Former Norway coach Martin Sjögren named coach of the NWSL's Chicago Stars
Sjögren will join the Stars starting with the 2026 season after wrapping up the current season as head coach for Hammarby in the Swedish Damallsvenskan, the Stars announced Wednesday.
'For me, this position as head coach of the Chicago Stars is a new challenge in a new country, in a new league,' he said in a video posted to social media Wednesday. 'But to me the NWSL has always been a very interesting league. It's one of the most competitive leagues in the world, if not the most competitive. And there's so many things happening in the U.S. when it comes to women's football, and it's growing really, really fast.'
Sjögren coached Norway's women from 2016 through 2022, leading the team to the quarterfinals of the 2019 Women's World Cup. Norway also played in the Women's European Championships in 2017 and 2022 under Sjögren.
Sjögren's longtime assistant and friend, Anders Jacobson, has been named interim coach through this year and will join the team in the coming weeks, the team said. Current interim coach Ella Masar will continue as an assistant coach.
'This appointment is the result of a rigorous, data-driven hiring process and deep discussions about our soccer identity, methodology and long-term vision. We were not just looking for top-level coaches but for people with exceptional human values, leaders who align with our ambition to build a high-performance environment rooted in trust, unity, and a true sense of family," Stars general manager Richard Feuz said.
The Stars fired coach Lorne Donaldson after winning just one of six games to start the NWSL season.
Donaldson, who led the Jamaican national team to the knockout round at the 2023 Women's World Cup, was in his second season with Chicago. The Stars went 10-14-2 in his first season and made the playoffs.
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Inside Paramount's record-smashing $7.7B UFC media rights knockout
This week on Yahoo Finance Sports Report, host Joe Pompliano takes a look at some of this week's biggest headlines in the sports business world that you and your portfolio need to know. From the UFC's $7.7 billion media rights deal with Paramount (PSKY) to Shohei Ohtani's legal troubles over a $240 million real estate project, to the latest low-cost trendy snacks for athletes, there are a ton of money moves reshaping the sports financial playbook. . Yahoo Sports Senior Writer Frank Schwab joins the show to preview the upcoming NFL season. Plus, The Athletic women's sports lead Meg Linehan stops by to discuss growth in the NWSL and what the future looks like for the women''s soccer league. Yahoo Finance Sports Report with Joe Pompliano, a vodcast brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports, looks beyond the latest sports business headlines, analyzes all the need-to-know news - the teams, trades, and billion-dollar deals - so you and your portfolio will win BIG. Welcome to Yahoo Finance Sports Report, a unique look at the business of sports brought to you by Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports. I'm your host, Joe Pomliano, and I'm here to coach you through the financial game. Today we've got Yahoo Sports senior writer Frank Schwab coming back on the show to get a pulse check on the NFL, and Meg Linehan, women's sports lead of the athletic, joining us to talk about the top stories in women's sports. Let's huddle up and get right into are kicking off this week with POM's Playbook, where I take a look at some of the biggest headlines in sports that you and your portfolio need to know. First up, let's talk UFC. The UFC struck a massive seven year $7.7 billion deal with Paramount and CBS for its US media rights earlier this week. Starting in 2026, all UFC events will stream exclusively on Paramount Plus, ending the UFC's previous pay per view model with ESPN. 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And and so it becomes part of our business now having having those tariffs. Next up, found himself in another legal dispute. According to the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar and his agent Nes Balleo are being sued for allegedly sabotaging a $240 million real estate project in Hawaii. The lawsuit was filed by a Hawaii real estate investor and broker who alleges that Otani and Balleo got the two fired from a luxury housing project that Otani was set to endorse. And last up,ESPN and Fox announced earlier this week that the companies will offer a joint bundle for their new streaming services. Starting October 2nd, consumers can buy ESPN's upcoming direct to consumer streaming service and the new Fox 1 DTC streaming app as a bundle for $40 a month, saving $10 in monthly calls. The bundle gives cord cutters and cord never yet another option to consider for watching sports in the new age of streaming, which is starting toAn awful lot like cable. And as football fans decide whether to buy another streaming package from ESPN and Fox for the 2025 NFL season, Yahoo Sports senior writer Frank Schwab joins us to discuss a few burning questions across the league with less than