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Ruben Amorim has revealed that a blunt and emotionally charged half-time team talk was the catalyst for Manchester United’s much-needed 4-1 victory at Molineux on Monday night, after his side briefly flirted with embarrassment against struggling Wolves. The two teams went in level at the break, but the Red Devils fired in three goals in the second half to walk away with all three points.

First half scare at Molineux

United had started brightly and appeared fully in control when Bruno Fernandes swept his team into an early lead. But a lapse in concentration allowed Jean-Ricner Bellegarde to find the equaliser, which ended Wolves’ nine-hour Premier League goal drought. What had been a calm evening suddenly felt volatile, and Amorim insisted the solution was not tactical reinvention, but rather psychological.

AdvertisementGetty Images SportAmorim reveals what was said during half-time

Speaking after the match, Amorim said that he demanded more clarity and conviction from his players during the interval.

"It wasn't tactical," he said. "It was so clear we are dominating the games but not finishing the plays as we should. We need to be better in the details. Trying to explain to the players we have 45 minutes to win the three points that are crucial for our life."

Amorim criticised the sloppiness that followed Fernandes’ opener, saying it handed Wolves, who are rock bottom of the Premier League with only two points, a belief they didn’t previously have.

"Once again, after we scored a goal, we were a little bit sloppy on the ball and that gave a little bit of hope to the opponent," he said. "We should have finished that half in the different way, and then in the half time they understood that we have everything to win the game, to win three points – and they did that."

Despite bouncing back to secure a comfortable win that edges United close to the Champions League spots, Amorim refused to entertain discussions about the significance of sixth place.

He added: "Nothing. It's always the same feeling we should have more points. But that's in the past, let's focus on the future. Bournemouth (on Monday) is going to be a different world. So we need to to know that, but in our club, it doesn't matter. We need to to improve the way we play."

The manager also confirmed that United remain in negotiations with Cameroon, the Ivory Coast and Morocco in the hope of delaying the departures of Bryan Mbeumo, Amad Diallo and Noussair Mazraoui for the Africa Cup of Nations.

"Let's wait for the middle of the of the week," he added. "I don't know for sure, but we are doing our job and the national teams are talking with us and that is a good sign."

Mount ready for a new beginning at United

Beyond the victory, one of the night’s most encouraging subplots came from Mason Mount. The midfielder, whose United career has been repeatedly interrupted by injury, scored a crisp volley from a Fernandes cross, his second goal in three matches, in another sign that he is finally rediscovering rhythm. Mount had made only five league starts in each of his previous two United seasons and missed 52 matches across that period. This campaign, however, he has featured in 12 of 15 league fixtures and looks increasingly comfortable in Amorim’s system.

"Anytime I play I obviously want to play to the best of my ability and perform," Mount told Sky Sports after the win over Wolves. "I've had setbacks. I've had difficult times, I feel now I'm ready to keep pushing on and building on these performances. Getting in the goals, that's the most important thing as a forward player and just keep going and working hard. That's exactly what I'm focusing on now."

On his volley, Mount added: "As soon as I see Bruno [Fernandes] with the ball and has time and space to turn, that's my trigger to try and get in behind and try and time my run. I thought it was going to be a bit close [to offside] but the defender dropped back and bit and kept me onside. Delighted with that. And as I said before, it was about being ruthless in the second half and finishing our chances off. We all know the calibre of player he [Fernandes] is. When he gets on the ball he's always trying to create something. He's a joy to play with as a player that's higher up the pitch because you know he's having a look and he's going to play the ball over the top."

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Getty Images SportWhat comes next?

The win lifted United to within a point of fourth-placed Crystal Palace, strengthening their hopes of qualifying for the Champions League. Amorim knows consistency is now essential. United host Bournemouth next Monday, and the Portuguese coach is determined that the performance at Molineux becomes a platform rather than another fleeting glimpse of promise.

It might not have led to a Premier League title, but Arsène Wenger still had some sensational players in his later years at Arsenal.

The likes of Alexis Sanchez and Aaron Ramsey, for example, became some of the most entertaining players in the league.

However, arguably the best of the lot was Mesut Özil, who sent the fan base into delirium when he joined the club on transfer deadline day in 2013.

