The Weekly Take, Issue 377: Already Behind in the Chase for the Top Four

Following a strong finish to the 2024-25 La Liga season which saw them climb from outside the top 10 into sixth place and thus obtain qualification for this season's Europa League, Real Betis were undoubtedly regarded as a club headed in the right direction at the beginning of this season. Adding to the raised expectations at Estadio de La Cartuja was the fact that Betis brought in several notable signings over the off-season - including, more than likely, turning loan signing Antony into a full-time player after the Brazilian winger had emerged as arguably the club's best player over the second half of last season.

However, so far things haven't gone the way Betis would've hoped for as after losing 2-1 to Athletic Bilbao, the Andalusian club are now eighth in the league with just five points to their name. Following a goalless first half, Betis centre-back Marc Bartra's own goal in the 60th minute put Bilbao a goal ahead. With just over five minutes left in regulation time, Aitor Paredes' header all but sealed Bilbao's victory.

Deep into stoppage time, Betis substitute Cédric Bakambu gave Betis at least a slight chance of avoiding defeat after heading in Junior Firpo's cross. To make things even more interesting, shortly after that Bilbao's substitute goalkeeper Álex Padilla controversially received a red card despite not even entering play after Isidro Díaz de Mera Escuderos took exception to the Mexican's act of tossing the ball back onto the field in a supposedly unsportsmanlike manner. However, no further goals would be scored as the final whistle was blown soon after that.

Of course, it has to be mentioned that two of Betis' best players have been absent from the squad up until now. Midfielder Isco suffered a fibula fracture in a pre-season match against Málaga and is expected to be out of action until November. As for Antony, Betis are reportedly working on his official signing from Manchester United - the club from which he spent an extremely successful half-season on loan as he served as Betis' primary driving force behind their climb up the league table.

That being said, the question has to be asked: is this team one which will genuinely be able to challenge for a top-four spot and thus Champions League qualification? The two clubs that finished ahead of Betis last season were Bilbao and Villarreal. It's possible that Bilbao's victory over Betis could end up being an outlier; this is because the club barely made any moves at all during the transfer window. The Basque club spent just €12.3 million on a total of three players; not only that, €12 million of that was on just one signing: Osasuna defender Jesús Areso.

More than likely, it's Villarreal that Betis will have to be more concerned about. Having sold several players for significant transfer fees, the club have been putting this transfer revenue to work, landing several notable signings including Santiago Mouriño, Renato Veiga, and Tajon Buchanan. Of course, once Isco returns and Antony officially returns to the club, things should start to turn for the better - but even then, Betis will probably need a strong mid-season transfer window to seriously push for a top-four spot.

Betis have been recently linked with players such as Dani Ceballos, Guido Rodríguez, and Facundo Bernal. Unfortunately, none of those players would really do all that much to move the needle. It's more than likely that if Betis are to qualify for the Champions League for the first time in 21 years, they'll need to make at least one major signing once January comes around.

Considering the fact that right now, Betis most struggle with one-on-one defending as well as keeping possession for extended periods, it would likely be advisable for them to invest in a defensive or a central midfielder in the coming transfer window. In addition, Isco will be coming off a fairly severe injury and at his age, there's no certainty that he'll be back the same as he was before. For that reason, Betis should probably bring in an attacking midfielder as well.

There's still a realistic path to Champions League qualification for Real Betis after having been in contention but never actually getting there for several years now. However, unless things change in mid-season, the chances of this aren't all too likely.

The Weekly Take, Issue 376: The Implosion Hits a New Depth

Last season, RB Leipzig finished seventh in the Bundesliga. It was Die Bullen's worst-ever league finish ever since earning promotion to Germany's top flight in 2017. This also meant that the 2025-26 season would be the first time since their Bundesliga debut season in 2017-18 that Leipzig would not be featuring in any continental-level tournament. On top of that, Leipzig finished a lowly 32nd of the 36 teams in last season's Champions League and lost all but one of their league phase matches.

Any thoughts that the Saxony-based club might turn things around this season were rapidly put on hold as the curtain-raiser of this Bundesliga season between Bayern Munich and Leipzig played out. To say that Bayern took Leipzig to the woodshed would be a severe understatement. This wasn't even remotely close as Bayern destroyed Leipzig 6-0 at the Allianz Arena - a result that not only sent out a clear statement to the rest of the Bundesliga that it would be a near-impossible task to unseat the reigning league champions, but also that Leipzig continue to be in freefall and have just hit a new low point.