a month to go until regular season kickoff. Frank, thanks so much for joining us today. I'd love to talk about a question that we often think about, but we don't usually have the answer for before the coaches across the NFL are on the hot seat, like actually on the hot seat for 2025 and could get fired if things turn south. Yeah, I think we got to start with the New York Giants. Brian Da almost got fired after last season. They don't come into this season with high hopes. I think everybody's picking them for last place in the NFC East. So the Giants Brian Daba absolutely is number one on that list. There's a few other guys, I think if the NFC Titans don't show any improvement, their number one pick, Cam Ward, I think Brian Callahan could be on the hot seat and want to look for kind of down the road a little the Cincinnati Bengals don't make the playoffs again, which he'll throw in his prime, I wonder if Zach Taylor's gonna be in a little trouble there because it's, it's hard to have a quarterback played in MVP level and not make the playoffs, and that the Bengals do that again, I do wonder if Taylor's gonna be in a little bit of trouble there. It hurts me to hear Brian Da as a Giants fan. I'm not saying he's the best coach in the world, but you got a new quarterback you're bringing in. You don't want to change it up again. We've already done that with Daniel Jones and some other guys, so I hope that doesn't happen, but we'll see. The other thing I want to talk about is Shaddoor Sanders. I mean, it feels like we've been talking about him for weeks now since the draft, really, uh, but what is going on in Cleveland? It feels like they're sort of in this middle ground where you have Joe Flacco, who's an experienced veteran who's won a Super Bowl, who is obviously gonna be starting for the it feels like they're gonna be sort of like a 500 team. The team isn't very good other than a few players. Why wouldn't they just start show Sanders and see what they have? Yeah, and I think that's complicated, and I mean, we have to remember that Shodour started training camp 4th, the depth chart. He wasn't even the first quarterback they picked. They picked Dylan Gabriel in the 3rd round, 2 rounds ahead of Shadour. So Shaddoor Sanders came into camp with a lot of ground to make up to to get to the point where he could play at some point this season. I think last week's preseason start really helped him. He looked good. He looked, he looked like he belonged on an NFL field, and that was a big step for him. The crazy part is 2.27 million people watched that on NFL numbers for other leagues where this is a preseason game. That's how much the phenomenon is is impacting the NFL already, but I like you said, the Browns are expected to be very good, but yet,They're gonna start the season with Joe Flacco, see if they could get off to a hot start, but they have a really tough schedule. So you do wonder middle of the season if they start saying, let's get a look at Sanders. Let's get a look at Dylan Gabriel, whoever is higher among those two rookies on the depth chart gets the first crack. And I, I think at some point this season we will in a regular season game. It's just not as as Browns fans or any other NFL fan who's just clamoring for more Shado Sanders stuff to talk about as they would like. Yeah, it will certainly help with ticket prices, that's for sure. What about Travis Hunter? Obviously his teammate at Colorado, he comes in with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Uh, he played both positions, right, offense and defense in college. They claim he's going to be doing that in the NFL. He looks like he's more of a wide receiver right now for them than a defensive back, but they played him a little bit there in the preseason. How do you think they do this throughout the regular season? Yeah, and it's funny. I, I mean, we talked about Sanders a lot, and Colorado, I mean his Colorado teammate, I think is the biggest story of the NFL season because we've never seen this before where a guy playing both ways, not to this extent anyway, but we've never seen a guy win a Heisman Trophy playing offense and defense either. The Jaguars traded a lot to move up to the 2nd pick to draft Hunter, andI believe they did so with the mindset of we're getting two players in one right here, and I think they're going to utilize him that way, at least until Hunter struggles or he can't do it physically. But everybody at Jaguar's camp has been saying this guy just doesn't get tired. We practiced him on both sides and he's just fine. In the preseason opener, he played extensive snaps with the starting offense, a lot of snaps with the second team defense. I, I think that they're going into the season, ready to play him on offense, a receiver, defensive cornerback, and I can't wait. We've never really seen anything like this. It's an from a unicorn of an athlete and Travis. I think this is a great thing for the Jacksonville Jaguars, a great thing for the NFL. It it is absolutely one of the stories of the season I'm gonna be following, and I do, I absolutely expect the Jaguars to use him as much as