Branded stadiums turn community hubs into billboards. Memories are still made, but the corporate influence dulls the purity of the experience

The Cleveland Browns held an oddly celebratory press conference last week to announce the sale of the naming rights to their stadium to Huntington Bank, a regional bank headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. For the next 20 years, what was once Cleveland Browns Stadium will be known as Huntington Bank Field. Never mind that Huntington Bank Field is a laughably generic name that does not even attempt to maintain continuity with the arena’s two most recent monikers, both of which labeled it a stadium rather than a field; the real catch is that the Browns haven’t even decided whether to renovate their current home on the shore of Lake Erie or build a new stadium in Cleveland’s southwestern suburbs.

Under the terms of the deal, the Browns’ home will be Huntington Bank Field wherever it ends up: the stadium now has a fixed name but a curious air of ephemerality hangs over its address.

• Forward implies manager’s attitude is too negative
• He predicts bright future if they ‘rebuild from the bottom’

Cristiano Ronaldo has intimated the attitude of Manchester United’s manager, Erik ten Hag, is too negative. The Portugal forward fell out with Ten Hag before his second spell at Old Trafford ended in 2022.

Ronaldo, who plays for Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia, believes his former club need to “rebuild from the bottom” but should not rule out winning major trophies in the meantime. Ten Hag has said he is “quite confident” of further silverware this campaign after lifting the Carabao Cup and FA Cup during the past two seasons. But the Dutchman said in July his team were a “long way away” from being ready to win the Premier League.

• Club records revenues of £661.8m in year to 30 June
• ‘Our clear objective is to return to the top,’ says Berrada

Manchester United are confident they comply with Premier League and Uefa financial rules despite posting a £113.2m net loss in their latest accounts. It is the fifth consecutive year United have made an annual loss, with the club £115.5m in the red in 2021-22 and £42.1m in 2022-23.

Profitability and sustainability rules (PSR) permit a £105m loss over a three-year period, but within the regulations certain deductions are allowed in relation to investment in infrastructure, the academy and women’s teams, among other things, which United believe means they will not fall foul of spending regulations. Everton and Nottingham Forest received points deductions last season after exceeding permitted losses in regards to PSR.

• Football department scrutinising style of play
• Manager safe for now with injuries and signings in mind

Erik ten Hag’s game model has to start impressing Manchester United’s Ineos-led football department or he is in danger of being removed, with the style of play this season viewed as underwhelming. United entered the international break having won once and lost twice in the Premier League in a disappointing start.

There is recognition inside the club that Ten Hag has been undermined by injuries and needs time to integrate his five summer signings, but also serious concern regarding how he sets up the side. The Dutchman’s game model is being scrutinised by United’s football department, which is overseen by Sir Jim Ratcliffe and led by Dan Ashworth, the sporting director, and Jason Wilcox, the technical director. A major part of Wilcox’s role is to monitor how the first team play.

• Ashworth clear on stance before Liverpool defeat
• Berrada ‘convinced we’re going to be successful’

Erik ten Hag has received public ­backing from the two most senior Manchester United executives hired by Ineos this summer, as questions swirl again regarding the manager’s Old Trafford future.

United confirmed in June that Ten Hag would be retained after they considered several other candidates, but the team have three points from their first three games after losing against Brighton and Liverpool in consecutive matches.

Casemiro display against Liverpool was painful, but the blame for United’s early season struggles sits with an incoherent structure

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In his beginning is his end; now the night falls. Two years ago, before their third game of the season, against Liverpool, having lost one of the games they’d played 2-1 to Brighton, Manchester United presented Casemiro before an adoring crowd at Old Trafford. At the weekend, before their third game of the season, against Liverpool, having lost one of the games they’d played 2-1 to Brighton, Manchester United withdrew Casemiro before a despairing crowd at Old Trafford. Two years ago, United won 2-1; on Sunday, they lost 3-0, and it could have been a lot worse.

It was, frankly, painful to watch: a player who once commanded games, who has won four Champions Leagues, been integral to one of the most successful sides in history, reduced to a player so devoid of confidence even the basics looked a challenge. The early signs this season had been promising. There was a sense that Casemiro was sharper again, that the concerns about his fitness that had plagued last season might have been surmounted. But on Sunday his pass accuracy was just 73%, way off what is acceptable for a defensive midfielder, and his errors cost the opening two goals.

And yet there is a context. Eleven minutes in to the second half, Kobbie Mainoo was dispossessed leading to Liverpool’s third. Manuel Ugarte, who was presented before kick-off after his £42m ($55m) move from Paris Saint-Germain, must have wondered what he’s got himself into. The United holding position is like the Siege Perilous in Arthurian legend; eventually one will come who is worthy of achieving the Grail but until then whoever takes that position is doomed.

