The Warm-Up: England begins to expect, goalkeepers talk balls again, PSG count on Conte

History tells us not to get excited about England before a major tournament, whatever your base camp of “excited about England before a major tournament” might be. However, a trip to Holland (fine, the Netherlands, whatever) and a visit from Italy – both slightly patronising friendlies with nations who will be mere World Cup spectators – always carried the slight potential of Getting Carried Away A Bit.

As it turned out in Amsterdam (once the cattle herd of 40-something Daves had finished mooing about the mid-1940s accuracy of the Royal Air Force), we were left with an oddly un-English moderate sense of “huh, that was alright, wasn’t it?”

Jordan Pickford, whose turn it was to try and persuade Gareth Southgate spin round in his chair and press his “I WANT YOU” goalkeeping button (That’s ITV’s The Voice, philistines), only briefly oozed sheer panic. John Stones looked like someone who actually is playing regular Premier League football. Kyle Walker’s selection as the right-side centre-half of three – widely frowned at before kick-off – was a rare England experiment that both a) actually made sense, b) worked quite well and c) might actually be repeated in a game that matters.

Meanwhile, an earnest midfield trio of Jordan Henderson, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Jesse Lingard – prepare yourself here – actually moved the ball around quite well. It is that department in particular where England find themselves several light years behind.

Once again, goals were at a premium, but that the winner should go to Lingard seems most heartwarming of all the possibilities: a player in good domestic form for a big club, oozing genuine enthusiasm, and with the willingness to buy a ticket in front of goal. I’m calling it now: England are getting out of the group stage.

The World Cup news cycle is a reliable old goat, isn’t it? Late March, the schedule says, is traditionally the perfect moment for the Goalkeepers’ Union to issue their statements about the official tool of their upcoming major-tournament trade: the World Cup match ball.

Like clockwork, out came a trio of Adidas Telstar dissidents. Spain’s David de Gea and Pepe Reina, plus Germany’s Marc-Andre ter Stegen, all had the usual feedback for the 2018 ball following their 1-1 friendly draw in Dusseldorf.

“I bet you as much as you like that we’ll see at least 35 goals from long range [in Russia], because it’s impossible to work out,” Reina told AS. “And it’s covered in a plastic film that makes it difficult to hold on to. Goalkeepers are going to have a lot of problems with this ball.”

De Gea concurred, despite being a fully paid-up Adidas man, calling the ball “really strange…it could have been made a lot better.”

It was left to Ter Stegen to deliver the quadrennial line about goalkeepers just having to get on with it, even though FIFA have given them a beachball. “I think we’re just going to have to get used to working with it, and try to get to grips with it as quickly as possible before the World Cup starts,” he sighed. “We’ve got no other option.”

In the grand scheme of the Elite European Managerial Merry-Go-Round, Antonio Conte to PSG makes almost too much sense, Clive. His exit-door trajectory at Chelsea is well established by months of newspaper whispering (which is a shame, but that’s for another blog), while the soon-to-be champions of France are virtually guaranteed to dispense with the service of the Champions League-averse Unai Emery.

The Guardian’s Fabrizio Romano exclusively joined those dots this weekend, revealing that PSG have begun preliminary talks with Conte’s representatives over a summer move. The other early candidates – Jose Mourinho, Diego Simeone, Massimiliano Allegri and Mauricio Pochettino – are virtually untouchable in comparison to the Chelsea manager, even with the limitless Qatar fund.

A small pay-rise for Conte will, surely, be enough to persuade him to swap Premier League top-four stress and boardroom politics for Ligue 1 titles and a spot of ego-massaging for the next few years.

If a team’s lying in 8th in late March, it might be a stretch to call them “title-chasing”…unless they have FIFTEEN games in hand. That’s the predicament facing North West Counties League Premier Division side 1874 Northwich, who are going to be very busy for the next few weeks…

Ice baths all round.

So, there we are: 72 hours is now the benchmark for Much-Heralded New Signing to transform themselves into Debutant That Manager Says He “Wants To Kill”.

This was Dundee United’s mood on Wednesday…

…only for things to deteriorate after just ninety minutes on Saturday.

One assumes that Csaba Laszlo just chilled on Sunday.

The BBC’s Thomas McGuigangoes on the road with fans of now-relegated Brechin City – Played 29, Won 0, Drawn 4, Lost 25 – who have seven games remaining to try and avoid being the first senior British club to go an entire season without a league victory to their name.

On this day in 1999, Poland’s under-21s are dismantled by a tidy cross-section of young English midfield talent at The Dell: two goals each for Frank Lampard and Lee Bowyer, plus one from Lee Hendrie:

It’s Wales vs Uruguay! Bale vs Suarez! The China Cup final! Take the morning off and catch all the action – in Welsh, which is brilliant for football commentary – on S4c.