Here's to Root, Sam and some proper sports news

While we’re at it let’s have a dozen cheers for Joe Root’s grit, Chris Froome’s saddle rash, Lewis McGugan’s new-found freedom, Lewis Hamilton’s driving gloves and Sam Allardyce’s great big face.

Thank you all and thanks to any other sports story that stops us having to read and hear any more stories about Paul bloody Pogba.

The lanky French force of nature is not to blame but the coverage of his proposed £100m-plus transfer from Juventus to Manchester United is driving us all barmy.

While club officials do their transfer tango teasing we have to suffer endless updates from obscure Italian journalists on the latest nuance of the deal or no deal.

There’s no doubting the lad’s ability - anyone who saw he and the wastefully gifted Ravel Morrison dominate the game between Sheffield United and Manchester United in the FA Youth Cup in 2011 at Bramall Lane will vouch for that.

Is he worth the money? Who cares?

They’ll make that back and a lot more in a couple of new sponsorship deals and a few shirts sold in the Far East.

Whatever happens please can we get it done now so we can go back to our music festivals, looking for Pokemon and worrying about Sam Allardyce.

But what’s wrong with Sam Allardyce?

Hand-wringing and cringeing tweeters and social trolls have been pulling their hair out since it was announced that the man who specialises in football rescue jobs had been asked to transform the England football team from chokers to contenders.

Some of the most decorated coaches and managers in the world have taken the England job in the 50 years since 1966 and, with a few exceptions, have made a bit of an arse of it.

Allardyce knows English football and English players better than most and he’s a man who has made the best of limited resources for most of his career.

If he can make England into a unit in which players bring out the best in each other in a co-ordinated and motivated team he will have done better than anyone since Ramsay.

He’s a good choice and a man who knows all about pressure. Or at least he thinks he does.

Let’s give him a chance.