One thing does seem certain after another controlled Wembley win. This is how it’s going to go down. The shape, the pegs, the architecture of this team is set. We’re going to play this out to the end.

It was a good game for Jude Bellingham, who was imperiously good at times, and might just have a chance of opening up that central midfield. And beyond that for two of the comfy chairs, the inherited mahogany sideboards, the tried and trusted internal fittings of this England team.

Harry Maguire was booed by England’s fans at the start. But he was steady, unobtrusive and very much the England version of himself. Raheem Sterling got the same treatment, more viciously, in the pre-Southgate years. Here he produced an eye-catching performance, restating, in timely fashion, his own credentials as the most decisive English attacking midfielder since, well, who? David Beckham? Gazza? David Platt? Beckham ended up with 42 assists for England, which is spectacular. But tot up the stats and Sterling has pretty much everyone else covered.

He showed us why here. Half an hour into a fun, skittish, open game England’s No 7 took the ball on the left inside the Ivory Coast penalty area. Faced by two crouched and coiled defenders, Sterling produced a lovely little miniature. It will be one of the ticks, the asterisks, the bold-underlines Gareth Southgate takes from this March double header. Here was a very basic reminder of the way England have won in the age of Gareth.

Sterling used to take a lot of criticism. It is more nuanced now: his numbers are too good, his longevity unignorable. Instead the reservations are more to do with points of style, levels, ultimacy. Those who wish to criticise focus on the times when his basic technique can’t keep pace with genuinely A-list movement and a fine nose for space.

This is how Sterling plays. Here is a footballer who never stops, who keeps on coming, who gets knocked down, but always gets up again. And for England Sterling is a lock. The last six years have brought a gushing tap of attacking talent, a series of crowd favourites and coming men. But here was evidence, like it or not, that Kane-Sterling, Sterling-Kane, is up there with England’s greatest ever attacking partnerships. And they’re not done yet.

Jude Bellingham was imperious and unlucky not to score against Ivory Coast at Wembley. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian

Southgate had picked a light, jazzy, pop-up team, set up in a 4-3-3. They probed in a meandering kind of way for the opening half hour. There were shrill cries every time Jack Grealish got the ball. It felt a little vague, fun, lightweight.

And then Sterling did that brilliant thing. The move was started by Maguire, who stepped out of defence smoothly and funnelled the ball to the left, where it ended up at Sterling’s feet. The Ivory Coast defence looked set, too close for a cross. Sterling had come to a halt.

At which point he did something very difficult, beating Aurier (yes, OK) from a standing start, with a jink and a shift of feet and a lucky break of the ball, dribbling skills applied exactly where they can make a difference.

Sterling had made space for a cross now, but that also had to beat a man, a nutmeg assist in the tightest of spaces that found Ollie Watkins in the right spot to score.

It was a wonderful assist, a genuine piece of goal-making drawing on the full palette of skills: the jink, the pass, the picture of those around him.

And yes, it was against Ivory Coast, but it keeps on being against someone, every time. When Sterling scored England’s second just before half time, prodding the ball home after Grealish had found him with a nice pass, it was his 17th goal to go with 13 assists in his last 29 England games.

This is how teams win games. If these March dates have done anything it is to confirm this is still how Southgate will set up his tournament team eight months from now: solidity; more solidity; Kane, Sterling.

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The idea is still out there that some more compelling version is hiding behind the relentless consistency of the best England team in a couple of generations. The cries of frustration will still be heard, based in the notion that were England to play to their attacking strengths instead of trying to control the game, to smear their face with woad, batter their chest and say, behold the attacking power of this fully operational England, then the world would be brought to heel.

This is, of course, misjudged, based in vaguely grasped sporting exceptionalism, the idea that once the English unleash their inner Albion none can resist. France don’t play like that, and their attacking players are better. Balance is everything. Qatar is already flickering on the desert horizon. For better or worse, this thing, this England iteration, is going to play right out to the end.

Take, for example, the case of Hatem Ben Arfa one half-time at Newcastle. “He was having a rough game and Alan Pardew had a right go at him,” Carver recalls. “Suddenly Hatem turns to a fridge that would have taken 10 men to pick up. He tried to lift it and throw it at Pards but he couldn’t. He storms out of the dressing room, into the coaches’ office. Five minutes later he reappears eating a sandwich, ready to play the second half.”

Carver and Gascoigne were together as friends and apprentices at Newcastle. The former still remembers the emerging midfield maestro being sent to town for – and retrieving – green paint after spilling white emulsion on a training pitch. Simpler times. Kevin Keegan? “He made everybody feel part of the first-team’s success. I was an academy coach and he says: ‘It’s your big day, John. Derek Fazackerley’s not well so you are taking the first team.’ I was 31.”

Carver is a raconteur with substance. Clarke is among those surprised that his assistant is not employed by a club, such is his level of knowledge. The scenario is to Scotland’s benefit. Since joining the setup in late 2020, Carver has re‑established a close bond with Clarke – they were Newcastle coaches together under Ruud Gullit – and taken on an influential role as Scotland continue on their upward curve. Their World Cup play-off against Ukraine has been delayed until June but a friendly at home against Poland on Thursday has taken its place.

