An “elite” midfielder has now risen to the top of Ruben Amorim’s shortlist, with Manchester United very keen to strengthen in the engine room.

Man Utd eyeing new midfielder amid Mainoo's lack of minutes

Kobbie Mainoo has played just 171 minutes across nine Premier League matches this season, most recently being brought on in stoppage time to help Man United close out a 2-1 victory at Crystal Palace.

Falling down the pecking order is far from ideal for the Englishman, who will have ambitions of going to the World Cup next summer, having played a vital role in the Three Lions reaching the final of Euro 2024.

The Devils’ Advocate co-host Joe McGrath has now claimed United should sanction a loan move this winter, saying: “We had a player worth – and is still worth – £80m or £90m. A young England international. He’s so good. We can’t let his standards drop and we need to let him go on loan.

Should that happen, the Red Devils will need to bring in a replacement, and Nottingham Forest star Elliot Anderson has now emerged as Amorim’s top target, with a report from TEAMtalk revealing the 23-year-old is their ‘clear favourite’.

There are a number of other options on the shortlist namely Adam Wharton, Joao Gomes, Conor Gallagher and Morten Hjulmand, with United clearly determined to bring in a midfielder.

Signing Anderson is now Amorim’s priority, however, even though it could take a huge bid to get a deal over the line, with the Tricky Trees planning to hold out for around £100m.

"Elite" Anderson would be statement signing for Man Utd

A number of top Premier League clubs are now queuing up to sign the England international, including Manchester City and Liverpool, so Man United would be making a real statement if they were able to win the race for his signature.

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It is no surprise so many teams are eager to sign the Forest star, given the impression he’s made for both club and country, with Thomas Tuchel recently lauding the central midfielder as “elite”.

The former Newcastle United man has also been in top form in the Premier League, completing a total of 736 short passes, the fifth-highest number of any player.

It is the correct decision to pinpoint Anderson as the top target, but United’s ability to compete for his signature will likely depend on whether they qualify for Europe, amid rival interest from some top clubs.

The 68-year-old is trying to return New South Wales to former glories while also looking to produce the next generation of Australia players

Alex Malcolm11-Sep-2025What is driving you to keep going with New South Wales at this stage of your coaching career?You have to be careful not to overstay your welcome. But I’m particularly thrilled being involved with Cricket New South Wales. It’s steeped in history, it’s got high expectations, and I like to operate within that framework. We’ve got an exciting opportunity with an emerging group of players to build a foundation that can stand the test of time like previous decades have delivered.The mind still is going at 100 miles an hour, but the body is slowing down. But I’ve got some wonderful support coaches around and the system itself, behind the Blues team that represents New South Wales in the Shield and other competitions, is first-class. There’s a nice balance of city and country involvement in that process and a vibrant premier club competition. We need to put in place that next six or seven Australian players [like those] that have been sitting in the Australian team for many years now. That’s the challenge. We’re chasing it aggressively.Related

