The Premier League transfer window closed yesterday with the Manchester United hierarchy failing to land Ole Gunnar Solskjaer his number one target Jadon Sancho. Instead, United's scattergun approach saw them sign 33-year-old Edison Cavani, who was out of contract after leaving PSG earlier this summer, on deadline day. There was also the addition of Brazilian leftback Alex Telles for €17 million - that fee being offset by the sale of Chris Smalling to Roma for €15m. A late loan move for Ousmane Dembélé also fell through with United instead bringing in 18-year-old winger Amad Traoré from Atalanta - he will join the club in January - as well as another 18-year-old winger, Facundo Pellistri, from Atlético Peñarol. Aside from the last-minute scrambling at Old Trafford, it was a relatively quiet deadline day. Arsenal did however massively bolster their midfield with the addition of Thomas Partey from Atletico Madrid after they paid his €50m release clause, while centre-half Ben Godfrey joined Everton from Norwich in a move worth around €30m.
The GAA announced yesterday the immediate suspension of all club matches, in a response to the lack of social distancing and failure to meet Covid-19 guidelines which had been seen at various fixtures, including some county finals. And this morning Seán Moran has suggested the GAA's best laid plans for ensuring club fixtures went ahead came undone when the title celebrations started. He writes: "It came as a rare failure of foresight during the pandemic on the GAA's part. For all the micro-managed concerns about getting the games back on the pitch, there was on the horizon something that shouldn't have come as a major surprise: the impact on communities of a successful championship run." Yesterday evening GAA president John Horan confirmed the decision to suspend club fixtures was down to a lack of compliance.
Meanwhile the Cabinet's decision to move the whole country into Level 3 Covid-19 restrictions - ignoring NPHET's advice to move to Level 5 - will come as a great relief to sport in general, and particularly to rugby. Under Level 5 restrictions all sporting events would have been stopped, as well as a ban on collective training. Gerry Thornley writes: "Were Ireland, or Leinster, unable to even train, much less play, straight away, this would place Irish rugby as the outliers of the European game, as it would throw the Pro 14 into chaos and leave the Six Nations incomplete indefinitely." There would also be a heavy price to pay financially, with the IRFU already losing €5m a month before any further potential lost revenue is taken into account.
Ireland's Euro 2020 playoff with Slovakia creeps closer into view, and manager Stephen Kenny has a number of big decisions to make ahead of Thursday night's clash in Bratislava. One of them is whether or not to include Callum Robinson, who has enjoyed a fine start to the Premier League season with West Brom. And Robinson is hopeful he has done enough to force his way into Kenny's starting XI: "He knows I can play in any of the three [positions across the frontline] but it's probably just a little bit more of an eye-opener that I've played up there and scored a few goals." Meanwhile you can find everything you need to know about Thursday's game here.
And Novak Djokovic is through to the quarter-finals of the French Open after he beat Russia's Karen Khachanov in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3, 6-3 at Roland Garros yesterday. Djokovic will meet Spain's Pablo Carreño Busta in the last-eight - his compatriot Rafael Nadal is in fourth round action against Jannik Sinner today. Meanwhile in the women's singles, Petra Kvitová is into quarters after her win over China's Zhang Shuai.
