Football Daily: What you won't see in the Premier League this weekend
Quick summary
The Guardian's Football Daily newsletter highlights notable absences and storylines that will be missing from the Premier League weekend action.
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That icy wind rattling the rafters is the cold reality of what follows the closure of the transfer window, a hungover pall of regret. Despite £3.5bn shelled out in the men’s window, several things will not be happening in the Premier League when they might have been. When Arsenal host Chelsea for a most super of Sundays, Vinícius Júnior will not be playing in their attack, and neither will Gabriel Martinelli, whose lengthy social media disgrace farewells on his departure for Saudi Arabia pointedly made no mention of Mikel Arteta.
Re: yesterday’s Football Daily . Perhaps Messrs Vardy and James thought they had booked Jasper Carrott to kick off their hilarious podcast party. And got the not-so-funny doppelganger Mike Dean instead?” – Jim Arrowsmith.
With Premier League clubs now owned by a motley assortment of hedge funds, petrostates, billionaires and so on, perhaps the time is right to take a leaf out of pro cycling’s book and name the teams after their owners and sponsors. It will be a regular reminder to fans that the football entities they support are far removed from the community-based groups of like-minded individuals that the word ‘club’ denotes, and that they are instead cash-cow playthings of the mega-rich. As for me, I’ve been a fan of Fosun International Debet since they were known as Bhatti Brothers Manders Paints and Inks” – Neil Withers.
As someone who likes watching football rather than wasting time on transfers, this week has been boring, to say the least. Not so dull that it’s been enough to pick up a book, mind, but still. However, the result was that, after finding out that West Ham have a midfielder called Engels , I was sent down an internet wormhole and discovered that there is also a Brazilian midfielder called Marx Lenin (his real name, not just a nickname). Now, if only we could get them to play together, we would have something. Revolutionary tactics, no one in the centre or on the right wing, everyone on the left (a bit like Arsenal circa Henry, Pires and Ashley Cole), etc” – Noble Francis.
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What happened
The Guardian's Football Daily newsletter previews the Premier League weekend by focusing on what won't be there rather than what will — examining players, storylines, or elements absent from the matchday. Without access to the full article body, the piece appears to be a light, editorial roundup typical of The Guardian's daily football newsletter, published early in the 2026-27 season around September 4.
Chance analysis
Newsletter-style previews like this serve as quick orienting reads for fans scanning the weekend's action, drawing attention to absences — injured stars, departed players, or suspended figures — that shape how a matchday actually feels even when they aren't on the pitch. Early-season editions often revolve around the just-closed transfer window and lingering selection questions, making the framing a useful barometer of which absences are dominating the conversation at this point in the campaign.
General editorial preview of Premier League weekend; no specific team or player impact identified from the available headline alone.