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No one has more coaching experience than you in Australian cricket. You have coached senior teams and young teams. You have a young group in New South Wales now. What are you learning about coaching young players now compared to other times in your career?I think right now it’s probably the toughest environment for young players to be in with the continual drag and adaptation from format to format. During those really solid years I had in Victoria, T20 had just been emerging. So, the players were really consistent and focused on two formats, and were very good at those two formats. Now with the introduction of T20 cricket, it’s played in grade cricket as well, so not only the players at our level are having to adapt with that, but also players in club land are experiencing the challenges of what’s the right tempo to play at and what are my foundational skills with bat, ball, and fielding.It’s the individual challenge for the player to slip in and out of those processes. It is about getting the player to understand how to set themselves up for each of those different formats, how they control their mental skills in the game. That’s probably an area of growth for everyone in the industry, coaches as well, to learn more about how to assist our players in those transition moments from game to game.How did you assess last summer with New South Wales and what are you hoping to get out of the group moving forward for this summer?Largely similar to the first season, progress is being made. We had some real challenges in terms of the depth of our squad and our Australian player representation across the course of the year. That took away some of our next level players in Sean Abbott, Ben Dwarshuis, and Tanveer Sangha. For us to be playing off for a grand final spot in the last game of both competitions meant that we’re very, very competitive. I’m really pleased about that. The next step for us is to win those crunch games more often than we did, in particular at the back end of last year.But really pleased with Kurtis Patterson jumping back in as a real presence around our group. We had to deal with Moises Henriques retiring out of the red-ball game basically through the course of the season. But thankfully he’s not lost to us and will participate in our one-day program going forward. I think that’s a great leadership sharing opportunity between he and Jack Edwards, who showed some great signs last year, but it also wore him down across the course of the season, so that balance needs to be struck and found for this season.Liam Hatcher will likely have a greater role to play this season•Getty ImagesYou’ve lost Jackson Bird from the attack. But Jack Nisbet played for Australia A during the off season and you’ve got a group of emerging quicks. What are your hopes with the ball?For us to be playing off in those last two games that I mentioned without Chris Tremain bowling a ball for the season, Hayden Kerr being unavailable for most of the season, and Daniel Hughes not playing at all, I think it was a pretty good effort across the group and we exposed some new players. Jack Nisbet is making steady progress. Ryan Hadley, Liam Hatcher and Charlie Stobo will form the basis of our attack going forward. And hopefully Chris Tremain is back and able to bowl this season.So it will be a young group and we’ll be putting a lot of attention strategically and technically around them in the lead-up to what remains to be a tough challenge for all teams at the start of this season with the Australian team playing and an Australian A team playing internationally that clashes with a couple of rounds of one-day cricket and Shield matches. There is a great opportunity for young players to be exposed early in the season.You will have some Australian players dipping in and out at the start of the season as they prepare for the Ashes. How do you manage that?It’s never a burden to try and fit those players back into your team because the benefit is not only in what they deliver on the field, but it’s in preparation, it’s in dressing room moments that their experience is shared with our younger players. For example, Pat Cummins against Victoria last year playing in the side, young Charlie Anderson played in that game, and Jack Edwards and our young players, and that is priceless.What do you see as the foundation for these young guys to become international three-format players? What are the core things you are trying to help them with or does it just depend on the individual? Each individual has their own roadmap and their own strengths and weaknesses. We try, with them, to identify them and go to work. For some, it’s a technical issue. For others, it’s making good strategic decisions in the game. For others, from a mental point of view, it’s about blocking out the pressures and playing with an open mind and making good, crisp decisions. So we’re on our toes, and the players are as well, in building their foundation that is likely to work in each of those formats and to understand the moments in the game and having the capacity to adjust your game to play team first cricket.Kurtis Patterson’s comeback was one of the stories of last season•Getty ImagesHow do you feel about the Shield pitches at the moment in terms of producing batters for the next level, and giving them confidence to make big scores, given it’s very difficult for domestic batters to average more than 40 given the way the surfaces are playing?It was strongly reported and happily received by batting groups across the country…that there was a desire to tone down the pitches across the country and find that better balance between bat and ball. I think that worked for two thirds of the season until some places identified that a result is necessary, and the nature of the pitch changes quite aggressively. I think for that to be stamped out would be excellent. But it is a delicate balance between bat and ball, and also strategic decisions in games can influence whether a pitch is rated in one fashion or another.There’s perhaps not a great wider understanding of batting averages and how difficult pitches are in Shield cricket. Do you have a sense of what a realistic good marker for a young batter to achieve across one or two or three Shield seasons to develop into an international player?The highest performers are 50 or above. I think a really solid 40 plus across two or three seasons for a batter and somewhere between 25 and 30 with the ball. If you’re at 20, like Jackson Bird last year, less than that, 34 wickets [at 17.20] – he’s a legend of the competition and he had a terrific season – but that’s what the best produce, and your developing players should be, I think, chasing those numbers but also understanding the process to get there.Your skipper Jack Edwards is coming into that age bracket now where he’s going to be at his very best. What’s the next phase for him?It is for him to sort of recognise how he wants to play and approach the game and in red-ball cricket he’s moved the game forward really strongly. To have him and Ollie Davies, two of the same type together, puts a bit of counterpunch into our armoury. I’m very open-minded about Jack still playing anywhere in the list from one to six in white-ball cricket. I think he’s still got a capacity to find that rhythm, and then as he’s become more mature, to lock in a consistency around that.

