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Forest's Elliot Anderson fouls Crystal Palace's Adam Wharton BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images 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! Ruben Amorim has reached something resembling solid ground. Is signing a £100m midfielder his next move? ? Man Utd and Transfer Deal Sheet ⏰ The case for tactical timeouts Advertisement ? Top World Cup team guides ? ? FIFA’s ‘93 trip to Sin City Frank Ilett is the Manchester United fan who rashly vowed not to cut his hair until the club won five matches in a row. If you thought his commitment might waver, worry not. I saw him at an awards night recently, and a family of owls are nesting in it. Five straight wins, as he doesn’t need telling, is asking rather a lot of United. It took the best part of a year for Ruben Amorim to put together two Premier League victories in a row. But for all that the Portuguese head coach has struggled to light a fire at Old Trafford, United have had worse starts to a season. December finds them seventh, with the Champions League qualification slots in their sights. I won’t pretend it’s been plain sailing. We had fun at their expense after Grimsby Town mugged them in the Carabao Cup in September but in truth, United haven’t figured a great deal in TAFC because middling to half-decent form has kept them off the radar. Dare they think they are turning a corner? They merit some discussion because theirs is the most interesting slot in today’s Deal Sheet, The Athletic’s in-depth guide to the January and summer transfer windows in 2026. It reveals that Amorim has eyes on midfielders, and three in particular: Adam Wharton at Crystal Palace, Elliot Anderson at Nottingham Forest and Carlos Baleba at Brighton. How easy United would find it to buy any of those players next month, or next year, is a moot point because £100m ($132. 2m) is the rough cost of a top-drawer centre-midfielder, and the club aren’t flush. But all three would enhance an area of United’s team which is still too easy to play through (see below), and where Amorim lacks players with the combination of outstanding mobility and elite finesse. Advertisement Casemiro’s days as that sort of machine are far behind him. Manuel Ugarte hasn’t been worth the £40m-odd United paid for him. Wharton, Anderson or Baleba could be game-changing recruits for a team who have quietly created a bit of a platform to build on. Stay tuned. It’s fair to say the January window won’t be a spectacular event in Europe. There is, for example, no expectation that Arsenal, Manchester City, Liverpool or Chelsea will attempt to influence the here and now. All three are largely spent up for 2025-26. But Deal Sheet, as ever, did flag up a few situations to follow: Speaking of Spurs, they’re bottom of Tim Spiers’ Premier League happiness table, our scientific ranking of elation and misery. Perhaps that’s reason enough for them to pile into the market. Nothing perks a fanbase up short-term like a touch of retail therapy. Timeouts in sport are quintessentially American. Introducing them to football would make traditionalists break things (or grumble profusely, at any rate). It is meant to be a free-flowing game, see… until it isn’t. We’ve had days of debate about breaks in play because a timeout is effectively what Manchester City took during their victory over Leeds United on Saturday: using a supposed injury to Gianluigi Donnarumma (I’m not saying he was faking it, but come on) to gather on the touchline and reset a plan which was going awry. Leeds got the hump — even though they scored soon after to bring the game back to 2-2 — and, on reflection, Jordan Campbell thinks official tactical timeouts are something football should think about embracing. Why not give coaches a one or two-time opportunity to rearrange their troops? The problem? Footballers and managers are experts at gaming the system. Referees, for example, are required to halt a match when head injuries occur, and if you’ve never seen play-acting on that front, you haven’t been watching closely. There’s always a loophole to jump through or a rule to bend. File timeouts in the drawer marked ‘doomed to fail’. Advertisement In anticipation of Friday’s draw, our writers put together a massive guide to every World Cup team: those who have qualified and those who stand to contest the last remaining play-offs in March. It’s fantastic, and I wanted to pick out three nations who intrigue me. You might also like our list of quirky info about all the contenders, like Suriname having more waterfalls than footballers. This allows me to steal a fact I once read: that World Cup team is an anagram of talcum powder. Useless, but true. ? ? A notable absentee from the list of host cities for 2026 is the U. S. capital. Washington D. C. was disregarded when the matches were shared out, predominantly because the NFL home of the Washington Commanders wasn’t as spick and span as it could have been. Henry Bushnell explains. Selected games (all 3pm/8pm unless stated) Premier League: Bournemouth vs Everton, 2. 45pm/7. 45pm — Peacock Premium/Sky Sports; Fulham vs Manchester City, 2. 45pm/7. 45pm — USA Network/Sky Sports; Newcastle United vs Tottenham Hotspur — NBC, Peacock Premium/Sky Sports. La Liga: Barcelona vs Atletico Madrid — ESPN+, Fubo/Premier Sports. Coppa Italia last 16: Juventus vs Udinese — CBS, Paramount+, Fubo/Premier Sports. Friday’s World Cup draw has serious pantomime potential. The mind boggles, really. But I see no chance of it being as wild or outlandish as the last draw in America, hosted by Las Vegas in 1993. Henry Bushnell’s potted history of it is an absolute riot, from the FIFA official carrying a brown bag stuffed with dollars through a casino to appearances from James Brown, Robin Williams, Mario Andretti and Evander Holyfield. Indeed, nothing sums it up better than the fact that one man who wasn’t involved was Pele, owing to internal FIFA politics. The more things change, etc. ? Love TAFC? Check out The Athletic’s other newsletters, including Full-Time, for women’s soccer. Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms Play today's puzzle Phil grew up near Edinburgh in Scotland and joined The Athletic in 2019 as its Leeds United writer. He is now lead writer of The Athletic FC newsletter. He previously worked for the Yorkshire Evening Post as its chief football writer. Follow Phil on Twitter @Phil Hay_