they could kind of get out of him on offense anddefense this year. Yeah, I mean, I can't wait to see the tracking data from some of his first games where they show how much he ran on offense and defense combined, how many plays he played and everything, but there's so many storylines. Frank, thank you so much for joining us. Absolutely, I appreciate it. We have to take a quick break, but when we come back, we've got Meg Linehan, women's sports leader of the athletics, stopping by the back to Yahoo Finance Sports Report. I'm your host, Joe Pagliano. We've made it to the one on one, a conversation where I get to break down news and sports with a key player in the industry. This week we're speaking with Meg Linehan, women's sports lead at the athletic and co-host of the Full-time podcast. Meg, thank you so much for joining us today. II'd like to start with the NWSL. The NWSL for people who don't follow the league, feels like it's grown a ton over the last number of years. I mean, franchise valuations are up, media rights are up, sponsorships are up, attendance is up, literally everything is up. What is your just like 30,000 ft view of how much the league has grown over the last few years? Yeah, I mean, as someone who's been around the league since year one, it is night and day considered to where we used to be, but I think it is really interesting of just, you know, what everybody is viewing as explosive growth, whether that's valuations of teams, whether that's expansion ship fees, whether that's media rights. There's a lot of like very good healthy signals of the growth and that growth being overall generally pretty positive. But from my pointOf you as someone who's been around the league forever, I think what is really interesting is we've seen some of these other key indicators of the health of the league maybe lag a little behind that, whether that's, you know, attendance numbers are good and they're definitely way better than what they used to be, but are they where they should be? Are TV numbers where they should be, or the kind of, you know, casual knowledge of the NWL in the United States? Is that where it should be at? And that's where I think the league still has some work to do. Yeah, and when you think about those numbers specifically, it almost sounds like you think it's sort of a good thing in some regard, right? Because if we look at the WNBA franchise evaluations have exploded, expansion fees have exploded, they got a new media rights deal, but maybe that's like a little too much, whereas the NWSL some of those things are growing while some others are a little bit more stagnant. Where do you think that the the league itself can sort of improve to get awareness up when it comes to some of those other items like attendance? Yeah, I think there's just still a lot of work to be done within markets, right? I mean, this is kind of the challenge is you're going up against men's leagues that have had decades to grow, right, and to become the teams that everybody knows and loves. There's generational fandom and for a league that's still under basically 15 years old, you just need time on that front. So there's time, but I still think that there's work to be done on the marketing side. I mean, this year, the NWL kind of honestly made headlines just for having a Times which I think most other leagues would look at and be like, yeah, well, why, why weren't you doing that before, right? So there are still some of those just basic things, but they've got to, they've got to get the knowledge up within the markets that they have because also we're looking at 16 cities across the US, so compare that to NFL or most other major leagues, that's about half. So it's really time, investment, all of those things that aren't necessarily like the most appealing to talk about, but are just necessary to the growth of any league. Yeah, and as someone who's followed the league for so long, what do you see as helping that, right? What, what ultimately leads that success, right? And I ask because, uh, I moved to Charlotte a couple of years ago, and they obviously have an MLS team and a lot of people go to the MLS games. I mean, the first game of the season always gets 40, 50, 60,000 people, a little bit less for the rest of the it feels like they had a lot of successes just getting people to the games, and then it becomes sort of this regionalized thing, similar to the NWL MSL MLS, etc. where you're getting people to the games and then it's regional rather than national like the NFL. Do you see that attendance is a big factor in sort of driving that fandom? Yeah, I definitely think if you go to a game, it's really hard to not want to follow the NWL in general. I think that's, that's the whole reason why after this international break this summer, teams are actually trying to get fans in the door by offering if you've never been to an NWL game before, they will give you free tickets to come in because they are so confident that once you're in the door, you're going to want to stay in the door. So that I think is a I also don't think it's a bad thing to want to be regionalized. Like I, you