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Antoine Semenyo is a beast far better than any LWer we have Bournemouth came from down nil 1 to win 3 1 with a brace from Semenyo Bournemouth are 2nd in the table

Zidane's famous goal against Bayer Leverkusen in the UCL Final 2002

I'd wait till tomorrow. Have a feeling we can get at this Liverpool side.

The Economics of Complicity How Israel Is Buying the Destruction of Gaza https://www.theideasletter.org/essay/the-economics-of-complicity/ Reserve Israeli soldiers register for duty in northern Israel on October 7, 2023 Hamas’s attacks on October 7, 2023, have changed many things in Israel. Among the most worrisome developments since then has been the near disappearance of people’s resistance to some of the worst excesses of Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration. For some months before the attacks, an unprecedented number of Israeli reservists had been refusing to serve in the military, part of a popular protest against the government’s threats to overhaul the judiciary and dismantle the country’s democratic institutions. Military reservists, who form the backbone of Israel’s defense establishment, were leading this resistance. Thousands had declared their unwillingness to serve under the ultra-right-wing government and what they saw as an increasingly authoritarian regime. Senior military officers, veterans of elite units, and Air Force pilots announced that they would refuse orders. It was the most serious crisis of military insubordination of the last several decades. The movement represented not merely political opposition to authority but a fundamental challenge to the automatic compliance that had long characterized Israel’s pervasive military culture. From a social perspective, this was a particularly compelling phenomenon, with the politicization of a broad swath of the public around legal and political issues that are often overlooked. But after October 7, the very same pilots who on principle had refused to take orders now began carrying out a strategic bombing campaign targeting a largely unprotected civilian Palestinian population. In effect, they agreed to execute Netanyahu’s directive to turn Gaza into “rubble.” Within days, and then for weeks and months, tens of thousands of Israelis actively supported, or participated in, military operations that amount to some of the most severe violations of international humanitarian law in recent history. The brutality of the war and the use of starvation as a weapon, among other things, have led multiple researchers and organizations to conclude that Israel is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, as well as a genocide, in Gaza. Yes, there have been protests against the government’s campaign, and yes, some reservists—several hundred, we estimate—are refusing to serve, at the risk of a prison term. But the military reports having no problem carrying out its missions because of noncompliance. According to a poll conducted in March by Tamir Sorek, a professor of Middle East history at Pennsylvania State University, 82% of Jewish Israelis surveyed supported expelling all Palestinians from Gaza (and 56% favored expelling Arab citizens of Israel). General acceptance of the military’s mission has been maintained, in other words, despite both the growing scale of the government’s crimes against Palestinians and its continued onslaught against Israel’s democratic institutions. No doubt, the attacks of October 7—and their cruelty—and Hamas’s other crimes since have traumatized Israelis; the notion that the State of Israel was a safe place for Jews has been shattered. But the dramatic transformation of many people’s position from resistance to a form of tacit compliance also demands a fuller explanation. A New Currency How does a democratic society move so rapidly from unprecedented protest to silence and arguably, in some cases, to moral, or even actual, complicity in state crimes? In our book The Lexicon of Brutality: Key Terms from the Gaza War (Pardes, 2025), we examined the discursive mechanisms that have enabled public support for the war, and so, too, the crimes being committed in Gaza: the linguistic and cultural tools that normalize the unthinkable and make mass atrocities socially acceptable. Consider, for example, the use of euphemisms or terms that obfuscate harsh realities, like “strategic bombings” and “humanitarian zones,” or the notion that “there are no uninvolved in Gaza.” These ploys implicate the public in state violence even as they facilitate the implementation of government policy. They create what we call “a cage of discourse” by confining thought and restricting the space for dissent. In times of war, many nations rally round the flag—with the result of building up public support for engaging in violent conflict. But the discourse in Israel since October 7, 2023, has also provided legitimacy