saturday’s meeting.
Elliott will sit this one out at Anfield, but going by his start to life on loan at Villa this may have been the case regardless of his ineligibility.
The 22-year-old was left out of Unai Emery’s matchday squad for Sunday’s win over Manchester City, and his overall minutes for Villa so far this season begs an awkward question.
Why did Aston Villa sign him?
Signed on deadline day along with Jadon Sancho and Victor Lindelof, Elliott’s arrival came after Villa’s sticky start in the Premier League, where they looked short on attacking flair and appeared hung up on a summer of PSR restrictions.
Elliott therefore appeared to be an ideal addition. And, hands up, I wasted little time waxing lyrical about the move. “Step forward Elliott 2.0…”, or so the article went, suggesting the transfer suited all parties.
Villa were getting a gem who had just shone for England’s U21s. Liverpool had installed a buyback clause. And the player himself was showing an admirable hunger by reluctantly leaving the club he loves to get more game-time.
Or so I thought. But since joining, Elliott has made just one Premier League start for Villa, when he was hooked off at half-time against Fulham, and he hasn’t featured in the league since.
He has made five appearances in total for Villa, and with their obligation to buy for £35m next summer reportedly triggered if Elliott plays 10 matches in all competitions, Emery’s decision to omit the player from his squad entirely against City raises eyebrows.
Emery has preferred Morgan Rogers at No 10 and one of John McGinn, Evann Guessand or Donyell Malen on the right wing, and explained his reasoning post-City.
“He is training well, and he played some matches, but the performances weren’t what we needed,” Emery said. “Some players are playing as a No 10, and they are playing well, like [Emiliano] Buendia and Rogers.
“I am happy with him. He is training good. His commitment is fantastic… I spoke with him about it. My advice was to keep going, and training and when it is his opportunity, to play well. He is a very good player. He needs time to work and wait for his moment.”
The call for patience does little to quash the thought Elliott is not an Emery player after all, and the departure of Monchi in September adds to the sense that differences over recruitment strategy sparked the exit of Villa’s director of football operations.
And so, while Elliott had looked to be an astute deadline-day signing (again, hands up), with assistance from Captain Hindsight it appears the late timing was the greatest indication that he was never in Emery’s plans, and may therefore continue to be on the periphery.
Which, given Liverpool’s slump, leads us to the next question.
Could Liverpool recall Harvey Elliott?
Last season Chelsea, despite an £25m obligation to buy, were willing to pay a £5m penalty fee to Manchester United in order to not sign Sancho permanently – as first revealed by The i Paper. So even if Elliott racks up 10 appearances, it is no certainty Villa make this move permanent.
Nevertheless, beyond the Liverpool game it will become more apparent whether Elliott is going to reach double digits before January, when his parent club could recall him from his loan – or when Villa may decide to send him back.
It is a harsh outcome for a player who was named player of the tournament when England defended their U21 Euros crown in the summer.
But Liverpool may see the appeal, provided Elliott is willing to slip back into his role of impact player. That may sting and feel like a backwards step – just months after tearfully leaving them – but currently that is where his services are better required.
Since the early-season late winners dried up, Liverpool’s substitutes have been unable to transform matches. Nowhere was this more apparent than their three 2-1 defeats of late, at Crystal Palace and Chelsea and at home to Manchester United.
On all three occasions, Liverpool trailed, then equalised, then conceded late on, a stark contrast to their late winners against Bournemouth, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Burnley, Atletico Madrid and Southampton.
Federico Chiesa has been the go-to gamechanger, coming off the bench in seven of their nine Premier League games, but beyond his goals against Bournemouth and Palace – and Rio Ngumoha’s dramatic winner at Newcastle – no substitute has scored for Liverpool in the Premier League.
That said, this appears to be a strength Liverpool have lost under Arne Slot on the whole.
In Jurgen Klopp’s last three seasons, no Premier League club’s substitutes scored more than Liverpool’s 33 across those campaigns, but under Slot their rate has slipped, with seven goals in last season’s title-winning campaign a total bettered by six clubs.
Elliott is far from the catch-all solution in this regard, but he was an enviable option off the bench for the league champions, whereby key players could be rested without a significant drop in quality on the pitch.
