The way they've been playing over the last few years, it's clear they're a team on the ascendancy. They have some great young players and they will shine in the next few years.

We have a strong and solid squad with gifted players. There is no need to worry. We can chase three different titles at the same time.

Gregory is one of the top three goalkeepers in the world. I've known him for six years and he keeps getting better. His level of consistency is astonishing.

The new regime is bedding down and in the ascendancy.

Apparently, a week Japan was laughable; but a strong Japan was immediately transformed into the prime example of a "Yellow Peril". Might Japan forever be stuck in a kind of no man's land between East and West, not allowed to assimilate into the international order of the Western nations as an equal, forever grouped with the countries of the East among which she felt herself superior, and respected fully by neither group?

Employers are, for want of a better word, in the ascendancy.