Beckham to be awarded knighthood | Will Diaz leave Liverpool? | Wiegman: England not in crisis
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Welcome to Back Pages, bringing you everything you need to know about the biggest sports stories making the headlines in the morning's newspapers. I'm Chris Latcham. Joining me are Jonathan Liu from The Guardian and Miguel Delaney from The Independent. Welcome, Tubbo. We'll come straight to you, Miguel. It's services to football. He is, of course, a former England captain. He tried to help the country win the World Cup bid in 2018, but also I think services to Bran Beckham have been ticked every step of the way.

Yeah, you say services to football. I mean, at this point, I was wondering this when we were talking about how we're going to discuss it on air.

Is Beckham the most famous person in the world for basically being himself, for being David Beckham, basically? Because it does feel like his fame has gone way beyond what he was as a footballer. I mean, you talk to some people around the world who now know him as David Beckham and are actually surprised that he used to be what he was. I mean, like the football career really speaks for itself. Champions League winner, Manchester United.

you know, multiple trophies at Manchester United, one of the best players in one of their best ever teams, on to Real Madrid, Milan, you know, there's obviously the influence in America, but it does seem like his career, or sorry, I don't want to say his career because it's more than that at this point, but the trajectory of, I suppose, his lifestyle has gone in a completely wider direction, really,

And I suppose the one maybe slight surprise about this is that where Beckham had seemed to be on a trajectory where he was heading for a knighthood, I mean, you did mention there about how they did feel as if they'd been campaigning for this for so long. That maybe took a little bit of a hit when he received a lot of criticism for working with the guitar World Cup hosting. But I remember hearing a story from that, from Beckham's role there, which is basically that...

You could be in the room and the people from all sorts of different political sides. I mean, that was a highly politicized World Cup. It was a World Cup where Iran and USA delegates found themselves in the same room and weren't talking to each other naturally enough, given the politics. And yet Beckham walks in and everyone wants to see him. He causes a room to light up. And it's hard not to feel that influences some of this, especially we're talking about this kind of ambassadorial role that I feel his very name carries.

Yeah, some athletes get their knighthoods during their sporting careers. Jonathan, I'm thinking Lewis Hamilton, Andy Murray, many, many more. David Beckham's had to wait a good few years after his playing career came to an end, which is, as Miguel says, the original reason that David Beckham was known.

Yeah, I mean, I'll be perfectly honest, until I saw the front page of this, I just assumed he'd been knighted already at some point, which is kind of how closely I've been following this. He was a good footballer, yes. Was he better than Scholes, who is not knighted? Hard to say. But again, you know, these things are...

I guess, you know, this whole obsession with honours, getting them, campaigning for them, queuing up for 20 hours to see the dead queen in order to try and get one. It's sort of part of the... It's a little bit of a weird British obsession, isn't it? It's one of the kind of

feudal cosplay that's kept our country, held our country back for so long. But, you know, good luck to him. Well done to him. Obviously, as Miguel says, very heavily involved with the Qatar World Cup, so used to bending the knee to royalty. So he will fit right in amongst the, is it the peerage? He'll be in that big book now, which lists all the knights and dames and peers, right? I'm sure that's

When he was a little boy playing football in his garden in East London, I'm sure that's exactly what he was dreaming of. Yeah, I can see you're a big fan of this, Jonathan. Just one final one on David Beckham, Miguel. How does his life change now he is to be made a knight?

well I suppose all the kind of privileges that come with that obviously but also I haven't actually kept abreast of what you're still allowed to do as a knight but I suppose for him I mean as Jonathan's kind of mentioned there this had evidently been an ambition it was pretty much well known and I suppose there will be maybe a sense of satisfaction for him but

He won't stop being David Beckham, which is one of the most famous people on the planet who's now carrying football TV shows with megawatt celebrities like Tom Cruise. So we can expect that to continue. That's one thing at least that won't change.

Should we flip from the front page of The Sun to a story that I can tell you're not that into, Jonathan, to one that hopefully you will be a bit more into on the back page of The Sun, which is Luis Diaz leading to many headlines about how his future at Liverpool is in doubt. But this is because he has been completely open and speaking down the camera about how he's been talking to other clubs. Yeah, is Luis Diaz being knighted? He's not being knighted, is he? No, he's not. He's on the back pages. There's only one...

Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, great. So, I mean, this is about the... So, on international duty, he's been... He's kind of admitted that he's been talking to clubs. And I guess, you know, a little bit of a surprise, really, given, you know, what a season he's had at Liverpool, possibly second only to Salah in terms of the effectiveness of their attack.

