WHAT’S HOT WHAT’S NOT
HOT RYAN SESSEGNON
THE teenage left back is expected to join Tottenham this summer if Fulham do not win the Championship play-off final today. If he does go, Mauricio Pochettino will gain a fine player and a fine young man. Delayed by a drugs test after a recent game, the 18-year-old took his kit home and washed and ironed it before returning it to the club the next day.
GARY ROWETT
STOKE’S new manager was treated so badly when sacked by Birmingham that he cannot be blamed for putting himself first now. But having left Derby for the Potteries only months after signing a new contract at Pride Park, he probably needs to get this job right.
ALASTAIR COOK
THE former England captain’s longevity is admirable and his 70 in the team’s first dig at Lord’s was valuable. That knock will probably keep him in the England team all summer — and that probably says as much about the competition as it does about him.
NOT MICHEL PLATINI
THE disgraced former UEFA president claimed the draw for the 1998 World Cup was rigged so France and Brazil could meet in the final — and there was a time when such a claim would have sent shockwaves through football. But Platini’s reputation has sunk so low that nobody really knows, or cares, whether he is telling the truth. Platini was a magnificent footballer and it is tragic that he has turned out to be such a dreadful human being. Sometimes it is best to remember people for what they were rather than for what they have become.
WILLIAN
THE Brazilian is a gifted player and it’s a mystery why Antonio Conte didn’t play him more. By so obviously erasing the Chelsea coach from an FA Cup celebration picture on his Instagram page, Willian made his feelings very clear. Conte’s successor at Stamford Bridge would be foolish to overlook him, if another talented player isn’t to go on to experience success elsewhere.
SOCIAL MEDIA OBSESSION
EN ROUTE to Kiev, three former Liverpool team-mates sat in a business lounge at Munich before an appearance in a ‘legends game’ in Ukraine. Instead of chatter and talk of the old days, they spent two hours staring at their mobile phone screens. Whoever called it ‘social media’ was utterly wrong.