Russell Knox has every right to beam from ear to ear, as he did for the majority of his 15-minute media gathering, after flying in from his base in the United States to a sodden Castle Stuart.

Media playback is not supported on this device
"Great to be here," he offered in a slightly less Americanised accent than I expected. "Raining as always."
"I can't wait to play this week," he enthused to the assembled journalists. "I've been looking forward to this for a long time, probably four or five years to be honest."
So have we Russell.
It's exciting, even for battle weary Scottish journalists, to see someone performing at the top of their game on a world stage with the potential to go further.
That's not beyond Knox and the next two weeks provide the perfect platform for him to deliver further on his potential and achieve many of his dreams.
Victory at the this week's Scottish Open in his home town of Inverness would certainly be one. That would push him right up the list for Ryder Cup qualification. Then there's the matter of next week's Open at Troon.
Currently 27th in the world rankings, 131 places above the nearest Scot, Richie Ramsay, Knox is Scotland's best hope to at least fight for these trophies.
He is a contender in most tournaments these days, primarily on the PGA Tour, and for a place in Darren Clarke's Ryder Cup team.
As his star rises, Knox remains adamant that playing in front of an expectant home crowd over the next two weeks won't be a hindrance, despite heightened expectation.
His demeanour backs that up. He seems philosophical - what will be, will be.
"It adds a little bit of pressure," he said. "We're used to it, every week you've got pressure. I put a lot of pressure on myself every time I play so I don't really feel added pressure.
"I've been wanting to do this my whole life. I've been wanting to play on the PGA tour, European Tour, all the majors and hey, it's starting to happen.
"I've been wanting to win tournaments, be in the top 20, 10 in the world, see how high I can get.
"This is what I've been dreaming my whole life. I'm not sure if you're ever really ready for it but you've just got to do your best and go for it."
There's a wider goal for Knox than doing well in his home country, or even achieving a dream Ryder Cup place.
Getting into the top 20 or 30 players in the world is tremendously hard. Staying there is just as difficult, if not more challenging, and plenty of players have been there and fallen away.
"Of course the goal is to stay inside the top 50 but you have to play well to do that," said Knox.
"It's so hard to stay there. To be honest I don't know how I'm going to do. I could quite easily move forward or quite easily move back.
"That's the hard thing about golf. It's such a hard game. One week you feel like you can hit any shot, then up comes a week like last week when you're like 'Am I even good enough to play golf?' I feel like I can keep improving."
Luke Donald addressed us shortly before Knox's arrival. He won this tournament at Castle Stuart in a rain-shortened Scottish Open in 2011, when he was the top-ranked golfer on the planet.
He is now 83rd in the world and struggles to get anywhere near the form he showed so consistently.
"Luke is a great player, and he's just one example of someone who has been at the top and slipped down," said Knox. "He's still a great player.
"It's so hard to stay there and this is really my first go at trying to stay there and trying to move up."
Such awareness can only be a positive for Knox and perhaps helps to keep his head on the ground despite his success.
"The whole journey's been crazy the last couple of years. I just hope I never wake up and it keeps going."
Victory here at home could be the launchpad for his life to get even crazier.


A painting by Sir Winston Churchill has been sold for almost £1.8m at auction.

The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell, which depicts the pond at his Kent home, was painted in 1932.
It was auctioned at Sotheby's in London on Wednesday, following the death of his daughter Mary Soames in May.
The previous auction record for one of his paintings was £1m. Fifteen of his paintings were included in the sale of Mary Soames' possessions, which raised a total of £15.4m.
Sotheby's described The Goldfish Pool at Chartwell as "undoubtedly Churchill's masterpiece from the decade" and "a striking manifestation of the artist at his very best".
It had been given an estimated value of £400,000-£600,000.
Another painting, Tapestries at Blenheim, sold for £1m, while his depiction of The Harbour, Cannes, fetched £722,500.
Among the other possessions, a red ministerial despatch box he used while secretary of state for the colonies from 1921-22, far exceeded its estimated value of £5,000-£7,000, eventually going under the hammer for £158,500.
Churchill was Britain's prime minister during World War Two. He died in 1965. Mary Soames, who died at the age of 91, was his last surviving child.


Burger King has confirmed that it plans to buy Tim Hortons, the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, for about $11bn (Â£6.6bn; 8.3bn euros).

The deal would create the world's third-largest fast-food chain, with 18,000 restaurants in 100 countries.
The new group would have a market capitalisation of about $18bn and annual sales in the region of $23bn.
Burger King's majority shareholder, 3G Capital, will own about 51% of the merged company.
Under the terms of the deal, which has been unanimously approved by both companies' boards of directors, Tim Hortons shareholders will receive 65.50 Canadian dollars ($59.74; Â£36.10) in cash and 0.8025 shares of the new company for every share they own, the companies said in a joint statement.
Warren Buffett's investment firm Berkshire Hathaway will contribute $3bn "in preferred equity financing" to the deal, the companies said, but would not have any managerial control over the business.
Although Burger King's shares closed up 19.5% on Monday after it was revealed the two companies were in talks, shares closed down 4.32% on Tuesday when the terms were finalised.
However, investors were cheered by the prospect for Tim Hortons: shares in the firm ended up 8.47% on Tuesday, followed by a 19% rise in the share price on Monday.
The firms have said that any new group would have its headquarters in Canada, where corporate taxes are lower.
These so-called "tax inversion" deals are attracting increasing criticism in the US, where President Barack Obama is understood to be looking at how they can be prevented in future.
The US corporate tax rate is 35%, but 26.5% in Ontario, Canada, where Tim Hortons is based.
3G Capital, a New York and Rio de Janeiro-based investment company, bought Burger King in 2010 for about $3.3bn and floated the company in 2012, holding on to nearly 70% of the shares.
The companies will retain their separate brand identities, but save costs by sharing corporate services.
Tim Hortons used to be owned by US fast-food chain Wendy's, before being spun off as a separate company in 2006.


Hundreds of people walked past me as I made my way to where Nelson Mandela lay in a wood and glass coffin - all I could hear was the sound of my heart beating hard against my chest.

There were two queues - one on either side of the coffin. Four men dressed in white uniform stood guard around it.
In front of them a petite policewoman directed the flow of traffic: "One to my left, one to my right, please," she said as I approached.
She was no more than a metre from me but her voice sounded distant - drowned out by the sound of my beating heart, now louder and faster.
The path to the coffin was lined with a red carpet. I saw the casket before I reached it.
There it was, the box that would imprison Mandela for all eternity.
As I got closer, my knees felt weak and heavy. It was as though I had forgotten how to walk. "Left, right, left right," I said in my head - an instruction I had never before needed to give myself.
My heart was now beating even faster and louder.
I don't know why I was so anxious.
I have been to many funerals in my life and filing past an open coffin is standard practice at funerals for black South Africans.
But of all the funerals I've been to, I have only cried twice after seeing a loved one.
The first was at my beloved grandmother's funeral in 2002, the second was at the burial of my cousin, who I had always regarded as an older sister.
And now for Mandela, a man I had no worldly relation to but deeply loved.
I loved him more than I realised until I saw him lying there, lifeless.
Something about Mandela made you feel like he was exclusively yours, whether you had personally met him or had merely been in the same space as him.
He could be in a room of thousands of people, look in your direction and make you feel as though you were the only one who mattered to him.
That is a rare and special gift.
My time with him in that temporary wooden arch was exactly like that.
There must have been eight people inside, four on either side but it felt like I was alone - my moment to say goodbye to my Mandela.
They all raised their fists in the freedom salute and walked out. I felt a lump in my throat.
There lay the man the world knew as a fighter, except this time he wasn't fighting: he didn't need to any more - he was at peace.
I raised my hand to wave goodbye; it felt heavy. "Up," I said in my head, trying to command my now defiant hand.
And muttered a salute "Ah Dalibhunga" - the name he was given as chief.
It is a sign of deep respect in the Xhosa culture, which Mandela and I share.
My "Mandela moment" was no longer than two minutes but for me felt like an eternity.
As I shuffled out of the arch, police standing on either side, I felt my shoulders shaking and tears burning behind my eyes.
And that's when it happened - that is when it felt real.
Madiba was gone.
There was none of the singing we had seen in the past few days, just people crying and holding each other - many of them strangers.
I don't know where she came from, the woman who offered me a tissue and held me.
She was a soldier - that was the first time I'd ever been held by a soldier.
I had to sit down for a bit at the bottom of the stairs and just watch the people walking past, studying their faces.
But most importantly, I had to have a good cry.
I don't remember the last time my heart ached this much - perhaps at my granny's funeral. I'm not sure.
I've written countless articles about Mandela and used the phrase "Father of the nation" quite liberally.
But today - today I understood what that truly felt like and it filled my heart with overwhelming grief.
Sitting down at the bottom of those large brown stairs looking at the Union Buildings, the South African flag flying at half-mast, I began processing.
I saw him, I saw my Mandela. The man who had made it possible for a girl like me to be where I am. I saw him and all I could do was cry.
Route to Mandela lying in state
There he was, the man who made me believe that nothing was out of reach - that people of my skin colour were not inferior, regardless of what some in the country believed.
Dressed in a yellow African print shirt, his coffin lined with white flowers, he lay there in mortality but still a giant.
He didn't look like a man who had battled terrible sickness and that was important for me.
No-one wants to remember a loved one looking frail.
I watched families and strangers embrace, I now in the arms of Helene, a white colleague who I had only met yesterday, both of us feeling utterly broken.
It hit me - this is what he and many others who had passed before him had spent so many years in prison for.
It was so a black girl from an unknown village could cry in the arms of a white girl from a faraway land, knowing that we felt the same pain - that for me was profound.
I stood up, took one more look at the arch and walked away, thinking: "Madiba, you are still here."
Ah Dalibhunga!


Two-time Olympic gold medallist Helen Glover says she is considering whether to continue in the sport.

