AS I said last week, here we go again with more league games.

I’m sure that Ralph will be saying an extra prayer and crossing his fingers more as Manchester City are favourites to win the league again and have won their last three home league games 5-0, so that will be their target.

I’m sure Ralph’s will be to shut the doors and 0-0 will be a good result, after that we’ve got Wolves coming down and we’re one of the clubs who haven’t won a game yet.

But the story today is of two 18-year-olds. When I watch games, I tend to put my managers hat on and Jurgen Klopp, while happy with the result, a 3-0 win away at Leeds who are old rivals, will be very upset and disappointed with what happened to his young player Harvey Elliott.

A player with a good future to get into a team like that at his age will now be lucky if he can even get fit again before the end of the season. The reason for that is one of the worst injuries you could wish for.

The tackle from Leeds defender, Pascal Struijk, immediately received a red card. But the lad who received the tackle, the injury, showed that he must be a nice fella saying he didn’t think it was a sending off.

But the fact is the medical staff were on the pitch for quite a long time because the ankle had to be put back in place, and that will mean a long time to get the strength back into it, and made me wonder whether the modern style of footwear used is the wrong thing.

There’s very little protection above the heel, in the real old days some supporters will remember they were like small Wellingtons, which I wouldn’t think would be the thing to bring back – but having said that, if there was any sort of modern, lightweight leather protection for above the ankle I’m sure it could have helped the youngster last week.

I personally think the tackle wasn’t meant to injure the player, Struijk came in more-or-less from a position behind the player and went for the ball but he will be missing three games. Harvey will be missing many more.

Let’s hope when he does recover it doesn’t affect his game. I think when you get an injury like that at that age when he couldn’t have had many league games, it could affect his mental approach more than anything.

Talking about young players, I’m sure I wasn’t the only one to sit up late watching Emma Raducanu playing tennis in America, becoming the first British woman to win a Grand Slam since 1977.

Not only was her game fantastic, but the interviews with her showed what a natural, gifted player she is. It gave her stardom status not just here but all around the world.

She will obviously never need to get a bank loan in future, apparently she is already a member of an agency which is very experienced, but she will now find that two things.

On the courts, her opponents will be more than keen to be the ones to beat her, and off the court she will be more recognisable, on the red carpet and awards evenings etcetera.

It’s how she can live with that publicity, I’m sure her coaches, agents and family etc will be doing their utmost to help her adapt to the situation.

But to see someone like her having to qualify to get into the first round even, and to carry on without losing a set at any time is just amazing. The way she handled the interviews and attention was first class.

Like young players in football who may have been at the club since school days, once they do something well on TV everything changes, she will find the spotlight will now follow her wherever she goes and it’s often how you handle that that matters the most.

Lastly, some people may not be aware that we have the second biggest theatre in England – The Mayflower, which seats 2270.

Like a top of the league football team, it has been brilliantly run by a gentleman called Michael Ockwell for many years now, and my wife and I hadn’t been for quite a while but went to see Blood Brothers.

What impressed me, in addition to the fantastic show, was that on the evening we were there a row of teenagers came in with teachers, then another row, and another row.

Talking to Michael afterwards, he said how the theatre has a relationship with Southampton schools where for certain shows they can attend at special rates, and on the night we attended 17 schools were represented – by the end of the week, 54 in total.

What carries on after that is in school the following day, they write essays on the show they’ve watched the night before as part of their lessons – I think it would be good for a competition to be made up where the teacher decides the best essay for the class, and the 54 best are put in the Echo and let the public decide the best.

But in addition, things like this show the good area we are living in, with the relationship between one of the best theatres and school children – this should be mentioned in our City of Culture bid for 2025.