Lioness legend Fara Williams and fans debate Manchester United and Man City in new WSL season

MANCHESTER, United Kingdom: Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick as Manchester City maintained their perfect Premier League start with a 5-1 thrashing of Fulham on Saturday, as Son Heung-min’s also netted three times in Tottenham’s 5-2 victory at Burnley. But Chelsea’s huge investment in the transfer market is still to reap reward as the Blues were beaten 1-0 at home by Nottingham Forest. In keeping with the early weeks of the season, City were good enough for the three points without ever hitting top gear. The English champions were without manager Pep Guardiola as he recovers from back surgery in his native Catalonia. The home side had not had a shot on target until Julian Alvarez turned home Haaland’s cross to open the scoring on 31 minutes. Fulham, who were missing influential midfielder Joao Palhinha after his deadline day move to Bayern Munich collapsed on Friday, responded immediately when Tim Ream tapped in from a corner. City needed a set-piece of their own to restore the lead in controversial circumstances. Nathan Ake’s header was allowed to stand despite Manuel Akanji, who was in an offside position, jumping over the ball. Haaland then exploded after the break.

LONDON: English Premier League spending was hurtling toward a staggering $3 billion in a record outlay during European soccer’s summer transfer window on Friday. Manchester City and — of course — Chelsea were among those making moves on a typically frantic deadline day. Chelsea were leading the unprecedented splurge, with the arrival of 21-year-old winger Cole Palmer from City for 40 million pounds ($50.7 million) taking the west London club’s spending in this window to around $500 million. In the three transfer windows under their new American ownership fronted by Todd Boehly, Chelsea have spent about $1.15 billion on players mostly signed up on long contracts in an innovative way to spread “amortization” costs of transfer fees. By comparison, the $260 million outlay by City, the English and European champion, look modest. The fourth and final arrival in the window came on deadline day and was Portugal international Matheus Nunes from Wolverhampton, a ball-carrier costing $67 million and providing extra depth in central midfield. Central midfielders were also priorities for Liverpool and Manchester United, who were attempting to tie up the signings of Ryan Gravenberch from Bayern Munich and Sofyan Amrabat from Fiorentina, respectively, in the final hours of the window. It was a busy day for United, which signed left back Sergio Reguilón on loan from Tottenham as cover for the injured Luke Shaw and goalkeeper Altay Bayindir on a transfer from Fenerbahce to back up Andre Onana.

Manchester United face Champions League group stage clashes with Harry Kane’s new club Bayern Munich, while Newcastle were handed an exceedingly tough task on their return to Europe’s top club competition.

Manchester United will face the Bayern Munich of Harry Kane in this season's Champions League while Thursday's draw for the group stage also placed Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle United together. Bayern and United will be favourites to advance from Group A which also includes Danish champions FC Copenhagen and Galatasaray, the Turkish champions. Group F, in contrast, looks to be the toughest of all with Saudi-owned Newcastle facing AC Milan and Borussia Dortmund as well as Qatar-backed PSG. Newcastle are appearing in the Champions League for the first time in 20 years and their lack of recent pedigree in Europe's elite club competition meant they were left lurking dangerously among the sides in pot four for the draw.

Manchester United and Man City will discover their opponents for the Champions League group stages this evening.

Ryan Gravenberch would prefer a move to Liverpool over Manchester United, according to reports.