And with a leggy Mohamed Salah off to the Africa Cup of Nations in December, come January Liverpool could well do with a player the Egyptian calls his “little brother” to step into his shoes. Elliott might want that, too.
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The five months between leaving Luton Town and moving to Middlesbrough constituted Rob Edwards’ longest break from football since joining Aston Villa as a child. It is an all-consuming sport that decides for you where your gaps come. You know you probably need a rest and yet it is the last thing you desire because it can only reflect perceived failure.
Edwards was certainly ready. When we spoke before the start of last season, I was struck at how emotional he was: about Luton’s relegation, about the deep desire to make amends, about his captain Tom Lockyer’s medical emergency and the response of the club.
Football management is astonishingly draining; Edwards had at least a double dose. Last season went terribly and he left Kenilworth Road. A rollercoaster always stops at the bottom.
It is tempting to paint Luton Town and Middlesbrough as polar opposites. One needs a new stadium; the other has one of the grandest homes produced during football’s great 1990s expansion. One flew up and sank down without a break; the other has spent 15 of its last 16 seasons in the Championship, desperately playing witness to other clubs’ dreams.
Perhaps that makes this the perfect fit. There is no fire to put out. Middlesbrough do not need to be built from the bottom up. Everyone knows what everyone else desires at the end of this contract and there isn’t a lot for any manager to want for.
Middlesbrough’s recent history is one of frustration, not quite stasis but close enough to raise grumbles locally. They became the fourth or fifth favourites for promotion who never went up, perennially left behind by those who had parachute payments or those who supercharged through League One and then the Championship.
Edwards is thriving after his time out from football (Photo: Getty)
They also made their own mistakes, appointing three managers who, a little unfairly, blurred into one: Tony Pulis, Neil Warnock, Chris Wilder. There were reasons to recruit each of them (or so it seemed at the time) and none were desperately poor. Also: none took Boro up.
To end that cycle, Michael Carrick was supposed to be the guy, the manager who brought a new era to Teesside but instead became caught in the same suspension. Steve Gibson, the benevolent, brilliant owner, is a patient man. But Carrick only won eight of his last 25 matches and won three away from home in 2025. Sacking him felt like a failure all of its own.
So if Middlesbrough looked like they needed a shot of emotion, an on-pitch identity that could transfer from the players to supporters and back, Edwards was their solution. He talks using the human qualities of players as fuel, not because it’s good PR – which it is – but because he believes in it.
Middlesbrough have been logical and functional over the first three months of the season. They have not been particularly exciting – 16 goals in 12 league games – and Edwards has spoken repeatedly about a desire to develop their attacking patterns that they will surely need to improve if they are to go up.
He has also created the best defensive platform in the EFL by every measure. Middlesbrough have conceded only eight goals, but more remarkable is the 25 shots on target faced in 12 matches (the next best in the Championship is 33). If that wasn’t enough, they face the lowest value shots too. I watch them win 1-0 against Sheffield Wednesday without creating much and allowing less. Play that on repeat.
“A big thing so far is that when something has been going wrong mid-game, it gets changed very quickly,” says Dex, a Middlesbrough supporter I chat to. “Of course, that won’t always work and may often come too early, but so far virtually every change Edwards has made within each match has been basically perfect.”
Middlesbrough’s promotion campaigns – without parachute payments – have been funded by them consistently being one of the best clubs in the division at identifying and developing players and then selling at profit. This summer was no different: Finn Azaz (Southampton), Rav van den Berg (Cologne) and Josh Coburn (Millwall) left for around £28m.
But there was also a change in tack; that may well prove instrumental. There were strong suggestions that Hayden Hackney might be sold for £20m, an enormous fee for any second-tier club to reject. Middlesbrough made the decision to keep Hackney in favour of giving Edwards a firm midfield base.
Middlesbrough were last in the top flight in 2017 (Photo: Getty)
Incoming recruitment shifted too. Under Kieran Scott, Middlesbrough have chosen to focus their recruitment plans in places they can seek value – players arrived from Slovan Bratislava, NEC Nijmegen, Troyes, Lausanne and FC Charlotte in the summer.