And, you know, the thing is, he is 28 now. He's got a couple of years left on his contract. And if Liverpool are going to cash in, the time is probably now. And I think this is a kind of a knock-on effect of a lot of the contract shenanigans that Liverpool have been undergoing over the last sort of six to 12 months with obviously Salah

for a new deal, ultimately getting a big new deal, Van Dijk too. And, you know, it's possible that other players in that dressing room are thinking, well, you know, we've just won the league. Our marketability, our value is at,

at its very highest, you know, is this not the time to be cashing in on that? And obviously with Barcelona sanctioning a bid for him, he's obviously got a little bit of leverage there. Yeah, just a bit of leverage. The male go with Liverpool warn hands off Diaz. They've rebuffed a Barcelona bid, but the Saudis standing by with a mega money bid. It does feel a bit like Salah walks out with a contract in his hand and just gives a high five to Diaz waiting outside the chairman's door.

Yeah, I mean, to be fair, this is something that's been rumbling for some time. I think it was about two years ago, actually, that Barca's interest in Diaz was first reported. At the time, he was actually probably at his most impactful for Liverpool.

He's been good this season. It maybe hasn't quite... Yeah, it probably hasn't quite evolved to the kind of the super levels that, say, Sadio Mane and Roberto Firmino did around Salah. And maybe the way some of the club expect it. I think they've got... Outside Salah, they've got a good forward line rather than one that's necessarily devastating right now, like Klopp's best team. But, of course, we do know at the moment that...

that slot actually wants to I suppose rearrange it I mean the targeting of Florian Wurz is a clear sign of that I mean it's going to be a very different attack next season if they can complete the Wurz signing which at the moment does look likely and in that then suddenly there's maybe a

there's less of a less likely role for Diaz. And I do wonder whether some of this might actually be, I mean, Liverpool saying hands off, some of it might be just a bit of kind of like public negotiation because they do expect this to be a bit of a fluid summer. We already knew going in that Liverpool weren't just looking at their attack course, but they were going to bring in maybe up to five players, possibly more. While they do have a lot of PSO or headroom,

that will necessitate some sales as well or at least sales will make it more comfortable so I would say this is one where there's a long way to go and on that long way to go we're at that point of I don't want to say the season because are we still in the same season but point of the year where international break meets the start of a transfer window where suddenly players just feel

feel free to start coming out with this sort of stuff. Yeah, I mean, it's exciting for us doing these jobs, but it does seem a bit rogue from Luis Diaz. We have to watch this space on that one. He did say he's happy to stay for the right price. Let's focus on the Times' back page. Jonathan, I'll throw this one to you first, because for the last two nights we've been talking about England and whether or not they're in crisis. Three players made themselves unavailable, retired or just not 100% ready to go in Millie Bright's case.

And Serena Vigman has stressed that England are not in crisis ahead of this European Championship. What's your take? Well, I don't think they are. I mean, obviously, you know, you would need to be in the camp to get a firm read on that. But if you look at these various...

narrative strands. There doesn't seem to be a huge amount linking them. Fran Kirby wasn't going to get anywhere near the first team. You know, she's been obviously struggling with fitness issues. And so she decided to retire. Mary Earps, who wasn't going to be the first choice, she decided to retire. And now we have Millie Bright, who is a big blow to England's defence, but not as big a blow as in hindsight it would have been taking a half-fit Millie Bright. Obviously, I think she's gone for knee surgery this summer.

Now she's taken a break from that tournament. On the pitch, obviously, things looked pretty fluid against Portugal the other night, Spain, the Spain defeat that they showed promise in patches. I think what Wiegand's message will be is you try and block out some of this noise because it is almost a confluence of unlucky things that has been happening to them. But the fundamentals of this team, the first 11, basically doesn't change. I think Greenwood comes in for Millie Bright at the back.

And I mean, just as a kind of an afterthought, as an aside to this, it is kind of refreshing to see women's football all over the back pages like this. Not for scandal, not for cheerleading, but just, you know, because it's news. And I think if the players take any kind of heart from that, it's the fact that people do care about this team and people care about this tournament. And if that doesn't focus their minds ahead of the summer ahead, then nothing will.

Yeah, and I think one of the stories that we'll be covering over the next month up to the tournament, Miguel, is Lauren James is included, but she's not yet fit to feature. It's a bit like the parallel you could draw to David Beckham. There he is again. Fresh to be knighted from 2002 and Wayne Rooney in 2006.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you almost couldn't have an England tournament campaign without it, or at least a classic England tournament campaign. And I suppose, yeah, it's all the more interesting given that, I mean, all of this talk of crisis really develops about kind of different, I mean, two opposing interpretations about what some of Wiegmann's decisions mean. From one perspective, I think one of the more critical perspectives that is talking crisis, there is a lot of chatter, I suppose, that

Some of the players have taken themselves out of the reckoning because they're not happy with the role that was expected for them or the role that was put to them. And also that this supposedly fits into maybe a growing sense that there's just that slight perception or that growing perception that Wiegmann might be in the job that bit too long.