for a wide variety of crimes: we argue in our book that it has become a main pillar for the government’s attempt to create a criminal society. Such was for our argument about the discursive mechanisms the Israeli government deploys. However, that cage does not operate on its own; it is supported by a second, powerful economic mechanism. The Netanyahu administration has transformed military service to offer material incentives that purchase not mere compliance with, but also active participation in, atrocities. It has created a war economy that binds the welfare of several hundred thousand Israelis to state-committed crimes, thanks to a tool that is both simple and effective. A new economic currency has emerged in Israel during the Gaza war: the “reserve duty day” (RDD), the state’s remuneration for a day of reserve service. The Israeli government commits to paying individual reservists almost 29,000 Israeli shekels (close to $8,800) per month to volunteer for reserve duty. Minimum wage in Israel is 6,247 shekels (about $1,890) per month, and the average salary across all sectors is 14,200 shekels (about $4,300). The RDD thus offers more than 4.5 times the minimum wage and more than double the national average. It is competitive with tech salaries, long the gold standard of prestige employment in Israel. The RDD is not merely payment for work over a given unit of time: it is an attempt by the state to purchase the active partnership of citizens in its project to annihilate the Gaza Strip. This is not an entirely new mechanism. A large part of Israeli society (mainly Jewish men aged 21–45) has long been formally assigned to a military reserve unit and could be summoned to service—separated from their daily job, their family, their routine—with compensation. But before October 7, the use of RDD was limited to a maximum of 42 days annually (and the actual average was about 11 days). Reserve service was seen as a genuine civic obligation, and it imposed a relatively small financial burden on the Israeli economy overall. From 2018 to 2023, according to the Israeli Democracy Institute, reserve-duty time amounted to no more than 0.1% of total working hours for the entire labor force. Today, though, the scale of military service is unprecedented: according to Israel Defense Forces data, in 2024 some 300,000 reservists participated in an average period of service of 120 days. To deal with this huge number and its toll on both reservists and their families, the army has introduced what it calls “open orders,” allowing reservists to work minimal hours for the military while receiving compensation for both their military service and their daily civilian job. The state has also introduced additional bonuses and social services for reservists, as extra compensation for longer service spells. The RDD is, in essence, a public bribe to encourage private individuals to enroll in Israel’s military gig economy. This is a significant innovation in modern warfare economics, considering that the Israeli army has historically been a people’s army, with no mercenaries; it is a systematic way of purchasing citizens’ compliance through a sophisticated design of freelance work. An article in the Israeli economic daily The Marker exposed “a whole world of WhatsApp groups where people seek to do reserve duty.” The open-order system allows reservists to effectively double-dip by maintaining partial civilian employment while receiving full military compensation. It’s a very flexible arrangement, too. One 34-year-old reservist described to The Marker how soldiers he knows used RDDs to pay for various goods and services—in this case, meat for their unit’s barbecues: they simply registered their butcher as a reservist entitled to 30 days of reserve pay. “A parallel economy has developed here,” the reservist said, with RDDs functioning as a recognized currency. The gig model has extended beyond traditional employment relationships to create new forms of economic participation. A growing network of interests is capturing more and more segments of the population, as each additional participant increases the reach and the value of the system, deepening collective involvement in government policies. Active reservists represent about 16% of the relevant population (meaning, mostly Jewish males aged 21–45, minus the ultra-Orthodox, who do not do military service). Today, many of them still serve for long periods and are directly enrolled in the war economy. Their extended social networks encompass a much larger share of Israeli society. Incentive as Control This economic transformation functions as both an incentive for individuals and a means of control for the government. In return for the compensation it gives out, the state receives far more than just military labor to execute its policies; it also acquires partnership, support, and social legitimacy. The RDD functions as currency and