On this day in 1997… Dennis Bergkamp, folks.

Another plug for our weekly Premier League preview

At least Kai Havertz is honest. “It’s a nice feeling but it would be even nicer if I can do it with Arsenal and it would mean a lot more,” said the Germany forward when asked about winning the Champions League during his stint at Chelsea. After his goal against Paris Saint-Germain in midweek set up a comfortable win, Havertz has the perfect opportunity to match Robin van Persie’s record of scoring in seven successive games at the Emirates Stadium when Arsenal face struggling Southampton on Saturday. His burgeoning partnership with Leandro Trossard has made up for the absence of Martin Ødegaard in recent weeks as Mikel Arteta’s team have shown their adaptability during a testing run of fixtures at home and in Europe.

Leicester v Bournemouth (Saturday 3pm)

Here’s what Leicester boss Steve Cooper makes of their slow start to the season.

We’re very much trying to become a Premier League team again. It’s a Premier League club in every way shape or form – we know that and the recent history tells you that. But at this moment, we have to make sure we deliver a Premier League team performance.

Some bits have been really good. Other bits we need to get better at. That’s the challenge for the team, and for me and the staff. Although nobody likes it, and nobody wants to accept it, it is a matter of fact that when you are in a certain part of the Premier League, you do go through a spell of games where you’d like more than what you get.

Although there’s no shame in it, you very much want to deal with it and get through it. We’re six games without a win. There’s no point looking back. It’s been and gone.

We’ve got to look forward, take our situation for what it is, but look at it positively and with motivation to get through it and get to a really good place. That’s what has got to drive us every day.

There is always talk about the Manager of the Month award being cursed. But this might be the first time the curse has kicked in before the award has even been announced.

To put it another way, the Scottish Premiership Manager of the Month for September is Brendan Rodgers.

Thanks Luke, hello everyone. Let’s start with some news from the wires about #WayneRooney’sPlymouth.

Plymouth have signed former Watford and Burnley striker Andre Gray on a short-term contract until January.

The 33-year-old Jamaica international, whose last club was Al-Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, will go straight into the Argyle squad for Saturday’s home Sky Bet Championship game with Blackburn, subject to international clearance.

Plymouth’s on-loan striker Muhamed Tijani is likely to be out until the new year after tearing his hamstring.

“Once we knew the severity of Muhamed’s injury, we moved quickly to bring in a striker to replace him,” head coach Wayne Rooney said.

“Andre is a striker of real quality and has played and scored goals at the highest level. He will provide competition in forward areas as we head into a busy period of the season and I am really happy to have him here.

“Physically, he’s in good condition. He just needs to get a bit sharper. Over the international break, he’ll have a blast to get fitter and sharper.”

And that is all from me. I will leave you in the capable hands of Rob Smyth.

A well-known sports TV news channel presents these Erik Ten Hag quotes as brand-new. On which basis here is the Manchester United manager speaking before the meeting with Aston Villa:

“I am not thinking about such issues [his future]. We are in it together. Ownership, staff, leadership team. We bought new young players. We have to integrate them.

“Manuel Ugarte at No 6 will be very important but he needs time to integrate … He has to get used to our game model, teammates, the intensity of the Premier League.

“I was very pleased with the return of Rasmus Højlund. Hopefully he is now fit and will keep improving in his fitness levels.

“There are more areas where will improve. We will see where we fin at end of season.”

On injuries: “Harry Maguire, Alejandro Garnacho and Kobbie Mainoo had issues going into the Porto game. Mainoo didn’t make it, it was too big risk. We have to see if he’s fit enough to start [against Villa on Sunday].”

Last question: Villa Park will be tricky atmosphere. Harry Maguire mentioned that the players have a “mental issue” after the 3-3 draw at Porto. How does Ten Hag prepare his players for the Villa game?

“What is the mental issue?” ponders Ten Hag. “That is a range. A spectrum of topics. You have to address it right.”

