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Never mind the quality, feel the money: central flaw of football’s ‘greatest show on earth’ | Barney Ronay

Title race and relegation over by February? The Premier League is rich, but there’s no jeopardy and no real sense of excellence, at least not on the pitch

Ladies and gentlemen we have now reached our cruising altitude. The pilot will be putting his feet up and drinking tiny cans of Sprite from here to the middle of May. Sit back, zone out. Stick on a bad film with Seth Rogen in it. You can even watch the football if you like. Just don’t expect much to happen for the next three months.

So much for that excitingly bumpy, turbulence-fuelled Premier League season, all perky upstarts, crumbling certainties and unexpected shifts of altitude, which really did seem to be shaping up just a few short weeks ago. As of game weekend 26 and Arsenal’s defeat against West Ham, followed by Liverpool strolling through Manchester City, the league has reached a stage of premature entropy.

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Mid-majors aim to make final statements for NCAA selection committee ahead of league tournaments

There are a handful of teams from mid-majors that could make life very stressful for programs from the power conferences come Selection Sunday, especially if they fail to win the automatic NCAA Tournament berth in their own league tourneys. New Mexico and Utah State are nearly locks from the Mountain West, but San Diego State, Boise State and Colorado State are likewise clinging to NCAA aspirations. The Aztecs can help their cause against New Mexico on Tuesday night, the Broncos face Utah State on Wednesday night and Colorado State plays Utah State and Boise State down the stretch.

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Sheffield United 1-3 Leeds United: Championship – live reaction

Leeds scored three goals in the last 20 minutes to stun Sheffield United and move five points clear at the top

9 min: Off the line by Gruev! Meslier is looking vulnerable on set-pieces. He paws Peck’s corner back towards his own goal – he thought he was fouled, the referee disagreed – and Gruev did brilliantly to stoop forward and head the ball off the line.

8 min A long throw from the left is spilled by Meslier, who is very relieved to dive on the loose ball before any Sheffield United player can get to it.

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Ben Stokes to skip the Hundred in order to focus on England’s Ashes tour

  • England captain to prioritise fitness for Australia series
  • Moeen Ali also withdraws and retires from county game

Ben Stokes and Moeen Ali have both withdrawn from this year’s Hundred. England’s Test captain has chosen to focus on his fitness and his duties with the red ball, and Moeen has decided to retire from county cricket so he can grasp the opportunities offered by global franchise leagues.

The competition has brought only bad luck to Stokes, who in five appearances has scored only 14 runs at an average of 3.50 and sustained one serious hamstring injury, while playing for Northern Superchargers last August. That pulled muscle kept him out of all cricket for two months and, after a recurrence while playing for England in New Zealand late last year, he required surgery from which he is recovering.

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