The Fiver | Beating competition from Europe's most admired clubs and PSG

SKY ROCKETS IN FLIGHT …

Back in the day, Serie A attracted the best players in the world. From Diego Maradona and Michel Platini to Ruud Gullit and Paul Rideout, all the stars flocked to Italy, lured by big salaries, high-brow competition and the prospect of tucking into ice-cream with James Richardson. To an impressionable young Fiver it seemed like a ball had not truly hit a net unless a commentator screamed “Gooolaazo!”, and the Milan derby could take the edge off a Purple Tin hangover. Heady days.

Italian football’s golden age soon faded; money and players moved elsewhere, conspiracies got busted. Many of the world’s top players and coaches, plus Rémi Garde, began heading to England and European trophies went to Spain. But recently Juventus, winners of 43 Italian titles on the trot, have re-emerged as a European force, an ambition they have asserted loud and clear by completing the signing of one of the most coveted young players on the planet [don’t you dare do the Theo Walcott gag – Fiver Ed] Jesse Lingar … sorry, Matthijs de Ligt.

Of course, Juve already signalled their lofty intent last season by splurging around €100m on Late Career Ronaldo, but even he cannot carry a team that has a big gap in its midfield and, as it were, a hole in its rear (though he brought a lot of success to Real Madrid when Pepe was there). De Ligt should solve the latter of those problems and will also increase Juve’s threat from set pieces, a point he made well last season by scoring the goal that booted the Old Lady out of Big Cup.

Juve have paid Ajax an initial fee of £68m for the defender – potentially rising to around double that amount – and will give the teenager a salary to which The Fiver cannot count for fear of aggravating another hangover. But by beating off competition for the Dutchman from some of Europe’s most admired clubs and Paris Saint-Germain, Juve have shown they mean serious business. And the prospect has drawn closer of Aaron Ramsey lifting Big Cup next year a matter of weeks after Arsenal’s relegation.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“It is the first block of toilets I have opened. I was at 10 Downing Street on Monday talking about helping young people and the problems we have on the streets and then here on Wednesday, so it has been an interesting week” – social housing’s ‘Arry Redknapp cuts the ribbon on a reopened lavatory in Hamworthy near his home in Poole. It’s quiet.

Redknapp, earlier. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock

FIVER LETTERS

“I can’t help feeling that perennial fan disappointments Newcastle and Arsenal should get together and be one giant super-whinge of a club. Newcarsenal? Imagine the combined might of both sets of fans sending a particularly harshly worded open letter to the joint CEOs of Mike Ashley and Stan Kroenke. Or the awesome threat of 100,000 supporters not turning up to games but deciding on the day that, ah well we’ve paid for our season tickets so might as well go anyway” – Paul Buller.

“The lead-in link to John Brewin’s excellent piece about Saint and Greavsie on Big Website (yesterday’s Still Want More?) presents an important linguistic distinction: the legendary striker suggests that life in the football media ‘should be fun’. Crucially, this is different to suggesting the football media ‘should be funny’, which is a naive expectation to project on to tea-timely emails across the country” – Ed Taylor.

“So I took the bait, and Googled HHAGTFABM (Fiver letters passim) and, to my surprise, there were not three, but five references. It seems the The Fiver is popping up everywhere. Are the Fiver Lawyers having a busy day?” – Gavin Simmonds.

Send your letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. And you can always tweet The Fiver via @guardian_sport. Today’s winner of our letter o’the day prize is … Paul Buller, who wins a copy of Here We Go: Everton in the 1980s – the players’ stories.

NEWS, BITS AND BOBS

FA suits will appeal against the six-week ban and £75,000 fine handed to Daniel Sturridge for breaching its betting rules. A regulatory commission found the former Liverpool striker guilty of giving his brother inside information on a possible move to Sevilla – he ended up at West Brom. The FA considers the sanction too lenient.

The Qatari organisation in charge of staging the 2022 World Cup has agreed to hold a wide-ranging inquiry led by a British judge into the death of a British worker during construction of a stadium for the event.

Ali Issa Ahmad, the British fan who says he was detained and tortured while on holiday in the UAE because he wore a Qatar shirt, has lodged a legal complaint with the UN about his treatment.

Kieran Trippier is happy to have joined Atlético Madrid. “I’ve always wanted to play abroad and what a place to play,” he tooted. “They have world-class players and I can’t wait to work with the manager, learn from the manager and help the team be a success in the future. You can see how close he is with his squad.” The Fiver wonders if he’ll be quite so rhapsodic once he’s been caught upfield a few times.

Love an Atlético unveiling. Photograph: Manu Fernández/AP

Can see it in their eyes, yeah, that they’ve got a transfer ban. So Frank Lampard’s Chelsea will spend it on a new deal for Callum Hudson-Odoi instead. “Callum knows how I feel, he can be absolutely central to this team,” cheered FLC’s Frank Lampard.

And Wee Gordon Strachan has washed up at Dundee as their new technical director.