know, I'm up in Burlington, Vermont. Our local soccer team is USL too. They just won the national championship. It is extremely, if you're in Burlington, Vermont, you know Vermont Green, right? They're trying to start a women's team, all of these things. Being super community focused is not a bad thing, but when you're the NWL as a want that national recognition, you want to have the cultural influence that the WNDA has, for instance, then regional will only get you so far. The challenge is straddling that line of what will keep your dedicated fans and your, your community fans in the door without sacrificing like what makes the NW so special, and that's like such a big question to try to have to grapple with as a league. Yeah, it feels like every league is sort of trying to determine the national reach versus the regional, and, and some leagues are doing it well. Some, some are certainly focusing on one over the other, but you mentioned expansion teams earlier, and there's a couple of new teams who are going to be joining the league in 2026 in Boston and Denver. What do you think of the league's expansion process overall and sort of how they've run that uh over the last couple of years? Yeah, Boston is not actually going to be a new market for the NWBL. There was an end of the sell team when the league started in Boston that was forced to fold. So it is a return for the NWBL to this market that honestly, like, they did have a hard time cracking it the first time around. I mean, Boston is a team that love is a city that loves its sports. There are multiple teams to compete with, so it's going to be really interesting to see if the current version of the NWL and that product is going to have anEasier time cracking that market. Denver, we all know within the women's soccer world as like a hotbed of youth soccer, has produced like insanely talented stars. So Denver to me seems like a market that's going to have a really easy time of, you know, getting a foothold in that community, immediately becoming part of the sports landscape. But from an NWL higher level perspective, what is really interesting is they don't seem content to be stopping at the challenge is finding a timeline where you can continue to add teams, continue to bring in, you know, these multi multimillion dollar expansion fees without sacrificing the quality on the field, and Commissioner Jessica Berman has said on record like, well, why couldn't we be as big as the NFL? The challenge is getting there in the right number of years without like, you know, suddenly you've got 4 teams coming in at a time and it's just chaos. Yeah, and I think most casual sports fans at least have probably seen the Kansas City Current stadium over there. Their valuation has obviously increased dramatically because it now they have this, uh, women's specific soccer stadium. I think it was the first of its kind. What have you seen on the ownership front? Have owners been willing to invest more money in their teams and their facilities over the last number of years with sort of this boom in women's sports that we've seen? Totally. I mean, the investment is really night and day. I mean, between the expansion fees, the, the valuations, right, like the money is flowing in and Kansas City is a really interesting example of this because so much of it was privately funded, right? Like we talk about public funding on, on the men's sports side a lot in terms of teams wanting new stadiums to upgrade stadiums, whatever it may be, whereas with Kansas City, this was also, in essence, a real estate play for these owners of saying like, hey, we're going to come in, we're going to spend millions of dollars, not just to build a soccer specific also this beautiful training facility as well and watch that investment pay off basically instantaneously. They got, they were able to host the NWL championship last year. They're hosting international games. They're probably going to make a play for hosting teams during the 2026 World Cup for the men. So there is an investment piece, but we're also seeing that reward immediately come through for owners who are willing to spend in a way that we never saw in the early days of the NWSL. I saw a recent article that you wrote on the coaching change, uh, for the North Carolina Courage, and essentially for those who haven't seen the piece yet was, uh, it wasn't communicated in the best sense was my take on it. I'd love to just talk to you about that story specifically and figure out if this was sort of growing pains for the NWSL or if you think it was something different. Yeah, I mean, growing pains is, is maybe not quite the right term for it just because, you know, back in 2021 and honestly, since then, the NWBL is still grappling with this abuse scandal that hit the league and part of that was because there weren't proper reporting mechanisms, coaches were allowed to move from team to team. There were a lot of investigations like if, if people are coming into the league more recently, they've seen a lot of the results of what happened in 2021 without maybe necessarily understanding the full what is really