A criticism of Cliftonville last season when they attempted to retain their title was that they didn’t have the squad capable of challenging on four fronts in comparison to Glentoran’s.

Their frontline players invariably lined out just about in every game they could which appeared to take its toll as they finished second and lost the Irish Cup final against the Glens.

How the tables turned this campaign however, as the Reds have won the league in style, retained the League Cup and are in the Women’s Challenge Cup final later this month against Lisburn Rangers.

They brought in experienced Women’s Premiership players in Erin McAllister and Carla Devine from Linfield as well as Sion Swifts trio Aoibhe O’Neill, Naomi McLaughlin and Tasmin McCartan.

McAllister quickly established herself as Cliftonville’s number one goalkeeper and pulled off a number of good saves throughout the season, whilst Devine has been the perfect impact player off the bench.

She has netted 10 league goals and has provided a more direct option to replace or play alongside Caitlin McGuinness.

O’Neill, McLaughlin and McCartan’s minutes have been limited but they have stepped in and performed well when called upon when Reds manager John McGrady opted to rotate.

None more so than McLaughlin, who despite having an injury-plagued season, scored twice as Cliftonville beat Linfield 5-2 last month.

Match of the Day host Gary Lineker has said his negotiations with the BBC over a new contract have “just started”, following speculation about his future.

Last week, the MailOnline reported that BBC bosses may be preparing to announce the 63-year-old’s departure after 25 years.

On the latest episode of his podcast The Rest is Football, posted on Monday, Lineker said: “I’m coming to the end of my contract in the summer, so it’s natural at some point that you have to have conversations, and they’ve just started.”

He said he didn’t know why the speculation had “spiralled out of control, but all is OK”, and that “there are bigger problems in the world”.

The former England striker made light of the situation at the start of Saturday’s edition of Match of the Day.

“Hello, seven games on the way and it’s my final show,” he told viewers, before pausing and adding: “Before the international break.”

The Premier League will take a break this weekend for the latest round of international fixtures.

Lineker joked about his future again on The Rest is Football with co-hosts Alan Shearer and Micah Richards.

Shearer told him: “Me and Micah have been worried about you the last few days. Can you tell us anything about your contract?

“It’s like you, [Mo] Salah, [Virgil] Van Dijk and Trent [Alexander-Arnold] are all coming to the end of your contract. What’s going on? Inform us, please.”

Lineker replied: “I think there is one significant difference – Liverpool fans really care about those three.”

He added that it had been “a strange few days”, and that his co-stars are “in a similar predicament”.

“So perhaps you’ll have the Daily Mail on your doorstep tomorrow now that they know that.”

When Richards remarked that he had been given odds of 4-1 to take over, Lineker replied: “Four to one? Blimey. I’d love to see you take over. I think you’d be brilliant in the chair.”

“No, I wouldn’t!” Richards laughed.

Shearer jokingly told the former Manchester City defender: “That is a massive concern. I’m not signing my new contract if you’re the presenter, by the way.”

Lineker has hosted Match of the Day since 1999 and is the BBC’s highest-paid star, of those whose salaries are declared, earning more than £1.3m a year.

However, the former footballer has also been involved in controversy at the corporation because of his social media activity.

He was briefly suspended by BBC bosses last year after an outcry over a post about the UK’s asylum policy.

Responding to the speculation about his future on Thursday, a BBC spokesperson said: “We have nothing to announce, and we have not agreed next steps with regard to his contract.

“He is under contract until the end of the season.”

Celtic defender Greg Taylor will miss Scotland’s Nations League matches against Croatia and Portugal.

The left-back, 26, was absent for Sunday’s win at Ross County after picking up a calf injury in the midweek Champions League defeat to Borussia Dortmund.

Taylor, capped 14 times, also withdrew from the squad for the opening defeats to Poland and Portugal in this campaign.

Head coach Steve Clarke was already without 10 players through injury and there are doubts over Angus Gunn.

The Norwich City goalkeeper was withdrawn at half-time on Saturday after a taking a heavy knock to the ribs.

Vice-captain John McGinn is among those unavailable, with Nicky Devlin, Liam Lindsay and Andy Irving all called up for the first time.

Scotland visit Zagreb on Saturday before hosting Portugal three days later.

Portugal lead Group A1 on six points, with Croatia and Poland both on three and Scotland yet to get off the mark.

Yet not every club feels the same. Tottenham, under Ange Postecoglou, do not have a specialist set-piece coach and, since the beginning of last season, Spurs have conceded more set piece goals (excluding penalties) than every Premier League team, except for Nottingham Forest.

At Chelsea Mauricio Pochettino didn’t have a set-piece coach, believing he did not need one, before the Blues hired Cueva with a new set-piece department being set up at Stamford Bridge.

That particular issue was one of the reasons for Chelsea replacing Pochettino with Enzo Maresca in the summer.

There needs to be buy-in for the position to work, and Austin MacPhee was one of the only staff kept on when Unai Emery replaced Steven Gerrard at Aston Villa two years ago.

Given how hands-on Emery is, it is a seal of approval in itself.

MacPhee – who joined Villa from Midtjylland in 2021 – was also Scotland’s set-piece coach but stepped down last month to spend more time with his ill father.

He has been credited with Villa’s improved set-pieces and last season they became the first team in Europe to score 20 goals from set plays.

Former Northern Ireland boss Ian Baraclough worked with MacPhee for the national side between 2020 and 2021.

He said: “Austin was innovative. I gave him free reign and it was a good relationship. He was very strong in his beliefs on things. Sometimes you may have to pull the reins on it, but the majority of the time you could see things working.

“It’s just whether you’ve got enough time to work on that but I’m not surprised he’s at Aston Villa and doing well. He communicates very well and he’s one of the standouts in the Premier League when it comes to that role.”

Though Baraclough rightly points out set-pieces have not suddenly become important – they have always been worked on, but have become more inventive.

“Now you have something like the draught excluder,” he said.

“That was something we deployed in Bosnia (in 2020). I hadn’t seen it before and Austin came to me and said ‘what about this? I’ve seen this at Atletico Madrid’.

“We were one of the first British sides to use it and the players were thinking ‘what’s all this about?’ You could see them laughing and giggling. It was Paddy McNair we used on the floor, it’s genius really.”

As teams increasingly focus on the fine margins, former Blackburn and England striker Chris Sutton emphasises how focus on set-pieces is nothing new.

He said: “The difference in the past was that managers who wanted to work on them, did so themselves.

“I get how the game has evolved since then with the new technology that is available, but it is like these things and ideas did not exist back in the day, when they definitely did.”