Saka returned from the World Cup and after a break rejoined the Arsenal squad, playing his first minutes of this season in the Community Shield, coming on when the Gunners were already leading Manchester City 3-0.

His acceleration and sharpness during that cameo was something that was lacking towards the end of last season as the winger looked to help his team get over the line.

And after his starring performance against Coventry in the first Premier League game of the season, he hinted that after low minutes at the World Cup and a summer break he felt back to his best.

“I was training a lot so I could be ready for the start of the season and ready to help the team in the way I know I can,” Saka said in the mixed zone after the win.

“It was more about balancing my time off and not having too much of a break. I took seven days off and then started to train again.

“I’ve put in a lot of work since then and I’m feeling good. I just tried to come back in good shape, so I’m on top of my body.”

That motivation seems to have come from the frustration of not achieving England’s goal at the World Cup, with the winger returning to training a few days early.

“The World Cup didn’t necessarily go how I wanted it to, for myself and for the team as well,” he said.

“I felt really hungry after the World Cup, after the season ended. I was looking forward to this new season.”

Given the announcement dropped on the day of England’s 3-2 World Cup round-of-16 victory over Mexico, and in the early hours of the morning to boot, you may have been forgiven for missing it.

The news was that Sky had agreed to buy UK broadcaster ITV’s media and entertainment arm, including its free-to-air channels and streaming service, in a deal worth up to £1.6billion (US$2.1 billion).

It’s important to note the transaction has not yet been completed and is subject to regulatory approval, and if it goes through, completion is not expected until the second half of next year — but it would represent a major shakeup in the UK television industry if it does.

In its press release detailing news of the deal, Sky said the partnership would “create a commercial streaming champion for the UK”. But what does it all mean for televised sport? And how could it impact the way football is shown and consumed by audiences in Britain?

The Athletic spoke to numerous industry experts to try to find out.

What’s in this for both Sky and ITV when it comes to sport?

“For Sky, if we focus on the sports perspective, you’re looking at two main positives,” Dan Harraghy, a sports media analyst at Ampere Analysis, tells The Athletic.

“Firstly, being able to move certain bits of content, or certain matches, onto ITV channels can act as a bit of a shop window for Sky coverage.

“Then, with the reach of something like an ITV, being able to move content there attracts more eyeballs and therefore you’re going to generate greater ad revenue, so the advertisers are going to really like that.

“So there is a kind of a monetisable play there, as well as a strategic one. It also creates quite a strong offering when the combined entity goes into rights negotiations, because I think a lot of rights holders do value the combination of revenue with reach.”

For ITV, meanwhile, the major benefit is access to Sky’s greater financial resources.

ITV said it can “already reach around 40million people every week and serves more than 16.5m monthly digital users. Combined with Sky, the business would account for around 20 per cent of all in-home viewing in the UK, second to the BBC and ahead of YouTube”.

In terms of revenue, Paolo Pescatore, a media and technology analyst at PP Foresight, tells The Athletic that Sky generated £10.4billion in revenue in 2024, compared with £2.1bn for ITV’s media and entertainment arm. “That makes Sky roughly five times the revenue scale of the ITV business it is acquiring, even though ITV brings significant incremental mass-audience reach,” Pescatore explains.

Meanwhile, Harraghy says that in terms of financial resources, Sky spends around £2billion annually on sports rights, while Ampere Analysis estimates ITV has paid roughly £200m this year.

Sky Sports’ coverage of the opening Premier League game of the new season last Friday (Michael Regan/Getty Images for Premier League)

“You’re part of an entity that has deeper pockets,” Harraghy says. “Being able to work in conjunction with Sky, when negotiating rights, for example, puts you in a position of strength.”

Tim Westcott, who leads Omdia’s research on TV and video programming and channel distribution, tells The Athletic he wasn’t surprised by the news, as ITV has been the subject of takeover speculation for some time. “But most people probably thought the main interest was in ITV studios, rather than the broadcasting bit, because the broadcasting has really not been growing at all in terms of revenue,” he says. 