The 30-year-old's partner for pairs gold in 2012 and 2016, Heather Stanning, retired on Wednesday.
Glover, who married television presenter Steve Backshall in September, is taking time out from the sport.
"I haven't decided. I was always going to take these few months without thinking about it too much and without trying to make a decision," she said.
"Heather's decision doesn't affect mine at all, I already knew she was going to retire.
"In 2013, when she left to have a year out, I took my decision regardless of whether she was going to come back or not, so it feels kind of similar to that," she told BBC Radio Cornwall.
Find out how to get into rowing with our special guide.
Glover hinted in June that she could quit the sport after the Rio Olympics and has not been given a deadline by which to make her decision.
"Its open-ended in terms of GB Rowing's support and they'll support me and will be happy to welcome me back, but also happy to support me if I move away from rowing," said Glover.
"But for me there is a deadline because I don't want to get to the stage where I've left it too late to come back and be competitive.
"People have taken a year out, like Heather did in 2013, and come back very strong, any more than that you'd be looking at making it very difficult for yourself to continue."
Media playback is not supported on this device


Love them or loathe them - films based on the Troubles seem to go hand-in-hand with box office success.

But whether it's the dodgy accents or far-fetched scripts, it seems we all have an opinion about the films that attempt to launch wee Northern Ireland onto the big screen.
The latest such offering, The Journey, is a fictional account of the relationship between Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness.
Its writer, Colin Bateman, has a theory about what makes a great local film.
"In mathematical terms - the higher the budget the worse the movie, quite possibly.
"The ones that work best are the small films, like Cal or Hunger."
Film critic Mike Catto has watched many films that have used Northern Ireland as a backdrop.
He said: "There are films we laugh at, like Brad Pitt with a bad accent in The Devil's Own and Mickey Rourke with an even worse accent in a Prayer for the Dying, it was just so far removed from the reality we know."
However, there are a number of films he believes should be praised.
"For every really bad one there is one really worthy, for example Titanic Town with Julie Walters."
Ian McElhinney, who stars in The Journey, is one of Northern Ireland's best-known actors.
He would like to see films focus on previously unheard stories.
"I would quite like to see stories that are not necessarily to do with the violence, because I think there was quite a lot of normality in our world - but it is never reflected on the screen," he said.
However, Colin Bateman says he doesn't believe we should stop trying with films about the Troubles.
"I don't think you can ever have enough, in some respects," he said.
"If you think of something like the Vietnam War, some of the best movies did not come out until 10, 20 or 30 years afterwards."
But actress and screenwriter Bronagh Taggart thinks these types of films are only part of the story of Northern Ireland.
Television series like Game of Thrones and Line of Duty have all been filmed here in recent years and the BBC series, The Fall, was shot in Belfast.
She said: "I think a lot of people know the very political films that come out of Northern Ireland.
"They are quite high profile, but I don't think they are the only ones and I think the new writers, directors and producers making films and telling stories at the minute are telling a mix of political and personal and I think it will always be like that in Northern Ireland."
What is clear is that Northern Ireland will continue to be a home to filmmakers and producers.
It also seems certain that, when it comes to capturing the story of this place on film, our troubled past will never be too far away.


Police are hunting three men who broke into flats providing shelter for the homeless and carried out a series of assaults.

The men - all in their 20s - "forcibly entered" the flats in Bannockburn Road at about 0200 on Sunday.
One of the men was 6ft 3in tall with a muscular build and wearing a dark hooded top. Another also had a dark jumper or hoody on.
Police have appealed to anyone with information to contact them.
Officers said the assaults were unprovoked.


A delegation from Northern Ireland is travelling to Cuba  to provide support for peace talks between the Colombian government and the Farc rebel group.

The two sides in the decades-old conflict have been holding peace talks since 2012.
The Northern Ireland delegation includes the Rev Harold Good, Sinn Fein's Paul Maskey, the DUP's Jeffrey Donaldson and the SDLP's Mark Durkan.
Two representatives from South Africa's ANC will also be attending.
The Northern Ireland delegation will share their experiences of the peace process, particularly the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
Last month, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said that he had given his negotiating team instructions to resolve the outstanding issues before 23 March 2016.
Since starting official peace talks in Havana in November 2012, the two sides have struck deals on land reform, political participation, illegal drugs and now transitional justice.
However, none of these agreements will come into force until both sides put their signatures to the final agreement.
An estimated 220,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the 1960s, and more than five million internally displaced. About 8,000 left-wing Farc rebels continue fighting.
Rev Harold Good was one of two independent witnesses, the other being Fr Alec Reid, who oversaw the decommissioning of IRA weapons, a vital part of the peace process.
Mr Durkan said he was "delighted to share any insights or experiences I have had that could in any way help efforts to achieve peace in Colombia.
"Trade union and human rights groups have been engaging with people here on a cross-party basis for a number of years," he added.


A year since fleeing Syria and being forced to swim for her life, Yusra Mardini has become the first athlete to represent the refugee team at Rio 2016.

Syrian Mardini, 18, won her women's 100m butterfly heat, but her time was not quick enough for her to progress.
Mardini's remarkable 25-day journey took her to Beirut in Lebanon, across the Aegean Sea and finally to Germany.
"The only thing I ever wanted was to compete in the Olympics," said Mardini. "Everything was amazing."
In August 2015, Mardini was on a heavily overloaded dinghy bound for the Greek island of Lesbos when the boat lost power. She, her sister Sarah and another woman jumped over the side and spent three and a half hours towing the boat to safety through dangerous seas.
The first ever Refugee Olympic Team will be represented by 10 competitors.
Mardini is one of two Syrian competitors, with five from South Sudan, two from DR Congo and one from Ethiopia. She was a competitive swimmer until she left Damascus with her sister 12 months ago and settled in Berlin.
Her time of one minute, 9.21 seconds placed her 41st overall in the heats, with the top 16 swimmers going through. Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden had the top qualifying time of 56.26 seconds.
"Competing with all these great champions is exciting," she added.
Fellow Syrian Rami Anis will be the next to represent the refugee team at Rio in the pool on Tuesday.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Media playback is not supported on this device


BBC Sport's football expert Mark Lawrenson is pitting his wits against a different guest each week this season.

Lawro's opponent for this weekend's Premier League fixtures is former world champion athlete Steve Cram.
As the BBC's chief athletics commentator, Cram will be covering this week's World Indoor Championships in the United States.
But, as a die-hard Sunderland fan, he will also be following updates from Sunday's north-east derby at St James' Park.
Cram told BBC Sport: "We have to win, but both teams need to win - it's a nine-pointer if there is such a thing.
"I think it will be very tight on the day because both teams will be under an awful lot of pressure."
You can hear more of his tales of supporting the Black Cats on Football Focus at 12:10 GMT on Saturday on BBC One and the BBC Sport website.
Our scoring system has changed this season and a correct result (picking a win, draw or defeat) is now worth 10 points. The exact score earns 40 points.
From last weekend's Premier League games, Lawro got three correct results from five matches, with one perfect score for a total of 60 points.
He was beaten by world champion boxer Carl Frampton, who got all five results correct, with one perfect score.
That gives Frampton a score so far of 80 points, and he can add to that tally when the five Premier League games that were postponed because of the FA Cup quarter-finals are played.
Make your own predictions now, compare them to Lawro and other fans and try to take your team to the top of the leaderboard by playing the BBC Sport Predictor game.
All kick-offs 15:00 GMT unless otherwise stated
Arsenal have won only one of their past eight games in all competitions - with their sole victory coming in an FA Cup replay against Hull.
It is not good enough and, of all the times of the season to hit a wall, this is the worst.
This is a bad time to be going to Goodison Park too, because Everton will be buoyed by their performance and win against Chelsea in the FA Cup.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Goodison is an extremely intimidating place to go when it is really rocking, and it will be the same against the Gunners because the Everton fans will smell blood.
Arsenal need to regroup, but the only thing they have really got to play for now is to make sure they are back in the Champions League again next season.
Gunners boss Arsene Wenger is under a bit more pressure than normal but I think, with his achievements at Arsenal, he has earned the right to be the person who decides when he goes.
Lawro's prediction: 1-1
Cram's prediction: This is a tough one - Everton have been struggling at home in the league, while Arsenal's season is sort of falling apart. Maybe the Gunners might have something to prove here. 1-2
Match preview
West Ham put in another good away performance in their draw with Manchester United in their FA Cup quarter-final and they will probably feel they should have won that tie.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Chelsea's season was effectively ended by that FA Cup defeat by Everton, and they will be without suspended striker Diego Costa at the weekend.
I am tempted to back the Hammers to win again but Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink remains unbeaten in the Premier League since taking over before Christmas, and I think he will rack up another draw here.
Lawro's prediction: 1-1
Cram's prediction: West Ham have been great away from home, while I am not sure what has been wrong with Chelsea this season. The Hammers to win? I was going to say 3-2, but I actually think it will be a 2-2 draw.
Match preview
Leicester remain on course for the title after taking 10 points from a possible 12 in some awkward fixtures in the past few weeks.
Norwich, West Brom, Watford and Newcastle look easy on paper but they aren't, especially at this stage of the season.
I don't see the Foxes winning all their remaining games, however, and I just have a sneaking suspicion they will have a little hiccup here.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Crystal Palace remain on an awful run in the league but I watched them against Reading in the FA Cup last weekend and I think they can cause Leicester some problems.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1
Cram's prediction: Being a Sunderland fan I am not sure Palace are safe yet and would love them to be dragged into the relegation battle.  I want Leicester to win the title and my heart and my head says 0-2.
Match preview
Watford are heading to Wembley after beating Arsenal in their FA Cup quarter-final, and they are also very close to securing top-flight safety.
Media playback is not supported on this device
It is easy to forget this is the Hornets' first year in the Premier League because they have never really looked like being in danger of the drop.
Stoke were typically impossible to predict last weekend, and saw their good run ended with a home defeat by Southampton, so I am not sure what to expect from them this time.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1
Cram's prediction: Is this a candidate for last game on Match of the Day? Probably. 0-0
Match preview
Norwich got a great point against Manchester City last weekend but, in their situation, they need to win games.
I don't see the Canaries getting anything out of West Brom and they will be watching Sunday's north-east derby because a win for either Newcastle or Sunderland would see them move away from Norwich at the bottom of the table.
Lawro's prediction: 2-0
Cram's prediction: Norwich are in desperate trouble at the bottom of the table. West Brom are playing quite well at the moment and my uncle Bobby Cram used to play for them in the 1960s so I have always been a pseudo Baggies fan. 2-1
Match preview
If Swansea do not beat Aston Villa, then I would be seriously worried about them, especially because of what the three points will do for their survival prospects.
The trapdoor has opened a little more for Villa after their defeat by Tottenham, while Swansea will know they can move a big step closer to safety by winning this one.
Lawro's prediction: 2-0
Cram's prediction: Maybe Villa will start to play now they are pretty much down. 0-1
Match preview
Sunderland have had the upper hand in this fixture for a few seasons now but I already saw some improvement from Newcastle in Rafa Benitez's first game in charge, Monday's defeat by Leicester.
I cannot tip Newcastle to win, though, because I don't think their players have the correct mindset.
Media playback is not supported on this device
If they cannot motivate themselves to play when their team is facing the drop, then they will have the same problem with a game against Sunderland.
Lawro's prediction: 1-1
Cram's prediction: What do I say? Six derby wins in a row for Sunderland and I would love to see a seventh, but each time I have been left thinking we can't win another one.  That is kind of what I am thinking this time but my heart obviously wants us to win it - and, if we do get a goal, I don't care if it comes in the 93rd minute. 0-1, hopefully.
Match preview
Liverpool thrashed Southampton 6-1 at St Mary's in the Capital One Cup in December, but I don't see a repeat of that on Sunday.
It does not help Jurgen Klopp's side that they played Manchester United at Old Trafford on Thursday, because that will take a lot out of them even though I expect them to win the tie.
Southampton are inconsistent, but they got a really good win at Stoke last week, and it would not surprise me to see them produce a really strong finish to the season.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1
Cram's prediction: Saints will make sure they won't leak as many goals this time. 3-2
Match preview
I have nothing but sympathy for Manchester City defender Vincent Kompany because his latest calf injury must have left him wondering what on earth can he do to get it sorted.
Media playback is not supported on this device
It has happened so many times to him, he has got an inherent weakness and I am seriously concerned about his career.
The injury that forced Nicolas Otamendi off against Dynamo Kiev looked a lot less serious - a dislocated shoelace, I think. On behalf of the centre-halves' union, I was embarrassed for him.
City will be lying in wait for Manchester United, though, because Louis van Gaal's side have to deal with their Europa League tie with Liverpool on Thursday night.
The likes of Yaya Toure, Sergio Aguero and David Silva are big-game players for City and I would expect them to make the difference.
Lawro's prediction: 2-0
Cram's prediction: City are in a better place at the moment and I think it will be a fairly comfortable day for them. 2-0
Match preview
Bournemouth's past four games have seen them take 10 points out of a possible 12 but I see their good run ending on Sunday.
The Cherries will go at Tottenham but I think that will suit Mauricio Pochettino's side, who are focused on their title bid.
Lawro's prediction: 2-1
Cram's prediction: Bournemouth are safe so can relax, so I can see a few goals in this one. 3-2
Match preview
Lawro was speaking to BBC Sport's Chris Bevan.
*Does not include score for postponed games
Lawro's best score: 160 points (week 19 v Guy Mowbray)
Lawro's worst score: 20 points (week one v Graeme Swann & week 23 v Ice Cube and Kevin Hart)