contract, creating an economic bond that ties an individual’s welfare to the state’s military operations, even if those involve crimes. And so here is an economic cage, on top of the discursive one—together, the two trap Israeli society by incentivizing it to follow the government’s political designs, in this case for the destruction of Gaza. Some critics in Israel have argued that the deployment of reserves appears to be inefficient, that the army command is using the RDD and open-order mechanisms without any rational planning. We think instead that this is not a bug, but a deliberate feature of co-optation. It represents an integral component of a political strategy designed to deepen civilian involvement in military operations. The mechanism of recruiting public participation through purchased labor serves multiple functions simultaneously. It provides manpower, creates economic dependence, and generates social complicity in systematic state crimes. The broader the participation, the wider the human network of material interests invested in the commission of those crimes. The psychological and social dimensions of this economic cage are equally important. The reservist earning high monthly wages will find it difficult to criticize the crimes they participate in or witness. Their family, benefiting from a stable and respectable income during a time of economic uncertainty, will also have weaker motivations to oppose military operations, even if those involve systematic atrocities. Friends will be less inclined to criticize those sacrificing their personal life even as they profit from it. The social circles of each reservist—family, friends, colleagues, neighbors—become indirect stakeholders in the war economy. This creates a web of complicity that extends far beyond direct military participation to encompass entire communities whose economic welfare depends on the continuation of the military’s activities. And the RDD is only one component of a broader war economy that Israel has built during the Gaza conflict. Additional economic incentives include extras for extended periods of reserve service (a 10%–20% bonus on base pay per day of service above 60 days annually), free psychological treatment, complimentary healthcare, and free vacations at various Israeli resorts. The system also includes private contractors, for example those hired to destroy civilian infrastructure in Gaza. According to the BBC, Israeli bulldozer and excavator operators earn premium rates for these activities, with contractors compensated up to $1,500 for every house destroyed in the Gaza Strip. Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, nicknamed “the Jabaliya Flattener,” represents a new category of war-crimes entrepreneurs: demolition contractors. These relationships extend the economic model beyond traditional military service, creating additional constituencies with direct financial interests in the continuation of armed operations while expanding the social network of those who profit from systematic destruction. The effectiveness of this economic cage relies on the protracted erosion of other opportunities and the systematic dismantling of the welfare state. The war has devastated key economic sectors while creating a climate of uncertainty that discourages private investment and employment. The scale of this destruction is substantial and is expressed in a recession in leading sectors, including high-tech, and in the large number of those workers or academics who have left the country for long-term relocations since October 7. Meanwhile, credit-rating agencies such as Moody’s have downgraded Israel’s sovereign debt. The Israeli welfare state has continued to crumble, and education and healthcare expenses now consume growing portions of household budgets. In this changing economic environment, the Israeli state’s new gig-like form of military Keynesianism provides a crucial compensation mechanism, the difference between economic stability and financial distress, especially for those groups that have been harmed by decades of neoliberal policies. Our preliminary analysis of data from the Bank of Israel reveals that as Israeli exports drastically decline and large parts of the labor force are enlisted (and therefore unable to contribute to production), fiscal spending by the government is fueling household consumption. Thus, the RDD serves not only social, psychological, and micro-economic functions; it also has a macro-economic purpose by supporting Israel’s economic growth despite the ongoing war. That, in turn, is of crucial importance to Israel’s position in the global economy, and an attempt to shield it from sanction by international rating agencies and lenders. Meanwhile, as traditional employment becomes more precarious, military service appears increasingly attractive, regardless of its potential criminal dimensions. Reserve duty becomes what the sociologist