Transformed Jordan Henderson is the heart of England at this World Cup

Pass completion: 84 per cent. Total passes: 64. Aerial duels won: three of three. Successful tackles made: one of one. Interceptions: one. Clearances: one. Shots on target: one. As Liverpool's Twitter feed said of Jordan Henderson's first World Cup game: 'Well played, captain.'

He's not England's captain, of course, but he is no less a leader and no less important in Gareth Southgate's system than Harry Kane. The pivot, as Southgate calls him, is crucial if playing three at the back. Henderson's duty is to protect the defensive line but, against Tunisia, he did more.

Henderson was not just a screen, or a disrupter of opposition attacks. He was the fire-starter, the player who often got England's best attacking moves going, who threaded through the important pass, or played the ball wide.

He linked it all in a way that had seemed beyond him 12 months ago, when Southgate was urging him to release the ball quicker. Jurgen Klopp will get the credit for what has been, in terms of wider respect, Henderson's breakthrough season - but do not underestimate the role of Southgate and his team.

Henderson doesn't play like this for Liverpool. Not exactly. He hits a pass when he can, but his role is more that of David Batty. He breaks up play. He attempted 85 tackles in 27 Premier League appearances last season, and 40 in ten Champions League games. Southgate, who does not have the options in midfield, is trusting Henderson to expand his repertoire.

Increasingly, he is what Tony Adams was to Terry Venables in 1996. He is the player off the leash; the one asked to grow.

Arsene Wenger gets kudos for making Adams a ball-playing centre-half, but the evolution began before he was even through the door at Highbury.

It was Venables, with England, who first encouraged Adams to carry the ball out from the back, Venables who afforded him freedom he had not known at Arsenal. Adams started out as a classy centre-half, drawing comparisons with Bobby Moore. George Graham had other ideas and he came to epitomise a very different kind of defender. Adams was supreme at it, too. But that wasn't him.

'I would do it to the best of my ability but all the time I was not expressing myself,' Adams recalled. 'I wanted to tell the world, the public, "I don't want to play like this".'

Venables changed that. He recognised the footballer trying to get out. He needed central defenders to step into midfield occasionally, to change the numbers in that area. If it was on, he said, if there was space ahead, Adams should go for it.

In 1998, with a clearer head and now emboldened by Wenger's methodology, too, this shift would culminate in Adams scoring against Everton as Arsenal won the title. He broke upfield, echoing the words of former team-mate Kenny Sansom on one of his overlapping runs.

'Stick me in,' Adams called to Steve Bould, 'I'm gone.' He finished with his left foot, too.

Henderson might have scored against Tunisia on Monday. He was the first to test substitute goalkeeper Farouk Ben Mustapha, from range. It was a smart move, the action of player confident and comfortable. He hasn't always looked that way for England; under Klopp, and Southgate, this season there has been a transformation.

It is ironic in the extreme that the Football Association has twice paid millions for imported elite coaches, who did not try to improve England's footballers one iota, while Southgate, late of Middlesbrough in the Championship, is attempting revolution.

It is the reason his tenure increasingly bears comparison with Venables' determination to turn donkeys into lions in 1996. Too often, with England, lions have become donkeys.

Whatever this World Cup holds, Henderson's conversion suggests the power to change.

Sugar 'joke' leaves sour taste

Lord Sugar did not, as many media outlets claim, compare Senegal's team to the sellers of trinkets on Marbella beaches. He intimated that all black people look the same.

That is what made his tweet racist and offensive: the idea that he might confuse successful international footballers with pedlars, simply because they are black. It merely compounded the insult that Sugar could not, at first, see what he had done wrong.

'Just been reading the reaction to my funny tweet about the guy on the beach in Marbella...' he began, convinced of his great wit and comic genius.

As humour does not seem to be his forte, it may be best to clarify some things. 1. You do not get to decide whether your jokes are funny. 2. If nobody is laughing, you're not. 3. You're not.

Raheem Sterling not clinical enough

If the clues are correct and Raheem Sterling has lost his place to Marcus Rashford against Panama on Sunday, it isn't wrong; just a little harsh.

Sterling hasn't scored for England since playing Estonia at Wembley on October 9, 2015, and that is plainly a worry. It is one of just two goals he has scored for his country in 39 appearances.

He missed a sitter against Tunisia and Gareth Southgate knows he cannot afford poor finishing against the weakest team in the group. It may be, if England can get ahead of Belgium on goal difference, that a draw in the final game will be enough to progress in first place.

Southgate needs forwards who are clinical and Sterling isn't. It's his greatest flaw. Even his 23 goals for Manchester City last season must be set against the enormous number of chances Pep Guardiola's team created. It might be argued Sterling's return was not much better than par.

Yet he was part of an England forward line that began with exceptional vigour and ambition against Tunisia. His pace and game intelligence were to the fore in a first-half that was England's most impressive at a tournament in more than a decade.

So to be left out now - particularly with Dele Alli also missing through injury - is a ruthless call by Southgate. And it will be no consolation to Sterling to hear that it will not have been taken lightly.

In the months before the World Cup, Southgate talked up Sterling as England's No 10. It was clear he preferred him in that role to Alli, and that he thought it brought the best out of him, too. Just as Fabio Capello believed John Terry played better as captain, Southgate felt the '10' on his back inspired Sterling.

To abandon that stance so early in the tournament, shows how concerned Southgate must be about Sterling's confidence in front of goal. With Alli out, it could be that Ruben Loftus-Cheek occupies the position behind Harry Kane with Rashford and Jesse Lingard either side.

If it goes well, momentum could carry this starting XI forward, as often happens at World Cups. Southgate's instruction to attack the tournament demands players who take chances.

Maybe, had Sterling reported for England duty on time, that might have carried a little favour, too.

