MARTIN SAMUEL CHIEF SPORTS WRITER - We have got a few weeks to ourselves now, it seems. So time for a think. The self-isolation of COVID-19 is the chance to consider where the game is going.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: At 2pm local time on Sunday in Guimaraes, Portugal, the most pointless match in the history of football will take place.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Sometimes sport sucks. No matter the outcome, it was a rotten shame that Jimmy Greaves did not feature in the 1966 World Cup final for England.

MARTIN SAMUEL IN JOHANNESBURG: At 3.49pm local time, Ben Stokes clobbered an off-side ball from Dwaine Pretorius through midwicket for four

CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Andrea Agnelli has lucked out by birth into control of Juventus. And from this position of enormous good fortune, he wants to destroy the greatest club competition in the world.

The Justice Department on Wednesday released a mostly-unredacted version of a memo outlining the scope of Mueller's investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Liverpool are in the running to swoop for Villarreal winger Samuel Chukwueze, according to reports in France. Lyon have also been linked with a move for the Nigeria international.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Nothing the Oxford English Dictionary does ends up in the public domain by accident. No reporter is sat like a naughty schoolboy looking up the rude words.

In an emotional interview with Today on Wednesday morning, Carl and Marsha Mueller said they believed their volunteer daughter - who was taken hostage by ISIS in 2013 may still be alive.

Carl and Marsha Mueller, parents of US aid worker Kayla who was captured and killed by ISIS in Syria, gave Trump a standing ovation as he honored their daughter in his speech on Tuesday.

The 51-year-old actor gave a rather bizarre statement on the situation to People on Thursday. His ex-wife Mueller reportedly agreed to a psych evaluation after a bizarre 24 hours.

The 51-year-old actor said his twin boys were fine on Thursday following his ex-wife's recent breakdown in Utah.

According to ET, the former reality star checked into a facility after she was hospitalized in November. Her mother Moria Fiore is taking care of the two children she had with Charlie

Mueller has left rehab. According to Entertainment Tonight, the former reality star checked out of rehab recently. The former socialite and reality star had checked into a hospital in November.

The 47-year-old newlywed tied the knot with her neighbor-turned-boyfriend Aaron Phypers in Malibu on Saturday after a year of dating

The 41-year-old, whose past drug problems have been well documented, was traveling from Los Angeles to Miami when she was stopped.

Actor Brooke Mueller, 41, ex-wife of Charlie Sheen, was said to be outside of RiteAid at 7am in the Hamptons on Sunday, with 'suitcases full of drugs,' and allegedly demanded strangers 'party' with her.

Page Six published the shocking video of the 41-year-old on Thursday, before her reps revealed to Us Weekly that she was seeking treatment at a center on the East Coast.

Mueller, 41, can be heard on audio tapes slurring her words as she asks for black tar heroin before commenting on how she and a 'married man' watched people have a sex party in the Hamptons.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Owners have been immersed for too long in the fight to reach the Premier League. They've lived in a world of extreme, desperate expenditure.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Playing the only grown-up in the village is fashionable right now. As is demanding consideration of the bigger picture, as if we are all oblivious to this crisis.

MARTIN SAMUEL: Coronavirus presents an unprecedented crisis for sport. It requires the sharpest of intellects, the clearest of minds, leaders with a vision, a plan.

MARTIN SAMUEL: Group administration would see every Championship club placed into administration on the same day. Staff would be temporarily let go. Players would become free agents.

They just welcomed son Gene into the world in May. But on Tuesday, comedienne Amy Schumer and husband Chris Fischer put their two-month-old on the hot seat as they jokingly grilled him

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: At some stage this week, the National League will make a decision on their competitions above tier seven of the pyramid system.

MARTIN SAMUEL: There has always been a degree of arrangement when buying into the reimagining of Tyson Fury as a national hero. It involves the period between June 2016 and June 2018.

The 'Django Unchained' star thanked several other people during his heartfelt speech, including his publicist, lawyer, former drama professor, Aunt Edna and God.

Temperatures came to a boil on Friday in West Hollywood, California where rapper Safaree Samuels and his rival Meek Mill appeared to have an indirect altercation.

The Premier League giants have been big-admirers of the Senegal international after he has impressed at the heart of the Napoli defence. And Koulibaly could be on his way out.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: She isn't on the payroll, but if any athlete has publicly verified the immense benefits of meldonium, it is Sharapova.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Ajax. It's all about poor little Ajax. UEFA's latest protectionist scheme is focused on favouring the underdogs. Of course it is. They're all heart, as ever.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: All the reasons for not taking the Open to Royal Portrush are now similarly advanced for keeping it away from Royal Porthcawl.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: It was the night of May 12, 2017. Later, Chelsea under Antonio Conte would win the title. For now, the Hawthorns was alive with anticipation.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: It's a crowded field but perhaps the most risible intervention in the stand-off between clubs and players this week came from Dr Erkut Sogut.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: How kind of Inter Milan's ultras to clarify for Lukaku, or any other black person who might be confused by all strange noises, what exactly constitutes racism.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: What happened to impartiality? Now fans with microphones invade every broadcast and are almost encouraged to act out by their bosses.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Atalanta is the perfect example of why the best of sport should not be closed to all but a privileged few. Sport can change the worth of a region.

COMMENT: The top 10 - bar Sheffield United, and good for them - seek to ban Manchester City from Europe next season, regardless of the state of their appeal against a UEFA-imposed sanction.

The majority of Jared Kushner's interview conducted by former special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the Russia investigation was edited prior to being released on Monday.

MARTIN SAMUEL AT THE YOKOHAMA STADIUM: The gentleman in the Houston Texans baseball cap sat in the stand scribbling his notes. He will not have needed exhaustive entries.

England for the English? Well, not exactly, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and Adnan Januzaj may be it. Here's the latest debate. Enjoy...

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: It is a very peculiar form of racism that affects Mo Farah. It is the same racism suffered by Bradley Wiggins, by Galen Rupp, or even Maria Sharapova.

In Saturday's Daily Mail, chief sports writer Martin Samuel considered the growing conflict between top and bottom over restarting the season. Now he responds to reader comments.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Having given up £1million of his salary, England manager Gareth Southgate must have been rather surprised to end up as the villain on Sunday.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: It is the clubs that make the game; they bring the people together and give that confluence meaning. The only enduring unit in team sport is a club.

Something had to give. Even the venture capitalists who run Liverpool could not project their club as mattering more, then end up on the same side as Mike Ashley and Daniel Levy.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: It's a crowded field but perhaps the most risible intervention in the stand-off between clubs and players this week came from Dr Erkut Sogut.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: At some stage this week, the National League will make a decision on their competitions above tier seven of the pyramid system.

MARTIN SAMUEL - CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: Gary Neville is right. Clubs who have deferred or cut salaries should not be able to enter the transfer market until that money is repaid.

CHIEF SPORTS WRITER: The difference between the £340m Mike Ashley wants for Newcastle and the £300m on offer is what is holding this deal up. Why, given the estimated assets of the buyer?