Brighton's desperate search for a striker will go down to the wire

At time of going to press the long awaited, and much needed, new striker has yet to arrive at the Amex.

Whilst Graham Potter has clearly worked on both the defence and midfield, as the late great David Coleman famously, ‘goals pay the rent’, so I firmly believe the striker will arrive at some point, older fans will recall in 2000/01 that Bobby Zamora arrived the day before the season started.

Later than usual, for reasons beyond my control, it’s time for Harty’s annual predictions.

Manchester City will win the League, with it being a two horse race with Liverpool, United and Arsenal will make up the remainder of the top four, and Jose Mourninio will ‘engineer’ a Tottenham exit by Valentine's Day.

At the other end of the table, striker permitting, the Albion will have enough to stay up, finishing above the following teams, (in no particular order) Burnley, Palace, West Brom, West Ham, Aston Villa, Leeds, Newcastle and Fulham.

So 12th it is then........

Another week, another scandal involving Premier League footballers.

This time two of the country’s brightest talents, Manchester City’s Phil Foden and Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood break Covid curfew regulations whilst on England duty in Iceland - you have probably seen what they did.

Whilst the Covid issue is a huge factor in all of this, does the fact of the players development as youngsters also play a part?

Taken by their respective club academies at an early age, they effectively go through their all important years of personal teenage development in a bubble, then if things work out for them on the pitch, fame and fortune soon follows.

So we throw all this money and attention at relatively young, and expect them to behave like Nigel Havers, basically in almost all cases it’s not going to happen.

The two involved are potentially influential to the future of the national team so no doubt this will be soon forgotten.

On the plus side for the two players, at least they didn’t have to play in Tuesday’s bore draw with Denmark, and after Saturday’s turgid last-gasp win against Iceland there are serious question marks about Gareth Southgate’s tactical ability to manage England?

None of us should be fooled by talk of early season syndrome regarding the level of the England performances, (they’ve all been playing and training since June) he got the job by default, he arguably got lucky in Russia and many are already asking is he really the man for the job ahead of next summer delayed European Championships?