interesting is North Carolina Courage was one of the teams that was really impacted by that abuse scandal. Their coach at that time was immediately fired following reporting that we actually did at the athletic. And so I think there's a zero tolerance thing going on in terms of potential behavior, but also we're seeing kind of the same struggle within the NWL in terms of communicating why coaches are fired, and I want to also preface this by saying,You know, there's always going to be potential legal issues when you fire anyone or a contract is ended. So there's always going to have to be some level of public transparency, not necessarily being where we would like it to be in the endWL versus things beingProperly communicated to players or staffers, whatever that is. So there's that piece of it, but the way that North Carolina Courage handled it was one of the most combative press conferences I've ever been a part of, just kind of, it was so strange and it just, it was a reminder of some of the really painful days that this league has had and one team's behavior can also reflect on the league as a whole, and that, that's where the NWL can get into trouble all of the time. Yeah, and lastly, I'd loveto just hear your, uh, your thoughts on sort of like what the NWSL can do from a growth perspective, sort of going back to what we were discussing earlier. Obviously, the men's World Cup is coming here next summer. We just had the Club World Cup this past summer. There's a lot of talk about how MLS is going to benefit from this. How do you think NWSL also benefits from just more people watching soccer in general? Yeah, I think there's always, you know, that, that mutual boost, no matter what it is. I think we always see more of a boost off of the Women's World Cup. The next one of those is 2027 in Brazil. But obviously, you know, you see these massive waves of interest coming off of 2023 when the US women's national team won in both 2015 and 2019, there were massive spikes coming off of those two things. But I think hosting the tournament in the United know, it's going to be expensive to go to a World Cup, right? So I think MLS will benefit, but also NWSL will in terms of affordability, again, in terms of feeling like if you get someone in the door, if you're able to come up with that ticket promo or whatever it is to get someone in the door that they're going to want to stay and knowing that the NWL, even compared to MLS is stacked with some of the world's talent with so many of the US women's national team players. There's a lot of room here for the NWL to honestly force its way into the conversation around 2026, and we've started to see it too, where host cities are leaning on NWL players to be part of their committees around what host cities will be doing. So I feel encouraged, but the big challenge for the the moment of next summer is, how do they play through a men's international tournament being hosted here in the US and we haven't quite seen the answer to that yet. They're starting to trickle out some details about how they're thinking about doing this, but just from a logistical standpoint, they're going to have a tough time, but if they can figure it out and figure it out well, then they really do stand to benefit. Yeah, having that happen at the same time might actually be beneficial, but there's so much money flowing into women's sports in general, and you guys are right at the center of it at the athletics. So Meg, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. The clock is winding down here, but we have just enough time for some final buzz. According to a recent feature story from Cindy Kuzma at Front Office Sports. Endurance athletes are turning to an unexpected snack to fuel their performance. Apparently a classic snack with a little snap crackle and pop has become the go to fuel source for endurance athletes. Yes, I'm talking about Rice Krispie treats. Front Office Sports spoke to multiple endurance athletes in to confirm that the Rice Krispy Street's trend is indeed real. Professional runner Molly Huddle even told FOS that she eats a box of 16 Rice Krispy treats before running marathons. Here's the gist of it. Most runners and cyclists consume mass loads of easily digestible cars before races and training sessions to ensure that they have enough glycogen stored in their muscles that their bodies can turn the glucose into performance fuel. ManyOf these endurance athletes will also eat simple carbohydrates during competition to stay energized, sometimes between $90 to 120 carbs per hour. However, products like energy gels and chews can cost anywhere from $2 to $5 per serving, not to mention that they may not taste all that great either, and that's where Rice Krispy treats come in. At 30 cents apiece, the Kellogg's snack gives endurance athletes an affordable fueling simple carbohydrates that also happens to taste pretty good. And while there's no hard data on how much endurance athletes are spending on Rice Krispie treats, Kelenova, the parent company behind the kids snap, said in the 2024 company presentation that buyers are spending 33% more on Rice Krispy