“All the noise around the club, I can’t control,” says Chelsea’s Enzo Maresca. “Is it real noise? I don’t know.”

Does he prefer the quiet life? (Compared to, for instance, famously temperamental former Chelsea manager Antonio Conte.)

“We are all different,” says Maresca. “I played with Antonio for three years with at Juventus. I know how calm is Antonio.” [Cue laughter]

Do Chelsea’s players think it’s all coming together after a run of wins?

“When you win games, it’s always energy, trust, confidence. For sure it’s helping the process.

“The players, they know when team plays well or not. They are convinced. They can see the identity we have every game. For them it’s them it’s most important thing.

“As I already said, I really don’t think we can compete with City and Arsenal [for the Premier League title].

“City have been working with the same manager for nine years. Arsenal, five years. If you want to compete for important things you need that time.”

Arsenal’s first-team manager, Arteta, is asked if last weekend’s 4-2 win against Leicester shows that tomorrow’s Premier League encounter against Southampton will not be straightforward. Needless to say, perhaps, he concurs.

“Yes. Every three days, we have an unbelievable test. Three days ago it was Paris [Saint-Germain]. Before that it was Leicester … different expectations, ways of playing.

“We have to adapt to that but we try to be ourselves. We will have the same ambition and determination to win the game.”

Mikel Arteta of “The Arsenal” is speaking now.

Maresca: Chelsea not ready to compete for title

Ed Aarons

The Real Madrid manager, Carlo Ancelotti, is hoping the short preparation time he has had with his players following the shock Champions League loss at Lille will be sufficient.

As they prepare to host Villarreal in La Liga on Saturday, Ancelotti said Wednesday’s loss was a reality check after a penalty scored by Jonathan David earned the French side a 1-0 victory over the holders, ending the 15-times European Cup winners’ 36-game unbeaten run in all competitions.

“[Villarreal] are doing really well, tomorrow it’s an opportunity for us to reconnect, to get back to playing good football,” Ancelotti said.

“[The mood] is fine, as always. Defeat is an opportunity, if we take it and react well. We are self-critical. There are times when you have to reconnect and you need to do it quickly.

“Sometimes a good run makes you think you’re invincible, but a defeat brings you back to reality. We are still not at our level, we have players who are not at their best. We are not far from where we want to be. There is a lack of defensive intensity and, offensively, a lack of ball circulation.” (Reuters)

Gary O’Neil of Wolves is having a chat. He mentions last weekend’s narrow home loss to Liverpool.

“From people who know football, they know last weekend was a fantastic effort against a team who have won nearly all their games this season, they world-class players from 1 to 20,” O’Neil says of his side’s display.

“They were pleased to get out of there with an important victory. They were well tested on the day.

“We go to Brentford tomorrow, we will look to play our way, and it’s an opportunity to get our first win.”

Wolves are bottom, with a point from six games.

Guardiola was also asked about clubs apparently being obliged to send their strongest squads to the new, enlarged Club World Cup.

“I am not going to say before the games which [players’] have to play. I will decide, that’s for sure.”

If you have any thoughts on any of this, you can email me.

Guardiola is also asked for a fitness update on his squad. “Erling Haaland is OK,” he confirms, and there is no fresh injury news, according to the manager.

He lists the existing injuries: “Nathan [Aké], Kevin [De Bruyne], of course Rodri and Oscar [Bobb] … the rest are fine.”

“For tomorrow he’s not ready …” Pep adds, asked for more about De Bruyne. Then the fact he’s asked not to play for Belgium in November.

“How can he go when he didn’t play one game? I never understood that. He cannot play with us, he cannot play with Belgium. He didn’t say to me he’s going to retire from the national team from Belgium, he didn’t say that to me. I don’t know ‘in the mind’ from Kevin. But for that game, he’s injured, he’s not available.”

