How many innings in World Baseball Classic games? Explaining the pitc… — and more

The Sporting News brings you the rules for the World Baseball Classic, from innings to pitch clock.

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Most Manchester United fans would acknowledge last night's defeat had been coming.

The fluidity of the first few games under Michael Carrick was missing at West Ham, when they nearly lost, and didn't get picked up against Everton or Crystal Palace, despite the victories achieved in those matches.

There are a couple of basic realities around Manchester United that should not be forgotten.

Given the Premier League as a whole seems to be a bit of a grind, it is probably unrealistic to expect them to deliver free-flowing football.

There must also be an acceptance that Carrick's squad is not deep and given Matthijs de Ligt, Mason Mount, Lisandro Martinez, Noussair Mazraoui and Patrick Dorgu were all injured by the end of last night's game and Casemiro and Luke Shaw had been substituted as they played their second match in four days, there was not enough cover to cope.

However, after a defeat, more scrutiny will be placed on Carrick's in-game decisions; the timing of his changes, his tactical flexibility.

This is not a bad thing. He needs positive answers to show he can do the job on a full-time basis.

As Carrick said, a defeat, against 10 men, hurts. But it need not be any more than that. The meeting with Aston Villa on 15 March may offer a true picture of what kind of Manchester United Michael Carrick is capable of creating.

Liverpool manager Arne Slot claimed that Florian Wirtz “could be available for a few minutes” during the FA Cup tie against Wolves on Friday, while suggesting that the Germany international is key to the team’s overall “balance”.

Wirtz has been out of the squad since picking up an injury in the warm-up ahead of the win over Nottingham Forest on 22 February, and the 22-year-old has missed three games in that time, including the 2-1 loss to Wolves in the league earlier this week.

However, he could feature against Wolves in the FA Cup fifth-round tie this week, in what would be a welcome boost to Liverpool’s attacking options.

“He trained half and half with the team yesterday. He made the next step in rehab. Let's see where he is today. He could be available for a few minutes tomorrow in the best scenario,” explained Slot, before adding that “everyone else [is] fine”.

The absence of Wirtz has coincided with Liverpool struggling in attack at times, and while the Reds did beat West Ham 5-2 over that spell, there are still questions over the attacking output and chance creation, with Cody Gakpo and Mohamed Salah coming under criticism for not offering enough from the wings.

And while Slot highlighted that “attacking isn't just down to Cody [Gakpo] and Mo [Salah],” the Dutchman did seem to admit that Wirtz is a key cog in his side’s attack.

“One of the players who creates is Florian Wirtz. He got injured three games ago. Before that the team had a certain balance and we've had to adjust again. That's happened a lot this season,” explained the Liverpool boss.

“Not all the games have improved in terms of creating chances. But we're not the only team that finds it hard to create from open play. It's the qualify of the league that makes it more complicated.

“We are not in terms of chance creation last in the league. We're not doing that bad. We're also the team with most ball possession so you'd expect us to create more.

“Cody and Mo we expect and they expect from themselves to score more. But attacking isn't just down to Cody and Mo,” he added.

Liverpool will book a place in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup with a win at Molineux, in what is the first of an important string of games that includes a Champions League last-16 tie against Galatasaray and a Premier League match against Tottenham at Anfield on 15 March.