Bayern had the match in the bag before the half-time break. Michael Olise's two first-half goals were split by another from new signing Luis Díaz who signed for Bayern from Liverpool in the off-season for €70 million. Díaz was set up by Serge Gnabry who also assisted Olise's second goal.

Early in the second half, Leipzig winger Antonio Nusa who had entered the match as a replacement for Yan Diomande during the interval took advantage of an error by Bayern centre-back Dayot Upamecano; however, Nusa's ensuing shot attempt went just wide. Later on, Nusa would have a goal waved off via VAR; these instances would be as close as Leipzig would get.

Then, about midway through the second half, reigning Bundesliga Player of the Season Harry Kane backed up that title with a hat-trick in a frenetic 14-minute span. Leipzig had absolutely no answer whatsoever for the Englishman who could very well be on his way to submitting another season worthy of a Ballon d'Or candidate - especially if England make a deep run at the upcoming 2026 World Cup.

As for Leipzig, it's difficult to say anything other than this result is likely a sign of things to come. During this past off-season, Leipzig spent €92 million on new signings; however, none of them are likely to make any significant impact. Additionally, Leipzig lost striker Benjamin Šeško to Manchester United.

This past off-season should've been one during which Leipzig overhauled their squad. Much of their decline last season was the result of the inadequate replacement of key players' departures as well as several current players now being past their prime. As a result, this current squad is now likely to finish nowhere near the Champions League qualification spots unless a stunning turnaround takes place.

On the surface, it does appear that Leipzig have taken note of the fact that players such as Péter Gulácsi, Willi Orbán, and Kevin Kampl, among others, are now clearly past their prime; all six players signed by Leipzig are aged 23 or younger. While this seems to be a step in the right direction, the reality is that it was "quantity over quality". Not one of the youngsters who just joined Leipzig are elite prospects expected to become a genuinely top-tier player.

Not long ago, Leipzig were viewed by many as the club with the best chance, remote as it may have been, of toppling Bayern. However, when the headliner of a so-called top club's arrivals is Rômulo from Göztepe - a mid-table Turkish Süper Lig club - it's obvious that the club has fallen a long way from where it was.

Leipzig hired Ole Werner as the club's new head coach during the off-season - their sixth in just five years. This instability in the dugout is certainly not helping the situation. Ever since the departure of Julian Nagelsmann in 2021 and the death of former owner Dietrich Mateschitz in 2022, Leipzig have been increasingly directionless - and now it all seems to be coming to a head.

RB Leipzig are now a shell of the team they were even just two years ago, let alone five. Unless something seriously changes soon, their chances of even finishing in the top 10 of the Bundesliga are highly unlikely.

The Weekly Take, Issue 375: A Debut That Didn't Fulfill the Hype

The obvious standout of the opening matchday of the 2025-26 Premier League season saw Manchester United host Arsenal. The match was billed as a clash between both clubs’ respective centre-forwards who had just been signed for major money. United signed Slovenian Benjamin Šeško from RB Leipzig for €76.5 million while Arsenal brought Swede Viktor Gyökeres to the Emirates Stadium from Sporting Lisbon for a fee of €65.8 million.

This highly-anticipated showdown got off to an anticlimactic start after it was revealed that unlike Gyökeres who was in the Gunners’ starting line-up, Šeško started the match on the bench. However, it was actually Arsenal’s Italian full-back Riccardo Calafiori who scored the opening goal of the match following - in what has become a common occurrence for Manchester United - an error by United goalkeeper Altay Bayındır who mishandled Declan Rice’s corner kick, allowing Calafiori to put it in from close range.

Despite having the bulk of the goalscoring chances and possession, United were never able to make full use of these advantages and remained a goal behind heading into halftime. After the break, Šeško replaced Mason Mount and thus made his Premier League debut shortly after Gyökeres was substituted; Gyökeres was replaced by Kai Havertz.

However, Šeško’s first Premier League match certainly didn’t go according to plan. Apart from attempting a header which ended up not even being close to the target, Šeško barely did anything of note in his half-hour or so of play as United, despite largely being in control of the match, couldn’t find a way to the back of the net and finally succumbed to a 1-0 loss.