Guardiola refuses to comment on Manchester City future

More from Postecoglou: this time, on James Maddison missing out on the most recent England international squad. (Spot the Rolling Stones reference.)

The Tottenham manager said: “I’m sure he’s disappointed but he’s playing well, that’s all you can do. These things come along at times, it’s not always perfect in your career, you can’t always get what you want.

“He’s playing well for us, he’s been outstanding all year and has made an impact in every game he plays. I’m sure he’ll be selected again but you can’t put everything in one basket or be disappointed or let it affect the way he’s playing because he’s been brilliant for us.”

On Dejan Kulusevski moving to a more central role this season, Postecoglou said: “‘Deki’ is doing great. He’s been out of this world in many respects as to what he’s able to do in a central role.

“We used him wide last year because we didn’t have too many options out there and that’s where he was comfortable in. We started using him inside and I felt he felt that it unshackled him a little bit. He has an unbelievable capacity to run on and off the ball, his physical numbers are ridiculous and he has the quality to hurt teams with that.” (Quotes via PA Media)

The Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou has revealed Son Heung-min is “unlikely” to feature in Sunday’s Premier League match at Brighton.

Spurs defeated Ferencvaros 2-1 in the Europa League on Thursday night – Son missed the trip as he recovers from a hamstring injury picked up against Qarabag last month.

Postecoglou said: “First thing’s first, we’re all good after last night, obviously tired but, physically, no issues from last night’s game.

“Of the guys who stayed back… Destiny [Udogie], we think will be okay. We train today and tomorrow, so he has to get through that. Sonny is unlikely, he’s pushing hard, but the turn around might be too quick for him to be available at this stage.”

The official Tottenham website states: “Radu Dragusin is available again after being suspended for Thursday night’s win in Budapest. Richarlison and Wilson Odobert remain sidelined.”

Borussia Dortmund will be without forwards Karim Adeyemi and Julien Duranville for several weeks after they both picked up injuries in Tuesday’s 7-1 victory over Celtic in the Champions League, coach Nuri Sahin said.

The Ruhr valley club earned their biggest European win, with Germany international Adeyemi scoring a hat-trick before taken off with a muscle injury and replaced by 18-year-old Belgium international Duranville, who also suffered an injury.

“We will be without Karim and Julien (Duranville) for some time. They are expected to be back after the international break in mid-November,” Sahin said.

He added that Gio Reyna, sidelined since last month, will also delay his comeback after suffering a setback in his own recovery.

Dortmund, in fifth place in the Bundesliga on 10 points, three behind leaders Bayern, travel to Union Berlin on Saturday, hoping to make it two league wins in a row for the first time this season.

Sahin’s team have struggled for consistency so far, suffering a 5-1 defeat by Stuttgart two weeks ago before bouncing back with a 4-2 win over Bochum.

“When something is supposed to grow together you need time,” Sahin, in his first season in charge at Dortmund, said. “Every day in this development is important. I am not looking for excuses. I know well how to rank the Celtic game. It is not that we are hugging each other saying ‘we are the coolest’ because we won 7-1.

“We are expected to deliver such performances every three days and if we win (on Saturday) then the world may look a bit cooler.” (Reuters)

The lunchtime rush of football-manager-streams-of-consciousness is nearly upon us. I’ll be aiming to take each press conference as it comes.

Thank you John. Hello everyone.

Right. That’s my stint done. More to come. Luke McLaughlin has the floor.

Tim Bak gets in touch from the United States: “I believe it means a club who terminates a player “with cause” can only seek damages from the player, and a second club later signing the player cannot be prevented from doing so or be liable for damages to the first club unless the second club somehow induced the player to breach their contract. It likely removes FIFA and its dispute resolution chamber as the trial setting and puts it in the courts (in a shock, the lawyers win).”

So does John O’Connell: “If the transfer system as we know it is dismantled, I wouldn’t be so cocky if I was the players union. The logical thing for clubs to do is to make every player a contractor, and be able to be terminated at any transfer window. After all, if they can leave at when they want, why can’t teams fire players at any point?