Manchester United manager Jose Mourinho said it is "possible" that out-of-contract striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic could sign a new deal.

The former Sweden international, 35, was released in June after he not being offered a new contract.
He has been recovering from knee surgery at United's training ground.
Mourinho said: "If the decision is to stay and wait until December - he can't be back until them - why not wait? We are speaking and changing ideas."
Ibrahimovic signed a one-year deal in July 2016, but an extension was not triggered after he suffered a season-ending knee ligament injury in April.
He scored 28 times in 46 games in all competitions for United.
Mourinho also said he wants to sign "one or two" more players this summer.
United have spent a combined £106m on Benfica defender Victor Lindhof and Everton striker Romelu Lukaku during the transfer window, and have been linked with three midfielders - Chelsea's Nemanja Matic, Ivan Perisic from Inter Milan and Tottenham's Eric Dier.
Mourinho said: "I can't say any word about a Chelsea player." However, he added that United "don't have our door closed".
"We need more," he said. "We wanted four - 50% of the job is done. We need two more players, at least one. Everything is so difficult."
Mourinho confirmed that United tried to sign 24-year-old Spain striker Alvaro Morata last month but could not agree a fee with Real Madrid.
Media playback is not supported on this device
Instead, United paid Everton £75m for Belgium striker Romelu Lukaku with manager Mourinho saying his side need a "target man".
"We are not speaking about a multi-functional player. He is a striker," said Mourinho, who confirmed his only involvement in the deal came when it was close to completion.
"He is not a player who participates a lot in the build-up. We need a target man, which is not Martial or Rashford.
"We have good players but we need a number nine. We thought Romelu would be a good option for us."
Ibrahimovic's agent Mino Raiola has said the striker will stay in Europe.
But both Los Angeles-based Major League Soccer clubs - LA Galaxy and Los Angeles FC - are interested in signing him if he decides to end his career elsewhere.
Ibrahimovic said he will make a "big announcement" about his future soon.
Mourinho added: "We wanted to let him make a decision - space and time to think and decide.
"He didn't want to hide behind an amazing injury. That would be easy.
"He was not happy in the way he finished the season. He made the challenge for himself to want to keep playing at highest level.
"We opened the door for him to recover with our people and be one of us. It is [executive vice-chairman] Mr Woodward and Zlatan's agent who will deal with it."


A woman raped as a child by her step-grandfather is seeking changes to the way sex abusers are treated after he walked free from court.

Cheryl Islip, from Eastbourne, East Sussex, wants a "loophole" closed which allowed her attacker to avoid being placed on the sex offenders register.
Last October a trial of facts jury found Norman Askew, 88, had sexually abused Ms Islip and another girl.
But he received an absolute discharge as he was deemed unfit to stand trial.
Live: More on this story and other news from Sussex
Ms Islip, who has waived her right to anonymity, was raped when she was 10 years old and gave evidence against Askew at his trial at Lewes Crown Court.
However, part way through the trial his defence team produced evidence saying he was suffering from the early stages of dementia.
After considering the medical evidence, Judge Charles Kemp ruled he was unfit to be tried.
A trial of facts - where the truth of the allegations against the defendant, as opposed to their guilt or innocence, is determined - was then held.
A jury found Askew, from East Sussex, had raped a girl under the age of 16 and committed two counts of indecent assault of a girl under 14 in October 1987, and one count of indecent assault of a girl under 14 in March 1977.
He received an absolute discharge, but with no conviction or sentence he could not be placed on the sex offenders register.
Speaking to BBC South East, Ms Islip said: "He's been allowed to go home with just a slapped wrist.
"There's been some days where I think I can't go on, and if it wasn't for my children I honestly don't think I would be here because of the situation of knowing that someone can do that to children and get away with it.
"There's just no justice."
She has written to the prime minister urging her to make changes in the law to the way elderly perpetrators of abuse are treated by the courts.
Ms Islip first reported the abuse to Sussex Police in 2004, but claims detectives failed to interview her grandmother who held crucial evidence.
In a statement to the BBC, the force said Askew was arrested and interviewed at the time but there was "insufficient evidence" to justify referring the case to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
In 2011 Ms Islip secretly recorded her step-grandfather in which he admitted "something happened in the bed" but did not admit rape.
Ms Islip gave the recording to police who, she claimed, returned it a short while later saying there was "no suitable evidence".
However, after further evidence was considered a trial was set for 2014, but the case was delayed for 30 months, which the CPS said was due to the defendant's ill health.
Ms Islip told the BBC she had felt "let down" by Sussex Police as in the first instance it had seemed "they didn't want to take it seriously - it was too hard to prove".
Sussex Police said it had not ignored the recording, which had "formed part of the evidence" and was taken into consideration by officers in 2011.
It also "formed part of the prosecution case and was played to the jury during the trial in October".


League Two side Crewe Alexandra have signed defender Eddie Nolan on a one-year-contract, with the option of a further year based on appearances.

The 28-year-old was a free agent after leaving Blackpool, where he played 10 times last season as the Tangerines were promoted to League One.
The ex-Blackburn and Preston man made the majority of his career appearances at Scunthorpe, featuring 137 times.
Nolan has become Crewe's fourth signing of the summer.
Jordan Bowery, Michael Raynes and Chris Porter have all moved to David Artell's side this summer.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


Johanna Konta missed a chance to become the first British woman to break into the world's top 10 for 32 years with a Rogers Cup quarter-final defeat.

Konta, 25, lost 6-4 6-3 to Slovakian qualifier and world number 121 Kristina Kucova on Friday in Montreal, Canada.
A win for Konta, ranked 147th last June, would have made her the first British woman since Jo Durie in September 1984 to make the WTA top 10.
Kucova, 26, will play American 10th seed Madison Keys in the semi-final.
Romanian Simona Halep and Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber of Germany will meet in the other semi-final.
The surprise defeat for Konta comes a week after she claimed her first WTA Tour title in California, and in a year that has seen her reach a Grand Slam semi-final in Australia.
She had won seven matches in a row before meeting Kucova, having gone on a 16-match winning streak during the North American hard-court season in 2015.
Kucova said: "I cannot believe it - I'm so happy. There is no secret to my success. I feel so good here. I get so much energy from the crowd."


Fulham head coach Slavisa Jokanovic has revealed negotiations over the job went on for several weeks.