On an individual level, however, Šeško’s opposite number fared even worse. Between the two of them, Gyökeres was by far the more hyped despite having been signed for the lower transfer fee of the two. Adding to the narrative of this match was the fact that at one point of the transfer window, the man from Stockholm arguably seemed to be more likely to sign for United. As such, this match could easily have been an opportunity for Gyökeres to send a clear statement to United: “this is what you’ve missed out on”.

However, Gyökeres barely contributed anything at all - he didn’t even attempt a single shot - before being substituted. United’s Dutch centre-back Matthijs de Ligt got the better of Gyökeres again and again. Gyökeres looked absolutely nothing like the centre-forward who utterly shredded defenses across Portugal for the past two years.

There’s no question that there’s a significant skill gap between the Portuguese and English top-flight leagues. Many players over the years who have dominated a weaker league have found themselves struggling after making a move to a club in one of Europe’s major football leagues. While one would assume that Gyökeres is too good a player for that to happen to him and of course, it’s only been one match, we’ve seen players come into one of the top leagues from a weaker one with plenty of hype before - only to never live up to said hype.

It should go without saying that if Arsenal are to make a serious push for a first Premier League title since 2004, the North Londoners will need Gyökeres to rediscover his peak form and sustain it. Last season, Arsenal scored 22 fewer league goals than they had the season before - and this relative lack of goalscoring output caused Arsenal to finish the 2024-25 Premier League with 74 points as opposed to 89 in 2023-24. A tally of 89 points would, in fact, have won them the league last season.

On the surface, Gyökeres appears to check every box as far as what Arsenal need in a centre-forward. In addition to goalscoring, Gyökeres has a blend of technical skill and athleticism that not many strikers can boast of; he’s even above average compared to other centre-forwards at creating goalscoring chances. However, the gap between the Premier League and the Primeira Liga coupled with the fact that there’s more pressure on him than there has been on any Arsenal signing in a long time might just cause him to be unable to fulfill the hype.

All of that being said, most would say that Viktor Gyökeres does have what it takes to become Arsenal’s next great striker. However, if he’s to do so, performances like the one he just had against Manchester United won’t cut it at all.

The Weekly Take, Issue 374: One Decent Signing - But That's It

Basically nobody genuinely believes that any club other than Bayern Munich has any chance whatsoever of winning the Bundesliga title in the 2025-26 season - and understandably so. The Bavarian club won the league title by a whopping 13 points over Bayer Leverkusen last season and not only that - during this current off-season, Leverkusen have been picked apart to such an extent that just two years after their astonishing league title victory in which they finished the 2023-24 season unbeaten in the league, Leverkusen are unlikely to finish second in the league again.

This therefore means that while the prospects of any club besides Bayern winning the league are essentially zero, the race for second place in the league is well and truly on with clubs such as Eintracht Frankfurt, Borussia Dortmund, RB Leipzig, and Mainz all having genuine chances of finishing the 2025-26 Bundesliga season as runners-up behind Bayern.

Earlier this week, Frankfurt made a signing which may have gone under the radar for many but might have just given themselves a leg up over their rivals - especially since the player who just signed for Die Adler came from a club which finished relatively close to them in the league last season. For a transfer fee of €21 million, Frankfurt have just signed Japanese winger Ritsu Dōan from SC Freiburg.

In this transfer window, by far the biggest story surrounding Frankfurt was the departure of French striker Hugo Ekitike to Liverpool for the eye-popping fee of €95 million. As a result, Frankfurt have plenty of money to work with - especially after combining this with what they received for the mid-season sale of Omar Marmoush to Manchester City.

The arrival of Dōan at Deutsche Bank Park will certainly go some way towards mitigating the effects of Marmoush's and Ekitike's departures. The winger from Hyogo has clearly emerged as Freiburg's best player; bringing him in for just €21 million was a huge win on Frankfurt's part. More than likely, the fact that Frankfurt were able to add Dōan to their roster for a surprisingly low transfer fee had to do with the fact that they will be in the Champions League this season while Freiburg will not.

This does, however, beg the question: what's next for Frankfurt? They're sitting on a huge amount of money generated via two massive player sales but have barely gotten through any of it - even after the signing of Dōan. Especially considering Leverkusen's likely decline, the fact that Frankfurt haven't gone on to capitalize on this and make a few more notable signings says alot. Although Frankfurt are a Champions League club and now one able to make big transfer bids on one or two more players, it has never been more obvious that Frankfurt have never been and likely will never be a "destination" club.