Noa Lavie describes as “a successful gig with social prestige.” It is economically viable and socially respectable in ways that address both material and status concerns even as it normalizes participation in state crimes. Any criticism of military operations becomes a criticism of friends, neighbors, and family members who participate in and profit from them. The broader implications for Israeli society are profound. The traditional citizen-soldier model maintained clear distinctions between the civilian and the military spheres; military service was a civic duty, not a gig. When some of the most attractive economic opportunities in a society exist within military structures, and when military operations generate the income necessary for middle-class stability, the boundary between civilian and military dissolves. And when military operations then involve war crimes and other crimes, society becomes structurally invested in the military’s criminal policies. The hundreds of thousands of Israelis now directly dependent on this system, as well as on the broader social networks they represent, constitute a powerful constituency for the continuation of the Israeli government’s policies in Gaza regardless of these policies’ strategic effectiveness, any moral considerations about them, or international legal obligations. Complicity and the Social Contract This transformation’s long-term implications extend far beyond the current conflict: more than a temporary wartime adjustment, it could represent a permanent shift in the social contract between the Israeli state and its citizens. And it raises fundamental questions about the sustainability of democratic governance when substantial portions of the population have a direct economic interest in the perpetuation of war crimes and other abuses. At its worst, this development could spell the unification of Israeli society through crime. That would be both a sociological phenomenon and a political reality—the birthing of a collective mentality that politicians can act upon. Of course, members of Israeli society differ in values, beliefs, and political views. But crime has now imposed itself upon them, and through economic (and discursive) mechanisms, it has unified them. The RDD is just one of those mechanisms—and it is hardly an accidental byproduct of war; instead, it has been intentionally cultivated by parts of the leadership. This is not the first time the Israeli government has used economic incentives to recruit citizens into criminal activity. During the Nakba in 1948, after the expulsion and flight of more than 750,000 Palestinians, the Israeli state redistributed the Palestinian lands and homes it seized to bribe a young Israeli society. One of us, Adam, wrote in his book Loot: How Israel Stole Palestinian Property (2024) that an “integral part of the Israeli public participated in the plunder” and that “This made the pillagers into partners in crime, stakeholders in the non-return of the Arabs, and involuntary supporters of a specific political policy.” Most Israelis still deny this. Nor is Israel alone in rallying public support for criminal state policies through economic incentives. In Hitler’s Beneficiaries: How the Nazis Bought the German People (2007), Götz Aly demonstrates how the role of economics was at least as significant as that of ideology in Nazi Germany. The plunder of Jewish possessions enabled the Nazis to systematically enhance standards of living for ordinary Germans, and Germans reaped material advantages daily from the exclusion of Jews from society. Similarly, Ümit Kurt writes in The Armenians of Aintab: The Economics of Genocide in an Ottoman Province (2021) that “The fate of the abandoned properties in Aintab proves that the transfer of wealth in the form of plunder as well as expropriation was an inextricable part of the genocidal process.” Israeli society is not inherently criminal: the crimes of the current government in Gaza that we are denouncing are neither a natural byproduct of Israel’s formation nor an integral part of Zionist ideology. But like Turks or Germans in the early twentieth century, Israelis today are being manipulated by what the historian Mary Fulbrook called “processes” of complicity in her book about Nazi Germany, Bystander Society (2023). The Israeli government is not only destroying Gaza. Through the RDD mechanism, it is fundamentally altering the country’s economy and society. It is creating a financial dependence on the state’s commission of crimes that may prove irreversible long after the current conflict ends. Assaf Bondy is a labor sociologist at the University of Bristol who researches the political economy of employment relations. Adam Raz is a human rights researcher and historian. He works at Akevot Institute for Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Research and is the author of Loot: How Israel Stole Palestinian Property.

