Premier League predictions: Chris Sutton vs Bath and England rugby star Ollie Lawrence – and AI

Lawrence also excelled at football and cricket as a boy, and was with the academies of Aston Villa and Birmingham City, as well as Worcester Warriors, before focusing on rugby at the age of sixteen.

Sutton is a keen cricketer himself, and has featured regularly for Norwich Cricket Club in recent years, but says his rugby career never really took off.

“I only played rugby once for my school team,” Sutton said. “We were really excited on the bus on the way there, but we lost 72-0 and I never played again.

“Anyway, it’s great that Ole is playing for Villa’s academy, but I would like to remind him that I already played for their first team.”

Comparison to a rugby team isn’t usually seen as a compliment to football teams, but Arsenal coach Mikel Arteta recently revealed he took inspiration from New Zealand rugby coach Scott Robertson.

Having played both sports, Lawrence can understand why coaches share ideas so successfully.

“It definitely makes sense,” he told BBC Sport. “There is a lot to learn from both sports, for example in the way teams try to contain the opponent or prepare to counter-attack.

“I saw Luis Enrique, the coach of Paris Saint-Germain, was watching the matches from the stands recently, like we do in rugby, and not from the touchline. It’s just a small thing but it can make a big difference because you see the game from a different perspective.

“Arteta was using the rugby term ‘finishers’ rather than ‘substitutions’ as well. I think the first time we started using that was with Eddie.” [former England coach Eddie Jones] “Who was present on the bench and had an impact on the game, and I can see why Arteta liked that mentality.”