But supporters were more enamoured by the domestic recruitment and the experience added as a result. Matt Targett, Alfie Jones, Callum Brittain and Allan Browne have started 34 league games so far; the recruits from Europe and beyond just 11. The point is obvious: Edwards gets to control the controllables as he bloods in those still acclimatising to the league.
“January 2025 was really poor – it was a total move away from what we’ve been good at since Scott came in as Head of Football in late 2021,” says Dex.
“We’re the best sellers in the division and very good buyers in terms of young, foreign talent.
“But what I like this summer was as well as holding onto the main key man in Hackney, and bringing in exciting foreign talent under 25, we’ve been sensible and added experience in Targett, Browne, as well as Brittain and Jones, those two in particular have been really key so far.”
The dynamics of this Championship season are fascinating and may well help Middlesbrough, among others. Leicester City face a potential points deduction, while Southampton and Ipswich Town have started slowly. Coventry City may be flying but positions in the top six have become unexpectedly available in the autumn. Keeping hold of them is the new task.
Fast starts to the season, particularly those ahead of most expectations, can become a little two-faced. It’s easy for supporters to normalise proficiency and begin to get tetchy at dropped points. In the aftermath of the Wrexham draw last weekend, there were some moans; deeply unfair given the improvements under Edwards.
I wonder if there’s something serendipitous about this start to Middlesbrough’s season and Edwards finding his feet again after a difficult two years.
For too long, this club probably believed that it belonged in the Premier League and failed to match reasonable ambition – it became a millstone that hung heavy around the neck. Nowhere else in the country (Sunderland is the other example) have so many people come to watch second-tier games for so long.
Now, more than ever, a wait-and-see mentality has overtaken expectation. Don’t focus on what might have been over seasons past. Don’t get hung up on what other clubs are doing. Don’t become wedded to anything other than the process ruling over the potential destination.
Because Middlesbrough have everything they need. Gibson is a magnificent owner. The recruitment model makes sense and is back on track. The home attendances are their highest since relegation from the top flight. They have lost one league game. And they have a workaholic manager who is determined to experience the Premier League again on his terms.
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England 3-0 Australia(Beever-Jones 20’, Bronze 40’, Stanway 90+8 | Kennedy sent off 19’)
PRIDE PARK — Memories of a Swiss summer were swirling around the Lionesses’ first victory since the Euros when Michelle Agyemang reentered the fray. How quickly and cruelly it can all change.
Almost everything the 19-year-old has touched in her short England career so far has turned to goals. Agyemang must have come onto the pitch expecting a taste of more personal glory; she she left it on a stretcher, head in hands, crying out in pain. Beth Mead ran straight to the bench and pointed at her knee.
Before she was able to confirm the extent of the teenage striker’s injury, Sarina Wiegman could only confirm it “looked horrible”. Aggie Beever-Jones said she was “praying” for her.
“That was an awful moment,” Wiegman added. “It doesn’t look good. We don’t know yet, she first needs to be assessed, but I’m not very positive about what I’ve seen.”
It is all the more worrying because Agyemang has a history of knee injuries, initially hampering her breakthrough loan at Watford. Lianne Sanderson, the former England international, wrote on X: “This has to stop. Enough is enough.”
The toll of this international break cannot be justified. Four days ago, Olivia Smith was sent back to Arsenal with a hip injury sustained on Canada duty, leaving the field in tears. Mercifully, it is not as bad as it looks.
Brighton now sweat on news of Agyemang, who came on in the 62nd minute and off again in the 80th. The whole evening had been a no-contest from the 19th when Alanna Kennedy was sent off for hauling down Alessia Russo after a blundering Cruyff turn into trouble.
From then on, Beever-Jones’ free-kick, Lucy Bronze’s low drive and Georgia Stanway’s penalty ensured England could at least celebrate a proper homecoming after the defeat to Brazil. The irony is that Wiegman’s side ended with 10 players too, Beever-Jones’ late knock coming after all six subs had been used.