Which means we'll lose our 3rd league game in a row 😭 If we do lose tommrow means we've lost more then won! We've lost 2 drawn 2 lost 2 so far!

Trump Is Steadily Pushing the Republic Toward the Edge of Oblivion The administration has entered its most anti-Constitutional phase yet. We must call a regime that’s a danger to our way of life what it is. https://newrepublic.com/article/201058/trump-dangerous-autocracy-crackdown-rights It is well past time to connect the dots. The Trump administration’s assault on democracy has entered a new and dangerous phase. Trump is doing exactly what he said he would do, and what many of us warned was coming. He is at the head of a political movement that has long aimed to demolish American democracy, and he and his inner circle of supporters are now backed into a corner where they have few options but to double down. In the next phase of this corrupt takeover of America’s governing institutions, the Trump administration is certain to expand on its already substantial control of both the system of justice and the corporate media, and it will use this control to suppress dissent and spread still more disinformation. Whether the GOP’s plan to destroy American democracy for good will succeed can’t be known. What those who still believe in the promise of America should do is clear. Dot number one is the conversion of federal law enforcement and the system of justice into an instrument for punishing enemies of the regime and its leader. The indictment of former FBI Director James Comey, just days after President Trump said that Attorney Pam Bondi should prosecute him along with other political adversaries, takes us a giant step toward this objective. This radical action is not surprising for a man who appointed many of his own personal defense attorneys to top positions within the Department of Justice. It really doesn’t matter that the case against Comey is unlikely to result in a conviction. Trump’s adversaries will have already gotten the message that federal law enforcement is now a thoroughly political instrument of the leader and the ruling party. That is how corrupt autocracies work. Dot number two: the executive order declaring “Antifa” a “domestic terrorist organization.” As an article published on the website of the libertarian Cato Institute pointed out, “antifa” is not a formal organization but rather “an idea”—the way Taoism or Crossfit or “going keto” are ideas—and it declared the move “idiotic on multiple levels.” The point of the order is to follow through on the hateful rhetoric with which Trump and many of his followers responded to the horrendous murder of Charlie Kirk. The administration intends to use the coercive power of federal law enforcement to attack all those who disagree with its political views on the pretext that to disagree with the ruler is to invite “terrorism.” With the administration’s attack on the Soros-funded Open Society Foundation, this weaponization of the DOJ and FBI is already well underway. Dot number three is the deployment of the U.S. military against (so-called) domestic enemies. This began with the deployment of the National Guard and now includes various orders and declarations that make clear that Trump expects to use the military to apply coercive pressure against large sectors of the American population. The transformation of ICE into a federal police force largely outside of traditional law enforcement is a connected part of this project. Dot number four is the conversion of mainstream media into regime-compliant propaganda and disinformation providers. The big story last week wasn’t the cancellation and (partial) return of Jimmy Kimmel. It was the clear declaration, long foretold, that antitrust regulators now work not for the American public but rather for the advance of Trump administration interests, which include the consolidation of America’s mainstream media industry into the hands of a small number of Trump-boosting billionaires. The sale of TikTok (with a Trump-loving billionaire in charge), the ongoing elevation of Fox News into the semiofficial party-state broadcast network, and other data points—including the involvement of Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner in a $50 billion buyout of Electronic Arts, completes the picture. The creation of these media oligopolies will impoverish and misinform the public, which is exactly what authoritarians want. Dot number five is the capture of the corporate sector. As predicted early on, this has proved the easiest part of the authoritarian project. CEOs with MBAs trained in the shareholder-value theory of management are, all too often, pushovers for autocrats. You just point to the “bottom line” as you enlist their support in depriving the public of its rights. They have no clue that you’ll be coming back later to shake them down too. Dot number six is the reduction of the legislature to a plate of Jello. As long as Republicans control both chambers of Congress, this mission is done and dusted. The Constitution places the power of the purse in Congress; this Republican Congress has handed it over, along with every other matter of substance, to the president. Congress has also always had the power of oversight. This Congress isn’t just wearing blindfolds; it has poked its own eyes out so that it won’t have to witness the epic levels of corruption and self-dealing at the highest office. And dot number seven, which is to remove any opposition in the form of expertise by decimating the federal government, has been underway ever since Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire, and his 22-year-old minions went on their chain saw rampage through the federal government. While we have arrived at a dire moment, make no mistake: Now is not the time to curl up in despair. We have work to do—institutions to defend, pro-democracy organizations to support, lawsuits to pursue, corruption to expose, and midterm elections next year. The same forces that have brought us an antidemocratic movement have succeeded in undermining key institutions: the judiciary, the integrity of religious institutions, and the guardrails of one of our two political parties. If we want better outcomes, we can start by learning how those institutions have been undermined and commit ourselves to the process of restoring them. Last December, Politico published a terrific piece by the Turkish journalist Asli Aydintasbas, who lived through and documented Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s methodical process of state capture—and the pushback, which is ongoing. It is well worth a read. It takes time for the autocrat to consolidate control, she reminds us, so it is vital to remain active and engaged. She advises that we focus on strategic and broad-based actions that have appeal beyond the professional classes. She tells us to take a step back from identity politics and purity politics and work with other like-minded people and organizations, even if we don’t agree on everything. She reminds us that nothing is more meaningful than being part of a struggle for democratic principles. “America will survive the next four years,” she writes, if those who support democracy “pick themselves up and start learning from the successes of opponents of autocracy across the globe.”