The World Cup winner was an artist with the ball at his feet, capable of things most would only dream of, and now, based on reports, it looks like Arsenal could be going after someone who could become Mikel Arteta’s version of Ozil.

Arsenal target their new Ozil

Arsenal went big in the summer window, signing more players than perhaps even the most optimistic of fans would’ve expected.

Transfer Focus

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

However, with a title on the line, the club appear to be in the market for more reinforcements ahead of the winter window, and have been linked to a host of players.

For example, Nottingham Forest’s Murillo has been touted for a £79m move to the Emirates, as has Paris Saint-Germain’s Bradley Barcola.

However, while both players would be excellent additions to Arteta’s squad, neither could really be described as the next Ozil, unlike Arda Güler.

Yes, according to a recent report from Caught Offside, Arsenal are one of several sides interested in signing the Turkish international.

In fact, the report has revealed that the Gunners are now stepping up their pursuit of the 20-year-old, although the likes of Liverpool, Manchester City and Manchester United appear to be doing the same.

In addition to the competition, a potential roadblock for this deal is that, per reports last month, it could cost as much as £88m to get the playmaker out of Real Madrid.

However, while it could be a costly and complicated transfer to get over the line, it’s one Arsenal should fight for, as Güler is an extraordinary talent and could be Arteta’s own Ozil.

Why Güler could be Arsenals new Ozil

Now, while it’s still early in Güler’s career, and it will take some time before he reaches the heights Ozil did, there are still apparent similarities between the pair.

Firstly, were this transfer to happen, then, like the World Cup winner over a decade ago, the young talent would be swapping the white of Real Madrid or the red and white of Arsenal.

Secondly, the 20-year-old is a sensational talent who still has so much room to grow and, like the Gunners’ former star, is someone whose future appears to be more central than out wide.

For example, while he has played on the right and several other positions, attacking midfield is where he has played most of his football and where he has been thriving this season.

Speaking of this season, the Ankara-born wonderkid is proving he is both a goalscoring threat and a creative force for his teammates.

In his 21 appearances, totalling 1365 minutes, the “generational talent”, as described by journalist Dean Jones, has scored three goals and provided seven assists, averaging a goal involvement every 2.1 games, or every 136.5 minutes.

Unsurprisingly, the young dynamo’s underlying numbers also help to justify such labels.

xAG: Exp. Assisted Goals

0.38

Top 1%

Progressive Passes

7.98

Top 1%

Key Passes

3.27

Top 1%

Passes into Final Third

6.49

Top 1%

Live-ball Passes

59.32

Top 1%

Touches

77.43

Top 1%

Pass Completion %

85.3%

Top 2%

Through Balls

0.95

Top 2%

Shot-Creating Actions

6.08

Top 2%

Carries

47.71

Top 3%

Assists

0.41

Top 5%

Tackles Won

1.16

Top 7%

Switches

0.54

Top 8%

Crosses

5.42

Top 9%

Goal-Creating Actions

0.70

Top 10%

According to FBref, he ranks in the top 1% of attacking midfielders and wingers in Europe’s top five leagues for expected assisted goals, progressive passes, key passes, touches and more, all per 90.

Finally, if you still aren’t convinced, just listen to İlkay Gündoğan, who in 2023 made a clear link between the two midfielders.

“If there is a Turkish football player who is similar to Mesut Özil, the first name is Arda Güler. I see his future bright.”

Ultimately, while there is still a long way to go for Güler to reach the level Ozil did at his peak, he is clearly on his way. He was ranked second in the 2025 Golden Boy awards, living up to writer Neal Gardner’s billing that he is “the single best midfield prospect in world football.”