The 47-year-old Serb was appointed by the west London club on Sunday, replacing Kit Symons, who was sacked as manager on 8 November.
"We talked a few weeks and it was a long process. I believe I was the first choice for the club and they pushed hard to bring me here," said Jokanovic.
"It is a great chance for me to work at a historical club."
Fulham held talks with then Reading boss Steve Clarke in mid-November about taking over from Symons, but chairman Shahid Khan said the club "had an obligation to fully explore our options" and were interested in Jokanovic "from the start".
The Championship club have paid Israeli side Maccabi Tel Aviv £367,000 compensation for Jokanovic's services and the former Watford boss will be joined at Craven Cottage by coaches Alberto Escobar and Javi Pereira.
Jokanovic expects Stuart Gray, who had been in charge of the Whites since 8 December, to remain in his role of senior coach at the club.
"Stuart has tried to give me all the information and I need help from him," he said. "I expect in the future we will collaborate better.
"We are both here in the interests of Fulham and I believe we can work together to do a quality job."
Jokanovic watched from the stands as his new side beat Rotherham 4-1 at home on Tuesday night to record their first win in 10 games and move up to 18th in the table.
The former Chelsea midfielder won promotion to the Premier League with Watford last season, but he has not yet set himself goals for the rest of the campaign.
"My job is clear and people expect me to improve the team and fight for more important targets," he said.
"After some weeks and months our targets will be clear. We need to take short steps.
"I believe in myself, the club and the people. I am ready for the challenge."
Jokanovic will take charge of Fulham for the first time on Saturday, when they host Sheffield Wednesday.


England wicketkeeper Jos Buttler has signed a new three-year contract with Lancashire.

The 25-year-old moved to the Red Rose from Somerset in 2013 and his new deal ties him to the club until 2019.
Short-format specialist Buttler has scored England's three fastest ODI centuries, including a 46-ball ton against Pakistan last year.
"Jos is one of the most talented cricketers in the game," said cricket director and head coach Ashley Giles.
"His presence in last year's T20 Blast final at Edgbaston was a factor in us winning the competition.
"Jos is a great guy to have in the dressing room too and his experience at international level really benefits the squad."
Buttler, who has been playing in the Indian Premier League with Mumbai Indians, will return to Lancashire for Friday's T20 Blast home game against Durham.


The former Wings guitarist Henry McCullough is critically ill following a heart attack.

Mr McCullough, from Portstewart, County Londonderry, is one of the best known guitarists in the world, performing with a host of legendary artists.
He was invited by the Beatle Paul McCartney to join Wings in the 1970s and spent 18 months touring with them.
Despite early reports that he had died, his sister Rae Morrison said he was still battling.
She said he had suffered a heart attack on Monday and the family are worried and distressed but that they had been inundated with messages of support.
"He is a very special person," she said.
"We really are very worried for him, his sister is on her way home from Florida and his brother is coming home from Glasgow."
Mr McCullough, who is 69, was also a member of Joe Cocker's band.
He played with Cocker at the legendary Woodstock concert in 1969, the only Irishman to perform there.
McCullough spent 18 months touring and recording with Wings in the 1970s, after being invited to join the band following a number of jamming sessions with McCartney.
He has been hailed for his guitar work on the US number one hit My Love.
McCullough later signed to the Dark Horse record label of another Beatle, George Harrison, for his solo album Mind Your Own Business.


Sony Pictures' Amy Pascal has stepped down as co-chair of Sony's movie studio following a debilitating cyber attack that revealed her private emails.

Ms Pascal will start a production company that will launch in May 2015.
She has already apologised for certain revelations that came as a result of the leaked emails.
Last month, Sony condemned the "vicious" attack, which led it to suspend the release of the film 'The Interview'.
"I have spent almost my entire professional life at Sony Pictures and I am energized to be starting this new chapter based at the company I call home," said Ms Pascal in a statement.
She added that her transition to a production role had been discussed "for some time".
As part of the agreement, Sony will fund her production company for at least the next four years, and it will retain distribution rights.
Sony did not immediately name a successor to Ms Pascal, leaving Michael Lynton as the sole head of one of Hollywood's biggest production studios.
Ms Pascal was one of the highest profile Sony names whose emails were leaked as part of the hack.
She reportedly commented on the viewing habits of President Barack Obama in a derogatory manner in an email to producer Scott Rudin.
Ms Pascal and Mr Rudin both subsequently apologised for the emails, with Ms Pascal saying in a statement at the time: "The content of my emails to Scott were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am.
"Although this was a private communication that was stolen, I accept full responsibility for what I wrote and apologize to everyone who was offended."
On 24 November, Sony revealed that it had been the subject of a hack by a group calling themselves Guardians of Peace (GOP).
GOP was later traced back to North Korea, who US authorities believe instituted the attack in retaliation for Sony's decision to produce 'The Interview', in which North Korea's leader Kim Jong-Un is killed.
The group gained access to the firm's network and stole huge amounts of internal information, including emails and copies of films, such as Annie, that had not yet been released.
Although Sony did withdraw The Interview before its planned release, it ultimately made it available to view online and allowed it to be shown at some cinemas.
The film made about $15m (Â£9.6m) through downloads alone over its first three days of distribution.


The American Geological Survey can do amazing things with those seismographs that go from all calm to a mass of jagged peaks as they confirm earthquake activity.

I wonder whether they had an instrument that measured enormous sighs of relief in Brooklyn, home of the Hillary Clinton campaign,  as Joe Biden bade farewell to his presidential ambitions. The mass exhalation of breath of all the Clintonistas must have been quite something.
After her rock-solid and statesmanlike performance in the Democratic debate in Las Vegas last week, Clinton's poll position has been consolidated. The only pesky cloud on the horizon was Joe Biden.
For all those people who don't quite like Clinton - and you don't have to scratch the surface very hard to find huge numbers of these people - but couldn't bring themselves to vote for the self-styled democratic socialist Bernie Sanders, then the entry of Biden into the race could have shaken things up quite considerably.
For a start it would have given Barack Obama a knotty little problem of whom to support. The superbly well-qualified Clinton, or lovable and loyal Biden. It could have certainly taken vital funding away from Clinton towards his camp.
Let's take Biden at his word this was all about whether the time he needed to grieve his son Beau would forbid a tilt at the White House. But certainly his supporters and closest advisers were scoping a run - what they would need to do to put an infrastructure in place, whether the "bundlers" would be able to raise the money to mount a well-financed campaign.
If it was a clear cut decision for either Biden or his most senior aides, we would have heard before now what his intentions were.
So what are we left with from today's Rose Garden address? Let's play the fun political game of here's what he said, and here's what he meant.
First what he said:
"I intend to speak out clearly and forcefully, to influence as much as I can where we stand as a party and where we need to go as a nation.... I believe that President Obama has led this nation from crisis to recovery, and we're now on the cusp of resurgence. I'm proud to have played a part in that. This party, our nation, will be making a tragic mistake if we walk away or attempt to undo the Obama legacy. The American people have worked too hard, and we have have come too far for that. Democrats should not only defend this record and protect this record. They should run on the record."
Let's put that through the politico-translator app. What comes out? Hillary, if you want me to back you don't go around trash-talking the president's record. He did great things. You were part of it and you agreed with it,  so don't go dissing him otherwise you'll have me to contend with.
Then there's this passage:
"I believe that we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart. And I think we can. It's mean spirited, it's petty, and it's gone on for much too long. I don't believe, like some do, that it's naive to talk to Republicans. I don't think we should look at Republicans as our enemies. They are our opposition."
Translation? Clinton- enough already with the 'Republicans are our enemies'. If you win you're going to have to govern with them, so stop being so bloody divisive. (I think this must be an app from the UK).
And then I put this final phrase in:
"I am absolutely certain that we fully are capable of accomplishing extraordinary things. We can do this. And when we do, America won't just win the future, we will own the finish line."
I had to translate this a couple of times because it didn't seem to bear much relationship to what I had typed in. It came out as - I might not be running, but I would have been a great president.
But that's not going to happen now - and there is not much left in the road to trip Clinton up - just some Sanders-shaped bumps in her way. Given the troubled and maladroit way the email saga has been handled that can't be entirely ruled out.
And if something did go horribly wrong with Clinton's campaign - wouldn't the Democratic Party turn to the vice-president in its moment of need, saying: "Come on Joe".
And he would say "You bet". No translation needed.


Original designs, mock-ups and printed editions of early copies of the Radio Times have fetched £1,100 at auction.

Among the items for sale was a first edition from September 1923, and designs for the masthead which were not chosen.
Auctioneer Chris Albury, from Dominic Winter Auctioneers, South Cerney, Gloucestershire, said the collection went to a private buyer from Somerset.
The archive was discovered when a woman was helping her parents de-clutter.
Her father remembered a bag full of items that came from a house clearance somewhere on the south coast of England about 30 years ago.
Since then, the archive had been forgotten in a cupboard.
Among items of correspondence for sale was a letter from director of programmes Arthur R Burrows to OH Blake of the publishers George Newnes, asking for changes to be made to the designs.


Minding, ridden by Ryan Moore, won the Nassau Stakes at Glorious Goodwood to claim a sixth Group One victory.

The three-year-old filly went off the 1-5 favourite and won by a length and a quarter to add to her previous victories this season in the 1,000 Guineas and the Oaks.
Minding's win was a third in the race for trainer Aidan O'Brien and seventh of the meeting for jockey Moore.
Queen's Trust (16-1) finished second, with 14-1 chance Jemayel third.
Minding was last of the five runners turning into the home straight but, after being shaken up by Moore, got to the front with a furlong to go and eased clear.
Moore, the meeting's leading jockey, said: "She's got an awful lot of class and was only doing what she had to do.
"It's a hard campaign she's had. She's a very special filly."
Later on the card, the Stewards' Cup was won by 9-2 favourite Dancing Star, ridden to land a significant gamble by David Probert and trained by Andrew Balding.
BBC horse racing correspondent Cornelius Lysaght
"Minding wasn't at her most impressive here, probably because of the good to firm going, but she was never going to be caught late on by runner-up Queen's Trust, who ran a tremendous race.
"The question now is when will this champion female take on the guys?
"Listening to her trainer afterwards it sounded that a likely aim is October's Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe when, as a three-year-old and a filly, she has the advantage of the least weight.
"Dancing Star looked truly a chip off the old block as she emulated her grandmother Lochangel's half-sister Lochsong, one of the race's most celebrated winners. And how nice she did it in the same silks, those of owner/breeder Jeff Smith.
"True, the 3-year-old had the best of the draw, which allowed her easy access to race on the favoured 'far-side', but she demonstrated real authority.
"Lochsong, who was four when she won, went on to be champion sprinter twice, so will Dancing Star copy her in that respect too? She's improving all the time and it's most certainly possible."
Subscribe to the BBC Sport newsletter to get our pick of news, features and video sent to your inbox.