As part of the deal, Sky will acquire channels ITV1, ITV2, ITV3, ITV4 and ITV Quiz and streaming service ITVX. It will also become an indirect 20 per cent shareholder in ITV when the purchase is finalised. The £1.6billion deal consists of £1.2bn in cash, Sky-owned Love Productions (maker of shows including The Great British Bake-Off, valued at £200m) and up to £200m in performance-related earn-outs.

Asked about the thinking behind the deal, Westcott says Sky was eager to develop its advertising sales, but generally has relatively small audiences compared with ITV.

“I think really the logic of the deal is for Sky to bring the content it owns to a wider audience and monetise it through advertising, as well as its subscription model,” he said. “And from ITV’s point of view, there’s a lot of attractive content that they could take that Sky already has the rights to and exploit it on free-to-air.”

David Murray, a commercial sport and negotiation consultant, says Sky, which is owned by U.S. media company Comcast, is “not the beast it used to be”, while the traditional TV advertising business is struggling because viewing habits were shifting to digital and online.

“So, in those circumstances, it makes sense, because you can combine resources and save costs,” he tells The Athletic. “In theory, it makes the company more efficient, and it reduces competition in the marketplace as well.”

So what could this look like in reality?

Announcing the news last month, Sky said in its press release that “the combined business will deliver more sport free-to-air on ITV services than ever before”.

“There is a possibility of more matches on free-to-air,” Westcott says. “If Sky can carve out some of its rights from pay TV and put them on free TV, without undermining the consumer who’s paying a subscription for Sky Sports or Now TV, but bring the bigger audience that there would be to events, whether it’s the EFL or Premier League, that’s what they would aim to do.

“The Premier League and the clubs wouldn’t want to undermine the fact they have very successfully marketed the Premier League as a pay product by putting too much of it on free TV. At the same time, common sense would say that giving the clubs more exposure and bringing in less dedicated fans, you would think the Premier League would see that as a positive.”

Harraghy says there was an opportunity for Sky to show both live and highlights-package content on ITV’s free-to-air service. Under its public broadcasting licence, the latter must remain free-to-air until 2034.

Former England striker Ian Wright and USWNT head coach Emma Hayes on pundit duty for ITV (John Walton/PA Images via Getty Images)

“There is an opportunity for Premier League matches to move in front of the paywall,” he says. “Strategically for Sky, the consideration is how many games could you put there for it to be worth doing — both as a shop window for Sky’s coverage and to generate additional advertising income — without compromising subscription revenue.

“So, if you put half of the matches free to air, for example, suddenly people are just going to unsubscribe because they’ve got their sports content free to air. There’s a middle ground in there somewhere for them to consider.

“There’s an opportunity to also put highlights programming there as well. It could be an additional competitor to something like (the BBC’s) Match of the Day, being able to put digital highlights and clips on ITVX as well.”

Mike Darcey, formerly of Sky and now the author of the Tellynomics blog, says it could lead to a few Premier League matches on free TV in the future, but tells The Athletic that consumers would likely see a “taster, not a flood, and expect a lot of promotion of Sky Sports”.

So what sports could we see on which channels?

In terms of its sport offering, ITV currently holds the rights to several ‘crown jewel’ events, including the FIFA World Cup, UEFA European Championship, rugby union’s World Cup final and horse racing’s Grand National. Under rules established by the UK government in 1996, these are among the major sporting occasions that must be made available on free-to-air television in Britain.

ITV also holds rights to several other major events not on that list, including rugby union’s Six Nations and World Cup (excluding the latter’s final), the FA Cup (excluding the final) and English Football League.

FIFA World Cup coverage is part of ITV’s offering (Martín Fonseca/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images)

This summer, the BBC reported that the government was considering new laws to ensure UK viewers could continue to access streaming and catch-up coverage of these ‘crown jewel’ events for free.

However, as the second-biggest beneficiary of listed events, Murray said there was a risk that being owned by Sky turns ITV into a ‘Trojan Horse’.

“It could push and test the limits of listed events with the ultimate goal of undermining them,” he says. “It also makes an ITV-only bid for the World Cup or Euros more likely, with some content ending up on Sky. For the BBC, the risk of losing those ‘crown jewels’, potentially as well as Match of the Day, makes them a clear loser of such a deal. So there’s some interesting strategic elements there about what happens to those big listed events moving forward.”

