We need to talk about Jack

The news that Jack Grealish is to be a character’s name in the next outing by thriller writer and Aston Villa fan Lee Child added an appropriately dramatic twist to the week’s spiciest narrative.

Then again, on the literary front, headlines such as ‘Grealish Hammered By Trolls’ might have had the uninitiated thinking the poor fellow had already been hauled into a Tolkienesque fantasy yarn, with unhappy results.

The reference, however, was to the fact that some disgruntled Irish supporters took umbrage at the player’s decision to turn down Martin O’Neill’s offer of a place in his latest squad.