The other side of that is, and there are just as many, actually, there's probably more, to be fair, who would say there's no Christ at all, that this is just the way Wiegmann has always operated. And like, I mean, you can look at that from two ways as well. I mean, this team has now been together. Obviously, it's not quite the same team that won this tournament three years ago, but as the core of it has been together for a long time.

I remember a similar situation, I suppose, Spain around 2014, where they kept their core group together for one tournament too many. And really, they do need a kind of refresh, a kind of recycling. And that's not going to happen without some headlines like this, I suppose.

Yeah, Jonathan, I want to draw your attention to the sidebar on the back page of The Times. Gary Jacobs' story, Arsenal target Villa's Morgan Rodgers. Looking to strengthen, they already are doing. Martin Zubimeni from Real Sociedad is coming in. Morgan Rodgers now is a target. Still not a centre-forward, Arsenal fans will be saying. No, but a fantastic goal-scoring threat. Had a breakthrough season with Villa.

And one of those players who gets into unusual positions or, you know, his off the ball movement is really good. You know, often, you know, he reminds me a lot of Dele Alli in the fact that he would, you know, sometimes he would disappear from games for 20, 25 minutes. And then he would, you would almost kind of, he would almost drop off the radar and then he would pop up with a crucial goal. He'd pop up with a crucial assist or a crucial touch.

And I think it is an area that Arsenal occasionally struggled last season in terms of the predictability of their attack coming at teams from slightly different angles. I think the whole Saka-Odegaard axis, when they weren't injured, it did become slightly readable at times. So introducing new angles and Rodgers is a very unpredictable sort of attacker. It does kind of make sense from that perspective.

Yeah, it feels like an Arsenal style of play, Miguel, because he's capable of playing in more than one position.

Yeah, absolutely. And we know with Arteta, especially in midfield, which I know has become a focus for Arsenal fans of late, he does like almost kind of multiple possible configurations. And Rodgers can fit into that, obviously. Well, even if that wouldn't be the preference, they'd want him for attack. But it's an interesting one, this, because I know Arsenal did inquire a few weeks ago. Obviously, Gary's reported that it's gone further now and he is an outright target. And I do think, actually, there's maybe...

of opportunism about clubs here because while I don't think Villa's situation is as bad as had been anticipated with PSR given they didn't qualify for the Champions League, they don't absolutely have to make sales in the way they did say in the summer. But clubs are still sensing that...

If Villa want to progress in the way they hope, that maybe there's a chance that some sort of business can be done. Arsenal are obviously there. I mean, they spoke to Villa in January about Oli Watkins. I previously reported that Chelsea have a strong interest in Morgan Rodgers. And yeah, he was one of the revelations of last season. And it's natural that if there's any hope at all of a deal, a lot of clubs are going to be looking for him. And as you say...

He gives the team something very different. And Arteta, one of the things he really wants this summer is a bit more of a kind of an explosive nature to his attack, which as Jonathan said, they didn't miss at times last season, particularly when Saka or Odegaard were out. Let's go to the mirror. Back page straight to it. Teased it before the break.

Now refs lay into VAR. This is Bobby Madley, the referee, says that VAR is ruining the game for fans and it means we'll never see another Aguero moment. I mean, it's nothing new. Man says VAR isn't good. But it is interesting that it's coming from one of the leading referees in one of the leading leagues in the world, Jonathan. Yeah, and I think he's just voicing a sentiment that most of us, I think, have... Well, certainly a lot of us have come round to. You know, I don't think...

I don't think it's a great thing for the game. I think a lot of the negative portents that people predicted would arise from VAR have come true, basically. It's not solved any controversy. It's created more controversy. It's brought a renewed and more vindictive focus on officiating than I think would have even been thought possible a few years ago. So yeah, I mean, it is interesting.

So it's not really a secret that referees are, you know, many referees are no big fans of VAR. They would just prefer to make the decision and get on with the game. I think that is ultimately where a lot of us stand on it.

Yeah, he does most of his refereeing in the EFL these days, Bobby Madley says. As a fan, I hate it, hate it, hate it. I love the championship. I love League One. I'm still a fan because they don't have that in the championship. But there are still big moments. I think about the Harry Maguire goal that he scored late in the semi-final of the Europa League. Even though there was VAR checks with that, there's a dual celebration. Can it not still work alongside football and still be a force for good, Miguel? Yeah.

