Leicester boss Craig Shakespeare has held talks with Demarai Gray over his future and wants the winger to stay.

Liverpool 3 Middlesbrough 0: When the two minutes of injury-time were up, Jurgen Klopp stood slowly, grinned, hugged every man on the Liverpool bench, and then went and casually but earnestly shook the hand of Steve Agnew, the Middlesbrough caretaker manager.

NEWSPAPER instant-polls are becoming more knee-jerk than ever before, but I’d forgive the British broadsheet that asked its readers last week: “Is Paul Scholes the greatest-ever United player?”

FESTIVE greetings to you, dear reader – assuming you are a blessed Red, naturally. May any eavesdropping Scousers-Bitters-Rent Boys have a miserable New Year.

Former Tottenham manager Terry Venables has laid the blame for the club’s dire start to the season squarely at Dimitar Berbatov’s door, bemoaning the Bulgarian’s “poisonous presence” at the beginning of the campaign.