Tucker Carlson the next one to be 'assassinated' ?

Niko Omilana’s ‘I Exposed Racists’ drop passes 5 million views in 5 days https://www.dropmedia.co.uk/niko-omilanas-i-exposed-racists-drop-passes-5-million-views-in-5-days/ Digital-first documentary maker Niko Omilana’s latest film I Exposed Racists In London has smashed through the 5 million views mark after just five days on YouTube. The 30-minute film tells the story of how Omilana disguised himself as a white man using prosthetics (pictured) and then infiltrated the Tommy Robinson-orchestrated Unite The Kingdom March on September 13, 2025. Once on the march, he used undercover filming techniques to record extreme racist language and abuse. Praising the film on LinkedIn, Spirit Studios co-founder Matt Campion said the film is proof that powerful storytelling doesn’t need a huge budget. He added: “Omilana’s documentaries regularly hit 10 million views. That’s an audience most broadcasters would struggle to command, especially with younger viewers. So the question is: do broadcasters need creators like Niko, or do creators like Niko even need broadcasters anymore?” Omilana’s YouTube channel has 8.14m subscribers. His videos combine social-first style storytelling and outrageous pranks with hard-hitting political insights – often generating large audiences. I Opened A Fake McDonalds secured 27m views while How I Won The London Mayor Election attracted 19m. He is also part of popular creator collective The Beta Squad and is set to appear in the 2025 edition of Celebrity Traitors on BBC1 (starting on October 8th )

Israel intercepted a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying aid in international waters. Can it do that? https://apnews.com/article/gaza-flotilla-international-maritime-law-7c0b4c31e46e17119accb62d7b6933f3 I think this is messed up from Israel military. They are people who are wanting to help not bringing weapons to Hamas.

Expecting us to have periods of fruitless possession without end product. We need to make every chance count, which wont be many. Great if they lost their 3rd on the trot - but with Taylor and LiVARpool - they will get a penalty at some point. Nailed on

Taylor reffing this won't matter, Liverpool aren't great right now but they are still fucking streets ahead of us We will be like fucking pussy cats tomorrow

We will get Forest's season back on track, don't worry about that. The weak fuckers we are

Will help to face 10-man Chelsea in 2 weeks

Forest didn't win again...their next 2 fixtures: Newcastle away, then us at home (hope Maresca is ready!)

Needing him to leave on his own because the owners are incredibly daft and stupid to see this guy is a failure of epic proportions.

Strasbourg scored again up nil 2

Strasbourg missing so many starters for this european conference league game now Mamadou Sarr Center-Back 29/08/2005 (20) France Senegal €20.00m Abakar Sylla Center-Back 25/12/2002 (22) Cote d'Ivoire €18.00m Ben Chilwell Left-Back 21/12/1996 (28) England New Zealand €15.00m Guéla Doué Right-Back 17/10/2002 (22) Cote d'Ivoire France €18.00m Sebastian Nanasi Left Midfield 16/05/2002 (23) Sweden Hungary €18.00m Julio Enciso Attacking Midfield 23/01/2004 (21) Paraguay €22.00m Emmanuel Emegha Centre-Forward 03/02/2003 (22) Netherlands Nigeria €25.00m

Waiting for fans here to realize Taylor is ref for this one and lose their shit 😅

Amazing Johnny. Peak Prem, Peak Chels, and great atmosphere at the Bridge.