Darcey agrees there could be cause for concern about a campaign to relax some of the ‘crown jewel’ rules. “I’m not sure that every single game in a 64-team FIFA World Cup will remain listed, so Curacao vs Iceland might not always be free,” he suggested.

However, any potential change would depend on how the regulations currently in place are interpreted and enforced.

A further scenario that could play out is Sky choosing to put certain events currently broadcast on ITV, such as a major Rugby World Cup clash or a game in that sport’s annual Six Nations tournament, behind its paywall.

Harraghy says a potential worry for consumers is that, among the major sports broadcasters in the UK, a Sky/ITV deal could impact subscription service TNT Sports, potentially weakening competition in the market.

“If Sky suddenly becomes a bit of a standalone entity in the UK market, then that’s never a good sign for fans in terms of price points,” he says. “There’s less incentive for them to compete with anyone to drop prices.”

Is this about battling digital streaming platforms?

Sky explained in its press release how the UK media market is “undergoing a profound and rapid transformation, and as competition for audiences intensifies, scale matters more than ever in order to compete with global streaming giants and YouTube in the UK”.

So is the real story here less about traditional television and more about the battle with the new players in town — such as Amazon Prime, Disney+, Netflix and Apple TV?

“The threat to Sky is from your big digital global platforms that can outbid them if they so choose,” Murray says. “Sport is unique and brings people in year on year, so it potentially becomes a differentiator.”

Champions League coverage on Amazon Prime last season (Julian Finney – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

For Westcott, one of the major disruptors is YouTube.

“YouTube has really got heavily involved in sports, and it does have a huge footprint in terms of the amount of time per day that people spend watching it,” he says. “So I do think that Sky looking to buy a broadcaster is certainly part of that concern about what the future of its business is. Sky has to do something to respond to these global players.”

Harraghy says that, in the UK, we haven’t yet had streamers acquiring sports rights to the same extent as in other markets.

“But we’re starting to see it a little bit more, with Paramount taking the Champions League rights in the UK (from 2027 to 2031), for example,” he says. “That’s the direction of travel in the market. So a combined Sky and ITV entity creates quite a strong proposition in a time when we’re seeing increased competition for eyeballs more broadly across streaming.”

Darcey describes the looming deal as a strong response to the global digital streamers. “In that battle, I think that serious domestic focus and scale, combining strength in subscription and advertising, with a strong spine in sport, is a serious player on the field,” he says.

Francois Godard, a media analyst, agrees. “Without the rise of streamers, this wouldn’t happen,” he tells The Athletic. “Clearly, there must be a response to the streaming channels, and part of this challenge is you run with more than one leg.”

For now, all eyes will turn to the UK’s competition regulator to scrutinise the Sky/ITV deal, which could significantly reshape the British media landscape.

Expected goals (xG) have rapidly become a staple of football.

The metric simply measures the quality of a team’s chance creation and is one of many barometers for a team’s success over a season. But individually and across smaller sample sizes, xG allows for quirky takes and interesting trends that feed fan discussions more than extensive analysis.

This Premier League season, The Athletic will dive into the various dimensions within xG to spot some of those trends in our Expected Premier League Tables.

The inaugural edition compares the 20 teams’ xG across Matchday 1 to their xG generated per league game in 2025-26. Sample size is the biggest caveat here — no sweeping generalisations can be made just yet.

Even on paper, Coventry City’s reintroduction to the Premier League after 25 years away — a visit to reigning champions Arsenal — looked daunting.

Frank Lampard’s team waltzed to the 2025-26 Championship title, recording a league-high 1.9xG per 90. At the Emirates on Friday, they managed about a tenth of that, with 0.2. Seventy-five per cent of that came from a Jack Rudoni header in the 86th minute that was easily saved by David Raya.

Arsenal’s 1.9xG was the most they have managed in their opening league game since the 3-0 win over Fulham in September 2020. That game saw Gabriel score from a corner, a familiar sight in 2025-26 too, but against Coventry, Mikel Arteta’s side scored three times from open play.

