Key events

Milan have enquired about the cost and availability of Nottingham Forest’s Omari Hutchinson, who is not in the match day squad for his side’s trip to Liverpool. The winger moved to the City Ground for a then club record fee of £37.5m from Ipswich last summer but struggled to hold down a place in the team amid a chaotic season overseen by four separate coaches.

Ruben Amorim is in charge at Milan and has overseen a summer of investment in the squad, signing Goncalo Ramos from PSG and Diego Moreira from Strasbourg but is seeking more attacking flair. It is understood Hutchinson would be open to the possibility of moving to Italy.

Photograph: Lee Keuneke/Every Second Media/Shutterstock

The first Premier League fixture up today is Liverpool v Nottingham Forest and the build-up to that one has already begun. The team news has just dropped and you can keep up to date here:

I have been taking a look at your comments and some of the puns on Marli Salmon’s name has tickled me. Have a look:

Karl has emailed and said:

In the topic of pre game food. For some strange reason the fact that Alan Shearer once claimed / admitted that his pre match meal was chicken and beans (insert hot air as a a pundit here).

I play Tuesday Night Football and have been known to eat a battered sausage and hour before the game like what athletes should do.

I could definitely see Oliver Glasner or Gary O’Neil heading down to chippie with the squad order to be fair.

Fabian Hurzeler remains the youngest Premier League manager in the English top-flight at 33 but Brighton women’s boss is even younger. Arturo Ruiz has taken over from Dario Vidosic after he abruptly left the club a week before the WSL season start.

Ruiz is just 29 and in a sobering realisation, he is two months younger than me.

The sale of Armstrong would be a huge setback for Moyes, who has receievd little backing in the transfer market this summer from owners The Friedkin Group. Tensions between the Everton manager and chief executive Angus Kinnear have appeared in recent weeks with Moyes on Friday disputing Kinnear’s claim that the squad is capable of challenging for Europe this season

Declan Rice famously eats pancakes before a match, if you play Sunday league or any other level of football what do you fuel up on? Email me and let me know.

Tottenham have spent a fair old whack this transfer window but manager Roberto de Zerbi isn’t done yet, read more here:

Liverpool finalise Barcola deal

Liverpool have finalised a deal worth up to £123m for Bradley Barcola, with the Paris Saint-Germain winger to undergo a medical this weekend ahead of his move to Anfield.

Liverpool agreed the outline of a deal with the Champions League holders on Wednesday night, following lengthy talks over their main summer transfer target.

The structure of the package has now been accepted and the Anfield club will pay £106m up front for the 23-year-old, plus £17m in add-ons based on individual and team achievements.

What has made David Moyes unsettled? Who is a smart player with potential? And who isn’t finished in the transfer window? All the answers are in the piece below:

Some Arsenal news to bring you as Marli Salmon has signed his first professional contract.

The 17-year-old has been at Arsenal for seven years already.

“It means a lot to me,” Salmon said. “A lot of hard work went into this, a lot of ups and downs, but I’m so proud.

“I think it’s a proud moment for my family as well, I think it’s a reward for them as well, because they put so much time and effort into me. It’s proof of their hard work as much as mine.”

Photograph: David Price/Arsenal FC/Getty Images

Premier League matches today (all times in BST):

• Liverpool v Nottingham Forest, 12.30pm

• Coventry v Hull, 3pm

• Bournemouth v Everton, 3pm

• Tottenham v Newcastle, 5.30pm

Thank you Luke, how is everyone? There is a full feast of football today, let’s have a reminder of the fixtures first up.

That’s all from me, Sarah Rendell is here to take the reins.

Interesting comment below. Did Liverpool paying ridiculous money for Isak and Wirtz really have such a wide effect on the whole market?

I think Wirtz arguably is worth that fee – a phenomenally gifted player who clearly hasn’t been able to demonstrate his talent in the Premier League, at least not yet. Isak’s value, I would agree, was massively over-inflated, especially in view of the dreadful saga that it took to get the deal done.

With the start of the Women’s Super League season fast approaching, we are rolling out our team-by-team previews.

Here is Tom Garry on how Everton are shaping up for the campaign:

I know exactly what you’re thinking … how did Racing Santander get on against Elche last night? Find out in our European roundup HERE:

Worth noting that Liverpool v Forest is massive for Forest and new head coach Oliver Glasner after two defeats to start their campaign. They went down 1-0 to Leeds last weekend and were then beaten 2-0 by the same opponents in the Carabao Cup on Tuesday. Let’s remind ourselves of what Glasner said after that Cup defeat: safe to say that all is not well at the City Ground.

“This is a little bit the assessment after six weeks here, that maybe – and not just in the team, it’s maybe in the club – that there’s a little bit of ignoring the reality,” Glasner said.

“Right now, we are far away from where we want to be, and what I’m really convinced in that where we will be.

“The fact is that this team had a relegation battle for nine months. Very turbulent season and it ended with a huge effort to stay in the league, and this is our starting point.

“It’s really very important not to blame anybody because sometimes I tell them facts and they say, ‘Oh, Glasner is complaining’.