Agyemang’s impact has been immense since her England breakthrough (Photo: Getty)
England had otherwise waltzed past the Matildas – 29 shots to three, 70 per cent possession, 48 touches in the opposition box to Australia’s 13. This was not the test Wiegman wanted, but it was a rare chance to experiment. Lucia Kendall was superb on debut alongside Keira Walsh. A former Hampshire cricketer, now it is nearly Ashes season she might have expected a bit more of a fight from the Australian midfield.
The friendlies against China and Ghana before the turn of the year could bring yet more changes but come with an asterisk. Agyemang’s injury was so frightening precisely because she seemed so invincible just months ago.
The splendid volley with her first international touch against Belgium, her late rescue acts against Sweden and Italy, without which England would never have gone back-to-back. Had Arsenal not been overloaded with attacking options – including Lionesses rival Russo – this might well have been her breakthrough season in north London too, before she was loaned out to Brighton again.
A dark cloud has been lifted over Old Trafford. Winning football matches, successive ones for the first time in over a year, helps. But so does actually following through with promises to change a damaging culture at the club.
It sounded like a political party manifesto pledge, one that few believed would actually be carried out. Walking around Manchester United’s shiny new training facility, however, and even before a run of three wins propelled Ruben Amorim to unprecedented heights, you can feel change.
The feel-good vibes are a world away from distant figures unable even to look each other in the eye, let alone offer consolation, following their Europa League final loss to Tottenham Hotspur.
Squad camaraderie
The team celebrates as one. Even supposed disgruntled substitutes struggle to contain their collective euphoria – see Joshua Zirkzee at Anfield. The unrelenting positivity is no accident.
Ineos’s gloom purging started with the much-needed departure of “bomb squad” members Antony, Alejandro Garnacho, Marcus Rashford and Jadon Sancho.
Bryan Mbeumo scores his second to ensure Manchester United win their third match in a row pic.twitter.com/twz3PqWYDo
None were trying to create any kind of underground putsch, but public criticism of the manager, along with airing desire to leave, proved to be a dangerous distraction.
Those who have replaced them have arrived at Old Trafford down to their personality and ability to fit into a revolutionised ethos as much as their talent.
Even before the current uptick in results, the squad camaraderie has reached levels not seen around Carrington for many years, several sources told The i Paper.
Unlikely bromances
There are no cliques, something highly unusual at multinational football clubs.
The new Ineos-led culture ensures everyone gets on with everyone. Nobody is left out of social events, with unlikely bromances forming.
Zirkzee and Bruno Fernandes have become close ever since bonding on the club’s much-maligned post-season tour of Malaysia and Hong Kong.
Matheus Cunha and Luke Shaw, hardly typical bedfellows, have struck up a strong friendship, while Diogo Dalot and Benjamin Sesko are seen spending more and more time together, Dalot helping the new arrival with his preparation and recovery, one source added.
Nationality, age demographic and role in the team simply are not important.
“I have seen it, sorry, in Bournemouth, every time we play there. I go for a walk with [third-choice goalkeeper] Tom Heaton then.”
New leadership group
Dalot is one of five players, along with Fernandes, Heaton, Noussair Mazraoui and Lisandro Martinez, that have been key to overseeing the mood change.
They might not all even be in the team, but they have been picked by Amorim to form a leadership group, in place to ensure standards are always kept high, without the head coach having to adopt an unpopular autocratic approach himself.
Bryan Mbeumo talked after the match about how the whole team felt a weight lifted after Cunha’s superb all-action performances since arriving were finally rewarded.
‘Uncle Cas’
Casemiro’s experience is rubbing off on his teammates (Photo: Getty)
Nobody was happier for Cunha than Casemiro, whose days at Old Trafford seemed numbered not so long ago, a figure supporters affectionately call “Uncle Cas”. Cunha leapt into his fellow Brazilian like a girlfriend returning from university for the summer, having not seen their partner all year.
The 33-year-old had every right to down tools, take home his exorbitant wages and cruise towards retirement. Instead, the five-time Champions League winner has battled back to peak fitness, won his place back in the team and been crucial to the recent improvement.
What he does off the pitch has been equally important. Casemiro often takes time to sit with younger players to offer his guidance, making a beeline for them in the dressing room after training sessions, rather than just parking up next to another, more familiar Portuguese speaker.