”If you are constrained by only having a squad of 25, then players will have to be released to accommodate new signings. No more training with the kids on £300k a week for a couple of years, you’ll be unemployed.”

Will Lane raises a question: “In terms of implications, does this mean that a player can terminate their contract at any time and sign for a free elsewhere? For example, Marcus Rashford after being disillusioned by being subbed early last night could terminate his contract this morning and sign for Liverpool to spite Ten Hag?”

The talk on Tyneside has been of a move away from St James’ Park, where the value of land around Newcastle United’s stadium could fund a new place, say on the old quayside. But Eddie Howe is resistant to the loss of one of the great cathedrals of English football.

It’s an incredible place to play football, it’s our home, so to think about moving somewhere else feels a little bit of a betrayal to somewhere that’s served us so well. But we are well aware that as a football club, we need to increase our revenue, so people with more brain cells will make the decision for the benefit of the long-term future of the football club, and that’s always the most important thing. I could be swayed, but just my natural instinct is to want to stay.

Ten Hag’s key quote from Porto: “Don’t judge us in this moment. I judge us at the end of the season. We are in the process. Just wait. We have to develop this team. We will work and continue. We will fight.”

Should you speak – or read – French, then the full Diarra judgment is here.

Preston’s Osmajic given eight-match ban for biting

Lovely stuff from Will Unwin here.

Ten Hag says this every week, doesn’t he?

More to follow on Diarra. In the meantime, we’ll preview the weekend’s action, starting with Sunderland v Leeds. Fine piece here from Louise Taylor on some old friends meeting at the Stadium of Light.

Nick Smith gets in touch: “I’d love to see Todd Boehly’s reaction to today’s ruling, having spent £1,600,000,000 on players now on long term contracts with potentially no resale value. Wait until he realises he can’t terminate them either!”

Caution: it hasn’t come to that just yet. We think.

The ruling will now be referred back to the appeal court in Mons to inform its decision in Diarra’s specific case. Diarra’s legal team, led by Jean-Louis Dupont who helped bring about the Bosman ruling in 1995 have said this “paves the way for a modernisation of governance, in particular through the use of collective bargaining between employees and employers”.

As stated previously, this may some time to shake down. The Bosman case took over two years to become law. It came into force in December 1995, and by the summer was in force. Remember those? Paul Lambert left Motherwell and joined Borussia Dortmund; Edgar Davids left Ajax for Milan; Christian Dailly left Dundee United for Derby.

Fifpro – the international player’s union – has released a bullish statement.

They say the ruling will “change the landscape of professional football”.

Phil Johnson gets in touch: “If this decision reduces the perceived value of footballers as assets, then I’m all for it. Hopefully it will work in partnership with Bosman to show the money folk currently ruining the game, that a club’s only reliable asset is its fan base. “

A Fifa briefing note here:

Fifa is satisfied that the legality of key principles of the transfer system have been re-confirmed in today’s ruling. The ruling only puts in question two paragraphs of two articles of the Fifa Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, which the national court is now invited to consider.

Fifa has taken note of the ruling issued today by the Court of Justice of the European Union in relation to the case involving the player Lassana Diarra.

Fifa is satisfied that the legality of key principles of the transfer system have been re-confirmed in today’s ruling. The ruling only puts in question two paragraphs of two articles of the Fifa Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players, which the national court is now invited to consider.

Fifa will analyse the decision in coordination with other stakeholders before commenting further.

Diarra’s lawyers’s press release is fairly explicit in claiming a big win.

Diarra’s lawyers are claiming a big win.

We await the full verdict. The devil, as always, will be in the detail.

More from that press release:

The Court holds that all of those rules are contrary to EU law.

First, the rules in question are such as to impede the free movement of professional footballers wishing to develop their activity by going to work for a new club, established in the territory of another Member State of the European Union.

