Is Southgate making it up as he goes along?

Say what you like about Gary Lineker, and plenty do, but he’s a terrific presenter and when he’s not running it, Match of the Day dials down a notch. If he wants to bang on about the language of Suella Braverman and 1930s Germany, well it’s a free country – though elsewhere you might find his lachrymose response to the Gaza war somewhat tiresome.

When Lineker decided to ramp up his cosy, own-brand T-shirt style by using his podcast to call the England team’s (admittedly lacklustre) performance against Denmark ‘shit’, doubtless the bevvied-up boyos at the Croydon fan zone would have downed a few more pints in appreciation. He might not have been too far off the mark, but that sort of bar-room ballyhoo feels part of the endlessly rising violence of football discourse – in contrast to what, until now anyway, has been a remarkably well-behaved tournament. When Lineker’s views were put to Harry Kane, he suggested asking Gary and his podcast pals what they had ever won for England. Good point.

On England the world is full of experts but it is fairly amazing that Southgate seems to be making it up as he goes along. Why leave James Maddison and Jack Grealish at home if the players he preferred, Anthony Gordon and Cole Palmer, have barely had a look-in until the very end of the final group match? In the unlikely event of England winning this tournament, Southgate has every right to expect a valedictory knighthood.

Meanwhile, another would-be footballing knight of the realm finds himself in a spot of bother after a furious bile-ridden biography from that master of the hatchet job Tom Bower. Over the years David Beckham’s desire for a ‘K’ has been thinly disguised.