Contrary to popular opinion, his English has been described as “near perfect”. That’s what happens when you create an environment where camaraderie can thrive. One pledge Ineos has followed through with, and, uncharacteristically thus far, got right.
Behold the headline I discovered on X’s “Explore” section on Tuesday morning: “John Terry Raps Diss Track with ArrDee Targeting Angry Ginge at Baller League UK Season 2 Launch.”
Confused? You’re not the only one. Monkeys with a typewriter could never. But uh oh, here I go clicking on this abominable jumble of words because its very absurdness has reeled me in. Social media, you’ve done it again.
Firstly, I won’t pretend to feign Baller League ignorance entirely. I know it’s on Sky Sports. I know it’s something like 5-a-side. While I’ve also seen clips of players shooting from distance in some sort of sudden-death format.
I’ve recognised YouTubers like KSI joining ex-pros like Alan Shearer, Ian Wright, Daniel Sturridge and Micah Richards in clips I may be caught watching for five-to-10 seconds.
Crucially, I know it’s not aimed at me, but YouTube numbers alone prove 213k subscribe to the Baller League UK channel, while more than 850k have streamed Monday night’s action already.
So the audience is there. That guy voted first off The Celebrity Traitors is there. So is Chloe Kelly. Maya Jama. Idris Elba. And Terry.
So back, begrudgingly, to the rap. Out walks the former England and Chelsea captain with actual rapper ArrDee, mics in hand. ArrDee taps Terry, and together they say/rap: “What’s happening? Ginge is in trouble.”
ArrDee, rightly and thankfully, then takes the lead, while Terry – donning a Peaky Blinders cap – throws in a couple more “Ginge is in trouble” harmonies, directed at the ginger-haired and presumably oft-angry bloke who was actually pretty good on Soccer Aid this year and features on loads of Instagram clips I’ve seen because he says “that is absolutely gorgeous” while eating something.
Okay, I’m losing myself here, so let’s switch it up like an interview with Terry’s old pal Frank Lampard and ask, seriously, what is he thinking?
Baller League is harmless fun that I am trying my best not to criticise simply because I have a few (okay, many) grey hairs, but simply put there is no management pathway from Baller League to the Premier League.
And that is despite Terry revealing just last week he still dreams of managing Chelsea one day.
“I’m not sure it ever happens to be honest,” he says with a wry smile on TikTok, adding: “As a player, you retire after 22 years… Listen, 100 per cent, you learn enough to go into management, playing the level I played at and the managers I played under.
“It doesn’t give you the right to just go into management at a certain level. You still have to learn and understand what it takes.”
The Chelsea legend poses for a photo with a fan at the event (Photo: Baller League)
Indeed, after retiring Terry duly worked under Dean Smith at Aston Villa as assistant head coach from 2018 to 2021, before leaving to become a No 1 himself.
“Providing the right opportunity presents itself, I feel ready to take up such a challenge,” Terry said at the time, already hinting there is a level he wouldn’t stoop to.
But no gig was forthcoming. Terry teamed up again with Smith at Leicester City – for mere months in 2023 – before working with Chelsea’s academy, but a series of knockbacks have evidently crushed him.
Sunderland was one such role, when the Black Cats were in League One and sacked Lee Johnson in February 2022. They appointed Alex Neil instead.
“I had a really good meeting, came away thinking that’s mine,” Terry told former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan last year.
“I got on really well with the sporting director [Kristjaan Speakman]. I got the message, ‘It went really well, just a little bit inexperienced.’
“Same with another one, just no experience. So I’m sitting there wondering, how do I then get this experience? To be honest I didn’t really want to go as low as League One, but I promise you Sunderland was getting up that year.
Rejection has clearly deflated one of the Premier League greats, and it is remarkable to think this captain, leader, legend has already given up, acting as if there is no room for the outspoken when notorious shithouses Craig Bellamy and Robbie Savage are now coaching Wales and Forest Green Rovers respectively.
But evidently, unlike Bellamy and Savage who have continued to graft, Terry’s mindset appears to be backwards, and the fact he believes League One is below him only to then manage a Baller League team is laughable – and truthfully, quite sad.
