Who’ll afford to make Messi quit?

AHEAD of England’s defeat in Paris, Eddie Jones warned the French they would be visited by “absolute brutality”.

France were 17-0 up by half-time, inspired by the threats from Jones. Ahead of tomorrow’s visit to Murrayfield, Jones said of Scotland: “They’re a niggly side, aren’t they? They’ve done that through the ages. That’s the way they stay in the game and they are good at it.”

Jones likes to think he is a very, very smart coach.

And if very, very smart is regularly giving the opposition the perfect team talk, no-one could argue.

THE curiosity about whether Lionel Messi could do it on a cold, wet, windy night in Stoke is never going to be satisfied.

Messi (below) is not going to a Championship side soon. But there are suggestions he may be on his way from Barcelona after a public fallout with sporting director Eric Abidal.

Messi’s contract expires in the summer of 2021, but he has an agreement that he can walk away for free at the end of this season. Clearly, all is not well at the Nou Camp, but when pondering where Messi may end up, consider his current income from Barcelona, as reported by Football Leaks. His deal is said to be complex, but the bottom line is that it makes paymasters at Chinese clubs look like cheapskates. Pretty much a guaranteed €106,347,115 (£90,277,534) a season, rising to €122,515,205 (£104,002,544) if they win the Treble. So, if Barca win everything next season, Messi’s money will be – if the Football Leaks figures are to be believed – €2,356,061 (£2,000,048) a week.

My guess is Messi is going nowhere this summer.

ROSS BRAWN, Formula One’s sporting director, has worked with both Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton (right). This week he said the two were similar in the sense they did things that left their team “speechless”.

There is no more respected expert than Brawn. As he starts his preparations for the new season, maybe Hamilton does not indeed get the credit he deserves.

IT was a smashing Super Bowl last Sunday and winning Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes is truly a phenomenal talent. And when it was suggested he is becoming a frontman for the NFL in the same way as, say, Tom Brady has been, Mahomes (left) replied: “I’m just trying to be the best Patrick Mahomes I can be.” Referring to yourself in the third person? The true sign of a great, already.