Therefore, Arsenal should do all they can to sign him

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ByJack Salveson Holmes 3 days ago

There are challenges ahead for the new ODI captain but he has an abundance of resources and talent to work with

Karthik Krishnaswamy04-Oct-20258:14

Aakash Chopra: Didn’t see Gill’s appointment coming this soon

Which is the greatest team in ODI history?It’s a difficult question, but not because there are too many plausibly “correct” answers. It’s difficult because there are, when you boil it down, just two equally compelling ones: Clive Lloyd’s West Indies and Ricky Ponting’s Australia, both winners of back-to-back World Cup titles, and both of whom won upwards of three times as many ODIs as they lost.Lloyd and Ponting’s respective win-loss ratios of 3.555 and 3.235, in fact, are the best and third-best of all captains to have led ODI teams at least 20 times.Related

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Between formats and futures: Gill's most unprecedented test yet

Best and… third-best? Yes, because Rohit Sharma’s India sit right between them at 3.500, with 42 wins and 12 losses in 56 matches.Rohit’s India didn’t dominate world cricket for anywhere near as long as the other two teams did, and though they achieved a 15-1 record over two global tournaments, they happened to lose that one match on November 19, 2023. But just the fact that they can be discussed alongside the two GOAT teams in ODIs tells you how good Rohit’s India were.Were.We’ll have to get used to speaking of Rohit’s ODI team in simple past tense, because it’s now Shubman Gill’s team. At 26, he is now captain in two international formats, vice-captain in the third, and in every way the face of Indian cricket.Well, almost. Because over the last week or so, the face that has dominated television promos for India’s upcoming ODI series in Australia hasn’t been Gill’s or even Rohit’s but that of Virat Kohli. Even ads for the women’s World Cup have referenced Kohli and the shirt number 18 he shares with Smriti Mandhana.It’s been nearly four years since he captained India in any format, and he’s retired from two of them, but we remain, in some ways, in the era of Virat Kohli. And we remain, in other ways, in the era of Rohit Sharma. And these are cricketing ways too, because Kohli won India matches in inimitably Kohli ways the last time India played ODIs, finishing among the top run-getters in the Champions Trophy, and Rohit won India the final in an inimitably Rohit way.5:49

Agarkar on Kohli-Rohit: ‘Too early to think about 2027 ODI World Cup’

It’s no surprise that Kohli and Rohit are still in India’s ODI squad, even though Ajit Agarkar and his selection panel have made it clear that they are prepared for a future without either. They may not be playing the other two formats, but that’s no reason to leave them out of the one where they have shown little sign of slowing down, and the one in which they are both undisputed all-time greats.India have explosive openers, like Abhishek Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal, who could potentially take Rohit’s place; but there’s little evidence as of now that they can do in 50-over games, against two new balls, what they do in T20s against one. India have candidates for the No. 3 role, but can any of them accumulate risk-free runs in pressure situations while still somehow ticking along at a-run-a-ball like Kohli has continued to do into his mid-30s?It’s a tricky time for both, though, because who plays ODIs anymore? Since the start of 2024, India have only played 11, the joint fewest of any team alongside Ireland. India will play nine across the 2025-26 season – three in Australia in October, and then three each against South Africa and New Zealand at home – but nothing, as of now, between January 18 and July 14, which is when they play the first of three ODIs in England.1:19

Chopra: Rohit’s place in the side will now depend on form

Gaps like this are increasingly the norm for most teams. India themselves haven’t played an ODI since the Champions Trophy final on March 9. How are Kohli and Rohit going to handle these gaps, given that ODIs and the IPL are pretty much the only cricket they now play? How keen will they be to play domestic cricket just to keep themselves match-fit and match-sharp? How will they sustain this sort of life for two full years before the next ODI World Cup in Africa in October 2027, when Kohli will be a month away from his 39th birthday and Rohit already 40?And given how intermittently India will play ODIs in the period leading up to that World Cup, they could find themselves juggling two competing desires. They want to make the most of what Rohit and Kohli still have to give; they also want to give other batters a run in the side in case a need arises for someone to step into the outsize shoes of either or both come the World Cup. How do they do both these things at the same time?They could have managed it in, say, the two-year period leading up to the 2011 World Cup. Like they did by resting Sachin Tendulkar frequently in that period, during which he only played 38% of India’s ODIs. But that 38% amounted to 22 matches across which he averaged 66.05. No one plays ODIs at anywhere near that frequency anymore.And because of this, it could be a tricky time for Gill too. He’s already having to navigate being one of a shrinking band of international players who play all three formats. Now, with leadership roles in all three, he may not get too many opportunities to take breaks.3:25

‘Selectors will have to give Gill breaks in cramped schedule’