Maybe I'm wrong here. I must say, I've always felt that's slightly overplayed here just because, I mean, the instinctive reaction to a goal is to celebrate it. But then maybe, I mean, I'm probably more ambivalent on VAR than most. I can obviously see the many flaws. But at the same time, I do find myself, any time I watch kind of games that have passed now and you're seeing some obvious error, you kind of think, VAR? Maybe I've been conditioned in that way. But yeah, I mean, it's, again, in the same way, it's no surprise that refs...

uh, the refs don't really like it. It's no surprise. I'm going to say it needs obvious fixes, but I mean, what Madly has said points to a little bit of a split there because while we know that a lot of refs aren't keen on it, and there was those, there were those comments from Mike Dean, uh,

a few years ago where he spoke about how he didn't want to send a referee to VAR. I mean, the PGMOL and I suppose the entire kind of refereeing fraternity and those responsible for rules in the game, they're so strident on VAR to the sense that there's not an inkling anyone's ever going to consider getting rid of it.

Yeah, can't see a football world without it. Now, at the fifth page of the Telegraph Sports Supplement, Brentford tell Manchester United to up their opening £55m bid for Brian and Bermo, Jonathan. This is a lot of money, but it's a player that has proven that he can do it regularly in the Premier League. How much do you think Manchester United are going to end up having to stump up for him?

Yeah, I mean, I think they can obviously, they have a little more room than possibly Jim Radcliffe was intimating a few months ago when he did that round of interviews. And I think he's worth it. You know, I think they should be prepared to pay top broader for Mboma. He's obviously had a fantastic season in front of goal, but he offers so much creatively as well. So, you know, the weird thing about Mboma this season is he massively outperformed his XG in terms of shooting and finishing, but he's massively underperformed it in terms of assists. So,

as long as they have a plan for how to get the best out of him and Kunio and whether it's, you know, with a number nine like Hoyland alongside them, then I think he's a great signing for them, to be honest.

I want to stay with the Telegraph, but I'm going to go back a page. So page four, Jack Grealish hits back at critics on City exit, Miguel. Everybody is open season talking about Jack Grealish. He looks like he's not going to the Club World Cup. He was left out at the end of the season, didn't feature in the FA Cup final. But now he's hit back on social media saying, what do you want me to do? Score a hat trick in the 20 minutes that I'm given on field and basically maintaining that when he's given minutes on field, he performs well. Is he correct?

I was about to say, like, I feel a bit sorry for him and that usually it's ill-advised for players to get involved in that because ultimately it's going to be kind of a losing battle or you're drawn into some sort of discussion where they really wouldn't want to be in. But in this case, I think actually fair enough because he can point to his impact. It's obviously been, it's been such a difficult season for Grealish in that way. And I think fair play to him for standing up for himself. And,

But obviously, I suppose the solution now is he needs to find, or he needs to get a move and really the right club. I know the Telegraph as well, Matt Law wrote that, or floated the idea of Grealish going back to Villa. Now, if Morgan Rodgers were to go, it does feel like, I mean, it would be such a kind of a fitting signing in so many ways, with a bit of emotion to it as well, given Grealish hasn't exactly heard that he's never lost a love for Villa.

Yeah, no-brainer is the story by Matt Law in The Telegraph, Jonathan. Does that feel... We've seen them loan Marcus Rashford. It feels like a fit. It certainly does. I mean, obviously, like Miguel says, there's that huge emotional pull there. Also, if they can make the sums work, you know, him...

earning Villa £100 million and then coming back for a fraction of that, and potentially, you know, he'd have to take some kind of hit on his wages or they need to work something else out there, you know, he would be providing a double service to them. Jonathan, we don't have too much time, but there's a really interesting story in the mail. Brydon Kast, I nearly got my toe amputated. Can you just tell us a bit about this?

Yeah, well, he almost got his toe amputated. Thank you. No, I mean, because basically he's come... Like, fast bowlers, they have, like, disgusting... Like, the amount of punishment they put through their feet is kind of ridiculous. And so he actually considered getting amputated to kind of get around all the injury problems he was having. And it's just...

It's just another example of how fast bowlers are just kind of a different species. You know, Stuart Broad famously, like the little two, the two little toes on his left foot basically died through overuse. And yeah, it's like they are built differently to us.

Unbelievable. I mean, it's late night after the watershed, but that's pretty grim. And there's pictures in the mail. I remember there was a New Zealand bowler, I think it was Astle, he used to cut holes in his shoes to release the tension on his toes. Yeah, I mean, a lot of them do that because the amount of weight that's going through that front foot is about three or four times your body weight. You know, there are blisters, there are calluses, there's often blood. Yeah, and that just sums up this show. What a way to finish this. Blisters, blood.

And that is Back Pages tonight. Jonathan, Miguel, thank you.