Which stars could move in January? Retelling Barca's kidnap drama; view of MLS Cup

The Athletic FC ⚽ is The Athletic’s daily football (or soccer, if you prefer) newsletter. Sign up to receive it directly to your inbox.

Hello! It’s time to talk transfers again. Which European giants are ready for action?

Coming up:

Transfer talk: Ornstein’s one to watch: Liam Delap

Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton

Black Friday and Europe’s January transfer window have one thing in common. For all the hype around them, there are often better, more prudent times to spend money.

Today is Black Friday, though — salut to the disciples of it — and The Athletic has marked it with a special DealSheet project, predicting where the great and the good will go next in the transfer market. Thank us as you lose yourself in 6,500 words of rich, recruitment insight.

The tone of the copy suggests a quiet January lies ahead, but that’s not the point. January always tends to be quiet business-wise. Top clubs prefer to get their ducks in a row in the summer. But even so, they’re always planning, always plotting and constantly updating lists of targets.

David Ornstein was asked to tee off DealSheet by picking his one to watch. He’s gone for Liam Delap of Ipswich Town, their leading asset and prime goalscorer of the season to date.

Ipswich have been slow in acclimatising to the Premier League following promotion in the summer but not so Delap, who is averaging a goal every two games. Orny is anticipating some ‘Big Six’ action with him over the next six to 12 months, and Chelsea and Manchester United are quietly keen.

Delap, 21, took the same approach as Chelsea’s Cole Palmer — it wasn’t happening for him at Manchester City, or not fast enough, so he moved out. But whereas the boat has sailed for them with Palmer, City might well have included a buy-back clause in the Delap contract and as DealSheet notes, Pep Guardiola would like another forward. Have Ipswich merely been a finishing school?

Arsenal eye No 9s, Zirkzee to leave Man Utd?

There’s so much packed into today’s read. I picked out a few of the nuggets which got me thinking:

• I can see Arsenal’s admiration of Newcastle United’s Alexander Isak growing. They’re perennially short of a top-class No 9 and if Newcastle’s regression continues, they’ll find Isak harder to please.
• Chelsea’s intention to sit tight in January, avoiding old flames such as Victor Osimhen, suggests that finally, they are done with twisting relentlessly. I’d forgotten they’ve got four future arrivals to come, including the exciting Kendry Paez.
• The lack of interest in Eintracht Frankfurt striker Omar Marmoush (tentatively linked with Liverpool) is surprising, because he’s lighting it up in the German Bundesliga. I wonder if suitors want the reassurance of a bigger sample size from him.
• The possibility of Manchester United cutting losses with Joshua Zirkzee next summer — after just one season — is extraordinary. I get it: he looks a bit lost. But it would be another transfer error to add to the list.

Real reinforcements

Real Madrid are a club I’d expect to be active in January. Ravaged by injuries, they’ll surely take Aymeric Laporte if they can buy him out of Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia. I’m also keen to see if Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold reaches a pre-contract deal with the European champions soon. The lack of contract action at Anfield points that way.

This made me laugh, however: the links between Real and Bayer Leverkusen forward Florian Wirtz. Wirtz is a fabulous player. He’s Bernabeu standard. But Real have a stupid amount of attacking options already, in front of an under-strength midfield and an injury-riddled defence.

The last thing you do when you’ve forgotten to put eggs in a cake is add more sugar.

News round-up

• Real’s team bus was involved in a road accident on the way back to Spain from the club’s Champions League defeat to Liverpool at Anfield on Wednesday. The players weren’t on board and while the driver received treatment for minor injuries, nobody was seriously hurt.
• Chelsea’s Reece James has suffered another injury, and it’s another issue with one of his hamstrings. This feeds back to our recent podcast chat about the challenge James faces in trying to flourish as Chelsea captain when fitness keeps eluding him.
• New Coventry City head coach Frank Lampard says he wasn’t disappointed to find no Premier League teams chasing his services. To be, ahem, frank, and as Nick Miller discusses here, Lampard’s credentials as a top-flight coach are far from proven.
• Fans of four Premier League sides, including Manchester United and Manchester City, are coming together to protest against ticket-price rises. This follows news of United brazenly raising costs mid-season, and it’s notable because rival English fans usually can’t agree on the colour of the sky.

Hojlund’s kickstart: Striker sinks Bodo/Glimt in Amorim’s first win

Bigger battles lie ahead but Ruben Amorim is up and running with his first win at Manchester United, a 3-2 victory over a very game Bodo/Glimt outfit in the Europa League.

Rasmus Hojlund was craving a goal and got himself two, including the wonderfully deft volley at the top of this section (great touch, great strike). Noussair Mazraoui’s assist for it should whet Amorim’s appetite. The defender looks like coin well spent at £13million ($16.5m).

Amorim’s task is to get United on a roll, something Ange Postecoglou just can’t quite do at Tottenham Hotspur. Spurs drew 2-2 with Roma in the same competition last night, conceding the equaliser in the 91st minute.

