Manchester United have appointed former player Michael Carrick as their caretaker head coach until the end of the season.
Carrick, who was also the club’s caretaker manager in 2021, is United’s 12th manager or head coach – permanent or otherwise – since former boss Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.
We thought we’d put your knowledge to the test – so can you name all 12?
The Dodgers won’t be heading to an arbitration hearing after all.
Outfielder Alex Call (one-year, $1.6 million) and relief pitchers Anthony Banda (one-year, $1.625 million) and Brock Stewart (one-year, $1.3 million) each avoided arbitration, coming to an agreement with the Dodgers before Thursday’s MLB arbitration deadline, people familiar with the situation but unauthorized to speak publicly confirmed to The Times.
Call, the 31-year-old contact-first hitter that joined the team from the Washington Nationals at the trade deadline, hit .267 with five home runs and 31 RBIs during the 2025 season across 110 games, recording a career-high 1.5 wins-above-replacement.
After arriving in Los Angeles, Call played a reserve role behind Andy Pages and Kiké Hernández, appearing in 38 regular season games as a Dodger. The former third-round pick is set for an increased role in 2026, with utilityman Tommy Edman recovering from ankle surgery.
Banda, 32, is coming off his second season with the Dodgers — continuing to appear in a middle-relief role with relative success. The southpaw appeared in a career-high 75 games in 2025, recording a 3.18 earned-run average, 61 strikeouts and 34 walks. The two-time MLB champion also had a career-low .197 batting average against last season.
The 34-year-old Stewart, who began his career with the Dodgers before turning into a middle reliever for the Minnesota Twins from 2023-25, was expected to play a role post-trade deadline, but made just four appearances with the Dodgers before undergoing surgery on his right shoulder in September.
Stewart is expected to miss at least part of the 2026 season.
The Dodgers last went to an arbitration hearing in 2020, when the team headed into court with outfielder Joc Pederson and relief pitcher Pedro Baez. Since then, the team has mostly avoided arbitration dramatics.
Last year, after not being able to come to terms with relief pitcher Alex Vesia by the deadline, the southpaw and the team came to an agreement a few weeks later, avoiding a hearing altogether.
That contract included a 2026 club option for Vesia, which the Dodgers picked up.
The Kings and Ducks backed into Saturday’s rivalry game at Crypto.com Arena.
The Kings came out of the NHL’s three-day holiday break having lost six of their last seven, scoring just 11 goals over that span. Only two teams in the Western Conference have been worst in December.
The Ducks hadn’t been much better, though, having won just two of their last seven to give up their lead in the Pacific Division. But the league rules said somebody had to win Saturday and that proved to be the Kings, who rode a four-goal first period and Alex Laferriere’s first career hat trick to a dominant 6-1 victory that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score indicated.
Drew Doughty put the Kings in front to stay just three minutes after the opening faceoff, finding open ice on the edge of the crease, where he took a pass from Quinton Byfield and deflected it past Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal. The second assist on the goal went to former Duck Corey Perry.
Trevor Moore doubled the lead less than a minute later, redirecting in a feed from Brian Dumoulin in the left circle. Ducks coach Joel Quenneville responded by calling a 30-second timeout in an effort to settle his team.
That didn’t work, with Laferriere blasting a one-timer by Dostal from just outside the crease to make it 3-0 with 9:39 left in the first period. When Byfield scored on a power play in the final minute, the Kings had their first four-goal period of the season and their first four-goal game in nearly three weeks.
After being booed off the ice at the end of their last game, a 3-2 loss to Seattle on Wednesday, the Kings left to cheers for the first intermission.
The Ducks finally got on the board when Mason McTavish scored on the power play midway through the second period. They worked hard for that goal, outshooting the Kings 12-1 in the period, yet coming away with just the one score.
Laferriere wound up matching that less than five minutes into the third period, scoring on a breakaway to give him the third multi-goal game of his career and his first this season. Dumoulin and Anze Kopitar both got their second assists on the goal.
And Laferriere wasn’t done, scoring his 10th goal on a one-timer from the high slot at 13:15 of the final period. The six goals for the Kings matched their season high and was one short of what they had scored in their last four games combined.
LITTLE MIX’s Perrie Edwards flashed her bare baby bump as she gave a peek into family Christmas with hubby Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.
The singer, 32, shared sweet snaps from her Christmas with her footballer Alex, 32, and their son Axel, 4, as the couple prepare to welcome their second child together.
She posted a sprawling message on her Instagram to her 18.6million followers, exposing her huge baby bump as she spoke of feeling “content and blessed”.
Alongside a series of festive snaps and footage, she wrote: “Merry Christmas everyone!
“Excitement pumping through the family, amazing food, Christmas magic on repeat, house is now a pigsty, overstimulated, stayed in pj’s all day”.
Her caption continued: “Axels hair is a birds nest, I’m the size of a beach whale, can’t consume any more chocolate if I tried, need fork lifting off the sofa… but my goodness I feel content and blessed”.
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Among the selection of snaps, Perrie included a sweet video of her son Axel singing to her festive track Christmas Magic, which she released last year.
The singer, who is currently heavily pregnant, received over 500,000 likes on her Instagram post, as friends and fans threw support towards the couple in the comments section.
One wrote: “Axel singing christmas magic no i’ll sob that’s your biggest fan fr he’s giving us all a run for our money“.
Another commented: “My goodness, Axel is the cutest kid ever he’s gonna be the best big brother ever”.
A third added: “Merry Christmas beautiful & to all your family”.
Perrie recently revealed the couple suffered a devastating miscarriage before they had Axel, and lost another baby at 24 weeks in 2022.
Alex also broke his silence on their devastating losses, and said: “When you start a family, that’s when you start to learn it’s not easy to have a child, that things can go wrong.
“It’s so difficult — especially for women when they are literally growing another human being inside them, the connection they feel to that, and then can things go wrong and they can lose the baby.
“And it’s so difficult, especially losing the baby so late into the pregnancy.”
Perrie confirmed she was pregnant again in September, just weeks after opening up about her two miscarriages.
Speaking on the We Need To Talk podcast with Paul C Brunson, she said: “It’s weird, because the first time it happened, I think because it was so early, I was like, ‘Oh, that’s hard’.
“But I think when you’re 24 weeks and you’ve planned out that room and all these things, it’s really hard. And nobody knows other than immediate friends and family.
“I remember shortly after, friends would message and be like, ‘How’s the bump?’ And I’d be like, ‘There is no bump’.”
Perrie was also full of praise for Alex during the interview, saying: “He’s very mature. He’s very laid back. He’s very level-headed.
“He’s not the type to get mad or get angry or get funny about things. It might sound boring to some, but it’s so unproblematic.”