“No, no, no. But then maybe your best midfielder [Elliot Anderson] leaves the club and now we expect we compete for European places because Oliver Glasner is in. Sorry, this is what I can’t deliver within six weeks.

“I’m no magician, no messiah, just hard work. That is what we have to do.

“It doesn’t make sense talking about seventh two years ago. It’s hard, it’s tough, but if you ignore the reality then you live in dreamland and this is never the best thing to do.” (Quotes via PA Media)

Reports: Liverpool agree deal to sign Barcola

Liverpool have wrapped up a deal for Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain, according to reports today.

The 23-year-old will arrive for a fee of well over £100m, with add-ons and precise sums involved TBC.

Here’s our story on the matter from Thursday:

Bradley Barcola at the World Cup. Photograph: Sam Navarro/IMAGN IMAGES/Reuters

How will Liverpool line up against Nottingham Forest? How will Nottingham Forest line up against Liverpool?

Predicted lineups for the 12.30pm (UK time) kick-off, and of course the rest of the weekend’s top-flight action, here:

Oliver Glasner. Photograph: Ciancaphoto Studio/Getty Images

The Iraola story, about wanting his forwards to exhaust themselves, is interesting. It feels quite heavy-metal football. Iraola intends to press high and not allow Liverpool’s opponents time to settle on the ball. Sounds sensible and the fans will like it. Invoking the Pep Guardiola school or, dare I say it, even the Ian Rush era at Anfield.

Andoni Iraola. Photograph: Nikki Dyer/Liverpool FC/Getty Images

It’s exactly this sort of thing, from RawSharkTest in the comments, that has brought this great game of ours to its knees.

The men’s transfer interactive is here, and the women’s transfer interactive is here. Your one-stop shop for all the transfer window deals.

Liam Delap puts pen to paper at Forest. Photograph: Ritchie Sumpter/Nottingham Forest FC/Getty Images

Lucy Bronze does not stop. Her brain runs a hundred miles a minute. She does not need traditional entertainment. “I’m not good at watching TV – I can’t sit still,” Bronze says, sitting sort-of still, on a bench shielded from the wind, overlooking Chelsea’s training pitch at Cobham. “Someone recently asked me what I listen to in the car and someone else jumped in and was like: ‘Lucy has her own podcast going on in her own head.’ I don’t listen to music, I don’t listen to podcasts, I just have a million thoughts going on.”

Bronze’s late ADHD and autism diagnosis help it make sense, but her mum had always suspected she might have one of the conditions, so it wasn’t a surprise. “Naomi Girma said to me: ‘I’ve never met someone who trains so hard in the gym with zero music on; it does not make sense.’ I was like: ‘It’s literally in my head, I don’t need anything else.’”

Andoni Iraola has said it is more important for Liverpool’s forwards to exhaust themselves than perform for 90 minutes as he prepares to make an “emotional” Premier League bow at Anfield.

The Liverpool head coach hopes his attacking options will be improved by the arrival of Bradley Barcola from Paris Saint-Germain and another winger before Tuesday’s deadline, with only Victor Muñoz added to his front line so far. The Basque coach has outlined the demands he will put on his forwards as they adapt to a new era at Liverpool.

• Liverpool v Nottingham Forest, Saturday, 12.30pm

• Coventry v Hull, Saturday, 3pm

• Bournemouth v Everton, Saturday, 3pm

• Tottenham v Newcastle, Saturday, 5.30pm

• Chelsea v Brighton, Sunday, 2pm

• Leeds v Brentford, Sunday, 2pm

• Sunderland v Fulham, Sunday, 2pm

• Man Utd v Ipswich Town, Sunday, 4.30pm

• Aston Villa v Arsenal, Monday, 8pm

There you have the Premier League fixtures to come over the weekend, including Aston Villa v Arsenal on Monday.

Here you have the Premier League fixture that has already happened: Jacob Steinberg’s report of Manchester City 4-1 Crystal Palace (Haaland 2, Cherki 2):

This week Central Cee launched his new Premier League song, called The Team. It owes its existence to a youth-centred, fist-bumping corporate tie-in with Coca-Cola, the press release for which appears to have involved a man in golf-casual clothing frowning at his computer screen for half an hour before typing “cool urban street words, what are?” into the AI search box, then nipping off for a quick brain-bowl strategy lunch with Roger from the Bluesky Synergy hub.

The song is really good, because Central Cee is really good. He’s super-smart with words, funny and snappy, but also surprisingly tender and raw.

And yes, this is an oh-no-dad’s-talking-about-rap moment. You can just scroll down if you like. The whole thing moves on to Cole Palmer very quickly, why he’s both the best English footballer and very easy to love currently, for various reasons.

Preamble

Football is back, and will remain so for quite some time. Saturday’s early top-flight match – Liverpool v Nottingham Forest – is looming into view, kicking off another busy weekend of association football, with four Premier League matches to enjoy today plus a full Championship programme, Scottish Premiership, Leagues One and Two, the top European leagues … footballers are going to be busy until May, and so are we, trying desperately to watch all the football, while also keeping across the transfer-window action, the ongoing Fifa farrago, and everything else.

Let’s go.