It starts with 30 seconds of deliberate applause and then the flags at the front of the Tribune Ouest are waved for the first time. Everyone in the stand raises their scarves, as one, and then the chanting and bouncing comes en masse for the first time – a call to arms.
It is an entirely normal continental football scene, of course, bar one small detail: RC Strasbourg’s latest match is already 15 minutes old.
This is nothing new. Ever since Strasbourg were taken over by BlueCo in 2023, the club’s ultras have remained silent for the first 15 minutes of every match as a mark of protest against what they perceive to be the degradation of their football club and its identity.
A few minutes before they began to make noise on Thursday evening, a simple banner was held across the ultras section: “Against modern football”. With 10 minutes left in the game, their second banner is larger and easily translated: “No to repression! We are open to dialogue… and you?”
The ultras say that promises from the club’s owners to meet with them have been broken.
Strasbourg have made a winning start to their European campaign (Photo: Getty)
Just about everything is going well at Strasbourg. The occasion of my visit is their first European home game proper in 20 years and they are the third favourites to win the Conference League.
They are four points off the top of Ligue 1 having played four of the teams above them. They have the league’s top scorer and drew away at Paris Saint-Germain last week.
In Liam Rosenior, they have a young, forward-thinking coach of a team that plays attractive, attacking football. At the game I attend, they draw against Jagiellonia Bialystok despite being utterly dominant, but the main aesthetic is pass-and-go fun.
Four of the starting XI play with their socks rolled down and Strasbourg score an overhead kick, which is absolutely what somebody who has travelled hundreds of miles wants to see.
Off the pitch, no less acceleration. Opposite me is the new Tribune Nord, which will soon be open to supporters and increase the capacity of the Stade de la Meinau to 32,000.
This summer, the only Ligue 1 clubs with a higher net spend than Strasbourg were PSG, the league’s dominant force, and Paris FC, the new capital disruptors.
Liam Rosenior was appointed Strasbourg head coach in July 2024 (Photo: Getty)
But what stands out most at Strasbourg is the age of the playing staff.
For this Conference League game, the oldest player in the 21-strong matchday squad is just 23. Across Europe’s top five major leagues, Strasbourg don’t just have the youngest average age (20.9), but they beat second on that list by more than two full years.
According to a recent study by CIES Football Observatory, the only club in the 69 highest-ranked world leagues with a younger team are FK Metta, bottom of the Latvian Virsliga. Strasbourg are an extraordinary outlier.
Here is the thing: Chelsea have the third youngest average age in Europe’s top five leagues and that is not coincidental. BlueCo’s principle strategy is to invest heavily in youth, which is developed and sold at a profit or used to fuel the pursuit of trophies.
Three of the first-team regulars (Mike Penders and Mamadou Sarr – 20, Kendry Paez – 18) are Chelsea loanees. To an extent, this is a football nursery.
The connections within this multi-club operation are not hidden – since BlueCo’s takeover in 2023, 11 different players have moved between Chelsea and Strasbourg. The natural order isn’t hidden either.
In October, Strasbourg’s star attacking player Emanuel Emegha was pictured at Cobham holding up a Chelsea shirt before a move next summer.
It is fair to say the Strasbourg ultras were less than pleased – isn’t he still our player? What does “our player” even mean anymore?
Emanuel Emegha will join Chelsea at the end of the season (Photo: Getty)
The club’s explanation of their multi-club ownership (MCO) model is pretty clear. Marc Keller, the former Premier League player and long-time club president here, had a dream to take Strasbourg back into Europe.
For that they needed far greater investment and greater revenue: bigger stadium, bigger budgets.
Keller believed that BlueCo was the right option to enable both and they have certainly funded the project since.
There are clubs in Europe where being part of an MCO network causes no negativity – Union Saint-Gilloise (under Brighton’s guise) in Belgium are a fine example – because it allows them to compete at a level above they ever could before.
In Paris, Red Star FC are going for automatic promotion. FC Thun are top of the Swiss league. Hearts of Midlothian are top of the Scottish Premiership. All seem comfortable with their place in MCOs.