treats compared to 2018. So the next time someone tells you to put down that Rice Krispies treat, just tell them that you're fueling up for a run or a bike all out of time, so it's officially game over for this week. Thank you so much to Frank, Meg, and for all of you for joining us. Please make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast for more videos and expert insights and catch us every Friday wherever you get your podcast. I'm your host, Joe Pomliano. See you next content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Related Videos PPI comes in hot: When will wholesale inflation hit consumers? Oil investors 'focusing' on fundamentals, not political noise Oil prices under pressure after IEA projects record oil surplus What Tencent Results Say About China Corporate Outlook Yahoo Finance Sports Report is developed and produced by Lauren Pokedoff. Sign in to access your portfolio
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David Raya will start in goal behind William Saliba and Gabriel, with competition at full-back between Ben White and Jurrien Timber on the right and Riccardo Calafiori and Myles Lewis-Skelly on the left. White has featured more heavily in pre-season as Timber dealt with an injury that kept the Dutch defender sidelined until Arsenal's last two outings, and therefore could get the nod from Arteta to begin the campaign. Calafiori caught the eye against Athletic Cub last weekend and may be given a chance to cause damage down United's right flank in the spaces left open by Amorim's wing-back of choice on that side - which, based on pre-season, looks increasingly likely to be converted winger Amad Diallo. Patrick Dorgu has seemingly emerged as United's first-choice left wing-back, meanwhile. Amorim's back three on Sunday is likely to be comprised of Leny Yoro on the right and Matthijs de Ligt or Harry Maguire centrally, plus either the other one of that latter duo, Luke Shaw or youngster Ayden Heaven on the left in the continued injury-enforced absence of Lisandro Martinez. Fellow defender Noussair Mazraoui is also expected to remain out, but returns here are possible for first-choice goalkeeper Andre Onana - who missed all of pre-season due to a hamstring issue, with Altay Bayindir deputising - and Joshua Zirkzee. Rasmus Hojlund looks to be nearing a loan move away from Old Trafford in light of Sesko's arrival, with the former RB Leipzig man potentially set for his Premier League debut against the Gunners. Behind him, new No10 options Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo could also feature for the first time in a competitive match for the Red Devils, with Bruno Fernandes likely occupying a playmaking central midfield role alongside one of the more defence-minded Manuel Ugarte or Casemiro. Kobbie Mainoo is another option there, though United are looking to bring in a new midfielder before the transfer window closes. Mason Mount put in some stand-out performances during pre-season, but may still struggle to dislodge the new arrivals from their attacking midfield slots. How to watch Man Utd vs Arsenal TV channel: In the UK, the game will be televised live on Sky Sports Main Event and Sky Sports Premier League, with kick-off set for 4:30pm BST this Sunday. Live stream: Sky Sports subscribers can stream the contest live online via the Sky Sports app and Sky Go, while it is also available with Now TV's sports membership. Live blog: Or, you can follow all the action on matchday in Standard Sport's live blog, with expert analysis from Matt Verri at Old Trafford. Highlights: Sky Sports will upload highlights from the match on their social media and YouTube channels, while UK viewers can also catch all the best bits on Match of the Day, which is scheduled to begin on Sunday at 10:30pm on BBC One. Man Utd vs Arsenal prediction Both sides have strengthened this summer, particularly in attack with the arrivals of much-needed new striker Gyokeres at Arsenal plus a brand-new front three at United. On paper that could spell a goal-fest, particularly with the Red Devils still defensively suspect. The Gunners did have the Premier League's best defensive record last year, though, and haven't lost any of their backline personnel. But Amorim will be encouraged by his side eking out a result last time around, and his squad could give Arteta's men a run for their money. Arsenal to win, 3-2. Head to head (h2h) history and results United have a slight edge in the illustrious history of this rivalry, and indeed have an unbeaten record in their last two meetings with Arsenal in all competitions - combining a penalty shoot-out victory in the FA Cup last season with a 1-1 draw at Old Trafford in May. The Gunners won four straight against them before that, though, with a combined score-line of 9-3. Prior to that, the two sides traded 3-1 victories at home in 2022. All in all, United have won, drawn and lost two each of their last six matches against Arsenal at Old Trafford. Man Utd wins: 102 Arsenal wins: 90 Draws: 51 Man Utd vs Arsenal match odds Man Utd to win: 23/10 Arsenal to win: 5/6 Draw: 2/1 Odds via Betfair (subject to change).