Earlier in this off-season, Frankfurt missed out on Danish midfielder Victor Froholdt after Porto beat them to his signing. The Primeira Liga club beat Frankfurt to Froholdt after they signed him for €20 million, and it should go without saying that this is a really bad look as far as Frankfurt are concerned. A club which should be in contention for second place in the Bundesliga have been beaten to the signing of a 19-year-old Danish midfielder who's not even regarded as an elite young prospect.

If Frankfurt somehow fail to finish the upcoming Bundesliga season in the top four and thus miss out on a Champions League spot, there's no question at all that they will look back on this transfer window and rue the fact that they didn't do more with the newfound wealth at their disposal. Even if Frankfurt couldn't land a bona fide star, they should have brought in at least two or three more starter-level players besides Dōan with the money from the Marmoush and Ekitike sales.

It must, of course, be kept in mind that even after losing Marmoush to City last season, Eintracht Frankfurt were nonetheless able to finish third in the league, and there's a case to be made that Dōan is a better player than Ekitike is. However, one can't help but have the feeling that in this transfer window, Frankfurt have passed up multiple opportunities to strengthen their squad.

The Weekly Take, Issue 373: The Continent's GOAT Wraps Up an Epic Decade

With 454 matches, 173 goals, the 2020 Puskás Award, the 2022 Premier League Golden Boot, and most importantly of all, the 2025 Europa League title under his belt, Tottenham Hotspur legend Son Heung-min wrapped up an incredible decade at the North London club in an off-season friendly which finished in a 1-1 draw.

The match itself, however, was barely even relevant - it was merely the backdrop of the main story: Son’s final match as a Tottenham player. The deafening applause that the South Korean winger received when was substituted in the 65th minute as he stepped off the turf in a Tottenham jersey for the very last time said it all. While it hasn’t yet been outright confirmed, it’s all but certain that Son will end up signing for MLS club Los Angeles FC.

There are so many angles from which we could look back at Son’s career - but the most important has to be the fact that by a large margin, Son is the greatest player to ever come out of Asia. This was a title which prior to Son’s emergence had multiple viable candidates: Shunsuke Nakamura, Park Ji-sung, and Yūto Nagatomo are some of the legends whose names might have once been brought up.

However, there’s no question that at this point, Son has left them all in the dust. It’s not even close anymore. None of the others had ever been arguably the best player of a team contending for a Champions League spot. None of them had even been considered as perhaps one of the 10 best players in the world even at their absolute apex. And most importantly, none of them have even been close to being able to elevate the profile of Asian football in general to the extent that Son has.

It’s very possible - in fact, probable even - that Son chose this off-season to leave Tottenham because he did something that legendary names like Gareth Bale, Luka Modrić, and Harry Kane never could; that, of course, would be being the best player on a title-winning Tottenham team. True, it was “only” the Europa League - not one of the three major titles - and it was over a Manchester United side which were coming to the end of an abject season - but one has to keep in mind that Tottenham’s trophy drought stretched all the way back to 2008.

In addition, Tottenham themselves had endured a dismal Premier League campaign which saw them finish 17th, just one spot ahead of the relegation zone. Despite firing Ange Postecoglou after his eventful two-year stint coaching Tottenham, there’s no guarantee that things will change for the better at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in the coming season. With their best player now gone as well, relegation is absolutely on the table. It could be many, many years before Tottenham again add to their trophy cabinet - and that, combined with the end of the “lads, it’s Tottenham” jokes - made the Europa League victory especially sweet. That one Europa League title was not only the most fitting of swansongs - it will also forever serve as the symbol of Son’s legacy at the club.

On that note, this brings up the question: where does Son Heung-min rank among all of Tottenham’s all-time greats? Well, given everything he did in his 10 years at the club, it’s safe to say that Son is easily the fourth head on Tottenham’s Mount Rushmore alongside those of Kane, Jimmy Greaves, and Glenn Hoddle.

He’s in the club’s top 10 in appearances and goals, was thrice selected as the club’s Player of the Season, and ever since Kane’s departure for Bayern Munich in the 2023 off-season has been just about the only thing that Tottenham have had going for them. For all but his first year at Tottenham, he was no worse than the third-best player on the team.

With Son Heung-min’s departure for California, Tottenham Hotspur will enter the 2025-26 season not only as fringe relegation candidates, but also without even one truly elite player on their roster for the first time in many years. It’s safe to say that whatever happens to Tottenham going forward, the man from Chuncheon in the #7 jersey will be all but impossible to replace.