Carver’s memories of qualification for last summer’s European Championship finals, achieved via penalties in Serbia, come with a grimace. “Just as I pushed off to celebrate, Stevie Woods clipped me and Stephen Reid jumped on top of me,” he says. “I tried to stop myself falling so I pushed off again … and tore my calf. I was screaming at others not to come anywhere near me. That’s why you don’t see me in any of the celebration pictures. Reidy had to stick me on his shoulders and carry me up the tunnel.

“I said yes to this job because I knew Steve would value my opinion and trust. I am allowed an opinion. I learned about that the hard way. When Ruud Gullit came to Newcastle I was a bit of a yes man because I’d just been promoted to the first team, at my own club, alongside this superstar footballer. I sat and agreed with everything he said. I almost lost Alan Shearer, Gary Speed and players like that because they saw me as that yes man. I held my hands up in front of them one day and told them I’d made a mistake.”

Clarke’s return to Chelsea after Gullit was sacked in 1999 meant Carver retained first-team involvement at St James’ Park. After a hugely successful period alongside Bobby Robson, he was marginalised by the Graeme Souness regime. “They wanted me to take a pay cut and change my title and that hurt me. I had been at the club for most of my life. I remember working at Leeds and Sam Ellis [a fellow coach there] saying to me: ‘John, leave it. It’s done now.’ But I couldn’t because it hurt me so much. I was wounded. I used to get into cold sweats going back to the stadium.”

Carver gees up the Scotland players before their Euro 2020 opener against Czech Republic. Photograph: Stu Forster/Getty Images

Yet then, as now, Carver, 57, was held in high esteem by the Newcastle public. He is one of their own. He returned to the club to assist Pardew before a spell as caretaker manager during turbulent times. Famously, he accused the centre-back Mike Williamson of deliberately getting himself sent off during a defeat at Leicester.

“I only did that because I called him out in the dressing room in front of his teammates and he didn’t respond to me,” Carver says. “I wanted him to react. We were fighting for our lives. People deserved to know what my thoughts were.” Exiting in 2015 proved somewhat easier. “It was done the right way. I had done all the jobs in the club. It was time to try something different.”

Carver’s demeanour markedly changes when conversation turns to Speed, who took his own life in November 2011. He regards Speed and Shearer as the best two all-round players he has coached. Speed hired Carver as first-team coach at Sheffield United, which emphasised mutual respect. “I think about him all the time,” Carver says. “We developed a great relationship and I find it tough talking about him. He had an unbelievable future. He trained the way he played, he was so competitive. He was meticulous.

“We were at Sheffield and he told me he had the chance to manage Wales. I said: ‘Go.’ He said: ‘But what about you?’ I said: ‘Go, do it. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be all right.’ He offered to pay up the rest of my contract out of his own pocket. I told him not to be silly but that’s how good a man he was. He felt like he was letting me down.”

There is no notion of an Englishman feeling uneasy within a Scotland coaching staff. It seems fitting, in fact, that Carver lives minutes from Hadrian’s Wall. Even the Euros game against England at Wembley – Scotland impressed during a scoreless draw – was straightforward.

Carver alongside Alan Pardew in the Newcastle dugout in 2014. Photograph: Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

“It was weird but I was so proud,” he says. “When they played the English anthem, I thought of Bobby Robson managing England. Then the Scottish anthem is unbelievable and suddenly I was proud to be ‘Scottish’. It was a strange situation. I had mates of mine who are English in with the Scotland fans and they said what an experience it was. That whole game is probably the most relaxed I have ever been because we played so well. I never felt as if we were going to lose. I was really confident and comfortable.

“I get stick from my mates for referring to the Scotland team as ‘we’. That’s just me; I’m all or nothing. Listen, I’m an Englishman and proud to be but I feel part of this, I love the job and love the way the people of Scotland have taken to me.”

Including the country’s elite football players. “The biggest thing I noticed was the togetherness,” he says. “People can pay lip service and say that’s there when it really isn’t. This is one of the best atmospheres I have ever walked into. They actually want to be there. I remember at Newcastle some of the internationals weren’t interested in going to play for their country – they didn’t like it. These guys can’t wait to get there, which makes our jobs so much easier.”

Everton faded alarmingly after conceding the opening goal after 25 minutes, and Lampard queried whether confidence alone was the issue. “There is only so much you can keep trying to butter someone up to get confidence,” the manager said. “You’re playing at the cut-throat end of football; this is the FA Cup quarter-finals. If you haven’t got the confidence to play, you can flip it and say: ‘Have you got the bollocks to play?’ Apologies but that’s the football term.

“We didn’t play that badly today, Palace didn’t play that well. It was a lack of confidence, and a lack of what I just said. It wasn’t tactics. Palace couldn’t get out of their half in the first 20 minutes.”