30 menswear buys for autumn 2025, from boots to suits Old-time country house gent or luxe lumberjack — what’s your style this season? https://www.thetimes.com/life-style/fashion/article/menswear-autumn-2025-ndcdm6t8h From left: designs by Dolce & Gabbana; Louis Vuitton; Junya Watanabe; and Paul Smith Capturing the current mood in menswear? May we suggest it’s out with the new and in with, er, the old. Yes, classic silhouettes and heritage textures are coming up tops this season, and whether you’re a man of leisure or more the outdoorsy type, there’s something guaranteed to suit you. First up it’s all about heritage style — think the packing list for a weekend in the country. Turn your attention to Paul Smith where check suiting and olive green peacoats tick all the right boxes. As for the basics, you can never go wrong with a good quality rollneck. We like Holland Cooper for this, particularly its merino fare in chocolate brown, ideal beneath blazers or coats. Speaking of, if it’s outwear you’re after, think Eighties-leaning slouch shoulder overcoats where wool and herringbone earn you top marks. Tip: vintage is always best here. Still in doubt? Think of Logan Roy on a trip to the English countryside and you’ll have it nailed. If more rugged luxe is your vibe, then may we introduce the chic lumberjack, aka the style spot where Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront meets coffee shop hipster — and we promise that’s a good thing. Louis Vuitton has the goods and then some with multi-pocket jackets while Thrudark’s trousers tap into a similar sense of utilitarian flair, and don’t forget Carhartt — the OG of workwear chic. No luxe lumberjack is complete without the essential check shirt — Drake’s and M&S have great options here depending on your aptitude for a colour pop. Old timer From heritage suits to knits best worn by a roaring fire, dressing for a country-house weekend is back From left Suit, £2,300, Emporio Armani, armani.com Jacket, £505, blugiallo.com Tie, £130, paulsmith.com Shirt, £130, hackett.com Trousers, £1,090, burberry.com Dark brown rollneck, £139, hollandcooper.com Watch, £17,600, breitling.com Knit waistcoat, £400, connollyengland.com Loafers, £350, russellandbromley.co.uk Cardigan, £109, moss.co.uk • Read more fashion advice and style inspiration from our experts Bag, £3,500, brunellocucinelli.com Suit trousers, £59, johnlewis.com Coat, price on application, celine.com Mid brown poloneck, £159, boggi.com Shoes, £930, church-footwear.com Luxe lumberjack Classic workwear gets a luxurious glow-up this autumn (check shirts a must) Shirt, £35, marksandspencer.com Jeans, £160, levi.com Leather jacket, £3,395, thomsweeney.com Boots, £365, grenson.com Ring, £440, prada.com Bag, £190, H&M Atelier, hm.com Beanie, £49, mrmarvis.com Coat, POA, ahluwalia.world Jumper, £89, aubinandwills.com Belt, £49, dunelondon.com Shirt, £245, drakes.com Cashmere jumper, £795, npeal.com Watch, £610, tissotwatches.com Trousers, £150, thrudark.com Jacket, £4,050, louisvuitton.com

Berke Özer, Lille's GKer, stopped THREE pens (not shoot-out pens, regulation play pens) in Lille's nil 1 win at Roma

UEFA Conference League 2025/26 Winner Odds Team Odds Crystal Palace 6 ACF Fiorentina 6.5 Racing Strasbourg 8 Shakhtar Donetsk 10 Rayo Vallecano 10 1. FSV Mainz 05 11 AZ Alkmaar 12 Dynamo Kyiv 21 AEK Athens 23 SK Rapid Vienna 26 AC Sparta Praha 26 Samsunspor 26 Legia Warszawa 31 Raków Częstochowa 36 Lech Poznań 36 Jagiellonia Białystok 41 CS Universitatea Craiova 51

Frenkie de Jong is soon permanently off the board. He is on the verge of signing a new Barca deal that ends when he will be 33yo or so.