It is history – recent and more ancient – that makes Strasbourg a little different.
They are the only professional club in Alsace, an area that borders Germany and Switzerland and has a unique, proud identity. They are one of only six clubs to have won all three major French trophies, including three this century.
Todd Boehly bought a majority stake in Strasbourg in June 2023 (Photo: Getty)
More pertinently, Strasbourg almost went out of business 14 years ago, having been relegated to the third tier, forced into bankruptcy, demoted two more divisions and returned to amateur status.
It was Keller who saved the club and oversaw an astonishing recovery: four promotions in six years and Strasbourg rising all the way to sixth in Ligue 1 in 2022.
That rebuild, on their own terms, is a point of great pride to the ultras. They made up a quarter of the home attendances in the fifth tier. They understood the need for greater investment.
But they also see the MCO model as a threat to the future of a club that almost died because it is BlueCo’s money, not the club’s. They say that they feel like a fast food franchise or a footballer farm more than a football club. What was the point in fighting for their existence just to give up their identity?
The ultras are not wholly negative: they celebrate when Strasbourg score and they still lead the chants and the noise after the first 15 minutes.
But they have also fallen out with the club over their matchday protests and with Rosenior over criticism of the Emegha deal and the player’s retention of the club captaincy.
“We do not claim to represent the majority of fans and nobody – including the club – can do that,” says Alexandre, who has become a spokesperson for the four organisations (with more than 1,500 total members).
“We represent the organized fringe of the fan scene and the club knows that very well since they were very willing to cooperate with us for a dozen years and took a lot of inspiration from us for their marketing.”
Strasbourg president Mark Keller played for the club for five years (Photo: Getty)
That is an important detail. The supporters that I speak to in the Tribune Sud range from those who understand the ultras’ concerns but prefer to focus on their team doing well to those who think that any worries about the MCO relationship are unfounded. In democratic terms, it is a definite minority who are leading protests.
The salient question, I suppose, is whose opinion merits more weight. Keller has put in so much time and effort into the Strasbourg rebirth that he earned the right to make the call.
The ultra fan groups may be a minority, but they are also the grassroots movement of the club who typically contain the most loyal supporters by any reasonable measure.
They are not causing a scene for pure notoriety; this is about protecting the club’s future.
The answer to that question is there is no answer. On a personal level, I am uncomfortable with multi-club ownership groups. I share Alexandre’s concerns that if BlueCo decide that Strasbourg are no longer right for their organisation, what will be left but uncertainty and doubt at a club that has already suffered enough of that for one lifetime?
But then what are the options here? French football is broken. Ligue 1’s broadcasting deal is reportedly worth 20 per cent of its previous iteration after the collapse of the Dazn relationship.
One club is uber-dominant because it is state-owned and ludicrously rich. Private wealth may be viewed as safer, but then see John Textor and Lyon for how that can go south. Bordeaux almost went extinct last year.
The choice has been made to tie themselves to an operation with a Premier League club at its head, which makes financial sense given the economic dominance of that division.
Strasbourg would say that they have used the intricacies – unpleasant as they may be – of European football in 2025 to their competitive advantage. They are providing exciting football to a fanbase and building revenue for improving fasciitis and qualifying for Europe. Was this not the dream?
Their ultras say that their club has merely become beholden to the whims of a corporation that sees them as a tool, not a historic football club.
Some of the end results may be enjoyable, but they do not justify the means. Do Strasbourg have control of their own future? Who knows.
I ask Alexandre if he can take any enjoyment from the results on the pitch.
“That is a very personal question and you will get as many answers as fans you interview,” he says.
“I personally see the results with some distance. Other people will have different answers and many manage to both enjoy the football and stay critical of the whole. That is all fine and we respect every position on that topic.”
I can’t think of any answer that better epitomises Strasbourg or any other football club in this situation. There are a hundred different answers because there is no answer at all.
Strasbourg are either an upstart capable of breathing rarefied air, or a groundbreaking team with impossibly young and exciting players, or a cog in a machine in which their future is defined by the success of others.
Or perhaps they are all three. The closer you go towards the heart of the club, the harder it is to tell.
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