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• Football is the ‘worst sport’ for racism, says Sheff Utd boss Paul Heckingbottom

  Sheffield United boss Paul Heckingbottom says football is the “worst sport” for racism after goalkeeper Wes Foderingham was abused during last week’s defeat at Tottenham.

  Foderingham took to Instagram on Sunday to reveal he had suffered from “racism and family threats” after his side’s 2-1 loss in north London.

  Heckingbottom said the police are now involved and could not hide his contempt that racism is still so prevalent in the game.

  He said: “You can say it’s all social media and people are tough on there and they can say what they want. You can take it away, but it is deeper than that because it’s inside people.

  “It’s sad, I think we are the worst sport for it. I don’t know if it’s the profile but we are the ones who get the most.

  “There have been big improvements, in society and our game, so we have to just continue being harder and stronger and every time we get a prosecution let’s make those punishments harder.

  “I knew I’d get asked about that and when I speak to you guys I don’t want to say what I really think about it. It is something that reflects really badly on football. It’s not Spurs’ problem, how can a game of football make someone speak like that?

  “We’ve gone through the correct channels and we have had the police in to speak to him. It’s not right, it’s sad, the fact he says he is alright to deal with it shows how much of a problem it is.”

  The Blades take on Newcastle on Sunday aiming for their first win of the season.

  They were minutes away from winning at Tottenham last week, before succumbing to the latest ever Premier League comeback by the hosts, and have shown they can be competitive this season.

  However, reports surfaced last week that the Blades have sounded out former boss Chris Wilder about a possible return to the club.

  Heckingbottom laughed off questions about his future.

  “You are asking the wrong person, you can ask me about a player, is he going to play, what’s he going to do,” he said.

  “But you can’t ask me about me, you need to speak to other people about that.

  “I have no reaction at all. The amount of things that get into the media that are rubbish, am I worried about it? No. Even if there is any truth in it, am I worried? No, because it is not going to affect me one little bit.

  “You are asking the wrong person. You need to ask board level about that. I have spoken to Steve (Betts, chief executive), he says it is nonsense and just carry on. It is always there as a manager.”

• Mauricio Pochettino warns Nicolas Jackson over ‘cheap’ yellow cards

  Mauricio Pochettino has spoken with Nicolas Jackson to try to address the striker’s discipline on the pitch after he was booked for dissent for the fourth time in five games against Bournemouth last weekend.

  The summer signing from Villarreal has cut an increasingly frustrated figure during Chelsea’s early-season struggles, scoring just once in last month’s 3-0 win over Luton.

  Chelsea are 14th in the Premier League after Pochettino’s first five games in charge and have not found the net in their last two outings.

  Jackson, who was signed for £31million in part as a response to the team’s woeful goal return of 38 last season in the league, has shown flashes of promise.

  But he was a peripheral figure for much of Chelsea’s dour stalemate at the Vitality Stadium on Sunday, when the home side coped comfortably with what little threat Pochettino’s side posed.

  The manager reiterated his call for Jackson and the rest of the club’s young new recruits to be afforded time, and pointed to the example of Real Madrid’s Vinicius Junior – one of the most effective forwards in Europe last season.

  After joining the La Liga giants in 2018 from Brazilian side Flamengo he scored just seven league goals in his first two and half seasons, but has since taken his total for the club to 60.

  “I had a meeting today (Friday) with Nicolas and Enzo (Fernandez),” said Pochettino. “I said ‘come on, a striker with four yellows cards for protesting?’ You need to get yellow cards but in different actions, not for that. Not so easy, so cheap. It’s going to put him in a very difficult situation with the team.

  “He understood. But Jackson is 21, he’s young. He needs to learn, needs to improve, needs to settle. He’s going to be a fantastic player. But he needs time.

  “I like to make similarities with players at other clubs. Jackson is a fantastic player but he needs to be calm and relaxed in front of goal. I said remember Vinicius, he took three seasons, or two and a half seasons, to perform (at Real).

  “We’re talking about young players. You can blame us, blame me. We can talk about tactics. But they need time. It’s no doubt we have amazing talent on the team, but now they need time to settle.

