Don’t worry, tired England folk, the season is almost finally actually over! Promise! – The Warm-Up

“England played? Again?”

This reaction from a friend on Sunday morning just about sums up the point of this Nations League scheduling. What crash-landed as a decent concept in 2018 has become a burden four years later, but it’s not you, Nations League, really, it’s just when you’re being played.

England are three matches down, with one more to come against Hungary tomorrow, and it’s safe to say there is very little to be taken away from the entire experience. Fatigue has spread from the players to the fans, and if anything the fortnight has left Gareth Southgate with more questions than answers, and has even diminished (further, some would say) his reputation among an increasingly tired fanbase.

Some will never warm to him, despite where he has taken England, but in truth everyone just needs a rest. This season Mason Mount clocked 53 Chelsea games, Declan Rice 50 for West Ham, Raheem Sterling 47 at Manchester City, and there they were at Molineux wearily chasing a pretty pointless cause. Can something be pretty pointless? Anyway, it would have been in the best interest for these players to have already left the England camp to start their already short summer break, but alas there is one. More. Round. To. Go.

It says something, too, about this season that in the week it does finally come to an end, the Premier League – on Thursday – are announcing the new set of fixtures for the 2022-23 campaign, while we are already only a few weeks away from pre-season camps starting and players trickling back to their clubs.

Say it ain't so, and in a World Cup year especially, it’s all a bit of a nonsense.

As you do, Benfica announced at 00.44am that they had reached an agreement with Liverpool for the sale of Darwin Nunez.

Expect Liverpool to address matters at more reasonable times this week, with the player set to have a medical today.

It is a big statement of intent from Liverpool, breaking the £50m barrier for just the third time on a player – and for the first time in four years.

That piles pressure on the shoulders of Nunez that never really applied to Mohamed Salah, Sadio Mane or Roberto Firmino, while even the initial £37m for Luis Diaz looks a snip.

Of course, it means that Mane’s time is likely coming to an end, so we can also expect Bayern Munich and Liverpool to finally agree terms this week – evidently Liverpool want roughly half of what they’re spending on Nunez, and are just waiting for Bayern to play ball.

It may not be long before we get a Mauricio Pochettino announcement, either, with Paris Saint-Germain set to send him on his merry way after winning the league but failing/falling short in the Champions League.

That announcement may, and well and truly may, be delayed simply because the Twitter rumoursphere would have you believe Zinedine Zidane is against replacing him, with the ex-Real Madrid boss eyeing the France gig post World Cup – reportedly.

And so it may be a case of PSG trying to agree a deal with Lyon for their manager Christophe Galtier before officially giving Pochettino the boot, with the former Spurs head coach fancying a return to the Premier League – reportedly.

Where, exactly? Is a good question, thank you, but a “Big Six” club doesn’t exactly look likely. If you ask us, he might just be hoping it all goes Pete Tong for Eddie Howe up in Newcastle, which doesn’t look too likely either.

Remember when the World Cup moved to November and December because the temperatures in June and July in Qatar were deemed too high to play a football tournament?

Well, regardless of all that jiggery-pokery to magically fit the World Cup into the 2022-23 domestic calendar, tonight Australia take on Peru for a place in the World Cup, with their match in… Qatar.

“We’re being asked to play in the same conditions that it was decided that the World Cup wouldn’t be possible to be played in,” Peru assistant coach Nobby Solano told i.

“For a game of this size, with so much at stake, I’m not sure that’s really good for either us or Australia. Although it’s obviously the same for both teams.”

Mark Wright might not want to check Twitter this morning, as he seemed to deny the people what they wanted – a Chunkz penalty.

Talk about sentences you’d never thought you’d write… But all in all, Soccer Aid – good fun.

To toast England lacking a cutting edge in front of goal, this Retro Corner is wishing Darius Vassell a happy 41st birthday by remembering his debut goal against the Netherlands. Talk about clinical.

We’re also just clocked that he was pretty much definitely offside…

More Nations League, of course, with France against Croatia the pick of the bunch tonight, while – as mentioned – there’s also the World Cup play-off between Australia and Peru. Big.