A £15m telephone company headquarters, claiming to be the "happiest workplace in the UK", has opened in Wrexham.

The 91,000-sq ft Moneypenny development at Western Gateway includes a treehouse meeting room, its own village pub and a sun terrace.
Outside there are nature trails, a duck pond and orchards.
The telephone answering service plans to create 500 new jobs over the next few years and hopes to double its client base by 2018.
Co-founder and director Ed Reeves said: "What we believe is simple: the happier our staff, the happier our clients.
"We provided our architects with the same budget we'd been quoted to build a standard office and said 'right, show us how we can create something amazing'.
"It was a challenge, but we ripped up the rulebook and that's exactly what they did."


A group of 30 gunmen have used dynamite to force their way into a well-guarded compound in northern Nigeria and seize a French engineer, police say.

Two Nigerian guards were killed in the attack, said Katsina state police commissioner Abdullahi Magaji.
French President Francois Hollande said his government would do everything it could to find the unnamed engineer.
Katsina has been relatively unscathed by recent violence in northern Nigeria carried out by Islamist militants.
As the unknown group fled, they attacked a police station, Mr Magaji said.
He told AFP news agency he did not think the Boko Haram militant group, which is based in the Borno state capital, Maiduguri, was behind the kidnapping.
The kidnapped man worked for a French company on a wind power project in the town of Rimi, about 25km (15 miles) from Katsina city, AFP reports.
Two security guards were shot dead in the attack, while a police officer was wounded, the police commissioner said.
Earlier this year, a kidnapped German engineer was killed by his captors during a failed rescue bid. The BBC's Will Ross in Nigeria says it is thought the group holding him had links to al-Qaeda's North African wing, which is active in neighbouring Niger, and Mali.
A British and an Italian hostage were also killed this year during a similar attempt to free them by British and Nigerian forces.
There has been a spate of recent kidnappings in southern Nigeria, where the motive is usually a ransom.


Plans to build a second £431m bridge between Runcorn and Widnes will go ahead, the chancellor has confirmed.

The Mersey Gateway project had been put on hold pending the outcome of the Treasury's Spending Review.
George Osborne offered the scheme hope earlier in October when he told the BBC it was one of his priorities.
Speaking on Sunday, he confirmed that the six-lane toll bridge, agreed under the last government, would escape the axe under the review.
Mr Osborne told BBC One's Andrew Marr show that he was putting the final touches to the Spending Review, which will be announced on 20 October.
"The priority here has been to target waste and welfare, to invest in our health care, to give real increases in the school budget and to invest in the things that are going to make our economy strong," he said.
"Projects like Crossrail, which will go ahead, projects like the Mersey Gateway, which is going to go ahead.
"Those things are actually going to get us out of this stronger and able to pay our way in the world."
Road user charging
The bridge project was shelved in June, when the Department for Transport (DfT) said it could not guarantee its £83m support for the scheme until after the review.
About £22m has already been spent on the project, which is designed to ease congestion on the existing Silver Jubilee Bridge.
Funding for the bridge, which will span 1km (0.6 miles) across the River Mersey, will largely be met by the private sector and road user charging.
It has cross-party support across the region and many major business backers.
Despite widespread support, the scheme is opposed by the National Alliance Against Tolls (NAAT) because it means charges are also planned to be introduced on the Silver Jubilee bridge.
"Supporters of the scheme say that this will be a boost to the economy. On the contrary, the scheme will be a barrier that will damage the economy," he said.
"This scheme should have been the first to be cut, and the Coalition have made a big mistake by throwing money into such a terrible project."


The argument for expanding grammar schools in England makes two big claims - that it will improve choice for families and support social mobility.

The arguments against grammars are the precise opposite of this - that expanding grammars will leave most families with less chance of a good school and drive social division.
But what is the evidence?
Academics researching education are sceptical, to put it mildly, that more selection has ever widened social mobility.
Stephen Gorard, professor of education at the University of Durham, says "any policymaker who cares about educational effectiveness or social justice" should not "promote or condone" selection by ability.
"There is repeated evidence that any appearance of advantage for those attending selective schools is outweighed by the disadvantage for those who do not," he says.
"More children lose out than gain, and the attainment gaps between highest and lowest and between richest and poorest are larger."
But could grammars break the link between family background and how well children achieve at school?
Could they help bright working class youngsters get into the type of schools that otherwise would be unobtainable?
Dr John Goldthorpe, of Oxford University, says long-term studies carried out between the 1940s and 1970s provided an unintended "natural experiment" into whether grammars made any positive difference to social mobility.
For the cohort of children born in 1958, their school years overlapped with the change from grammars to comprehensives.
And the study was able to compare children who went to school in areas that still had the 11-plus test and those who were taught in comprehensive schools.
Dr Goldthorpe says it showed that neither system made any difference to social mobility or altered this pernicious link between education and class.
The existence and the disappearance of grammars did not change the relentless impact of family background on school achievement, says Dr Goldthorpe.
He says the rather uncomfortable truth for politicians is that their policy choices in education make much less difference than they might like to think.
Dr Goldthorpe says that education systems, however they are configured, are much more likely to mirror inequalities than to challenge them.
It is also worth considering this from an international perspective.
A key reason that school systems such as Shanghai in China are at the top of international rankings is that they are structured to expect all pupils to reach a certain threshold of achievement.
They put the best teachers into the worst schools to make sure that almost everyone gets across the finishing line.
England's school system historically has always been more like the Grand National, with large numbers of starters and many fewer expected to still be there at the end - and only a handful in the winner's enclosure.
What is remembered as "social mobility" for bright, working class children who did well from the grammar school system was also a form of competition.
Those that lost, and ended up in secondary moderns, faced "pretty dreadful" chances of reaching their potential, says Dr Goldthorpe.
And, as Ofsted chief Sir Michael Wilshaw has said repeatedly, opening a grammar school for the top quarter means opening three secondary moderns for the rest.
The academy project - that was so central to education under David Cameron's administration - must now seem to have lost some momentum.
Perhaps this would not matter if there was a level playing field on entry for grammars - but successive studies have shown that poorer pupils are generally much less likely to get places in grammar schools.
According to the Sutton Trust, only 3% of entrants to grammar schools are entitled to free school meals, when in selective areas the average proportion of free school meal pupils is 18%.
But, as the Prime Minister Theresa May has said, anyone criticising the lack of social mobility of grammars also has to face up to the inequalities in other ways of admitting pupils.
It is another difficult truth that the most common way of deciding school places - distance from school - has also been identified by researchers as a major cause of social division in education.
A major study by Cambridge University, Bristol University and the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said this approach drove inequality between rich and poor - and meant the most sought-after places were taken by those who could afford the inflated house prices.
Graham Brady, Conservative MP and prominent grammar supporter, also points out the bigger picture of educational privilege.
He looks to grammars as offering a challenge to the even more unfair dominance of private schools.
"They provide opportunities for huge numbers of people of modest means who couldn't access fee-paying schools," says Mr Brady.
"The 7% who go to fee paying schools now take up around half the places at Oxbridge, dominate the law, the media, the senior civil service - and won 30% of our Olympic medals."
And he points to research from the Sutton Trust showing how popular comprehensives in affluent areas have themselves become "socially exclusive", with "selection by house price".
In contrast, Mr Brady evokes that powerful folk memory of grammar schools offering hard-working, bright children from non-wealthy homes an education that was as good as anything in a private school.
It also taps into another key feature of England's school system - the importance of status. And grammars, with their ethos and sense of tradition, have never been short of applications.
It raises other questions that parents might not always want to talk about out loud.
Do you want fair for everyone or something better for yourself?
Do you want personal upward mobility more than social mobility for others? And doesn't every parent want to have the best for their children?
And why can't excellence and ambition be unpicked from ideas of elitism and exclusivity?
The grammar debate will go on - because arguments about education are about instincts and ambitions as much as evidence.


Pharmacies in England could face steep funding cuts within weeks that will force some to close, the industry's negotiating body has said.

The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee told the BBC the Department of Health has drawn up proposals to cut funding by 12% from December.
It said the cuts were "madness" and would damage the NHS and social care.
The Department of Health said no final decision had been made. An announcement is expected shortly.
Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the PSNC, told BBC Radio 4's Today programme the changes would throw the health service into "chaos", as more people would be forced to turn to GPs instead of pharmacists.
In a letter to the Department for Health seen by the BBC, she wrote: "The proposals were and remain, founded on ignorance of the value of pharmacies to local communities, to the NHS, and to social care, and will do great damage to all three. We cannot accept them."
The PSNC - which negotiates with the Department of Health and NHS England on behalf of pharmacies - said it had been told pharmacies would receive £113m less than expected from December 2016 to March 2017 and £208m less the following year.
The cuts amount to 12% in the coming months and 7% for the next financial year, compared with current spending.
Earlier this year, the then health minister Alistair Burt suggested between 1,000 and 3,000 pharmacies could be closed after spending cuts, although the Department of Health now says it does not recognise the figure.
Officials have been negotiating cuts to the money pharmacies receive from government since last December.
Plans for a £170m cut this year were delayed after 2m people signed a petition opposing the change.
Pharmacies get around 90% of their income from the money government pays for dispensing prescriptions. It costs the taxpayer £2.8bn a year.
A Department for Health spokesman said it was investing £112m to put 1,500 pharmacists in GP's surgeries.
He said: "We have worked collaboratively with the PSNC and have listened to their suggestions and counter proposals over the course of many months.
"Ministers are considering a proposed package for the sector and no final decision has been taken, but we are committed to offering more help to those pharmacies people most depend on compared to others."


