Progress of Pilgrims is a lesson to all

EVERTON were the latest top-flight club to tie themselves to a betting firm after announcing a £10milliona-year deal with stake.com.

It was announced amid grumbles, but is there another way?

Well, when you’ve bought players such as Fabian Delph, Gylfi Sigurdsson and Cenk Tosun - who cost over £80m and gave scant return for their salaries and were released this week – perhaps not.

The club defended its stance as dealing with the commercial realities of life in the Premier League, although, if their spending policies had been better, perhaps another commercial partner could have been chosen.

Which is a shame because, in League One, Plymouth Argyle have come up with a new approach.

The Pilgrims’ sponsors are food company Ginsters – known for their sausage rolls and pasties, etc.

But they have paid for the privilege of handing over the shirt sponsorship to Project 35 – a club initiative aimed at ending food poverty among children in the city.

A huge 35 per cent of kids fall into that category and Ginsters are also supplying 100,000 meals free.

Plymouth must count the pounds carefully, but their work in Devon deserves a few words of praise here.

WITHIN a fortnight of Erik ten Hag’s arrival at Old Trafford, there are reports about how he is going to lay down the law in Manchester United’s dressing room.

Just a word of warning to the new man – that hasn’t ended well for the last five managers.