  “But he needs to be clever not to protest to the referees in this way.

  “Maybe it’s his normal behaviour on the pitch, it’s something maybe he can improve. Maybe this season they change the rules, he came from Spain where it’s different the relationship with the referees.”

  Pochettino said there was a good chance Armando Broja would be available for Sunday’s meeting with Aston Villa at Stamford Bridge after he recovered from the ACL injury that has kept him out since December.

  “Broja will maybe be involved at the weekend,” he said. “But it’s after nine months that he’s not competing.

  “We cannot expect Broja to arrive to score every single touch, he needs time to feel the competition and start to perform in the way we expect he can.”

  The manager added that despite the team’s run of one win in five league games this season he has been pleased with the emotional reaction shown by his players to the team’s indifferent start.

  “I’m so happy the way they felt after Bournemouth and (the 1-0 defeat to) Nottingham Forest. They really care about performing better.

  “This week was good to work really hard and create a good atmosphere to try to translate to the competition.”

• Ange Postecoglou: Performance against Arsenal more important to me than result

  Ange Postecoglou insists Tottenham’s performance at Arsenal and not the result will be the biggest measure of their progress under him.

  Spurs have enjoyed a flying start to life under the Australian and optimism is rife following last weekend’s dramatic victory over Sheffield United, which puts them joint-second alongside Liverpool and Sunday’s opponents Arsenal in the Premier League.

  Tottenham have not won in the league at the Emirates since 2010 and while Postecoglou understands the significance of the fixture, his yardstick for progress will be if his team produce his front-foot philosophy in a white hot atmosphere.

  Postecoglou said: “The supporters, irrespective of your past record, always see the next derby as the one they want to win and that doesn’t change.

  “From our perspective, it’s a great challenge for us as a football team that’s beginning on a journey and trying to have an identity on the way we play.

  “There’s no greater test than playing one of the top teams in the comp away from home, who also happens to be your biggest rival.

  “It’s a great test for us, a great challenge for us. We’ve got to go out there and see how we cope with all of that.

  “We’re five games in. I understand that for many people, they will see this as our first real test and I get that. It is pretty easy, you could almost write two stories now: if we are successful, great we’re on the right track. If we’re not, we’ve still got a long way to go.

  “For me, what is going to be more important is how much of our football I see in a big game like this. How much of us can I see against a top opponent?

  “That will give me the biggest indicator of where we’re at, but ultimately we’ll still be six games into a new cycle, a new group of players, a very young group of players.

  “Either way, irrespective of the outcome, I’d say the performance will be my biggest measure but knowing we have still got a long way to go.”

  Similarities can be drawn between the rebuilding job Postecoglou has been tasked with at Tottenham and the work achieved by Mikel Arteta during the past four years at Arsenal.

  There has been plenty of change on and off the pitch since Postecoglou was appointed by Spurs in June and this week saw Scott Munn finally begin his role as chief football officer.

  Chief scout Leonardo Gabbanini has also left the club, with Tottenham set to appoint a new technical director to run transfers following Fabio Paratici’s resignation as director of football in April.

  Postecoglou is used to sweeping changes upon arriving at a new club, and he insisted: “Normal for me. Wherever I have gone.

  “I’ve constantly said that if you want to change, you need to change. All these things happen, sometimes not sequential or all at the same time, but over the course of time you find we are heading off in a new direction and some people make their own decisions about whether they’re involved in that and other times we look for, or the club look to bring new people in.

  That’s the kind of position we’re in as a club. As I said, it wasn’t going to take one window for us to build the squad we wanted and it wasn’t going to take a couple of months to have the structure we wanted.

  “It will evolve over the next 12 months, couple of years I think you’ll find, and we will have a constant evolution of people and the way we play, the way we train and the environment itself.

  “All these kind of things are a natural consequence of the club deciding to change direction from last year.”

  Spurs will be without Ryan Sessegnon (hamstring), Rodrigo Bentancur (knee), Giovani Lo Celso (quad), Bryan Gil (groin) and Ivan Perisic (knee) for Sunday’s derby.