Wayne Rooney set out his preferred Premier League five-a-side while also using a half-an-hour long Q&A session to reflect on career highs and regrets. He deliberately named no current Manchester United players in his selection.

On his first pick Rooney said: “Phil Foden, definitely,” Rooney said almost instantly and without hesitation with his first pick. “Five-a-side, Phil Foden, tight areas, brilliant.” He followed that up by adding: “Probably Cole Palmer as well in there,” Rooney continued. “[Bukayo] Saka, I’m not having a goalkeeper. I’ll put [Moisés] Caicedo in there, he’d be the defensive one but he can attack as well.” His final selection came from Liverpool: “Mo Salah. So yeah, that would be my five players,” Rooney finished.

The group Rooney assembled draws from teams across the league, including players who represent Man City, Arsenal and Chelsea, and a Liverpool forward.

Rooney also assessed his own career in the session. He described the FA Cup trophy he conquered as Man Utd captain in 2016—the only FA Cup triumph of his career—as the biggest achievement of his nearly 20-year career. By contrast he identified one major regret from international duty. On the 2006 World Cup he said: “[My biggest regret] Going to the World Cup in 2006,” Rooney said. “I wasn’t fit, I shouldn’t have went. And it ends with getting a red card . So yeah, if I went back I probably wouldn’t have gone.”

The 2006 tournament was also a difficult personal moment: Rooney failed to tally a single goal involvement in four World Cup appearances in 2006 and was sent-off in the quarterfinals before England lost in a penalty shootout. The Q&A underlined how Rooney balances admiration for the current crop of Premier League talent with frank appraisal of his own career milestones and mistakes.

The Premier League has confirmed a significant adjustment to its winter schedule for the 2025/26 season: Boxing Day will feature a single top-flight fixture, Manchester United vs. Newcastle United at Old Trafford. The decision marks a departure from the long-standing holiday period format and follows a reworking of the December calendar.

Instead of a crowded Boxing Day, the league said there will be 10 matches between Dec. 20–22, no matches through Christmas Day and then Manchester United hosting Newcastle at Old Trafford on Boxing Day. The league pointed to congestion across competitions as the root cause: European club competition expansion, a revised domestic calendar and changes to the FA Cup reduced the number of available weekends.

“The Premier League would like to acknowledge the circumstances that have led to a reduced number of matches on Boxing Day this season – impacting an important tradition in English football,” the league said Friday.

The statement elaborated on the scheduling constraints. “There are now several challenges to Premier League fixture scheduling rooted in the expansion of European club competitions—which led to a revision of our domestic calendar ahead of last season, including changes to the FA Cup. This ultimately left the Premier League as a 33-weekend competition—fewer than previous seasons, despite being a 380-match competition since 1995,” the league said.

“With fewer weekends to work with, the League is bound by how the calendar falls. The League can give an assurance that next season there will be more Premier League matches on Boxing Day—as the date falls on a Saturday.”

The recent changes guarantee no team will play two matches within 60 hours of each other. The league published the full slate from Boxing Day through New Year’s Day as follows:

Dec. 26, 2025 — Manchester United vs. Newcastle United
Dec. 27, 2025 — Nottingham Forest vs. Manchester City
Dec. 27, 2025 — Arsenal vs. Brighton
Dec. 27, 2025 — Brentford vs. Bournemouth
Dec. 27, 2025 — Burnley vs. Everton
Dec. 27, 2025 — Liverpool vs. Wolves
Dec. 27, 2025 — West Ham United vs. Fulham
Dec. 27, 2025 — Chelsea vs. Aston Villa
Dec. 28, 2025 — Sunderland vs. Leeds United
Dec. 28, 2025 — Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham Hotspur
Dec. 30, 2025 — Burnley vs. Newcastle United
Dec. 30, 2025 — Chelsea vs. Bournemouth
Dec. 30, 2025 — Nottingham Forest vs. Everton
Dec. 30, 2025 — West Ham United vs. Brighton
Dec. 30, 2025 — Arsenal vs. Aston Villa
Dec. 30, 2025 — Manchester United vs. Wolves
Jan. 1, 2026 — Crystal Palace vs. Fulham
Jan. 1, 2026 — Liverpool vs. Leeds United
Jan. 1, 2026 — Brentford vs. Tottenham Hotspur
Jan. 1, 2026 — Sunderland vs. Manchester City

Manchester United manager Ruben Amorim has confirmed Lisandro Martínez has returned to training but will not be available for the trip to Nottingham Forest. The 27-year-old has resumed work with the group, but the club’s medical staff have opted to delay his comeback to avoid taking unnecessary risks.

Amorim said Martínez had pushed to be involved for the Forest match, but the decision was taken to hold him back. Martínez will remain on the sidelines for Saturday’s fixture while continuing his gradual return to full activity.

“He wants to go to this [game], he is not going to this one, he is going to take time,” Amorim told reporters. “He started training with us but we had to change some things in the exercise for him, so slowly he is going to get better.

“He started training with us but we had to change some things in the exercise for him, so slowly he is going to get better.

“He is really good, he is really good, and he gives us that edge in every training session and that is also really good for us.”

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The manager added that United are in a favourable moment on injuries overall. Martínez’s progress means that every player is training in some capacity during the build-up to the Forest meeting.

Martínez may be joined on the sidelines by fellow centre back Harry Maguire after Amorim admitted uncertainty over the Englishman’s return from a training-ground problem that kept him out of last weekend’s win over Brighton & Hove Albion. The nature of Maguire’s issue is not yet clear; Amorim initially described it as a “knock” which was “not serious,” and said he “didn’t know” if the Englishman would be ready.

United head into the weekend sixth in the Premier League but can climb as high as second this round. They sit just two points behind Andoni Iraola’s Bournemouth heading into the fixtures.