Levi Colwill enjoyed a fine opening to 2023 by starting in back-to-back big victories for Brighton & Hove Albion. First up was a visit to Everton in the Premier League, with the centre-back helping keep the Toffees at bay in a comfortable 4-1 win which took them back up to eighth in the table. The result owed much to a brilliant spell after half-time, when Brighton scored three times in the space of six minutes, although an injury-time Everton consolation from the penalty spot denied Colwill a clean sheet.

Colwill’s run of starting every game for Brighton since the World Cup continued as they travelled to Middlesbrough in the FA Cup third round. After a brief fight from the Championship side, when they quickly equalised after the Seagulls' early opener, the away side cruised to a 5-1 win to book their place in the next round.

Baba Rahman and Reading also secured their place in the FA Cup fourth round, thanks to goals in added time of each half when they hosted Watford on Saturday. The Ghanaian international started the match at wing-back as the Royals dominated the opening 45 minutes, deservedly taking the lead with almost the last touch before the break. It was a slightly more even second half, but Reading were not to be denied and made it 2-0 in injury time, shortly after Baba had left the field.

Harvey Vale made his first start for Hull City since September in the same game fellow Chelsea loanee Xavier Simons was given his full debut by the Tigers, as they hosted Fulham in the FA Cup third round. The Championship side were a little unfortunate to be eliminated by their Premier League opposition and Vale wasn’t far away from getting the first goal when he took advantage of a defensive error to latch onto a high ball forward, but couldn’t find the target with his finish. Instead, it was Fulham who took the lead late in the first half and then made it 2-0 with the last kick of the game, striking on the counter with the Hull keeper stranded upfield after going forward for a long throw.

Romelu Lukaku returned from injury to start his first match for Inter Milan since August as they inflicted Napoli’s first defeat of the season in Serie A. The striker played an hour at the San Siro and twice fashioned good chances for team-mates which went wasted before Inter took the lead in the second half, holding on comfortably to end top-of-the-table Napoli’s incredible run of results and open up the title race.

That result also moved Inter into the top four, but they missed a chance to make further progress when they travelled to Monza on Saturday. Lukaku came off the bench for the final 35 minutes with his team leading 2-1, but there was nothing he could do to prevent team-mate Denzel Dumfries putting into his own net in injury time to make the final score 2-2. That leaves them seven points behind leaders Napoli.

Ethan Ampadu started a pair of draws for Spezia, but was very unlucky not to have earned four points from those two Serie A fixtures. Despite having their goalkeeper taken off injured in the first half, Spezia were already 2-0 up against Atalanta when Ampadu lashed in a half-volley to score what he thought was his first goal for the Italian club, only for his celebrations to be halted as it was ruled out for an offside in the build-up. He then went close again, skimming the crossbar with a curling effort, before being withdrawn shortly after Atalanta had pulled one back, meaning he could only watch from the bench as the visitors found an injury-time equaliser.

The Welshman then played the full match as Spezia hosted Lecce in an important game for the extremely tight fight just above the relegation zone. This time it was a more mundane draw, finishing 0-0, although the visitors had the better of the limited chances.

Malang Sarr was part of the Monaco side which suffered a shock penalty shootout exit from the Coupe de France at the hands of second-division Rodez. The centre-back played the full match as Monaco took a 2-0 lead inside the first 40 minutes at home, but Rodez pulled it back to 2-2 before the end. The home side even scored their first four penalties to have a chance of winning the shootout, but missed the next to go out in the third round.