Udo Onwere: ‘Being a lawyer is easier than being a footballer’ The former Fulham midfielder tells Catherine Baksi how his sports background has influenced his legal career — particularly his new venture with Jamie Redknapp https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/udo-onwere-interview-lawyer-footballer-m9cx7kz0g Udo Onwere — a former Fulham FC midfielder — trained as a lawyer after hanging up his football boots at the end of a 12-year career on the pitch. He is now a partner at Bray & Krais, a specialist music, sports and entertainment firm, where he leads the sports and private client teams — and the 53-year-old brings clients and skills from his time in the beautiful game. He recently teamed up with his fellow former footballer and long-time friend Jamie Redknapp to launch M&C Saatchi Football, a sports management company that provides career planning, mentoring and legal advice to young footballers. Aware of the impact of the competitive and pressured environment for young professional footballers, Onwere is keen to “give back” to the sport that he loves and ensure that they are properly equipped. Since its launch a fortnight ago, seven players have signed up for the company’s services. “Jamie does the mentoring and I’m tasked with dealing with all the legal side of things,” Onwere says. The duo try to involve players’ parents in an effort to “give them a dose of realism”. While the players are all talented, Onwere and Redknapp are keen to ensure they understand the stresses and pressures of success and failure. There are, he says, two things that the young players need to understand: “How to deal with disappointment and to realise that they will always have to prove themselves.” Comparing his two careers, Onwere says: “I always maintain that being a lawyer is easier than being a footballer.” He adds that he respects both professions “intensely, but I think there is an element of being a footballer that people might overlook. It is obviously quite glamorous and enjoyable, but there is a lot of performance pressure that comes with that.” In contrast to being a lawyer, where there can be “pockets of pressure and deadlines”, he says, “being a footballer is like going into an exam hall and having an examination every week. It’s brutally meritocratic.” Onwere had a stint at Lincoln City during his 12-year football career ALAMY Onwere, who retired from professional football 25 years ago, misses the fun aspects of his former career — teammates, locker-room camaraderie and “the adrenaline of the big wins; but it’s not something that I would run back to”. Born in Hammersmith, Onwere loved sport and football “from the moment I could walk”. Growing up in west London in the Seventies and Eighties, with his brother and two sisters, he recalls a “happy, loving childhood, with loads of fun”. But in 1988, when he left school after his GCSEs to take a youth training place with Chelsea, his parents, who had come to England from Nigeria during the Biafran war, “were not particularly pleased”. His father had been a market trader in Nigeria and his mother was a nurse. In common with many West African parents, he says, they prized education. It was three years after the Heysel Stadium disaster in Belgium, in which 39 people died after crowd trouble between rival fans led to a crush, and Onwere says that “football was in a different place than it is now”. There was, he recalls, a lot of hooliganism and racism associated with the game, adding: “It wasn’t an environment that was particularly welcoming to someone who was black.” Looking back, he can understand his parents’ reticence, but at the time says “I was just thinking they should be super proud and pleased”. The step up from schoolboy to club football was “intense”. At the same time as coping with the training, Onwere says “you’re growing up — your body is changing and your brain is changing”. After a two-year apprenticeship at Chelsea, Onwere signed his first professional contract with rival Fulham. Over 12 years he also played for Lincoln City, Dover Athletic, Blackpool, Barnet, Aylesbury United, Hayes and Maidenhead United, before retiring in 2000. “I wasn’t injured, I just made a conscious decision that I wanted to get into something else that was going to give me an element of stability and independence,” he says. Having enjoyed negotiating his own contracts during his footballing career, Onwere turned to law, completing an access course at Middlesex University before doing a degree. “I was reasonably academic at school and knew I would be able to deal with the amount of reading that was required,” Onwere says. The biggest change was getting used to modern methods of teaching. “When I left school in 1988, it was all blackboards and chalk” — but 12 years later, the world had moved on and Onwere had to learn how to type and use a computer. After law school, he joined Thomas Eggar (now Irwin Mitchell) as a trainee in 2006. Enjoying the “emotional intelligence” and “collaboration” required for non-contentious work, he qualified into the firm’s private client practice two years later. After a stint at Farrer & Co, he was head-hunted by Bray & Krais to launch its private client and sports teams. Building on his playing background, Onwere advises high-profile sportsmen and women, particularly professional footballers, managers and directors. His clients include the former player for England and Manchester United Rio Ferdinand and England and Chelsea siblings Reece and Lauren James. He also does regulatory and disciplinary work as a judicial panel member of the Football Association. Private client work includes handling the multimillion-pound estate of the One Direction singer Liam Payne. Cheryl Tweedy, a former partner of Payne, has been appointed administrator of the estate with the law firm founder, Richard Bray. Onwere lives in Dorking in Surrey, with his wife, who works in marketing. He enjoys swimming, watching football and spending time with his family. While “Fulham will always be in my heart”, he does not follow a club, but his three grown-up children all support Arsenal.

Still going on apparently. Foreign agent. Mind you look who he attracts. 🤐