Title rivals Manchester City needed a set piece to draw level against Bournemouth, with Marc Guehi curiously unmarked in the box to score. That effort came half an hour after Guehi missed a chance worth 0.77xG from a corner, somehow directing his header wide.

City had just 13 shots, their second-fewest in an opening game since 2018-19.

Bournemouth underperformed their xG in each of their five Premier League seasons between 2019 and 2026 (and in one of their two Championship seasons in that time).

They had the top two xG underperformers in 2025-26, with Evanilson and David Brooks scoring seven combined goals from 16.9xG. That was marginally offset by Eli Junior Kroupi scoring 13 times from 8.4xG and Antoine Semenyo netting 10 times from 6.7xG before moving to City in January.

Marco Rose’s first game in charge saw them record just five shots worth 0.65xG. Evanilson turned provider for Marcus Tavernier, who became just the second player to score against City on the opening weekend since 2018 (after Son Heung-min in August 2021).

Brentford’s 3.9xG against Spurs is the third most by a team in the opening game of a Premier League season since 2018. It was also the fourth most they have recorded in a top-flight match since returning in 2022.

Efficiency has been their model. Brentford have recorded just 72 shots (worth 11.2xG) across their six opening games and have scored 12 goals from just 28 shots on target.

Spurs recorded their sixth-lowest xG total since the start of 2025-26 with just 0.57. Their xG allowed was the third most since the start of 2023-24, behind the 6-3 loss to Liverpool (5.6xG) in December 2024 and the 4-1 defeat to Chelsea (4.1xG) in November 2023.

Roberto De Zerbi’s sides can be prone to conceding multiple big chances if their pressing structure is exploited. In 54 Ligue 1 matches under him, Marseille conceded 73 goals and 73.7xG, while his Brighton side allowed 108 goals and 98.6xG in his 68 Premier League games in charge from 2022 to 2024.

Outscoring opponents will likely be Spurs’ best chance of winning matches under De Zerbi, especially in the time it takes them to adapt to his out-of-possession demands.

Brighton & Hove Albion account for two of the top four entries for most xG recorded on Matchday 1 since 2018. They put up 3.8xG against Aston Villa on their way to scoring four times, following on from the 4.0 they managed in a 4-1 win over Luton Town in August 2023.

Fabian Hurzeler’s side created the two best chances of the weekend too. The shot that led to Maxim De Cuyper’s goal was worth 0.96xG, while Jack Hinshelwood’s effort for the first of his double was worth 0.87xG.

For Aston Villa, this was nothing new. They created only 0.2xG in their 0-0 draw against Newcastle in their 2025-26 opener, when Ezri Konsa was sent off in the 66th minute. They slightly improved that to create 0.27xG against Brighton this time around, with Joao Gomes dismissed late in the first half.

Villa’s three matches after the Newcastle draw saw them create 2.8xG and fail to score. With Arsenal visiting this weekend followed by a trip to Hull City, the going in front of goal might be similarly difficult for Unai Emery’s side, especially if striker Ollie Watkins is still unavailable.

Newcastle United’s first game under Matthias Jaissle saw some positives in attack, especially in transition. This was their first league game with two fast-break goals since a 3-0 win over Leicester City in April 2025.

Their pace in attack feasted on a Liverpool side who were far too open in midfield. But Andoni Iraola’s side recorded 27 shots, and their 2.98xG generated was better than in 36 of 38 games last season.

Cody Gakpo’s long-range fizzer was worth all of 0.04xG, making it the joint-best finish of the weekend on xG terms.

It was level with Anton Stach’s late free-kick winner for Leeds United against Nottingham Forest. None of Leeds’ 11 efforts at the weekend were worth more than 0.09xG, while their 0.47xG generated was worse than in all but three games in 2025-26. Those are signs of how difficult it was for them to break down Oliver Glasner’s side.

Eleven of their 49 goals last season (including one own goal) came from similar low-quality shots worth under 0.1xG. Leeds have prioritised quantity over quality, with Stach’s strike their eighth goal from outside the box since their return to the top flight.

Forest had the best chance of that game in xG terms when Murillo sent Chris Wood through, but the veteran forward snatched at the chance, worth 0.12xG, and sent it wide. Ten minutes earlier, Wood’s strike partner, Igor Jesus, headed an Ola Aina cross wide at the far post, missing a 0.11xG chance.

