Rangers’ spell in administration was best summed up deep in one of Court of Session Judge Lord Hodge’s many Rangers pronouncements over recent months. Paragraph fifty of his directions to administrators Duff & Phelps on the once thorny subject of Ticketus began “Administration has developed as a very flexible procedure to cope with the likely or actual insolvency of a company.” This flexibility was amply demonstrated in Glasgow this past week.

So there it is, then. The provisional England squad for the 2012 European Championships. On what was at the time a slow news day, this was always likely to provoke a considerable amount of comment, but the hysteria yesterday morning and earlier this afternoon might have taken the most dedicated of frenzy-watchers by surprise. As one o’clock ticked over, the anticipation reached fever pitch. Five minutes later, though, the only sound really audible was that of slowly deflating balloons.

So farewell then, Kenny Dalglish. The Liverpool manager leaves the manager’s position at Anfield in a curious position, having reminded supporters of the club what winning trophies feels like – it seems scarcely credible but is nevertheless true that this year’s League Cup final was the clubs first at the new Wembley Stadium – but having failed in the Premier League, where no amount of white-washing could mask the fact that an eighth placed finish was unacceptably modest.

One could forgive the Czech Republic for being a little circumspect in their preparations for the 2012 European Championships. Having failed to qualify for the World Cup finals again two years ago – they’ve only qualified for one World Cup finals since the division of the Czechoslovakia’s national football team split into two early in 1994 – their qualification for this European Championships was modest and unspectacular. They scored only twelve goals in their eight qualifying matches, of which they lost three including a home defeat in their opening match against Lithuania.