The leader of India's anti-corruption Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Arvind Kejriwal, has rejected a colleague's allegation that he took bribes.

Kapil Mishra, who has been sacked from the party and the cabinet, said Mr Kejriwal misused his powers as Delhi's chief minister.
Mr Kejriwal on Monday tweeted that "truth will prevail".
The AAP was born out of a massive anti-corruption movement that swept India in 2013.
The party had promised to make "big revelations" in the state assembly on Tuesday.  But it did not comment on corruption allegations, choosing instead to highlight its findings about "electoral fraud".
The AAP said it lost the recently concluded Delhi municipal elections to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party because Electronic Voting Machines were rigged.
Mr Modi's party rejected these allegations, and asked Mr Kejriwal to respond to Mr Mishra's claims.
Mr Mishra, who was water minister in Mr Kejriwal's cabinet until last week, said the chief minister had "forgotten the founding values of the party".
But the AAP said in a statement that Mr Mishra was sacked because of his poor performance and accused him of making allegations out of frustration.
Led by Mr Kejriwal, a former tax inspector who reinvented himself as a corruption buster, the party won 67 of the 70 Delhi assembly seats in 2015 in what was a huge setback for the BJP.
Mr Kejriwal promised to bring in good governance, end corruption and make Delhi safe for women.
But the party has since suffered from infighting, reportedly between Kejriwal supporters and more left-leaning factions.


Leeds United will sign defender Pontus Jansson on a permanent deal when his loan move from Italian Serie A side Torino expires this summer.

The 25-year-old Sweden centre-back has agreed a three-year contract with the Elland Road club.
Jansson has played a key role in Leeds' rise up the Championship table under Garry Monk this season.
He has played 23 games, scoring three times, the latest being the winner in Wednesday's 2-1 victory at Blackburn.
Jansson, who began his career with Malmo before moving to Torino in 2014, has won 10 caps for his country.
Leeds are fourth in the table going into Sunday's derby at fifth-placed Huddersfield, who are now just a point behind them.
Find all the latest football transfers on our dedicated page.


A hospital trust in financial crisis says it is struggling to pay its bill for patients' sandwiches.

Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust said it has asked some external suppliers to accept later payments into the next financial year.
But its sandwich supplier has refused and the trust is looking for a new one.
Alternatives are being offered. The trust said it was a "temporary issue", adding that "at no time have any patients not had access to meals".
More updates on this and others in Shropshire
NHS trusts in the West Midlands have a deficit of almost Â£200m between them - with Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust topping Â£8.4m, BBC Sunday Politics reported in November.
Simon Wright, trust chief executive, said steps have been taken to bring down spending.
He said: "However, further action is needed and we have had to make some difficult decisions about how these can be achieved whilst ensuring patient care is unaffected.
"The trust has asked some external suppliers to temporarily alter the timescale for payments until the next financial year in recognition of the additional pressures we are facing.
"Unfortunately our current sandwich supplier has not accepted these terms. We are now exploring new suppliers who can better manage slightly longer payment terms."
He has apologised for any inconvenience it may cause.
Speaking on social media, Martin James said: "Can't really blame the sandwich supplier for not agreeing to delay payment, they have to pay their suppliers, staff and overheads for running business."
Another from Lynda Parton said: "This makes me so sad, that our Shropshire hospitals can't afford to pay for sandwiches until start of next financial year."


The family of a missing 15-year-old girl who is feared to have travelled to Syria have made an appeal for her return.

Yusra Hussien, from Easton in Bristol, took an indirect flight to Turkey last week and is believed to be travelling with a 17-year-old girl from London.
Detectives said the priority was to find Yusra and "make sure she is safe".
Her family rejected claims she has become a "Jihadist bride", saying there was "no concrete evidence" of this.
Avon and Somerset Police said the investigation has been taken over by the South East Counter Terrorism Unit.
"They have strong international links which places them in the best position to pursue the investigation overseas and try to find Yusra and bring her home," a force spokesman said.
"We will continue to work closely with the family and the community in Bristol."
Yusra's mother, Safiya Hussien, said she loved and missed her daughter.
"We miss you so, so much. Please come home," she said.
The family appealed to the media not to speculate about what has happened to Yusra.
Aunt Sucdi Ali said her niece was a "typical teenager" and added they "were not here to talk about Isis" but to talk about Yusra.
She said: "The point here is there is a teenage girl who is missing."
Another aunt, Ikram Mohammed, said Yusra was "missed and was not in trouble" and said the family "was not angry and just wanted her back home".
The family said: "Yusra, our daughter is a very young, bright, bubbly girl who is loved by not only her family but her peers, teachers and her community.
"She loves to play table tennis and to ride her bicycle and she used to run with her brother, who's the next Mo Farah."
They said they were "very heartbroken" and said "every parent would relate to the pain" of not knowing if their child was safe.
Yusra was reported missing by her parents, who last saw her at about 07:00 BST on 24 September.
They said their daughter left for school as usual but was not there when her father went to pick her up at 15:30.
Police have been tracing the schoolgirl's movements from the moment she left her Easton home to her arrival in Istanbul.
Assistant Chief Constable Louisa Rolfe, from Avon and Somerset Police, said it was a "really sensitive investigation" and they were doing "everything nationally and internationally" to find Yusra.
She said: "We suspect she may have been influenced by others to leave the UK.
"It may have been online, it's possible that she's had contact with others directly before she left the UK, but there is no suggestion that this is directly linked with our community in Bristol.
"We don't have information to suggest she's gone to fight."
Ms Rolfe said police knew "exactly when and where" she had bought her ticket and "it wasn't at the airport".
She also said Yusra had "not taken a direct flight" to Istanbul but that she arrived in the Turkish city within 24 hours of leaving the UK.


A solar-powered plane that is attempting to cross the Pacific Ocean is encountering its first weather front.

It will have to navigate a route through the wall of clouds and rain to continue its epic journey to Hawaii.
Solar Impulse took off from Japan's Nagoya Airfield at 18:03 GMT on Sunday, and is expected to spend about 120 hours in the air.
It will have to cross another front on the fourth or fifth day of the flight.
The plane has now entered US airspace, and has set the record for the longest flight made by a solar plane.
If the pilot, Solar Impulse co-founder Andre Borschberg, completes the journey, he will also have achieved the longest-duration solo flight in aviation history.
A spokesperson for Solar Impulse said the team had come up with a strategy for crossing the weather front.
While it is night-time for the pilot, he has been asked to keep the plane in a holding pattern at an altitude of about 7,000ft.
But at about 20:00 GMT, as the Sun rises, he will start to gently ascend.
While he is waiting in the same position, circling above the ocean, the weather front should start to weaken.
The team's meteorologists have forecasted that the clouds will become more disparate, which, as day breaks, should give Mr Borschberg a safe route through.
After this, the plane should have two days of clear weather, before hitting another weather front just before it nears Hawaii.
The meteorologists are closely watching to see whether the second front gets more or less active. When they have more accurate information, they will begin to plan the final stages of the flight.
They are under a great deal of pressure. If something goes wrong with the flight, Mr Borschberg may have to bail out into the Pacific Ocean and await rescue.
If the flight succeeds, the team will continue with the final stages of their epic journey around the world.
The plane will head to America, then cross the continent, before flying across the Atlantic and returning to Abu Dhabi from where the global circumnavigation began.
LEG 1: 9 March. Abu Dhabi (UAE) to Muscat (Oman) - 441km; in 13 hours and 1 minute
LEG 2: 10 March. Muscat (Oman) to Ahmedabad (India) - 1,468km; in 15 hours and 20 minutes
LEG 3: 18 March. Ahmedabad (India) to Varanasi (India) - 1,215km; in 13 hours and 15 minutes
LEG 4: 19 March. Varanasi (India) to Mandalay (Myanmar) - 1,398km; in 13 hours and 29 minutes
LEG 5: 29 March. Mandalay (Myanmar) to Chongqing (China) - 1,459km; in 20 hours and 29 minutes
LEG 6: 21 April. Chongqing (China) to Nanjing China - 1,241km; in 17 hours and 22 minutes
LEG 7: 31 May. Nanjing (China) to Kalaeloa, Hawaii (USA) - 8,200km; journey aborted, plane diverted to Nagoya, Japan
Follow Rebecca on Twitter.


An amalgamation of two schools in County Londonderry has been approved by Northern Ireland's education minister.

Rural maintained post-primaries St Mary's College in Clady and St Paul's College in Kilrea will merge when a new school building is completed.
John O'Dowd said the merger would create "one sustainable school".
The minister added that it would be capable of meeting the "educational needs, aptitudes, interests and aspirations" of pupils in the area.


A woman who kept a £20 note she found in a shop has been convicted of theft.

Nicole Bailey, 23, picked up the cash at a branch of One Stop, in Blurton, Stoke-on-Trent, after it was dropped by a customer who withdrew it from a nearby cash point, police said.
Bailey pleaded guilty at North Staffordshire Justice Centre after seeing CCTV evidence.
Her defence team reportedly argued the case should have been dealt with through a police caution.
Bailey, of Highfield Drive, Blurton, must also pay £20 compensation, a £20 victim surcharge and £135 in court costs.
More updates on this and other stories in Staffordshire
The theft occurred on 8 August last year.
Ch Insp Karen Stevenson, from Staffordshire Police, urged anyone who finds lost money to "do the right thing".
"Morally, the right thing to do is hand in any found property so that the person who has lost out has every opportunity to be reunited with it."
"This was someone's hard-earned money and we are committed to supporting all victims in our community."


Motherwell manager Mark McGhee thinks his experienced out-of-contract players appreciate the club are doing their best to make them better offers.

