Tottenham Hotspur are working on a deal to sign Savinho and Omar Marmoush from Manchester City.

Nothing is finalised but Tottenham’s talks with City are advancing.

The Athletic reported on Tuesday that Spurs were progressing in a deal for Savinho, while Marmoush has also been among those considered likely to leave City this summer.

Sheffield United could be hit with a 12-point deduction this season after the Championship club’s former parent company was liquidated by a business court in London on Wednesday.

American investors Helmy Eltoukhy and Steven Rosen set up COH Sports Bidco Limited (CSBL) in July 2024 to buy Sheffield United from Saudi royal Prince Abdullah Bin Mosaad bin Abdulaziz bin Al Saud’s multi-club group United World.

That deal, which valued the club at just over £100 million ($135 million), was completed in December that year, with CSBL paying an initial instalment of circa £30million ($41m) but a second payment of £35million ($47.6m) arrived late and a final payment, of a similar amount, never came.

Arsenal are working to complete the signings of Manchester United academy players James Scanlon and Habeeb Ogunneye.

The north London club are confident of finalising deals for both Scanlon, a 19-year-old winger, and 20-year-old right-back Ogunneye.

I’m not gonna say I’m just gonna go out there and cause a fight. I’m not looking to do any of that,” he said. “But definitely when it’s a different opponent, you don’t have that kind of relationship or bond with those kinds of guys. So if it gets hostile, it gets hostile. If it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

“I’m gonna still do my job at the end of the day and be physical and play my play style. We’ll see what happens.”

Moehrig’s hard-hitting, no-fear mentality is the reason the Panthers signed him to a three-year, $51 million contract after finishing the 2024 season as the NFL’s worst defense. Moehrig responded with 103 tackles — one off his 2024 total — while establishing career highs with 14 tackles for loss, three sacks and seven quarterback hits.

Along with the stats, the 6-foot-2, 215-pound Moehrig gave the defense an attitude.

23. Utah Mammoth

Positives 

• What a beautiful area of the country. The city itself is whatever, but the surrounding area is spectacular.

• If you’re there during the winter, the skiing isn’t so bad, from what I hear.

• If you’re a proud Pittsburgher, seeing Logan Cooley and Vince Trocheck play on a very good Utah team is a nice experience.

• Just a spectacularly friendly city.

• Excellent airport and direct flights on Delta to and from Pittsburgh.

Negatives 

• The arena isn’t terrible but is below average by NHL standards.

• Salt Lake City isn’t known for its vibrant nightlife.

• Nice place but can get boring in a hurry.

Insider tip 

If you’re interested in going here, go to the Penguins’ game in Las Vegas this season. Spend a couple of days there, then hit Salt Lake City on your way home as the Pens finish their road trip. You’ll get to check out Utah and get the direct flight home. The game isn’t in winter, so it’s not the best time to be there, but it’s worth a stop.

When you’re one of the youngest teams in the league and still have a top-10 prospect pool despite that youth and despite reaching the Eastern Conference final, you’re still in a very enviable spot with a very real path to improve organically.

There’s still time for the Canadiens to make the trade they want to make — and the start of training camp, or even the start of the season, is not a deadline — but the fact they are in no rush speaks to their luxury of time. Their true contention window has not yet opened, and may not for another year or two — however long it takes for Lane Hutson, Juraj Slafkovský and Ivan Demidov to hit their primes. So, while there is some urgency in the Canadiens’ front office, there is also an awareness that the wrong move could scuttle the whole project.

While we wait out the most uneventful Canadiens offseason of the Jeff Gorton/Kent Hughes era, let’s get to the mailbag.

(Questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

Montreal changed the structure and personnel in the medical department two years ago. Before doing so, we were consistently losing more man-games to injury than almost any other team. The last two years have not been as bad. What, if anything, has changed? — Grant M.

Well, Grant, a lot has changed.

Jim Ramsay replaced Graham Rynbend as the team’s head athletic trainer in June 2023, not long after the New York Rangers let him go. Gorton’s familiarity with Ramsay, not to mention coach Martin St. Louis’ familiarity with him from playing for the Rangers, made him a natural hire.

The Canadiens were coming off a brutal 2022-23 season — the first full season of the current regime — when long-term injuries to Cole Caufield, Slafkovský, Sean Monahan, Kirby Dach, Christian Dvorak, Josh Anderson, Joel Armia, Kaiden Guhle, Mike Matheson, David Savard and Arber Xhekaj scuttled any hope of competitiveness. Only two players on that team — Nick Suzuki and Johnathan Kovacevic — played more than 70 games.

A focus of that evaluation on offensive is unfolding behind the starters on the offensive line and at receiver.

Specifically, the competition for the swing tackle position behind starters Orlando Brown Jr. and Amarius Mims didn’t produce a trustworthy answer, so the team pulled 2025 fifth-round pick Jalen Rivers over from guard to left tackle to see if he could offer a new solution.

At receiver, the playmaking behind Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins challenged the school of thought about who could play what role in this offense. Players including fourth-round pick Colbie Young and camp star Dohnte Meyers, behind Andrei Iosivas, have the organization wondering about the possibilities for their roles.

