MARTIN SAMUEL: If Jofra Archer saves England, don't forget we're at it

'I just met a wonderful new man,' says Cecilia in Woody Allen's film, The Purple Rose of Cairo. 'He's fictional, but you can't have everything.'

It's the same for English cricket. We know exactly who is coming to save us after the debacle in the Caribbean. He's West Indian, but we're not going to worry about trifles like that.

Jofra Archer will be eligible to ride to sorry England's rescue from next month, in time to play in the World Cup and the Ashes.

He bowls at 95mph, he can handle a bat confidently enough to be considered an all-rounder in the white-ball game, and he's been with Sussex since 2016. So that's good enough.

The ECB used to demand a seven-year residency period for any player entering the United Kingdom after their 18th birthday.

It wasn't how much of the world did it, but the stand was at least based in principle. It showed faith in and prioritised those who had come through the English system; it resisted the increasing opportunism that infects other sports. It allowed smaller countries to make the most of their talent, by removing the temptation to simply desert for financial gain.

Obviously, it had to go. Last year, the ECB changed the qualification period to three years. It would be a terrible cynic who questioned the timing, with Archer now available and two huge events coming up.

'Aussies will take back cheats with open arms,' read one headline about the imminent return of Steve Smith, Cameron Bancroft and David Warner, following the ball-tampering episode. No doubt they will, but at least they are their cheats.

As we know, the athletes and sporting bodies from these shores never cheat, they just have a way with regulatory procedures, with exemptions, with passports.

That's why the most furiously organised team in cycling doesn't keep proper medical records, why our runners celebrate American independence day and why when Izzy Atkin became Great Britain's first Olympic medallist on skis, it was desperately played up that she liked Marmite and Ribena and visited her grandmother in Birmingham because the truth was she had barely set foot in this country, apart from on holiday. We're at it, basically. We're sporting colonialists.

Atkin and athletes such as hurdling sisters Tiffany Porter and Cindy Ofili were approached when they were uncertain of making the grade in their own country, but others come from regions where an international career with England has greater prospects, financially and professionally.

Sir Viv Richards says Archer, a Barbadian, became disenchanted with West Indies cricket when he was injured playing for the Under-19 team and the care provided was inadequate. Archer would have waited patiently to play for England after that, even if it had taken seven years.

Maybe he was poorly treated — but West Indies cricket is impoverished compared to the ECB, of course our grass is going to look greener. It was Chris Jordan who persuaded Archer to join Sussex — another Barbadian lost to the game in the Caribbean having been lured to England by a sports scholarship from Dulwich College.

England's rugby coach Eddie Jones smiled as he reflected on the victory over Ireland. It was the strongest starting XV he had fielded for a while, and they had performed with exceptional discipline and ferocity.

'It feels like we've got some new players,' he said. 'And they all come from the same part of the world. So we shopped pretty well. It was good shopping. We definitely went to Waitrose, not one of those cheap ones.'

Actually, the RFU didn't do the shopping. The Vunipola boys, Mako and Billy, of Tongan heritage, came to Britain when their father Fe'ao got a contract to play for Pontypool, and later Pontypridd. They were raised and educated here, not picked off the shelves as fully fledged rugby players.

Nor was Manu Tuilagi. His older brothers were all rugby players and he arrived at 13 from Samoa, to live with them in the hope he could be, too.

Only Nathan Hughes came to England as an adult professional, with Wasps, at the age of 21. He is Fijian but qualifies by residency.

So, no, the RFU didn't exactly do a supermarket sweep to make Jones's England team, but we know what he means.

There is an obvious attraction in taking on another nationality, given the limitations of the Pacific Islands economy and every major rugby-playing nation knows it. Ambitious fee-paying schools in the southern hemisphere plunder the islands with offers of scholarships and, increasingly, northern hemisphere schools do, too.

On the plus side, it affords social mobility, albeit only for the athletically gifted, on the minus, it strips the Pacific Islands of their talent.

In 2013, when Fiji's Under-18 secondary school team beat the All Black equivalent 22-20, all but one of them left to play abroad immediately. Pacific island coaches do not see success in that competition as victory — the aim is to win scholarships and contracts, even though it means losing the youth to a rival.

'Young players are prostituting themselves, rather than playing for their own countries,' said Richards of modern cricket and major institutions are complicit. It is why Jones spoke of shopping.

Australia's squad to face Fiji in 2017 contained a majority of Pacific Islands descent. The argument is everyone does it.

Fine, if we are happy reducing sport to its coldest, most pragmatic rationale, fine if, in a country relatively awash with money, we continue plucking jewels like Archer from former colonies. England could certainly do with him right now.

As long as we don't kid ourselves that a bequest from history is England's victory. It hardly feels like one.

Sorry Sarri, you're dreaming

Maurizio Sarri was purring after Chelsea's 5-0 win over Huddersfield. He spoke of the team playing 'his' football again. This is going to grow old very quickly.

Leaving aside that Huddersfield may well end up with numbers to rival Sunderland in 2002-03 or Derby in 2007-08, it can't be Sarri-ball when Chelsea win, and everyone else's ball when they do not.

