Photograph: James Williamson\/AMA\/Getty Images<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n9) Time running out for Rodgers?<\/h2>\n
Brendan Rodgers is an excellent coach \u2013 if you\u2019re not sure, just ask him \u2013 but it might be that he\u2019s running out of road at Leicester, who sit bottom of the table with one point from six games, and travel to unbeaten, third-placed Tottenham this weekend. The malaise is not all his fault, as his board gave him little scope to reinforce this summer, citing FFP regulations and ground improvements as the reason. But it is hard to not to wonder if the pandemic was also influential, reduced travel meaning reduced duty-free income for the King Power group \u2013 a line the club would never speak in public, because who\u2019s going to excuse a parsimonious billionaire during a cost of living crisis? Rodgers, though, must also justify any funds allowed to him, which is to say it\u2019s time for him to coax or force tunes out of Patson Daka and Boubakary Soumar\u00e9, players bought amid fanfare last summer but who\u2019ve contributed little since. DHa<\/strong><\/p>\n10) The importance of Calvert-Lewin<\/h2>\n
Dominic Calvert-Lewin\u2019s status as Harry Kane\u2019s understudy looked secure in the England hierarchy 14 months ago when he replaced the captain in the Euro 2020 quarter-final win over Ukraine. He has not played for the country since, and this week saw Brentford\u2019s in-form Ivan Toney named in Gareth Southgate\u2019s squad for England\u2019s final internationals before the World Cup. Qatar now appears a distant hope for the 25-year-old, who has been restricted to just 18 appearances for Everton since winning his last cap due to toe, thigh and knee injuries. Frank Lampard has been desperate for Calvert-Lewin\u2019s presence all season and, despite signing Neal Maupay, claimed the centre-forward\u2019s return diminished the need to add another striker in the transfer window. Goals remain a serious problem for a team without a Premier League win this season but, having resumed training during the enforced break, Calvert-Lewin should soon have opportunity to repay his manager\u2019s faith and perhaps send a late message to Southgate. Andy Hunter<\/strong><\/p>\n\n- Everton v West Ham, Sunday 2pm<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
1) Games that should have been held last week The Premier League should not have postponed last weekend\u2019s fixtures. If people are working, it is wrong to confiscate their recreation, and that\u2019s before we consider fans who\u2019d taken time off or paid for transport in order to watch their team. Moreover, there are families relying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":25730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3295],"tags":[9951,4231,569,285,2824,5304,3347,6986,5717,3752,502,7717,1827,2115,850,13263,1911,8924,169,9331,8908,6672,6731,5222,10853,8440,13076,7923,12885,1258,6310,11067,2419,306,5984,6738,9026,746,11355,6496,5247,168,7619,7090,1261,803,1966,8137,11491,69,1259,11525,11294,10954,9343,6654,460,301,197,7225,3684,12791,11252,501,10481,4807,1717,496,8323,7534,170,11973,5485,4082,13256,267,8552,1260,10722,8505,7963,8160,266,1935,3306,11653,8298,7333,723,6584,9364,5180,7231,10885,8033,10943,12790,6218,2178,3954,720,36,5248,594,7898,5140],"class_list":["post-25729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-sport","tag-age","tag-ama","tag-antonio-conte","tag-arsenal","tag-aston-villa","tag-attack","tag-australia","tag-bees","tag-billionaire","tag-borussia-dortmund","tag-bournemouth","tag-brentford","tag-brighton","tag-calvert-lewin","tag-cambridge","tag-cap","tag-champions-league","tag-chance","tag-chelsea","tag-city","tag-coach","tag-cost-of-living","tag-coup","tag-covid","tag-cricket","tag-crisis","tag-discipline","tag-dortmund","tag-eddie-howe","tag-england","tag-erling-haaland","tag-escape","tag-euro","tag-everton","tag-fa-cup","tag-families","tag-fans","tag-feel","tag-flight","tag-food","tag-football","tag-frank-lampard","tag-fulham","tag-games","tag-gareth-southgate","tag-goalkeeper","tag-guardiola","tag-haaland","tag-harris","tag-harry","tag-harry-kane","tag-injuries","tag-injury","tag-international","tag-investment","tag-jordan","tag-lampard","tag-leicester","tag-liverpool","tag-loan","tag-london","tag-manager","tag-manchester","tag-manchester-city","tag-midfield","tag-mikel-arteta","tag-newcastle","tag-newcastle-united","tag-nottingham","tag-nottingham-forest","tag-old-trafford","tag-one","tag-pandemic","tag-pep-guardiola","tag-players","tag-premier-league","tag-qatar","tag-raheem-sterling","tag-removed","tag-rugby","tag-saint","tag-saudi","tag-southampton","tag-spurs","tag-steer","tag-steve-cooper","tag-steven-gerrard","tag-summer","tag-tottenham","tag-travel","tag-tyneside","tag-ukraine","tag-union","tag-victory","tag-video","tag-watch","tag-weekend","tag-west-ham","tag-west-london","tag-will","tag-wolves","tag-world","tag-world-cup","tag-who","tag-xi","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Filip](\"\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/83103f1e9ad78a752ca951f3c3168a0ba8d681ef\/410_150_3940_2565\/master\/3940.jpg?w=#{width}&h=#{height}&q=#{quality}&fit=bounds&sig-ignores-params=true&s=fc519e528dccc732800c888223de21d2\")
<\/a><\/div>