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- Tom's Guide
Premier League 2025/26 preview – title predictions, key fixtures and big storylines as the EPL gets underway
The Premier League is back, but who will win the title race, which teams are likely to go down, and can anyone stop defending champions Liverpool? Sports journalist and Man City fan Bill Borrows sizes up the opening weekend of the EPL as soccer biggest events kicks off live on Friday, August 15... Seasoned Man United haters watchers will be hoping United get off to a flying start with their all-new forward line of Benjamin Šeško, Matheus Cunha and Bryan Mbeumo and romp home 3-0. This then guarantees that #UnitedAreBack starts trending before hitting the relegation positions in early October and their all-new forward line start looking for new clubs. This is now, officially, 'The Manchester United Way'. Prediction: Man United 3 Arsenal 0 The first game of the season should be a banger. The media will be keen to anoint Liverpool as the greatest team the world has ever seen within three minutes of kick-off (millions of fans who couldn't find Liverpool on a map = millions of clicks) but, given the amount the new Premier League Champions have spent to try and retain the title – almost £300 million – compared to Bournemouth's brave £70 million net spend to ward off relegation, anything less than a total humiliation of Andoni Iraola's side will be unacceptable. Bournemouth will score first, however. Prediction: Liverpool 3 Bournemouth 1 Viktor Gyokeres hasn't even kicked a ball in the Premier League yet but his boss at Arsenal, Mikel Arteta, went very large after his debut goal pre-season. 'If you leave Gyokeres one vs one, he will destroy you' he said, in no way adding to the weight of expectation the Swedish international must be feeling after being identified as the one missing piece of the jigsaw that has stopped Arsenal winning the title in recent years. Expect Arteta to be in this slot most weeks until he is fired just after Christmas. Here's where I think every team in Premier League will finish the title race – and why. 1 Man City Guardiola will insist 2 Chelsea Starting to click 3. Liverpool Cracks at the back 4. Arsenal Can't cross the line 5. Aston Villa Emery and Europe 6. Nottm Forest Hit ceiling 7 Tottenham Frank factor 8. Newcastle Isak or no Isak, unsettled 9. Crystal Palace Ready for top half 10. Brighton Mid-table forever 11. Man Utd New strikers, same defence 12. Everton New ground bounce 13. West Ham Holding pattern 14. Bournemouth Gravity 15. Leeds Utd Not enough quality 16. Fulham Not strengthened 17 Brentford New era but lost players 18 Wolves Lost key players 19. Sunderland Too big a step 20. Burnley Yo-yo club Sky Sports' new 'Multiview' feature is controversial. Younger fans are already embracing it while older fans aren't so sure. Why pay a subscription to watch multiple screens when you can just watch legendary British sports round-up Soccer Saturday? You wouldn't wash the car and then take it to a car wash... Friday, August 153 p.m. — Liverpool vs Bournemouth (USA Network) Saturday, August 16 7.30 a.m. — Aston Villa vs Newcastle (USA Network) 10 a.m. — Brighton vs Fulham (USA Network) 10 a.m. — Sunderland vs West Ham (Peacock) 10 a.m. — Tottenham vs Burnley (Peacock) 12:30 p.m. — Wolves vs Man City (NBC, Peacock) Sunday, August 179 a.m. — Chelsea vs Crystal Palace (USA Network) 9 a.m. — Nottingham Forest vs Brentford (Peacock) 11:30 a.m. — Man Utd vs Arsenal (NBC, Peacock) Monday, August 183 p.m. — Leeds vs Everton (USA Network) Friday, August 223 p.m. — West Ham vs Chelsea (USA Network) Saturday, August 23 7.30 a.m. — Man City vs Tottenham (USA Network) 10 a.m. — Brentford vs Aston Villa (USA Network) 10 a.m. — Burnley vs Sunderland (Peacock) 10 a.m. — Bournemouth vs Wolves (Peacock) 12:30 p.m. — Arsenal vs Leeds (NBC, Peacock) Sunday, August 249 a.m. — Everton vs Brighton (USA Network) 9 a.m. — Crystal Palace vs Nottingham Forest (Peacock) 11:30 a.m. — Fulham vs Man Utd (USA Network) Monday, August 253 p.m. — Newcastle vs Liverpool (USA Network) We test and review VPN services in the context of legal recreational uses. For example: 1. Accessing a service from another country (subject to the terms and conditions of that service). 2. Protecting your online security and strengthening your online privacy when abroad. We do not support or condone the illegal or malicious use of VPN services. Consuming pirated content that is paid-for is neither endorsed nor approved by Future Publishing.