It’s not just about individuals. United now seem to be in a similar position to the pre-Mikel Areta Arsenal. The structure has failed and so hopes are placed in individuals. Which is daft enough when the player involved is as talented as Mesut Özil, but eventually you end up believing Nicolas Pépé is the answer to your prayers. Ugarte may turn out to be an upgrade on Casemiro, but no one player can ever be the answer.

Ugarte will need a better system around him and that’s where the focus begins to shift and the camera comes to rest on Erik ten Hag. Even with allowances for the position they inherited, how can it be that, three games into his reign at Anfield, Arne Slot has created a more coherent midfield than Ten Hag, now in his third year at Old Trafford, has managed. How can it be that, of all the former Ajax players in the pitch on Sunday, the best was Ryan Gravenberch?

In this dramatisation of the 1958 Munich air disaster, the author’s previous brushes with controversy seem to have stifled artistic licence

You could see Peace’s new book as his third in a series of novels centred on football bosses – the Manageriad? – after The Damned Utd (about Brian Clough) and Red or Dead (Bill Shankly). It unfolds more than three months after the Munich air disaster of 1958, when the plane carrying Matt Busby’s Manchester United home from a European
Cup tie in Belgrade crashed after a stop to refuel, killing 20 of the 44
people on board, with three more dying later in hospital.

Writing in the third person but from the point of view of dozens of those involved – players, journalists, families – Peace dramatises the crash, its aftermath and how United, then reigning champions, managed to complete the remaining third of the season under Busby’s assistant, Jimmy Murphy, miraculously reaching the FA Cup final. It’s a tale of duty, guilt and blame, with the day-to-day commitments on the pitch and boardroom fulfilled amid the burying of the dead and nagging questions about why the plane crashed. A voice inside the head of goalkeeper Harry Gregg, tormented after saving fellow passengers from the wreckage, asks why no one on board spoke up about not taking off in bad weather. “Because like all people,” he replies, “we’re afraid to lose face in front of our friends.”

It’s a stirring proposition but there are doubts about Peace’s handling from the start, with an on-the-nose epigraph from James Joyce’s The Dead introducing a prologue in which the United players, a month before the crash, enter the pitch at Arsenal in white away kit, emerging “out of the tunnel like a ghost train”, a line I winced to read – and that’s before the first line proper, in which Bobby Charlton’s mum is worrying
that “something was wrong, she just didn’t know what”. Her friend agrees: “Can you not sense there’s something in the air … ?”, just as Peace cuts to the wreckage.

Yet the fault in Munichs isn’t artistic licence – rather, its lack. After The Damned Utd, former Leeds midfielder John Giles sued Peace for his portrayal as “a scheming leprechaun” (Giles’s words), and it’s hard not to feel that Peace has been wary of taking liberties ever since, portraying Shankly from the outside in Red or Dead and doing similar here. One funeral procession after another is described via names of roads on the route; unremarkable action is narrated to imply troubled psychological states, as when we see Murphy in his garden “out in the cold, damp morning, pacing up and down… holding his rosary, its beads and its crucifix in his hand, rubbing at the figure and face of Christ on the Cross as he paced, as he prayed, first asking for forgiveness, then asking for comfort, comfort for others, asking for strength, strength for others, then strength for himself, the strength to help others, the strength to go on, to somehow go on.”

Jack Grealish on the comeback trail, Iliman Ndiaye offers Everton hope and Declan Rice appears unruffled

While Mikel Arteta fumed at the perceived injustice in Declan Rice’s sending off against Brighton, there was a far more measured response from the England midfielder. Despite admitting he had been “shocked” to see the referee, Chris Kavanagh, show him a second yellow card for obstructing Joël Veltman from taking a free kick, Rice acknowledged that a first dismissal on his 245th Premier League appearance had cost his team victory as they head into the first international break already playing catchup to Manchester City. “I just wanted to apologise to my teammates, which I’ve done, and to the fans,” he said. “When you get sent off, it’s never nice, you get a sense of guilt over you, and I was lucky that my teammates really helped me out and we didn’t lose the game. I’ll learn from it.” Ed Aarons

Match report: Arsenal 1-1 Brighton

Match report: West Ham 1-3 Manchester City

Match report: Manchester United 0-3 Liverpool

Match report: Newcastle 2-1 Tottenham

Match report: Ipswich 1-1 Fulham

Match report: Everton 2-3 Bournemouth

Match report: Chelsea 1-1 Crystal Palace