Sophie Devine was the first player sold at the WPL mega auction in Delhi on Thursday

ESPNcricinfo staff27-Nov-2025Allrounder Deepti Sharma became the joint second-most expensive player ever sold at the WPL auction when her previous franchise UP Warriorz bid INR 3.2 crore (USD 360,000) and used a right-to-match (RTM) option to buy her back at the mega auction in Delhi on Thursday.New Zealand allrounder Amelia Kerr was the second most expensive player at the auction, going to Mumbai Indians for INR 3 crore (USD 340,000). Allrounder Shikha Pandey, who hasn’t played for India since 2023, was a surprise as the third most expensive buy, with UPW bidding INR 2.4 crore (USD 270,000) for her.The mega auction opened with a surprise – Australian wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy going unsold at her base price of INR 50 lakh; her name did not reappear during multiple accelerated rounds later in the auction. The first player sold was New Zealand’s Sophie Devine, who was bought by Gujarat Giants (GG) for INR 2 crore (USD 220,000).Deepti, the player of the tournament at the recent Women’s ODI World Cup, was the third player on sale from the marquee set and initially attracted no bids at her base price of INR 50 lakh until Delhi Capitals (DC) raised the paddle late. There were no other bids and so UPW were given the option to use their RTM option, which they did. Thereafter, DC had the one-time option to raise their bid, which they did to INR 3.2 crore, a price that was matched by UPW to buy back Deepti. Had Deepti been retained by UPW ahead of the auction, they would have lost INR 3.5 crore from their purse.MI’s first purchase at the mega auction was Kerr, who had played for them previously in the WPL. They had to raise the bid for Kerr as far as INR 3 crore out of their auction purse of INR 5.75 crore because they had no RTM options available at the auction due to them retaining five players. She remained their only buy from the first three sets of players at the auction.Related

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“We were really excited to have the same core back,” MI coach Lisa Keightley said. “We’ve got world-class players in there who can win matches and games of cricket which is most important. Sometimes you can underestimate having the same core back. I’ve seen in a lot of franchises that being consistent with a group can give you advantages since you don’t start a tournament with so many moving parts. As for how much we’d have gone for Amelia, we were pretty much on the limit, most people would’ve known that. She’s worth the money and we’re excited to have her back.Of the other players in the marquee set, Renuka Singh went to GG for INR 60 lakh (USD 70,000), Sophie Ecclestone to UPW for INR 85 lakh (USD 100,000, via RTM), Meg Lanning (USD 210,000) to UPW for INR 1.9 crore, and Laura Wolvaardt to DC for INR 1.1 crore (USD 120,000).Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) were the only team to not buy a player in the marquee set, having bid for Devine, Ecclestone and Wolvaardt. Their first buy came from the second set – the Australian batter Georgia Voll for INR 60 lakh (USD 70,000) – after which they bought allrounders Nadine de Klerk and Radha Yadav from the third set.After buying Deepti and Lanning, UPW further strengthened their batting by picking up 22-year old Australian Phoebe Litchfield for INR 1.2 crore (USD 130,000) and using an RTM option to buy back Kiran Navgire for INR 60 lakh (USD 70,000). UPW used their fourth and last RTM option to buy back fast bowler Kranti Gaud at her base price of INR 50 lakh, after DC had made the first and final bid. However, UPW lost out on promising spinner Sree Charani, who was bought by DC for INR 1.3 crore (USD 150,000).DC picked up the youngest player bought at the auction, 16-year-old Deeya Yadav, a hard-hitting top-order batter from Haryana at her base price of INR 10 lakh. Her stable base, excellent hand-eye coordination and raw hitting power have already prompted comparisons to Shafali Verma, with many touting her as Haryana’s next big batting talent.The most expensive player ever sold at the WPL auction is Smriti Mandhana (INR 3.4 crore), followed by Ashleigh Gardner and Nat-Sciver Brunt (INR 3.2 crore), whose bids in 2023 Deepti matched in 2025.”We had a new coach at the helm and we wanted to give him a clean state based on his vision and we’ll build a squad together,” Kshemal Waingankar, COO of UPW, said. “We had no doubt that we’d bring Deepti back and we’re very delighted to bring her back. To add to that, we’ve also been able to bring Sophie back and bring Meg Lanning in as well. So far it’s played out well. We will discuss that [the captaincy]. It’s too early to say. Will depend on how the squad comes through. We’ll have to have a conversation with Deepti, and understand the dynamics with the leadership. We haven’t thought that through.”DC’s purchase of Wolvaardt gave them a leadership option but they indicated they would prefer an Indian captain. “I think in Laura we’ve got a tremendous player who can fill in those (Lanning’s) shoes. Not only was she the highest run-scorer in the recent World Cup, but she’s also someone who’s got leadership ability as well,” Parth Jindal, DC co-owner, said. “No, no, not at all [whether Wolvaardt will be captain]. I think we are very clear that we would like to have an Indian as the captain. So depending on who else we land, we already have our mind made up, but let’s see what happens. But yeah, Laura will add a lot of leadership into the dressing room, but we are clear that we want to go with an Indian captain.”The 2026 WPL season will begin on January 9 and end on February 5, with the tournament played in Navi Mumbai and Vadodara.