Asked about the difficulty of altering that dynamic, Lampard seemed fatalistic, and keen also to point the finger of blame at those who preceded him in the job. “It’s a challenge because it’s been there quite a long time before I got here. I don’t have a magic wand to get inside people’s heads and change the resilience across a whole squad. That’s a work in progress. So we just have to work on that, as frustrating as it is for me and for the 4,000 fans who travelled down.”

Lampard saw other possible explanations for his team’s showing, not least the demands of playing so soon after Thursday evening.

“Two things hindered us. One was the scheduling. The reality is we could have played at three or four o’clock but the broadcasters want to show other games. There’s Allan’s suspension, which didn’t help us.”

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He was, though, adamant that defeat at Palace should have no effect on the battle to stay in the Premier League. “It should be nothing. Every time we win people talk about momentum, every time we lose people talk about damage done. In reality we need to be bigger and stronger than that.”

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Many people want to believe that finding happiness is all about finding or getting something that they want. However, not many people have ever found long-term happiness by achieving a goal. There will always be another thing that they want. There will always be another exam or another dollar.

To break this vicious cycle, we must find our happiness somewhere else —within ourselves. In other words, happiness is completely an inside job. The key to finding happiness is to understand that happiness is a choice rather than the result of an experience. We have been given everything

We need to be happy. Allow yourself to choose happiness. If life was perfect, would you be happy? Life is perfect because we create it with our choices. Since we can create life, we can create happiness and choose how much better our lives can get!

Only when we can accept that life is perfect as it is, and that our lives are the sum total of everything that has happened up to this moment, can we accept the joy and the happiness we deserve.

As far as I'm concerned, I know some kinds of clothes, such as formal clothes, casual clothes, evening wears and uniforms. In different situations, we wear different clothes. For example, we wear formal clothes to go to meetings; we wear casual clothes at home; we wear evening wears to attend evening parties, and we wear uniforms at school or at work. 我知道一些衣服的类型，如正式服装，休闲装，晚礼服和制服。在不同的场合，我们穿不同类型的衣服。例如，我们穿正装去参加会议；我们在家里会穿休闲装；我们会穿晚礼服参加晚会，我们在学校或工作时穿制服。

Nevertheless, I prefer casual clothes, because they are comfortable. And they are also very cheap. When I wear casual clothes, I can do a lot of sports. It’s so cool. By the way, red is my favorite color, since I've got a white skin. If I'm in red, I'll look kind and friendly. So I always buy red clothes when shopping. 然而，我更喜欢休闲装，因为它们穿起来很舒服。而且也很便宜。当我穿着休闲服的时候，我可以做很多运动。很酷。顺便说一下，红色是我最喜欢的颜色，因为我的皮肤是白色的。如果我穿红色的衣服，我看起来会显得善良和友好。所以我总是买红色的衣服。

许多人错误地认为大学学位能保证成功。不努力工作就没有这样的保证。

While the inclination to procrastinate is common, one must fully consider the detrimental impact of unnecessary delays.

虽然拖延的倾向是普遍的，但是人们应该充分考虑到不必要的延误造成的有害影响。

The tendency to take things for granted is understandable, but the need for one to rationally evaluate the circumstances of any situation is absolutely essential.

想当然的倾向是可以理解的，但是，理智地估计任何情形的情况是完全必需的。

From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw a conclusion that, although the parents' desire to look after children by themselves is understandable, its disadvantages far outweigh the advantages.

通过以上讨论，我们可以得出如下结论：尽管家长想亲自照看孩子的愿望是可以理解的，但是这样做的缺点远大于优点。

From what has been discussed above, we may safely draw the conclusion that, although extra studies indeed enjoy many obvious advantages, its disadvantages shouldn't be ignored and far outweigh its advantages. It is absurd to force children to take extra studies after school.

通过以上讨论，我们可以得出结论：尽管额外学习的确有很多优点，但它的缺点不可忽视，且远大于它的优点。因此，放学后强迫孩子额外学习是不明智的。(结论句式)

While achieving success is easier said than done, persistence does in fact pay off. One of the most important traits of a successful person is self-confidence, another is desire, and still another is determination.

获得成功说起来比做起来容易，然而坚持不懈确实会有好结果。成功人士的最重要的特征之一是自信，第二是渴望，还有一个是决心。

Independence offers many advantages, the first and foremost of which is self-determination.

独立带来很多好处，首先也是最重要的是自决

There has been undesirable trend in recent years towards the worship of money . A recent survey showed that X percent of respondents ranked getting rich as their top priority , compared to X percent only a few years ago . Why do people fail to realize that wealth does not necessarily bring happiness?

近年来出现了对社会有害的拜金主义倾向。最近的一项调查表明，X%的调查对象把致富作为他们的首选，相比之下，就在几年前，只有X%的人这样想。为什么人们没能意识到财富不一定带来幸福呢?

Most people are of the opinion that wealth provides solutions to all problems. But in spite of the material benefits wealth provides , I believe one should abandon the pursuit of materialism and instead concentrate on the pursuit of happiness.

大多数人认为财富为所有问题提供解决的办法。但是，我认为，尽管财富提供物质上的利益，一个人应该放弃物质至上的追求，而是集中精力追求幸福。