Morgan Gibbs-White ranked fourth for xG overperformance last season (3.9; 15 goals from 11.1xG), while Wood was second in 2024-25 (6.6; 20 goals from 13.4xG). They might need something similar again as Glasner’s former side had a habit of wasting chances.

Crystal Palace were the Premier League’s serial xG underperformers over the last two seasons, scoring 92 goals in 76 matches from 119.6xG. The negative difference of 27.6 was nearly double the next worst team, Chelsea, on -13.4. Pierre Sage’s Lens faced similar issues in 2025-26, scoring 42 goals from 53.5xG.

Palace faced more of that against Everton over the weekend, failing to score despite creating 1.96xG, having recorded 1.5xG or more in eight of their 15 losses last season.

The brilliance of Jordan Pickford, who made the weekend’s best save from Eddie Nketiah’s 0.6xG-worth shot, was a factor. Jean-Philippe Mateta was guilty of missing two golden first-half chances worth a combined 0.7xG, hitting the post with one and firing over from in front of goal with the other.

Palace got themselves into good positions and created quality opportunities, though, and that is an encouraging sign for Sage.

Chelsea converted three of their four biggest chances in xG terms in the 3-2 win over Fulham. Romeo Lavia’s 36th-minute stab towards goal was the only exception, with Bernd Leno making a good sprawling save.

What made it an even more clinical display was how little of the ball they had. Chelsea’s 38 per cent possession in Xabi Alonso’s Premier League managerial bow was their third-lowest in the league since the start of 2024-25. They still managed 18 shots, more than in 32 of 38 games last season.

Fulham took advantage of some shaky goalkeeping from Robert Sanchez for both their goals. But Alvaro Arbeloa’s side also managed six shots on target, tying their highest tally from 2025-26 (on seven occasions), from 14 total efforts.

This was only their second league loss when overperforming their xG by 0.3 or more since the start of 2024-25. One of those was the 2-1 defeat to Chelsea in April 2025, while the other was the thrilling 5-4 home loss to Manchester City in December.

Everton also had a contender for goal of the weekend through Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s stunner from a difficult angle, also worth just 0.04xG. Thierno Barry’s headed finish from Iliman Ndiaye’s cross, though, was an example of what could prove to be a fruitful strategy for David Moyes’ side.

Since the start of last season, only Chelsea (12.7) have created more xG from back-post crosses than Everton’s 8.8. In Barry and Beto, they have two excellent attackers of crosses into the box, having combined for 27 headed shots in the league in 2025-26.

Hull City used a similar strategy against Manchester United on their return to the top flight, scoring twice from headers through their centre-backs. The win, created by solid defensive foundations, saw their seventh-best xG overperformance since the start of 2025-26 (+0.99; two goals from 1.01xG).

Manchester United recorded 1.8xG but struggled to create quality chances. Michael Carrick’s team got just five of their 21 shots on target, while eight attempts were blocked. Their shot accuracy of 24 per cent was worse than in 33 of their 38 league matches last season. Sixteen of those attempts were worth less than 0.1xG.

Ipswich Town were also successful on their Premier League return, creating marginally more xG (1.8) than their 2025-26 average (1.7) in the win over Sunderland.

New signing Emersonn took one of the best chances of the weekend to get off the mark, tapping in a 0.77xG shot. Daizen Maeda could have joined him in scoring on debut but got his header from a good area worth 0.61xG horribly wrong.

Those two attempts contributed to Ipswich’s high xG tally despite attempting just 10 shots, fewer than in all but two games in the Championship last season. Jack Clarke’s late effort, with defenders and goalkeeper Robin Roefs to beat, was worth just 0.05xG but proved the winner.

For Sunderland, this was familiar territory, marking the 17th occasion in the 39 league games since the start of 2025-26 where they recorded 0.75xG or fewer. Nilson Angulo’s free kick, though, was their 15th goal out of 39 total (excluding four own goals) in that time to come from 0.05xG or less.

Their two best chances against Ipswich fell to Brian Brobbey, but Leif Davis and Marcelino Nunez threw themselves in the way to block on both occasions.