QB2: Mason Rudolph leads Will Howard

Howard may have taken second-team reps during OTAs, but the competition flipped when the Steelers reported to Latrobe. Sitting firmly in the backup spot, Rudolph got the start in the preseason opener and played well. The ball never touched the ground, as he completed 10 of 11 passes (on the lone incompletion, Germie Bernard caught the pass but couldn’t get his second foot down in the end zone).

Meanwhile, Howard’s preseason debut was a mixed bag. He orchestrated a successful two-minute drill, but also made a poor decision to put the ball into harm’s way on a third down. The final two preseason games will be important for Howard if he’s going to prove to the coaching staff that he can be Rodgers’ backup this season. The possibility of keeping four quarterbacks seems to be gaining momentum.

RB3: Kaleb Johnson falling behind

Johnson carried the ball just two times for three yards against the Packers. Truthfully, the only time I really noticed him he was getting chewed out on the sideline by special teams coach Danny Crossman. Cutting a third-round pick one year after he’s drafted would be a tough look for the Steelers, but it sure seems to be trending that direction based on the way the carries have been split in practices and in the first preseason game.

As for the others, it could come down to what the Steelers want from this spot on the depth chart. Lew Nichols is pretty clearly the better running back, showing good vision and burst in the preseason game. Travis Homer, meanwhile, struggled to pick up a blitz that led to a sack and didn’t have as much juice as a ball carrier. Considering the third RB on the depth chart mostly plays special teams, and Homer is an ace in this phase (currently, he serves as the personal protector on the punt team, for example), he has the edge.

But the Yankees’ ability to rely on Headrick has been a blessing for so long that it’s started to become a problem.

Headrick, a starting pitcher until late 2024, has never approached this many appearances in a season, and he’s on pace to pitch in 82 games. No Yankees reliever has worked as many as 80 games since Boone Logan in 2012. Only the Toronto Blue Jays’ Mason Fluharty (66 games) has pitched in more games this season than Headrick.

If the Yankees want the 28-year-old to remain the foundation of a bridge to closer David Bednar in October, they may need to take their foot off the gas.

“Obviously,” pitching coach Matt Blake said, “it’s a concern when you get to this volume of work. But it’s something we’ve just got to monitor down the stretch and be smart about trying to win every game versus trying to set ourselves up for October.”

The Toronto Blue Jays have been holding out for a hero, just one bat to carry an offence desperate for star production. From the quiet corner of the clubhouse, a new contender has emerged in Alejandro Kirk.

During Toronto’s 11-6 August, a hot streak the Jays extended with a 10-5 win over the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday, the pitching and defence have been pristine. Their team ERA this month (2.87) entered Tuesday as the best in baseball. The fielding by Outs Above Average (plus-eight) leads the American League.

The runs, though, remain hard to come by. Except for Kirk.

The Athletic spoke with multiple league and team sources with knowledge of the situation for this story. They were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive matters surrounding the ongoing ownership and family dispute, which could result in litigation.

Will Jeanie Buss remain the Lakers’ most powerful executive as team governor, or will she and her siblings sever ties from the organization her father purchased 47 years and 11 championships ago amid a bitter dispute?

That answer won’t be delivered quietly.

It started with the Buss Family Trust casting five votes to sell its shares. Jeanie Buss’ attorney, Adam Streisand, countered with a sternly worded letter asserting her control and laying out a legal strategy to deem the vote void. Then, on Tuesday, Johnny, Jim, Janie, Joey and Jesse issued a joint statement expressing their unity and making it clear that they still intend to sell the family’s shares.

What comes next may not be clear for some time, particularly if this ultimately goes to court.

What Babcock looks for

Hyman is one of the most ferocious forecheckers in the game, proving to be a perfect fit for Babcock. He’s always in pursuit of the puck and has no fear in getting net-front for chances on net. If there’s a Babcock template, it’s Hyman. Brown has many of the same traits, and both men have enjoyed successful careers due to a range of skills. The keys are responsible and aggressive play, and enough of a scoring touch to be productive offensively at five-on-five.

Both men were late draft picks and made Babcock’s first Toronto team. Each man showed a willingness to play with abandon, pay attention to defensive detail (coverage and puck pursuit) and perform any role asked. Among forwards, Babcock has a type, to the point where one could be sure that Carter Verhaeghe would have thrived under him in Toronto if Maple Leafs management hadn’t traded him the year before the new coach arrived. Pierre Engvall, Trevor Moore and others were brought into the system during Babcock’s time with the team but would find their NHL home elsewhere.

So there sat Pecko on Tuesday afternoon atop a bench inside Dakin Park’s first-base dugout, smiling to hide nerves before the biggest day of his baseball life. The scout, speaking anonymously to candidly discuss another club’s prospects, said Pecko profiles as a “back-end starter.”

More fanfare accompanied the man Pecko passed over for this opportunity. Signing Imai this winter represented a splash for a franchise that is reluctant to spend in free agency while signaling its advancement into the Pacific Rim. Guaranteeing him $54 million suggested Imai would serve, at minimum, as a stabilizing force behind returning ace Hunter Brown.

Pecko’s arrival Tuesday afternoon accentuated how far Imai has fallen in the team’s pitching hierarchy. Imai pitched twice in the first 18 days of August. He could have started on six days of rest Wednesday night against the Los Angeles Angels, a team torn apart at the trade deadline and carrying the third-lowest OPS in the sport.