Since taking the job almost six years ago, Mikel Arteta has got an awful lot right at Arsenal.

He’s completely transformed the culture of the club and shown a level of tactical flexibility that most managers could only dream of.

Something else he perhaps doesn’t get enough credit for, though, is how he has kept the team ticking over and evolving.

Arteta’s first Arsenal XI

Bournemouth vs Arsenal Dec 2019

GK

Bernd Leno

RB

Ainsley Maitland-Niles

CB

Sokratis Papastathopoulos

CB

David Luiz

LB

Bukayo Saka

CM

Lucas Torreira

CM

Granit Xhaka

RW

Reiss Nelson

CAM

Mesut Özil

LW

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang

ST

Alexandre Lacazette

The makeup of his team has changed multiple times since December 2019, and he has pretty consistently found upgrades and replacements for players like Aaron Ramsdale, Granit Xhaka, Kieran Tierney and even Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

It now appears that he and the club are planning for the long term as well, with reports suggesting they are closing in on an incredible youngster who could be Bukayo Saka’s eventual heir.

Arsenal close in on Saka heir

Arteta has built a squad full to bursting with international superstars at Arsenal, some of whom people would consider world-class. Yet, when it comes to the club’s most important player, it’s hard to look past Saka.

Transfer Focus

Mega money deals, controversial moves and big-name flops. This is the home of transfer news and opinion across Football FanCast.

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After all, on top of already having a frankly ridiculous tally of 76 goals and 73 assists in 280 games, the Hale Ender is the talisman of this side and has become the face of the project.

In other words, the club are going to need an extraordinarily special talent to come in and be his long-term heir when Saka does eventually call it a day.

Fortunately, it looks like the North Londoners might have just found that special prospect.

At least, that is according to a recent report from ESPN, which has revealed that Arsenal have agreed a deal in principle for the incredible winger Edwin Quintero and his twin brother Holger.

The two 16-year-olds are reportedly in London at the moment to iron out the details of the move, with an official announcement to come at a later date.

However, due to rules around foreign-born youngsters, the pair won’t actually join up with the squad until August 2027.

Even so, Arsenal fans should be excited about the development as both teenagers are very highly thought of indeed, and Edwin Quintero looks like someone who could become Saka’s successor.

Why Edwin Quintero will be Arsenal's next Saka

Now it should almost go without saying that, due to Saka being the player he is and Quintero still only being 16, there is little to no chance that the youngster would come in to instantly challenge the Englishman in 2027.

However, as the years progress, he could start getting more minutes in the first team, and then, when he’s in his early to mid-20s and the Hale Ender is in his 30s, there could be a real battle there.

That might sound absurd at the moment, and like far too much pressure to be putting on someone so young, but based on what those in the know are saying, Quintero could be something really quite special.

