How ‘influencer' WAGs such as Sasha Attwood and Milly Adams have replaced the ‘pop stars’ of the 2000s like Victoria Beckham and Cheryl

Cast your mind back to 2006. Wow, it certainly does seem a long time ago.

Whilst the then England football team were making the headlines for crashing out of the World Cup during the quarter finals, the then WAGs were also making headlines for all the wrong reasons too.

A few years later, England manager Fabio Capello was forced to ‘ban’ partners from visiting their footballer other halves during training after the whole tournament became known as a ‘circus.’

So who were the WAGs at the time? Well the main ones that have to be mentioned of course have to be Victoria Beckham and Cheryl (then Cheryl Cole as she was married to former England footballer Ashley Cole at the time).

Apart from both being married to footballers, Cheryl and Victoria also had their ‘pop star’ careers in common. In the days long before social media and of course ‘sliding into DM’s even existed, footballers had to meet their partners/wives in more conventional ways.

“My wife picked me out of a soccer sticker book.” David told The Sun at the time. “And I chose her off the telly,” he revealed.

As for Cheryl and her former husband Ashley, they met when they were both living in the same apartment building in North London (where Girls Aloud and many Arsenal players) lived at the time.

Fast forward to 2022, and it would seem that the ‘pop star’ WAGs have been replaced by influencers. Although Jack Grealish reportedly first met in school in Solihull at the age of 16 (very conventional way), Sasha is very much known for being a model and influencer.

She has over 150K followers on Instagram and often posts glamorous pictures of herself jetting around the world. Sasha just shared a photograph of Jack on her Instagram stories with the caption, ‘So proud of you xxx.’

Arsenal and England player Ben White’s fiancee Milly Adams may have a more modest 15.1K followers on Instagram at present, but it is growing all the time. She has been described as an ‘Instagram model’ and was happy to share black and white photographs of their recent engagement on social media.The couple marked the occasion by sharing matching tattoos.

Like Sasha, Milly often shares photographs of herself on holiday in exotic locations. Before they became a couple, Ben had liked several of MIlly’s photographs on Instagram.

Spurs and England star Eric Dier is another footballer who is smitten with a model and influencer. He is now engaged to Anna Modler, who is of South African and Namibian descent. Anna, who previously dated Arsenal star Alexis Sanchez, has 111K followers on Instagram and shared a recent snap of her new engagement ring alongside Eric.

Conor Gallagher who is on loan with Chelsea and is in the England team is another footballer who has a penchant for influencers. His girlfriend is Irish born Aine May Kennedy who was born and raised in Cork before moving to London to pursue her dreams of becoming a professional dancer.

Aine May has 45K followers on Instagram and often shares pictures of herself with Conor on there. She described Conor recently as ‘my real life superstar,’ with a star emoji next to Qatar 2022.

The WAGs of 2022 may differ from their counterparts of 2006 in terms of their professions, but one thing for sure is that social media has undoubtedly had a huge impact on helping to grow the careers, profiles and even love lives of today’s cohort.