JJ Gabriel’s desire to leave Manchester United is being framed as more than a simple contract dispute. According to the report, the teenager and those around him believe the club is too far removed from the standard he wants to chase, with their view shaped by United’s long decline in stature over the past 13 years.

The Daily Mail says that drop-off is the “driving force” behind Gabriel’s stance. The player is understood to want to “learn from the best,” and that assessment appears central to why an immediate exit has become the direction of travel. Earlier reports had linked his frustration to limited first-team opportunities, but this latest version of events places United’s wider decline at the heart of the issue.

Gabriel has already built a reputation for dominating at every age level, including the U-21s, where he scored twice in two appearances against players five years older. That background has made his case even more notable, especially as recent examples elsewhere show that teenagers can be trusted early. Lamine Yamal made his breakthrough at Barcelona as a 15-year-old, while Max Dowman had already featured for Arsenal in the Champions League and Premier League before turning 16.

The report says United are seen as “far away” from five of Europe’s elite clubs that Gabriel would consider joining. Barcelona and Real Madrid are both said to have been strongly linked with the player, who turns 16 in October and can move across Europe through an Irish passport. Gabriel’s father, Joe O’Cearuill, is believed to have already met with both Spanish clubs, with the preference thought to be Madrid.

That said, the report also notes a potential complication. Real Madrid are currently led by José Mourinho, a coach known for valuing experienced professionals over unproven youngsters. Barcelona, meanwhile, are under Hansi Flick, who has two teenagers in his starting XI and regularly places trust in La Masia. Whether Gabriel would break through there remains an open question.

Andy Robertson has described the emotional weight of Liverpool’s 2025-26 campaign after Diogo Jota’s death, saying the club’s struggles went far beyond tactics or transfer business.

The former Liverpool fullback said the atmosphere inside the dressing room was shattered in the aftermath of the tragedy, and that the pain affected every part of the team’s season. Liverpool finished fifth, ended without a trophy and later saw Arne Slot, Mohamed Salah, Ibrahima Konaté and Robertson depart.

“It’s difficult to describe or talk about it, because what we went through was horrendous,” the Scotland international said of Jota’s death on the Stick to Football podcast. “If I’m talking about the new signings, they’re coming into a club that is heartbroken, and they’re trying.

“That’s when I felt so sorry for these guys because they had signed and they were signing for big money. If I’m talking about football, when it took them months to settle in, because we were like ghosts.

“We didn’t care about football. That was the truth of it. We didn’t care about football because we just lost one of our best mates in the changing room.”

Liverpool’s decline was severe even before the emotional backdrop was fully considered. After winning the league in 2024-25 and spending close to £450 million ($600 million) last summer on players including Florian Wirtz, Alexander Isak and Hugo Ekitiké, the side had to wait until the final day of 2025-26 to secure Champions League qualification.

They closed the campaign on 60 points, 25 behind title winners Arsenal. Under Slot, the club’s defeat total rose from four in his debut league season to 12, with half of those losses coming in the opening months after Jota’s passing.

“All footballers have that edge, don’t we, and I think when you lose that edge, sometimes you can’t perform to your best,” Robertson continued. “I think last season we lost the edge. When I look back on it now, I think we lost that determination a little bit, because I know at times we were going, ‘What’s the point?’

“Look at what his family are going through, look at his kids, but we were grieving. It was our mate, at the end of the day. He’s not just a footballer to us. He was a teammate, a friend. He was everything. For us it was incredibly difficult.”

Jota’s memory remains part of the club’s response, with Liverpool retiring number 20 ahead of last season and wearing a special honorary patch on their shirts.

Kylian Mbappé has explained for the first time why he chose Paris Saint-Germain over Liverpool in 2017, despite strong encouragement from his mother and co-representative, Fayza Lamari.

At the time, Liverpool had made a serious push for the forward, with Jürgen Klopp winning over Lamari during the pursuit. She visited the city, the stadium and met the people, and came away convinced the club was special. Mbappé recalled how firmly she backed the move, saying: “My mom was a big fan of Jürgen Klopp and the favourite destination for my mom was Liverpool . She wanted me to go there,” Mbappé told The Athletic . “I didn’t listen because I wanted to play in my city, Paris. I didn’t want to leave my country before I was someone. But yes, my mom was always saying ‘Liverpool—you’re going to be there, playing at Anfield, it’s going to be insane for you.’ I was like, ‘O.K.!’

“She went there [for] the first step of the negotiations. She went to the city, she went to the stadium, she met the people. She was like, ‘It’s a wonderful club, everybody’s so kind, it’s a family club, a big club.’

“She went to Anfield and fell in love with it. She watched a few games alone, to feel the atmosphere, because she wanted to imagine me in this stadium.

“All the time we were talking. ‘What do you think, Mom?’ She’d say, ‘For me, you have to go to Liverpool. I said, ‘O.K., O.K., O.K.!’ because Jürgen Klopp was an amazing manager. I met him and had a wonderful relationship with him. I had big respect for him.”

Klopp later described the attempt as “the most expensive non-transfer we [Liverpool] invested in,” and recalled the unusual private-jet meetings that took place during the chase. But Mbappé made clear that his mind was elsewhere. “I said to him, ‘Whatever decision I take is going to be a good decision because we are talking about some of the biggest clubs in the world.’

“It’s a funny story. But in the end I took the decision to go to PSG because for me, born and raised in Paris, there was no better feeling than to show I could be a star in my home town.”

His mother had one final reaction after the PSG move. “You’re a genius at football, Kylian,” Mbappé’s mother told him in the summer of 2017 when he moved to PSG. “Aren’t you going to be bored in Ligue 1?”