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Shortly after her abortive Olympic 1500m heat, she said “You feel like a criminal when you lose like that.” Now, you feel, she is free of the implied sentence – or at least, out on remand.Her Marrakesh victory over Radcliffe, as she struck like a hunter with 600m to go, was in the old manner. I had to simply put it away.”The weight of guilt also appears to have dropped away. “In the end I had to accept that there was nothing that could make up for Atlanta It had happened and there was nothing I could do about it. “We’ll look at where the League table puts us at the end of the season.”In a way you can forgive his caution, ridiculous though it may seem when others such as Newcastle, six places and eight points worse off, insist they are unconcerned.

Expensive and unwanted, but the security of the personnel on the pitch has to be paramount.. Coventry City 1 Derby County 0

SO ACCUSTOMED are Coventry to playing brinkmanship around this time of year that they seem frightened to admit they might actually be safe with eight matches still to go. Having won six of their last seven in the Premiership, the unpretentious Midlanders will usher in April from ninth place in the table. Keep it up and they might even qualify for Europe.
And yet Gordon Strachan, to whose fledgeling managerial skills Coventry owe their new-found prosperity, will not hear the word mentioned, even as a theoretical possibility.

“Three more points and I’ll consider us safe,” he said in the aftermath of Saturday’s success. This will lead to an increased risk of pitch invasions, which was why the fences were erected in the first place.There is only one answer. Some of the millions which are being poured into players’ bank accounts will have to be diverted to increase the number of stewards and police on duty. They are dangerous thoughts that you hope will be dispelled by reason.As the Premiership gets richer the penalty for failure will get bigger.

Those are manifestations of the Premiership effect.Outside Oakwell on Saturday there were supporters who talked of a conspiracy to save bigger clubs like Newcastle United and Everton at the expense of Barnsley. Rubbish, of course, but those opinions are replicated elsewhere. Which is partly why you get a paltry crowd of 15,940 when Sheffield Wednesday played Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup and why emotions become contorted in the relegation and promotion zones.It is no coincidence that the trouble on Saturday occurred at Barnsley and Everton, whose Premiership membership is threatened, or that it was a man purporting to support promotion-chasing Sheffield United who attacked the linesman at Portsmouth. Jealousy, the need to belong, an anxiety to share in the increasing cash and prestige that come with being part of the elite; they are basic emotions and they are summed up in two words: the Premiership.So many hours of television time, so many miles of newsprint devoted Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool etc have increased the profile of England’s top division and also debased other competitions.It is the Premiership, or nothing now. Willard may have been harsh, but it would be difficult to build a case that he was wrong.Fifa has helped create a system which is bound to bring the referee into disrepute, but there are other forces in play here that owe nothing to the meddling of the law-makers. The red cards for fouls and dissent that were waved at Barnsley’s Darren Barnard, Chris Morgan and Darren Sheridan were unique only in that they befell the same team in one game.