Stephen McManus, Keith Lasley and Steven Hammell have been told the club cannot afford to match present deals.
Craig Samson and Scott McDonald are also in talks, with the latter having a year's option on his deal.
"It's not really a take-it-or-leave-it as we are bending over backwards to find everything we can," said McGhee.
Motherwell have lost £2m over the last four seasons and Les Hutchison signed an agreement in March to sell his majority shareholding to the Well Society fan-ownership group.
McGhee believes players appreciate the reasons they have been offered reduced wages and hopes they will be persuaded to stay.
"I think the boys are reasonable," he said. "The boys are intelligent and they understand the dilemma the club finds itself in.
"They know we are not making it up. They know we are not saving a tranche of money to go and get someone else in.
"They know we are doing the best we can to get them the best offers we can.
"And, in their minds, they are trying to be as flexible as they can and as accommodating within their needs and expectations to help us as well. So I think there is a two-way thing going on."
McGhee is also waiting on an answer from teenage defender Ben Hall's agent, while forward James McFadden is also out of contract.
"We need a squad next year of 20 and in order to get that at a reasonable level we have to make offers to allow them to afford that, because we don't have a generous benefactor sitting in the wings to make up some shortfall," added the manager. "Those days have gone here.
"We must work with what we have. The offers we have made and, if offers are improved, will be based on real money, on what we can afford without making the club go bust again."


Hundreds of sailors have returned to London 11 months after setting off on the 40,000-mile (64,000km) Clipper Round the World Yacht Race.

Crowds greeted the boats as they arrived at Tower Bridge at 12:45 BST.
Twelve teams, largely made up of novices, tackled hurricanes and tornadoes as they raced between six continents.
The crew from the winning vessel, Henri Lloyd, was presented with a trophy at St Katharine Docks.
The race was founded by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, who became the first person to sail solo non-stop around the world in 1968-69.
He said: "It is a tight race, but in racing with a tight crew that is teamwork and that's where you learn you can do things you didn't realise you could do.
"You work together and you trust your lives to each other on a boat."
Most of the crew members - 670 from more than 40 nations - were novices, although each boat was skippered by a professional.
The Clipper Race took in South Africa, Western Australia, Sydney, Singapore, China, San Francisco, Panama, Jamaica, New York, Derry and the Netherlands before returning to London.
During the challenge, one man was rescued from the Pacific Ocean after going overboard for 90 minutes, the organisers said.
It was the first time that London had hosted the event, which left the capital on 1 September.


Dig into the history of polar exploration and you might wonder what all the fuss is about with this month's news of a record sea-ice melt in the Arctic.

In 1893, the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen ventured through the "titanic forces" of the ice, amid the "howlings and thunderings" of the floes splitting around his ship, the Fram, but then found himself in a stretch of open water.
The same had happened the day before.  And this was within striking distance of the North Pole - Nansen eventually reached 86 degrees North, further than anyone at the time. And no one back then had even thought of global warming.
The break in the ice surrounding Nansen's ship was not just some narrow channel. It "stretched far away towards the northern horizon". Naturally, he wanted to head that way.
Faced with the same scene now, the pressing question for us would be whether that open water might stretch all the way to the roof of the world.
The prospect of the Pole (also known as the Geographic North Pole or "True North") not being a permanent icy wilderness but instead a sea exposed in summer has been brought significantly closer by the size of this year's melt - and it would mark a monumental change.
But Nansen had a different question in mind. "Could it be land?" he wondered. Even then, a little over a century ago, it was still conceivable that some mythical polar continent was waiting to be discovered. Instead, there was no land; only more ice.
It's easy to forget how recently the Arctic has been explored and how recently scientists have tried to comprehend it.
The Pole was only reached in 1926 when that other Norwegian hero, Roald Amundsen, flew an airship there from the outpost of Ny Alesund on Svalbard, which I visited earlier this month.
An earlier claim by the American explorer Robert Peary is widely discounted.
The reality of the Arctic is that the ice is not consistent. Nansen noticed it heaving with the tides. Atlases convey a solid sheet of unbroken white but this frozen ocean is constantly shifting, breaking apart, reforming, its condition varying massively year by year.
And the total dark of the polar winter guarantees that much of the sea will freeze whatever happens. That is sometimes forgotten in all the talk of a record melt. The question is the fate of the ice in summertime: how rapidly it melts and how extensively.
Gaps in the ice are not significant, nor are very short bursts of melting. They did not help the generations of explorers who for several centuries tried and failed to sail through the Northwest Passage, a sea route linking the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Canadian arctic.
Even in 2007, when the previous record for melting was set, and satellite pictures showed the passage to be entirely clear of ice, there was only a short period of open water.
When I sailed through the passage on a Canadian icebreaker, the Amundsen, in October that year, we encountered huge floes of thick ice.
The warming had indeed achieved massive melting. But it had also dislodged vast chunks of ice from around the Pole and they had drifted south into our path. The clanging of metal on ice resounded through the hull. The Arctic is not straightforward.
What matters is the overall pattern of freezing and melting, and how that is changing.
In southern Greenland, back in July 2004, a local man - Ferdinand Egede - dug into the soft earth of a field to show me something he'd never expected to see in his lifetime: potatoes.
They were creamy-white and unblemished, the fruit of a warming Arctic. Now the newspapers say Greenlanders are even growing strawberries.
In Alaska, in September 2008, the US Coast Guard had just started operations in the Arctic and we joined a C-130 patrol flight to Barrow.
On board, a rather macho admiral bellowed over the intercom that he didn't care about global warming - but his job was to keep watch over the waters around the US and there was now a lot of water where there used to be ice.
None of this means the ice will vanish overnight. Earlier this month, at Ny Alesund, I went aboard the Norwegian Polar Institute's research vessel, the Lance.
It had been investigating the area between Svalbard and Greenland, known as the Fram Strait, named after Nansen's ship.  The strait is the exit route from the Arctic Ocean, a current carrying the floes south into the Atlantic. The scientists were stunned by the overall melt across the region but much of their time had been spent surrounded by ice.
So is it scaremongering to report on this new record? Several people have suggested I should mention how the sea ice around Antarctica has expanded this year. It has, but Antarctica is a continent isolated by an ocean with its own unique and incredibly cold weather.
The Arctic is an ocean surrounded by land where even small rises in temperature can cross the threshold between freezing and thawing so it's far more responsive to change.
Others say I'm underplaying the risks, that the record set this summer is tantamount to a planetary meltdown, an emergency.
I think we should be guided by the hard facts of observation. We know very reliably that the extent of melting has increased massively not just this year but also that it is part of a trend of decline in the sea ice over the past three decades.
This year's melt has left the Arctic with half the ice it has had on average in Septembers of the past 30 years. By a rough reckoning, that difference amounts to a dozen United Kingdoms.
We also know there is good evidence that the remaining ice is getting thinner and therefore weaker. But we do not know when the day will come when a ship might sail across the top of the world without bumping into any ice at all. We are heading that way, and faster than expected; a profoundly important prospect - but we cannot be sure if it will be as soon as this decade or later.
Nansen wrote of "moonlit vapour rising from open water". Satellite pictures could show him the vast tracts of ocean where the floes have disappeared. There was too much ice for him to reach the Pole.  He'd have a far better chance now.


Freddie Burns kicked 20 points as Leicester beat Harlequins at Welford Road to go fourth in the Premiership.

Three Burns penalties put Tigers 9-6 up at the end of a drab first half, with Nick Evans replying for the visitors.
The hosts dominated after the break in wet conditions and Owen Williams' try gave them control, with Burns adding 11 points to his personal tally.
Tigers lock Mike Fitzgerald saw yellow for a tip-tackle on James Chisholm, who was then sin-binned for his reaction.
Leicester's win was built on their dominance in the first 15 minutes of the second half, as Burns kicked a penalty and a drop-goal before chipping over the Quins defence to set up Williams to score.
England fly-half Burns could have added to his personal tally but knocked on just yards out from the try-line following a good team move.
John Kingston's Harlequins rarely threatened the Tigers line and have won only one of their last 11 league games away from home.
Leicester flanker Tom Croft made his first Premiership appearance of the season after overcoming a back injury but his return was curtailed when he failed a head injury assessment.
Leicester director of rugby Richard Cockerill: "The first half was a bit flat. We were playing within ourselves and we needed to up the ante a bit.
"In the second half we took the game to them and controlled Quins well and they did not look like posing a threat.
"The forwards were better and we carried the ball better.
"There was more urgency and if we can get that every week we will be in the mix because we have some good players."
Harlequins director of rugby John Kingston told BBC Radio London: "Our intensity levels dropped slightly at the start of the second half.
"A few key battles went against us and we gave away a few penalties and that meant the game was being played in our half.
"Two penalties put the game to more than one score and they backed it up with the try. Then we were chasing the game in difficult conditions.
"Unfortunately it dribbled away from us and we couldn't get anything going."
Leicester: Tait; Thompstone, Betham, Williams, Brady; Burns, Kitto; Genge, Youngs (capt), Bateman, Slater, Fitzgerald, Croft, O'Connor, McCaffrey.
Replacements: Thacker, Ayerza, Cilliers, Kitchener, Hamilton, Harrison, Roberts, Worth.
Sin bin: Fitzgerald (70).
Harlequins: Morris; Yarde, Marchant, Stanley, Alofa; Evans, Dickson; Murphy, Buchanan, Collier, Matthews, Horwill (capt), Wallace, Ward, Chisholm.
Replacements: Shields, Evans, Jones, South, Naoupu, Mulchrone, Swiel, Walker.
Sin bin: Chisholm (70).
Referee: Craig Maxwell-Keys.
Attendance: 25,849.
For the latest rugby union news follow @bbcrugbyunion on Twitter.


The British-led bid to break the world land speed record has been put back again, to 2017.