Managers take ownership of performances, good and bad, and if they refuse, players see through that very quickly.

Sarri styles himself as a dreamer, who just wants beautiful football, his way. But didn't he have that at Napoli? Wasn't the team set up to his specification and playing what Pep Guardiola described as the finest football in Europe? So why leave? Sarri might be a dreamer, but his financial adviser sounds more of a realist.

Common sense not rule change for handballs

That is three and counting this season: three goals in which handball has played a crucial part, yet been deemed accidental, if spotted at all.

In two of these — Willy Boly for Wolves against Manchester City, and Sergio Aguero for Manchester City against Arsenal on Sunday — the handball was the vital last touch.

In the other incident, Alexandre Lacazette for Arsenal against Crystal Palace, it served as the assist for Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang.

Next month, the International Football Association Board will consider a number of rule changes at their annual meeting. The removal of the word 'deliberately' with regard to handball offences is one of them.

It would certainly end goals like Boly or Aguero's, where the ball is put in with the hand, but clearly without intent.

Yet there does have to be further clarification if we are not to merely reshuffle the miscarriages of justice. Football cannot become like hockey, where inferior players can win the cheapest of free-hits, simply by striking the ball unavoidably against the foot of an opponent.

A smart technical footballer could earn 20 penalties a season by targeting the arm of a covering defender.

Wouldn't clarification serve better than rule change — that goals cannot be scored with the hand, even unintentionally. Isn't that just common sense?

City's new era of glory has spawned the Cockney Blue

Where the media sit at the Etihad Stadium is near the Tunnel Club, the exclusive executive area that is part of Manchester City's conversion to a global enterprise.

It offers pitch-side access, a view of the players' tunnel, the most upmarket dining, the comfiest seats. We should run a sweep on the time of the last Tunneller back for the second half: Sunday's winner, resplendent in a City scarf so new you could smell the wool, clocked in just after 63 minutes. At the end, she clapped and cheered as if it mattered. Still, that's football, 2019.

Across the row to me were two kids, not little, but not teenagers either. They were wearing the same coats, so were probably brothers. There was a man with them, probably dad.

When Arsenal scored, the older one punched the air, but discreetly. He had obviously been told not to show out. I sensed dad was quite happy, too. The boy, I noticed, had the Arsenal crest on his gloves.

His younger brother, meanwhile, looked bereft. He kept that same anguished expression for 30 minutes or so then, when City scored, he went nuts. Stuck it to his older brother. Really gloating, right in his face. To be fair, he took it well.

Then the younger brother pushed it too far. Then he got a slap. It was off again when the third went in. More taunting, more fighting. They ended up either side of dad, and later in separate rows. The Arsenal lad certainly put up a better second-half show than his team.

So here's my theory. The dad's Arsenal, the older brother is Arsenal, but the younger one is City. He's grown up in an era when they are the best team, with the best players. He wants some of that. He's a Cockney Blue, the first of a new breed. City fans come from Manchester, traditionally; United fans, well they can come from anywhere. But it will change.

As City become a global concern, a corporate machine, they will draw a generation of fans from unimagined locales, just like Chelsea.

When Roman Abramovich arrived, we were told they could never be a big club. Not anymore. Look at Chelsea's numbers abroad, look at their reach — success creates that fan base. It will happen to City, too. Cockney Blues. Not sure the regulars are ready for it, but it's coming.

Fans deserve warning if clubs aren't up for the cup

The worst of it is probably over, with the last 16 now looming, but here's one final thought on the fielding of weakened teams in the FA Cup.

In 1997, when Roy Keane suffered a season-ending ligament injury for Manchester United in a match against Leeds, the club had a dilemma. United were playing Juventus in an important Champions League match and Sir Alex Ferguson didn't want the atmosphere at Old Trafford falling flat on hearing their captain would be missing until the following year.

United, however, were a listed company and were advised they were duty bound to inform the Stock Exchange of Keane's position, because a long-term injury to such a senior player could affect their chances of success, which in turn would influence the share price. United announced Keane was out for the season the morning after the Juventus game.

Yet if companies have to be fair to shareholders, why don't clubs have to respect fans? Without giving the team away, if a club in the cup is likely to make six or more changes from its last league fixture, should it not have to announce this when tickets go on sale so that supporters know what they are getting?

A manager will talk vaguely of changes, then strip the heart from the team. Sometimes it works — Watford swapped their entire XI at Newcastle, and still won. Yet had they lost, those who had made the long journey north would rightly have felt short-changed.

The counter-argument is that fans support a club, not a specific XI, and whoever pulls on the shirt is their team for the day — but that idea stretches loyalty too far.

Technically, a club could play its academy in the FA Cup and fans would have to get behind the decision. No — while clubs charge, and transport costs, there is a contract of sorts, and a right to know. If fans had to be told whether major changes were likely, and the club held accountable for this information, they couldn't feel ripped off.

According to Evertonians, manager Marco Silva is one defeat from the sack. If he beats Manchester City on Wednesday night, apparently, that should do it.