For example, respected analyst-turned-Como scout Ben Mattinson has described the teenager as someone with “the ability to run games and create something out of nothing,” as well as “the vision to pick out runners”, which sounds quite a lot like the Gunners’ talisman.

Moreover, U23 scout Antonio Mango has described the winger as an attacker who “is always looking to make a difference”, who “Likes to play with short pass-and-move principles”, but can still be incredibly “dangerous from distance.”

Then, just to take the hype surrounding the prospect to another level, respected talent scout Jacek Kulig has stated that the 16-year-old is “one of the most exciting prospects I have seen in recent years,” labelling him as a “huge talent” in the process.

Now, while it’s clear that his passing, vision and ability to change games make him appear like a younger Saka, he does also have more of one trait than the Englishman: flair.

In fact, this is something Mattinson has pointed out, claiming he “is so skilful and constantly uses flair to fool defenders”, and Mango has also highlighted his “excellent close-control.”

Ultimately, Saka is and will likely remain Arsenal’s most important attacker for quite some time, but the club look like they have found his long-term heir in Quintero.

Related Hale End have given Arsenal a future superstar who's like "a young Saka"

The incredible young talent could follow in Saka’s footsteps and become a superstar for Arteta and Arsenal.

Posts ByJack Salveson Holmes Dec 1, 2025

South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in this World Cup talks about her early years in the game, and why she watches a lot of cricket these days

Firdose Moonda27-Oct-2025Many, if not most, elite sportspeople turn their passion into their profession but occasionally things work the other way. Nonkululeko Mlaba is an example of someone for whom cricket was a job first, and the joy came later.Mlaba grew up in the township of KwaMashu, north-west of Durban, in the province of Kwa-Zulu Natal on South Africa’s east coast. Like many of the areas the apartheid government demarcated for black Africans, KwaMashu was densely populated and severely under-resourced, and residents were deprived of access to good-quality housing, roads or sports facilities. Democracy arrived in 1994, and Mlaba, born in 2000, grew up with a certain level of hardship.As a child, she “didn’t even know there was a sport called cricket”, but once she was introduced to it, she got involved casually. She played at Lindelane Cricket Club in the neighbouring township of Ntuzuma, where she bowled pace until her coach, Sandile Caluza, turned her into a spinner.”I didn’t understand it at first and I was so mad,” Mlaba says, “but I started to enjoy it more because I didn’t have to run to bowl. I could just walk in and bowl.Related

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“But it wasn’t easy. When I first started bowling spin, my fingers were sore. I felt like the webbing was going to split and it was really hard.”In her teens, Mlaba trained at one of Cricket South Africa’s hubs, development facilities established across the country to unearth talent outside the elite schooling system. The one Mlaba was at, the INK hub, which served Inanda, Ntuzuma and KwaMashu, is among the most successful. It was where offspinner Nondumiso Shangase, who is also part of the World Cup squad, and allrounder Andile Simelane, who has played nine T20Is for South Africa’s men’s side, emerged. The hub continues to do its job of talent-spotting, but the more pressing question is what comes next.Mlaba had just completed her schooling when the Kwa-Zulu Natal union expressed an interest in her making the step up to provincial cricket. Though KwaMashu is only 16kms from Kingsmead, the difficulties in using public transport and the dangers of travelling at certain times of the day meant she was unlikely to be able to devote as much time to training as she would have liked. The gap had to close.The board stepped in, and in partnership with corporate sponsors, funded an apartment for Mlaba and Shangase to live in in the upmarket suburb of Musgrave, and also provided them with a monthly stipend. Much closer to Kingsmead, their new base was convenient and secure. It was also a golden ticket to building a career, as they effectively now had jobs. If that hadn’t been offered to her, what else could Mlaba have done?”I don’t know,” she says. “At that phase of my life, there was pressure. I was out of school, I needed to try and get a job, provide for my family. For most people, you study and then you work. Cricket really helped us a lot. It helped us to not really focus on trying to do other things, and money they gave us, we gave to our families to buy groceries. Because you know with black tax…”

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