The Bloodhound Super-Sonic Car was supposed to go racing later this year, to try to raise the current mark of 763mph (1,228km/h) to over 800mph.
But the project does not yet have the funds needed to run the vehicle on its specially prepared track in South Africa.
It is hoped the delay will enable more sponsorship deals to be sealed.
"It's in the nature of land speed record attempts that they tend to be a bit hand-to-mouth," said Bloodhound director, Richard Noble.
"But the good thing is that we have a steady stream of offers coming in. It's hard work to get them done, and they can always collapse.
"What tends to happen is that the nearer you get to actually running, the whole thing turns. We've just got to get on with it," he told BBC News.
The car itself is virtually complete. At 13m in length and weighing more than 7 tonnes, Bloodhound had its static debut in London last September.
Its one major outstanding element is its rocket system.
This will fire in tandem with a Eurofighter jet engine to push the vehicle through the sound barrier. The ultimate goal is to go above 1,000mph (1,610km/h). This higher mark would be sought in a second year of racing, now projected to be in 2018.
The rocket motor and its pump mechanism have yet to undergo full, end-to-end testing, but even if they had, the project's present problem is really all about cash flow.
This year, Bloodhound needed on the order of £17m to mount a record bid.
The money is coming in from donors and sponsors - just not at the rate required to support a full race team at Hakskeen Pan for 8-12 weeks.
That is the amount of time it would probably take to get the car rolling on the Northern Cape lakebed, iron out teething problems, and then run at top speed.
Announced in 2008, Bloodhound was originally envisaged to be breaking the land speed record in 2011/12.
But finding an aerodynamic shape that would keep the car stable on the ground took far longer than expected.
Subsequent delays were announced in 2013 and 2015, as the team grappled with various other design and build issues on the highly complex machine.
"The sponsors have been great; they understand what this is all about. But we really do need to get on with it now or people will just get fed up," conceded Mr Noble.
"The point is, we've done the difficult bit: we've got the car built.  It's sitting there in our technical centre in Bristol and it's not so far from running."
On the plus side, Bloodhound's engineers now have more time to straighten out the rocket system and settle on a race configuration.
They have the option of initially running the car with a monopropellant rocket.
In this set-up, no fuel grain (synthetic rubber) is used. The oxidiser (hydrogen peroxide) is merely pumped across a catalyst to decompose and produce thrust.
It is simpler and should get Bloodhound to 800mph. It is also easier to prepare the car for the second of two runs (averaged together) that must be completed inside an hour to claim any new record.
But the team knows that if it is to achieve its ultimate goal of 1,000mph, the full hybrid system - solid fuel grain burnt in the presence of the liquid oxidiser - will be required.
The engineers will explore the options in the coming months with rocket partner Nammo of Norway.
"It's attractive to go with the monopropellant for year one, but eventually we will have to run with a cluster of three hybrid rockets," said Mark Chapman, Bloodhound's chief engineer.
"We have have something of a luxury now to be able to debate the issue."
The plan now - assuming the money comes in - is to do some low-speed running on a UK runway later this year, before shipping out to South Africa in April/May of 2017.
In the meantime, the project's education programme continues.
The science behind Bloodhound is now being used in STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Maths) activities in 7,500 schools in the UK.
The programme is about to team up with the BBC's Micro:Bit codable computer. When this device is released in the next few weeks, children will be able to use it to investigate the behaviour of mini rocket cars.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk and follow me on Twitter: @BBCAmos


A Conservative councillor has resigned after a video emerged of him making lewd comments to a hunt protester.

The online video shows a confrontation between huntsman and former West Norfolk Foxhounds master Charles Carter and campaigner Linda Hoggard.
During the recording, Mr Carter is seen to ask "can I take to you bed, please?"
The Saham Toney ward councillor was suspended by Breckland Council pending an investigation. His resignation was accepted on Wednesday.
Follow updates on this story and other Norfolk news
The footage showed Ms Hoggard approaching a meet of the Middleton Hunt in North Yorkshire, asking them: "Excuse me, did you know fox hunting was banned?"
Mr Carter replied by asking her name, and when she did not respond, he told her: "I'd quite like to shag you, actually."
The activist reacted by threatening to tell her husband, before Mr Carter remarked: "Can I take to you bed, please?" and told her: "You're very pretty."
Ms Hoggard replies: "So are foxes."
He finally asked for her number before riding off with the rest of the hunt.
Mr Carter has represented the ward in West Norfolk since 2011.
The nature of the meeting is not known, however under the 2004 Hunting Act, foxes cannot longer be killed by dogs as part of a hunt.
One or two dogs can be used to "flush out" - remove from cover - a fox, which should then be shot.


Luke Berry scored all four goals as League Two side Cambridge United beat League One strugglers Coventry City in the FA Cup second round.

Media playback is not supported on this device
Berry steered in George Maris' cross to put the U's ahead inside five minutes.
The midfielder doubled the advantage from the penalty spot after he was hauled down in the box, before slotting in his third shortly after.
The 24-year-old tapped in late on to complete the scoring, as Coventry slumped to a fourth straight defeat.
The Sky Blues, who won the FA Cup in 1987, have now been knocked out of the competition by a team from a lower division in each of the past three seasons.
Former Barnsley midfielder Berry was the hero for Cambridge, wrapping up his hat-trick inside 38 minutes and then adding his 12th goal of the season after the break.
Match ends, Cambridge United 4, Coventry City 0.
Second Half ends, Cambridge United 4, Coventry City 0.
Attempt missed. Max Clark (Cambridge United) left footed shot from the centre of the box is too high.
Attempt blocked. Piero Mingoia (Cambridge United) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Vladimir Gadzhev (Coventry City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Max Clark (Cambridge United) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Foul by Vladimir Gadzhev (Coventry City).
Attempt blocked. Leon Legge (Cambridge United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is blocked.
Corner,  Cambridge United. Conceded by Jordan Turnbull.
Substitution, Cambridge United. Joe Pigott replaces Uche Ikpeazu.
Substitution, Cambridge United. Harrison Dunk replaces Luke Berry.
Goal!  Cambridge United 4, Coventry City 0. Luke Berry (Cambridge United) right footed shot from very close range to the centre of the goal. Assisted by Brad Halliday with a cross.
Jordan Turnbull (Coventry City) is shown the yellow card for a bad foul.
Ben Williamson (Cambridge United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Jordan Turnbull (Coventry City).
Attempt missed. Chris McCann (Coventry City) header from the centre of the box is high and wide to the left.
Foul by Brad Halliday (Cambridge United).
Kyel Reid (Coventry City) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Attempt missed. Uche Ikpeazu (Cambridge United) right footed shot from the centre of the box is close, but misses to the right.
Attempt missed. Max Clark (Cambridge United) left footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses to the left.
Foul by Uche Ikpeazu (Cambridge United).
Lewis Page (Coventry City) wins a free kick in the defensive half.
Substitution, Cambridge United. Ben Williamson replaces George Maris.
Substitution, Coventry City. Jodi Jones replaces Ruben Lameiras.
Attempt saved. Marvin Sordell (Coventry City) right footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Piero Mingoia (Cambridge United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Jordan Turnbull (Coventry City).
Attempt missed. Kyel Reid (Coventry City) left footed shot from the left side of the box is close, but misses to the left.
Attempt saved. Marvin Sordell (Coventry City) left footed shot from outside the box is saved in the centre of the goal.
Uche Ikpeazu (Cambridge United) wins a free kick in the attacking half.
Foul by Chris McCann (Coventry City).
Attempt missed. Uche Ikpeazu (Cambridge United) right footed shot from outside the box is close, but misses the top right corner.
Foul by Kyel Reid (Coventry City).
Brad Halliday (Cambridge United) wins a free kick on the right wing.
Attempt blocked. Chris McCann (Coventry City) right footed shot from outside the box is blocked.
Foul by Piero Mingoia (Cambridge United).
Lewis Page (Coventry City) wins a free kick on the left wing.
Hand ball by Jack McBean (Coventry City).
Foul by George Maris (Cambridge United).
Gael Bigirimana (Coventry City) wins a free kick in the attacking half.


A couple driving home in a newly purchased used car had to pull over after finding a 5ft-long snake inside.

The man and woman became aware something was wrong when their dog, who was in the back of the vehicle, became "distressed", police said.
When the couple investigated, they saw the snake had wrapped itself around one of the pet's legs.
They continued their journey home with the snake still inside the vehicle after failing to find it.
Toddler breathalysed in Cheshire
Dad risks arrest to replace vandalised tree
'Irresponsible' weight loss advert banned
Claire Brealey, from Bristol, said she was shocked when she realised the reptile was inside the used Nissan Navara vehicle they had just bought.
She said: "The dog was in the back of the car. I glanced back and saw this bright orange and white snake wrapped around his legs.
"I turned to my partner and said, 'there's a snake in the back of the car.'"
They dismantled the car's interior when they got home in an attempt to find the snake, but it has not been located.
"We think it's still in [there]," she said.
Central Motorway Police Group said one of its patrols came across the couple on the hard shoulder of the M5 in Worcestershire, between junctions seven and eight, at about 21:00 BST on Thursday.
"When we found them they were a bit shaky," Sgt Dave Lonsdale said.
He said the pair were on the way home after buying the car in Sheffield.
Fiona Wellington, 42, said she believed the snake may have belonged to her, after her pet snake Keith went missing before she sold the car to a dealer.
She said a friend saw the story on Facebook earlier and she had "been stressing ever since" because she "didn't tell [the dealers] about the snake in the car".
Mrs Wellington, from Sheffield, said she was taking her snake to work at a children's mental health unit, where one boy was "obsessed with snakes".
She added: "I put Keith in his travel box and my son, Jack, opened up the box to say goodbye and I don't think he closed it properly."
Mrs Wellington said when she got to work, the snake was gone and she "literally gutted the downstairs in my house".
She said "we searched everywhere, under the seats, behind the dashboard" but could not find the snake. She later found a snake skin in the vehicle.
The snake was identified as a harmless corn snake by a reptile company using pictures taken by police.
It is thought it crawled into the structure of the car. Unable to find it, the couple decided to continue their journey with the intention of looking properly at home.
Sgt Lonsdale added: "The officers assessed the scale of the problem but ultimately the couple knew the snake would not harm them.
"It's definitely not a regular occurrence for us."
In a tweet the force said it was the "most bizarre job for a long time".