Southgate ended culture of cliques
GARETH SOUTHGATE’S popularity may be waning but for anyone in any doubt of his achievement, read micah Richards’ account of what it used to be like to play for england. The cliques, the separate manchester United and Liverpool tables at dinner. ‘i don’t think we were ever united enough as a team that everyone in the squad was talking to everyone else,’ he recalled. Southgate (above) found a way around that. every manager talks of wishing to get a club spirit with england, but he achieved it. and it’s not as if those club rivalries no longer exist. The biggest challenge for his successor will be to not let it slip back to where it was before.
IT WOULD be a blow for England to lose Reece James or even Trent Alexander-Arnold but nothing impacts on Gareth Southgate’s plans like being without Kyle Walker. He is unique in being able to operate at right back or right centre half, which gives Southgate flexibility and makes his hybrid three-four-five man defence work. Walker might not be the best right back at Southgate’s disposal, but none of his contemporaries have sufficient experience to fill that role. We think we have an embarrassment of riches in Walker’s position, but he is truly a man apart. It would be a huge blow if he was not ready for Qatar.
THERE were 1,341 laps scheduled for the 2021 f1 season, and, although not all were completed, max Verstappen won the drivers’ championship on the 1,341st. as a sliver of the planned racing it equates to 0.074 per cent. So quite how an overspend of less than five per cent by Red Bull constitutes a minor transgression is a mystery. if a title can be won on goal difference every goal is important. The same with every run in a Test series. and as f1 responds to money, it seems strange anything up to $7.25million is considered trifling. Still, it’s f1, so what the director says goes. Race director, programme director, who can say?
W SERIES racing may not return next year. ‘We have not been in receipt of funds due to us,’ said chief executive Catherine Bond Muir. It is a blow and may not be the last. In times of recession, commercial decisions will be made and it won’t be the Premier League bubble that bursts. It will be the little bubbles that rely on good intentions, the possibility of growth and optimism.