Postecoglou was typically unrepentant, though. “I would much rather we were entertaining to watch,” he said, in reply to questions about intermittent results.

An admirable principle but as every manager will tell you, football isn’t just about winning — until it absolutely is.

The Barca kidnap: When top scorer Quini went missing for 23 days 

Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton

Thought for the day: how in the hell have I never heard previously about the abduction of Quini, the former Barcelona striker?

To set the scene of this superb feature from our Laia Herrero: imagine Robert Lewandowski being taken hostage today as he fills up his car at a petrol station; and not by an organised terrorist group but by three blokes with no criminal convictions who thought some ransom money would solve their financial woes.

Occurring in 1981, as Barca were going for the title in La Liga, the division’s top scorer spent 23 days in a basement. The season carried on regardless. Quini lived to tell the tale, and we shouldn’t make light of his experience because he was heavily traumatised by it.

We all learn something new every day but I feel like I’ve been living under a rock.

One of the people Laia interviewed called Quini’s kidnapping “the most unbelievable thing that has happened to Barca in its history” and despite some stiff competition, they’re not wrong.

Long Conference: MLS Cup moves so slowly — changes would help

A week ago, I was kindly invited to the MLS Cup’s Eastern Conference semi-final between New York City and New York Red Bulls. The Red Bulls deserved their win. I wasn’t shocked to see NYCFC fire head coach Nick Cushing soon after. Pockets of the crowd were lively.

I came away, though, thinking about where MLS needs to go. Citi Field, the stadium that is home to baseball’s New York Mets, was an unnatural setting for the game. City have a custom-built ground in the pipeline so that won’t be a problem forever but the Hudson River Derby (to my eyes anyway) isn’t near the point of creating a buzz across New York, post-season or not.

The profile of MLS is squeezed not only by traditional U.S. sports (only baseball isn’t ongoing right now out of the big four) but by the surging popularity of the Premier League, which is so, so apparent in the States. But does it help when the MLS Cup title play-offs are so intermittent and drawn out?

The Conference finals take place this weekend and by the time the play-offs end next Sunday, they will have run for 46 days. The entire 2026 World Cup is going to last 38 days. Whatever the reasons, new followers and converts aren’t going to flock to a showcase moving at pedestrian speed. A slicker structure should be on the agenda.

📺 For a bit of fun, get into the final of the Copa Libertadores — South America’s Champions League equivalent — on Saturday: Atletico Mineiro vs Botafogo, Brazil vs Brazil. I’ve been hooked ever since Buenos Aires shut down for the Argentine capital’s top two sides, Boca Juniors and River Plate, to go at it in 2018. No quarter given, ever.

Around The Athletic FC

Quiz Question

I suspect this is harder than it reads: name the eight players who have registered four assists in a Premier League match. Four played for Arsenal, two for Spurs, one for Manchester United and one for Manchester City. Avante.

As ever, the answer will be here later today — and in Monday’s TAFC.

Catch A Match (Times ET/UK)

(Selected games)

Saturday Premier League: West Ham vs Arsenal, 12.30pm/5.30pm — NBC, Fubo/Sky Sports; La Liga: Barcelona vs Las Palmas, 8am/1pm – ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports; German Bundesliga: Borussia Dortmund vs Bayern Munich, 12.30pm/5.30pm — ESPN+/Sky Sports; Copa Libertadores final: Atletico Mineiro vs Botafogo, 3pm/8pm — beIN Sports, Fubo/BBC Three; MLS Cup Conference Finals: Orlando City vs New York Red Bulls, 7.30pm/12.30am; LA Galaxy vs Seattle Sounders, 10pm/3am — both MLS Season Pass/Apple TV.

Sunday Premier League: Chelsea vs Aston Villa, 8.30am/1.30pm — Peacock Premium/SkySports; Manchester United vs Everton, 8.30am/1.30pm — USA Network, Fubo. Liverpool vs Manchester City, 11am/4pm — USA Network, Fubo/Sky Sports; La Liga: Real Madrid vs Getafe, 10.15am/3.15pm – ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports; Serie A: Fiorentina vs Inter, 12pm/5pm – CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/TNT Sports, OneFootball.

And finally…

Palmeiras supporters have pitch view blocked by big screen (Palmeiras)

A rearranged Brazilian league match between Palmeiras and Botafogo took place on Monday. The problem? Before the change of date, a music act had booked Palmeiras’ stadium for the following evening, and a massive stage had been built at one end of the pitch.

So it was that a bunch of Palmeiras fans (all of them given free entry by the club) sat behind it and watched the game on a big screen as Botafogo bagged a 3-1 win yards in front of them but invisible to the naked eye.

The name of the singer playing the gig? Roberto Carlos. We’re not even making this up.

(Top photo: Ryan Pierse/Getty Images)