Those rules impose considerable legal risks, unforeseeable and potentially very high financial risks as well as major sporting risks on those players and clubs wishing to employ them which, taken together, are such as to impede international transfers of those players.

Although restrictions on the free movement of professional players may be justified by overriding reasons in the public interest consisting in ensuring the regularity of interclub football competitions, by maintaining a certain degree of stability in the player rosters of professional football clubs, in the present case the rules in question nevertheless seem, subject to verification by the Cour d’appel de Mons (Court of Appeal, Mons, Belgium) in a number of respects, to go beyond what is necessary to pursue that objective.

Secondly as regards competition law, the Court holds that the rules at issue have as their object the restriction, and even prevention, of cross-border competition which could be pursued by all clubs established in the European Union, by unilaterally recruiting players under contract with another club or players about whom it is alleged that the employment contract was terminated without just cause.

In that regard, the Court recalls that the possibility of competing by recruiting trained players plays an essential role in the professional football sector and that rules which place a general restriction on that form of competition, by immutably fixing the distribution of workers between the employers and in cloistering the markets, are similar to a no-poach agreement.

The Court further observes that, subject to verification by the Cour d’appel de Mons (Court of Appeal, Mons, Belgium), those rules do not appear to be indispensable or necessary.

The official press release:

Judgment of the Court in Case C-650/22 | FIFA

Football: some Fifa rules on international transfers of professional footballers are contrary to EU law Those rules hinder the free movement of players and competition between clubs A former professional footballer residing in France is challenging before the Belgian courts a number of the rules adopted by Fédération internationale de football association (Fifa), the association responsible for the organisation and control of football at world level, arguing that they hindered his being employed by a Belgian football club.

The rues in question are contained in the Fifa ‘Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players’ (RSTP). Those rules, which are applied by both Fifa and its member national football associations, such as the Belgian association (URBSFA), apply, inter alia, in cases where a club considers that one of its players has terminated his employment contract without ‘just cause’ before the normal term of that contract. In that case, the player and any club wishing to employ him are jointly and severally liable for any compensation due to the former club.

Moreover, the new club may, in certain situations, be subject to a sporting sanction consisting in being banned from registering any new players for a given period. Lastly, the national association to which the player’s former club belongs must refuse to issue an International Transfer Certificate to the association where the new club is registered as long as a dispute between the former club and the player concerning the termination of the contract is pending.

The Cour d’appel de Mons (Court of Appeal, Mons, Belgium) asks the Court of Justice whether those various rules are compatible with the free movement of workers and competition law.

Another interesting football-related ruling from the EU today.

We await the implications of that, and those may take years to shake down. It doesn’t currently seem like the transfer system as we know it will need to be broken up, but perhaps some reform may be in order. It certainly appears to loosen clubs’ hold on players.

EU top court says Fifa player transfer rules breach law

The verdict is in

David Weaver is an early caller: “I find it odd that since everyone’s woken up to the game-changing possibilities of the Diarra case, very little has been said about Andy Webster. Underachieving mid-level Scottish international centre back he may be, but when he broke his contract with Hearts to force a move to Rangers in 2006, many hailed that as “Bosman 2.0”, as it meant players could buy out their contracts. But it was never the revolution that many thought it would be. I wonder if you could explain why the consequences of that case were never as far reaching as anticipated, and why this case might be more significant?

“PS if you’re looking for some new music, I’d highly recommend the brand new album by Denver, Colorado’s Blood Incantation – a real analogue delight of proggy cosmic death metal, featuring none other than Tangerine Dream’s Thorsten Quaeschning; my album of the year so far”

Players have bought out contracts – this can happen in Spain, if I recall the Ander Herrera case – but it seems costly, so may not happen too often. Perhaps that’s it.

(I am off to see the mighty Dream – in whatever version it is – at the Barbican on Monday.)

Preamble