And as an ODI captain leading a team that may not play the format all that often, he may not have a lot of time between now and October 2027 to formulate and put in place any vision he may have of what a Shubman Gill ODI XI is, and how he wants it to play. And while he figures it out, he’ll have two ex-captains batting either side of him.But as challenging as any of that may sound, this might actually be the best time for a new captain to take over the ODI side. Rohit hands over to Gill a team so dominant they made a place for themselves between Lloyd’s West Indies and Ponting’s Australia. He hands over a team whose last act in ODIs was to win the Champions Trophy without coming close to dropping a game.Above all, he hands over a team of fearsome quality and experience. Even if you take away Rohit and Kohli, Gill has Shreyas Iyer and KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya and Axar Patel and Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav and Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj by his side, among other established names, and a seemingly endless list of young players with high ceilings knocking on the door.This, then, is the crux of it, and it’s been the case with India’s ODI team over at least the last three years: they have worries, certainly, but only until they look at the ones other teams are dealing with.

Ahmed Daniyal first defended six runs in the final over of the game before conceding just six runs in the Super Over to set up Pakistan Shaheens’ win

Ashish Pant24-Nov-2025In a dramatic low-scoring thriller that went into a Super Over, fast bowler Ahmed Daniyal kept his composure as Pakistan Shaheens defeated Bangladesh A to lift the Asia Cup Rising Stars title in Doha, Qatar.Daniyal, defending six runs in the 20th, bowled a nerveless over to take the game into a Super Over. He then removed Abdul Gaffar Saqlain with his second ball in the Super Over and then clean bowled Jishan Alam to restrict Bangladesh A to only 6. Saad Masood and Maaz Sadaqat took just four balls to chase down the target and spark celebrations in the Shaheens camp.This, however, was a game which ebbed and flowed all the way through. Sent into bat, Shaheens lost three wickets in the powerplay, and then continued to slip to eventually be bowled out for 125. Bangladesh A started the chase rapidly, but the spin quartet of Arafat Minhas, Saad Masood, Maaz Sadaqat and Sufiyan Muqeem spun a web around the batters to derail the chase.At 53 for 7 in the 13th over, the game looked as good as done, but Rakibul Hasan (24), Saqlain (16) and Ripon Mondol (11) – Bangladesh A’s last three – staged an unlikely comeback. Mondol, however, wasn’t able to repeat his semi-final Super Over heroics in the final as Bangladesh A went down.Bangladesh A couldn’t have hoped for a better start to the game with Shaheens losing Yasir Khan first ball of the match, courtesy a stunning under-arm direct hit from Saqlain running in from mid-on. Mohammad Faiq was cleaned up by SM Meherob, while wicketkeeper-batter Ghazi Ghori was bowled by Rakibul as Shaheens slipped to 25 for 3 in the fifth over.Maaz Sadaqat struck two fours and a six in his 23, but when he fell in the seventh over, Shaheens lost their way. Captain Irfan Khan scored a sedate 9 off 22 balls, with only Masood and Minhas providing anything of note on the Shaheens’ scorecard. Mondol bowled a terrific 19th over, picking up three wickets, and the innings ended with a run out as Shaheens were bowled out in 20 overs.In reply, Bangladesh A opener Habibur Rahman Sohan was quick off the blocks, tonking Ubaid Shah for a six over deep midwicket. While Alam was trapped in front of the stumps by Minhas, Habibur kept going as he smashed Masood for a six and two fours in the fourth over. But the bowler had the last laugh when Habibur pulled a long hop straight to square leg, and the Bangladesh A middle order caved in.Minhas trapped Mahidul Islam Ankon lbw before Muqeem’s left-arm wristpin bamboozled Bangladesh A. He got Akbar Ali to chop one back onto his stumps, and then struck twice in two balls, cleaning up Mahfuzur Rahman Rabby and Mrittunjoy Chowdhury with identical wrong’uns. Rakibul went after Masood but Bangladesh A kept losing wickets, with the required rate rising.Then came another twist with Bangladesh A requiring 27 off the last two overs and only Saqlain and Mondol, the last two batters at the crease. Shahid Aziz, bowling the 19th over, missed his yorker three times and the batters smashed him for three sixes to flip the script. Daniyal, however, bowled a terrific last over, mixing his lengths to rescue Shaheens.