In two years Wales have gone from the brink of qualification glory to an effective play-off for last spot with Azerbaijan. Huw Richards looks for optimistic signs

Laughter may have echoed from Anglesey to Usk when David Healy angled his shot across Paul Robinson at Windsor Park, but Northern Ireland’s victory over England was not without its downside for Wales. As well as putting plaudits for a spirited display against the English at the Millennium Stadium into more sobering perspective, the result ended any chance of matching an initial fourth-place seeding. Victory over Azerbaijan in the final home match would at least avert a last-place finish, but come what may at Windsor Park on October 12, Wales cannot finish higher than fifth.

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As the media storm around Sven-Göran Eriksson reaches gale force, Barney Ronay considers the combination of football failings and tabloid prurience that got us here

The career of a modern England manager tends to follow a familiar pattern. Things kick off in a fug of giddy optimism, inspired more than anything by general relief at the departure of the last fellow. Some promising results follow. Glenn Hoddle had Le Tournoi in 1997 (the second most important trophy England have ever won). Graham Taylor went unbeaten for a year. Even Kevin Keegan had his moments. After this, almost directly, comes the long, slow drawn-out death. More or less every recent England manager’s reign has finished in the same way: with a very public kind of nervous breakdown. Currently Sven-Göran Eriksson is entering the end game. Everybody knows it’s coming. There’s just a lot of this stuff – this terrible head-shaking indignation – to get through first.

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The derby between Luton and Watford has not been of national significance for a long time, but that hasn’t diminished its intensity. Neil Rose reports on a fixture so highly charged that the clubs will happily give up TV money in a bid for some peace

The very idea of the “M1 derby” may seem risible to outsiders, but for Luton Town and Watford, their clashes are anything but a laughing matter. So much so, in fact, that Luton have turned down a much needed £60,000 on offer from Sky to televise the first league meeting of the pair in eight seasons.

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XLeeds United and fiscal responsibility may not have belonged in the same sentence in years past, but as Duncan Young explains, they might just be turning it around

Ken Bates must be delighted that, despite the uproar surrounding ticket price rises at Leeds, crowds are up by 44 per cent. That is, of course, compared to the opening three home games of 1986-87, the season following Leeds’s last 14th place finish in the second tier. To find comparable gates to this season you need go back 18 seasons, to just after Leeds missed both promotion and an FA Cup final by minutes. The surprising thing is not that Leeds are getting crowds of 21,000 this season, but that they averaged 8,000 more in last year’s grim campaign directly following relegation.

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A Spanish football-themed thirtysomething comedy? Sounds like a formula for success, but as David Stubbs found out, no one was laughing

As a sometime film critic, I’m usually inclined to opt for foreign movies to review. This isn’t out of some cineaste snobbishness but simple logic. Whereas all kinds of Hollywood or, worse, UK-produced balderdash is liable to get a release in Britain, foreign movies that make it to the distribution stage here will generally have been through a rigorous sifting process, been nominated at one of the prestige European festivals, put up for the Palme D’Or and so forth. Hence, they’re more likely to be good.

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