A chronic lack of ambition has laid waste to Tottenham | Jonathan Wilson

Ange Postecoglou has serious shortcomings as Spurs manager. But he has hardly been helped by a team trying to do things on the cheap

The good news for Ange Postecoglou is that it seems relatively straightforward to recover from being Tottenham manager: his two immediate predecessors, Antonio Conte and Nuno Espírito Santo, are top of Serie A with Napoli and third in the Premier League with Nottingham Forest respectively. As the banner unveiled on Sunday by Spurs fans during the defeat by Leicester read: “24 years, 16 managers, one trophy”. Nobody really looks at Tottenham any more and thinks the problem is the manager.

But it is usually the manager who pays the price. Their past 10 league games have yielded four points. They have just lost against Everton, who had not won in six, and Leicester, who had lost their previous seven. They’ve reached a stage at which it feels possible that they could lose any given fixture. The only saving grace is that they are 1-0 up against Liverpool after the home leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final and that they are sixth in the Europa League table, assured of automatic passage to the last 16 if they beat the Swedish side Elfsborg on Thursday.

Continue reading...

LaJoie to run limited schedule with RWR and be analyst for Prime Video’s portion of NASCAR schedule

NASCAR driver Corey LaJoie will run a limited Cup Series schedule with Rick Ware Racing this year and also be an analyst for Amazon Prime Video's portion of the Cup Series schedule. LaJoie will drive No. 01 Ford Mustang for Ware as he works to build his Stacking Pennies Performance Brand. RWR did not announce how many races LaJoie will enter in Monday's announcement, but the 33-year-old will attempt to qualify for next month's season-opening Daytona 500.

Fit-again Alex Mitchell set to rekindle England partnership with Marcus Smith

  • Scrum-half took full part in Monday’s training session
  • Willis will get second cap and Smith keeps fly-half role

England have been handed a major boost for their Six Nations opener against Ireland on Saturday with Alex Mitchell passed fit to start at scrum‑half. Mitchell gave Steve Borthwick a scare after sustaining a knee injury this month but he has been deemed ready to rekindle his half-back partnership with Marcus Smith in Dublin.

Mitchell sat out England’s entire autumn campaign with a neck injury and was missed as Borthwick’s side fell to three defeats out of four. He has emerged as the head coach’s first‑choice scrum-half, however, and – having taken a full part in the session on Monday after being unable to train last week – he is poised to retake the No 9 jersey against the defending champions.

Continue reading...