The average age of England's starting forward quartet on Sunday could be 22. These are quite remarkable, extraordinarily bold, changes that Southgate has quietly ushered in; but the timing of the latest leap is still brutal for Sterling.

A sad end to Jack Wilshere's 17 years of service

Jack Wilshere had already agreed to take a pay cut, but the threat of demotion was too much. Unai Emery told him he had little chance of making the team next season so, after 17 years, he will be leaving Arsenal. The club needs more than a mascot but, even so, this is a terrible shame.

Wilshere was a unique presence at Arsenal. He cared about the club, cared about the Ladies team, cared enough to be the only member of the first-team squad to attend the premiere of a film about the 1989 title win at Anfield.

That day meant something to him, in a way it does not to team-mates, even though he wasn't born. He was one of their own. There aren't too many about like that these days, and certainly not at Arsenal.

So Wilshere's departure is a milestone, and also a failure on the part of the club. They thought they had a superstar, the finest English player of his generation but, ultimately, couldn't make him a fixture in their team.

Wilshere topped 30 appearances in just three seasons for Arsenal. He never made it to 200 appearances. He only scored 14 goals.

Emery's overhaul has seen arrivals from Bayer Leverkusen and Juventus and Arsenal are linked with further imports from Freiburg, Sampdoria and Sevilla. A change was needed but how sad is it that this comes at the expense of a Hertfordshire boy who has been at the club since the age of nine?

It may not mean anything to the new coach, or his employers, but the fans who saw their own passion reflected in Wilshere must be hurting.

Meanwhile, Granit Xhaka, a defensive midfielder who appears to have an aversion to tracking his man or tackling responsibly, has been given a new five-year contract.  'He is still young so will be able to develop even more,' said Emery. Xhaka will be 26 in September, the same age as Wilshere.

VAR may end fairy tales, but it is fair

VAR is mostly working well at the World Cup, doing its job, righting wrongs. Yet not everybody is happy. There seemed genuine disappointment that technology wiped out Iran's equaliser against Spain on Wednesday, even though it was offside and the correct decision.

This was always going to happen. VAR will chalk off many more goals than it will score. It cannot recreate the opportunity denied by an erroneous raised flag, but it can disallow a glorious comeback for a marginal call.

There was no debate around the legitimacy of Iran's equaliser - Saeid Ezatolahi was clearly offside when the ball was flicked on - but it still felt unsatisfactory.

Neutrals wanted the thrill, the story, the underdog drawing against the tournament favourites, as would have happened at any other World Cup. They didn't care that it was a right call. The fiction was better than the truth.

That frustration will continue. Over a season VAR will often benefit the bigger teams. Spain might have a goal disallowed against a country like Iran, but it is unlikely to be their only chance.

They will dominate play, and get the opportunity to win again. For Iran, however, Ezatolahi's goal was it. They are unlikely to get a second swing at levelling the game, and now that moment has gone. VAR is fair, right, and an innovation that has to be embraced. But that doesn't mean accuracy will be popular.

Impressed by Russia’s running?

The hosts have been the revelation of this tournament. Russia have come storming out of Group A, qualified in two games with six points and a goal difference of plus seven. They are also covering more ground than any team at the World Cup.

The tournament average for distances run each match is 105km. Russia covered 118km in the opening game with Saudi Arabia and 115km against Egypt. After the second match, three Russian forwards and midfielders - Aleksandr Golovin, Alexander Samedov and Yury Gazinsky - were first to third in a list of players' average distances.

And there could be many reasons for this. Russia would not be the first host nation to be inspired by the occasion and the encouragement of a boisterous home crowd. The defiant cries of 'Rossiya' from a nation that expected so little of this World Cup may be making the players go the extra yard - or in this case, the extra 13 kilometres. And some team has to be fittest; it doesn't mean there is anything suspicious about that.

Indeed, it would be a pity if a trifling thing like a recent state-sponsored doping programme meticulously detailed across a 248-page independent report concluding that more than 1,000 Russian athletes benefited, meant that these feats of endurance were met with anything other than absolute trust.

Clamour for a glamour tie can often disappoint

Potentially, Burnley's Europa League opponents were some of the most storied clubs in European football. Sevilla, Hadjuk Split, Dinamo Tbilisi, Honved. Burnley have not played a European game since exiting the UEFA Fairs Cup to Eintract Frankfurt on April 18, 1967.

They drew Aberdeen. A thrilling trip to the Granite City on July 26 awaits. You've got to feel for them over that.

In 1984, non-league Dagenham had a run in the FA Cup. They beat Swindon, away, after a replay in the first round, won 1-0 at home to Peterborough in the second. Joe Dunwell, the captain, completely miscued his shot which looped over the goalkeeper's head.

In the chaos, a wall behind the goal came down and the referee played four minutes short. After, we all piled into the home dressing room for the draw. First out of the hat, Liverpool.

A cheer of excitement from the players - '…will play Aston Villa…' On it went. 'Tottenham…will play Charlton….Manchester United…will play Bournemouth…West Ham…' - big local derby, maybe - '…will play Port Vale.' Finally, Dagenham's fate was revealed. Match 22 of 32. Carlisle United away.

The atmosphere went from jubilant to funereal. On January 5, untroubled by any lucrative TV coverage, Dagenham made the 654 mile round trip to the far north-west, and were defeated 1-0. It would have been cheaper to have lost to Peterborough and kept the wall intact. Let's hope Burnley make Europe worth their while.

Great news. The Football Association's glad-handing has worked and no less a figure than Sepp Blatter is backing England's bid to host the 2030 World Cup. Anyone else feel the need for a shower?

Eddie Jones says he is loving England's bad run as a chance to show he can win again. If that was true, surely he would have tried losing earlier.

Like a lot going on with England now, it makes no sense.