Quintin Jardine's blog

When pro golfers look at the draw sheet and see Tyrell Hatton’s name alongside theirs, what must they think?

The guy’s reaction when a bounce or a putt doesn’t go his way must be a huge distraction. Watching this morning, his playing partner laughed at his antics. Others might not have.

Nothing is right at Manchester United, but nothing is worse than the owners’ basic grasp of HR and PR. On top of that they seem to know eff all about football.

We are told that today Manchester United will sack another manager. If that happens it will be understandable, but all the available evidence suggests that it will also be pointless. I am not sure of the relevance of straw in modern brick-making, but I do know this: you can’t create a championship side without players of sufficient quality.

The recruitment department built the Man U squad, not the manager. If the current lot resemble men trying to catch a henhouse full of foxes, that isn’t his fault. Blame can and should be laid at the door of the Director of Football, whose qualifications for that role have always been questionable.

But who gave him that job? A man who was hailed not so long ago as a saviour, come to rid the club of the hated Glasers and take us back to the Fergie era.

How has that worked out? Answer, as should have been expected. There are two other clubs in Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos football group. Nice are mid table in France. As for Lausanne, they are flat out last in Switzerland. Seems that Jim isn’t very good at running a football club.

Halftime at Old Trafford last night, the Man United support was hurling shit and derision at everyone except Michael Carrick.

An hour later they were ecstatic. Funny old game, eh?

So Man U lose again, to a team brimming with quality. They did their best but failed in front of goal.

Fifteen years ago Old Trafford was the destination of choice for players like Rogers and Palmer. All due respect to the players there now, but they aren’t in that class.

As the game ended tv focused on the ‘hierarchy’ who signed them. They aren’t the root cause of the decline. That began on the day that the appalling Glaser family were allowed to buy the club with borrowed money, then transfer their debt on to the business, a piece of chicanery that should never have been allowable. They are still there but in the background having sold the football operation to Ineos, and its Monegasque owner. The Three Dumb Monkeys in the stand are his placemen. They have failed and should go. I’m sure if would be cheaper than sacking another managerial team, and shelling out more cash to buy a replacement out of his contract.

Clearly, Andy Burnham has never been to an Old Firm game.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cn844j7jxnlo

There is a fundamental flaw in employing a high profile manager to manage Engerland. He can only pick English players.

I would suggest that the three most successful England managers have been Sir ‘Alf Ramsey, Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Gareth Southgate. Could that be accident or coincidence?

www.skysports.com/share/13372623

I pay Sky a chunky amount of money, in spite of Paul Merson. It’s been said that he’s a cult, but only to people with spelling issues.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c9qw3dxjv9zo

The arrogance of Real Madrid offsets its class.

Looking at last night’s finish again I take back every bad thing I ever said about Casemiro. The layoff to Mainoo was perfect, then he dropped the ball on Big Harry’s forehead.

Whatever Ratcliffe still owes on his transfer fee, he paid it off in under five minutes.

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/golf/articles/cqx4er7jr1po

Watching the Trivago ad, okay I know it’s scripted but I’m wondering whether Coote might have been right.

What idiot at Old Trafford authorised the sale of Scott MacTominay?

A story. When I was little, my dad, who was a teacher, was heavily involved with schools football, at local and national level. I think he was a selector for a while, as there were a couple of occasions when he went to away games in England with the Scotland boys’ team.

One of those, in the early 1960s, was with the senior squad, the Under-16s, to Wembley. I might have been six or seven at the time, but I remember this as clear as if he was still telling the tale.

My dad was a reserved man. He observed, he praised sparingly, and he never went overboard. Apart from one occasion.

He came back from the Wembley trip absolutely raving about one of the English boys, who was he declared, the best footballer he had ever seen, any age. He never changed that opinion. A couple of years later, that boy was a full international. And only a few years after that, he died in the Munich disaster.

I invested £20 in the Saudi boxing card last night. Before every fight the announcer made it clear that the event was being overseen by the British Boxing Board of Control.

If that’s so, how the hell did they allow a guy to fly in from Africa, arriving less than 24 hours before his fight, and get in the ring against a world level opponent? When Martin Bakole, the Coatbridge Congolese, finally stepped on a set of scales in Riyadh he weighed 22 and a half stone, and was clearly nowhere near the fitness level of his opponent. When he was knocked over by a glancing blow to the top of the head, he could only just heave his bulk off the ground and his trainer chucked the towel straight in.

No governing body should have permitted that, least of all one that may be the oldest and most respected on the planet. I guess that everything has its price, including integrity.

I watched the game on Sunday. As I said to my mate, Ronan O’Gara and Martin Johnson are the punditry equivalent of Stadler and Waldorf. Neither seemed to understand the effect of losing both Darcy Graham and Finn Russell. Had that collision not happened, it would have been and even game, and one that we could have nicked.