Now that's what i call Saturday volume 8375

Rickie Lambert sensationally revealed in his post-match interview that it feels good to be part of a team which is near the top of the table, Manuel Pellegrini sensationally revealed he wasn't happy when his team lost at football, Michael Laudrup made the controversial claim that his team may have lost because they conceded more goals than they scored, Aaron Ramsey astonishingly announced that it was 'nice to get on the scoresheet', David Moyes has unearthed a complicated problem with his sides performance; namely that they 'didn't attack well at times', Saido Berahino surprised everyone by announcing that it was 'great' to score at Old Trafford, and finally Steve Bruce has said that until you see things it is often hard to know what they are.


Arsenal now lead the Premier Division table ahead of Spurs and Chelsea, who did them the favour of not beating each other. Southampton are in the top 4 by virtue of something, although I don't know what it is I'm basically sure it was someone else's fault. Fulham are in the relegation zone by virtue of an exciting mixture of bad players and mismanagement, but that should all change once their lucky talisman, the Michael Jackson statue, is replaced by the one they've commissioned of Freddy Mercury. Crystal Palace are one place below them in 19th by virtue of owning the players that they own and have done themselves no favours by being the current holders of the 'they shouldn't even be there in the first place' award. Manchester United, meanwhile, are currently the filling of a Welsh sandwich, sitting in 12th between Cardiff, who have Mutch to thank Jordan for, and Swansea.

Nigel Clough is out of a job, begging an obvious question - namely, if you're going to sack him now why not sack him at any other point in the last 4 years when he's been doing basically the same inconsistent thing? Anyway 4 years of win 1, lose 1 football at Pride Park has finally come to an end, Nigel can now look forward to joining Alan Curbishley on the list of managers who nobody seems to want to hire.
 
David Moyes, in what was an undeniably erotically charged and provocative post-match interview, stated that 'you are always going to get bad results in football' before going on to say that is important 'how you deal with them' and so far he has dealt with his bad results by piling more on top of them. He presumably thinks that if he piles up enough negatives they will eventually congeal into a positive (although it may not be a positive for him but for the club generally, the positive being that after months of negative achievement Moyes is sacked).


Jose Mourinho has expressed his enragement with Spurs' Jan Vertonghen after the Belgian almost dirtied Fernando Torres' fingernails when the Spaniard attempted to rip his face off with them. He has further expressed the opinion that his team would've gone on to win had it not been for an admittedly shit yellow card decision handed to Nando for a challenge so lacking in malice it could easily have been a misunderstood hug.

Leeds and Milwall managed to produce a game in which nobody died, no legs were broken, no bottles were smashed over anybody's head and nobody said anything reported in the media as having been severely racist, for this the football league are presumably going to give them a big award saying 'well done for not killing each other'.

In Spanish soccerball Gareth Bale made absolutely no impact as part of a Real Madrid team that made absolutely no impact on a game they thoroughly deserved to lose against rivals Atletico. Elsewhere Barca went on breaking records, now having won 7 in a row since the start of the season, winning 2-0 against something called Almeria.

Ian Holloway has said he is 'annoyed' by the dive which got Marouane Chamakh booked against Southampton, he is presumably 'annoyed' that it wasn't a better dive or else it might've actually won a penalty. He might've also have been 'annoyed' that his striker showed about as much confidence in front of goal as a cat would show faced with the inside of a wood-chipper. Or else maybe he was just 'annoyed' to realise that he actually owned the dodgy haired Morroccan.

The BBC Sport website is asking the question 'What's Inside a Footballers Contract?' - I'm predicting a combination of words and numbers. Elsewhere on the Beeb, Lineker spiced up MOTD by asking fans to vote for whether they thought United or City would finish higher in the league, a vote which occasioned no further discussion and served no plausible purpose.

Underfire Fulham boss Martin Jol has called for calm from the clubs fans, who expressed their frustration at the teams early season form by tutting loudly and throwing their Guardian wallcharts onto the pitch. There are concerns that if the poor form continues then attendances could drop, affecting the clubs finances and sales at the Craven Cottage half-time deli counter.

Liverpool's child dizzy on lemonade, Jordan Henderson, has backed Kevin Ball to take the Sunderland job on full-time. He has also given his weighty and meaningful support to Angela Merkel's re-election as German chancellor and to the Social Democrat party in the upcoming Austrian elections.

Robbie Fowler was made to apologise after suggesting on Final Score that Vertonghen and Torres were 'fighting like girls', presumably he would rather Nando had behaved like the typical footballer outside a nightclub and beaten the Belgian half to death. The BBC was flooded by complaints, and the comments caused a degree of controversy, one commenter on the Mirror website suggested that Fowler being made to apologise was 'All thats wrong with this once great country' - I'm now going to track down 'Da Mo' and introduce him to George Osbourne, David Cameron and the north.

Charlotte Green, the person who reads the scores on 5Live, managed to do her highly challenging job without massively fucking anything up. Her exceptional achievement of reading words from a screen into a microphone really has set her apart from the rest of humanity. The 'experienced and reliable' broadcaster drew upon all of her experience and reliableness when she saw what some words were and then read them out in the order they were written. The performance itself was immediately described as flawless, an achievement that really stands out as one of the greats in the history of human endeavour. Green 'cruised through the classified scores with plenty of poise and little fuss', managing to avoid saying 'fuck', or making any seriously offensive remarks. She reached a dramatic finale, prefaced with the astonishing and unmissable improvised words 'and finally', words which really came home to me because that was the moment it was 'finally' fucking over and I thought I might've fucking heard the mother fucking last of it for fucks fucking sake. Green had always dreamed of one day following in the footsteps of James Alexander Somethingorother, and so it really does just show that if you dream small enough you can fulfil your ambitions. Green's story has filled me with hope that I may one day be able to replace my washer and dryer or perhaps even get a new fridge. This, incidentally, is the last time I am ever going to mention this story again because it is giving me a fucking aneurysm.

So it's like totally like the weekend like tomorrow, or whatever...

The BBC continues to treat the changing of the guard on their classified results broadcast as if it were actual news, which begins to make the soft-baked no-content approach they take to sport start to feel genuinely intolerable. It would be nice if, just for a little bit, they could be less awful and boring. Although that will involve sacking everyone they currently employ.

Since we're developing a theme of Beeb-bashing here, let's begin with the contentless low-drone that is officially listed on the schedule as 'Football Focus', a programme hosted by man in a personality vaccuum Dan 'captain boring' Walker. He is the first big problem, Walker has fewer opinions than a bucket of sand and seems to know slightly less about football than your average office chair, he also presents the show like he is a child hoping to one day become a big boy journalist, and he's also everywhere across BBC football coverage, with his uniquely boring and uninformed take on footballing developments, standing around asking inane questions while dressed like a window dummy in House of fucking Fraser. The second severe deficiency is in the content, or total lack thereof. I will now reproduce a typical FF interview, the interviewer is Garth Crooks (GC), the interviewee is Robin Van Persie (RVP) -

GC: hi Robin

RVP: hello

GC: Robin, you score lots of goals

RVP: yes

GC: are you planning to keep doing that?

RVP: yes
GC: do you remember playing for Arsenal?
RVP: yes
GC: what was that like?
RVP: sometimes good

GC: you have a match at the weekend...

RVP: yes

GC: do you think you will win?

RVP: i would like to win this match. It is important to win games.

GC: finally, is Wayne Rooney good?

RVP: yes
GC: and you like being in the same team as him?
RVP: yes

...beyond the content is the analysis, usually provided by the boring mans sewing machine Dion Dublin, or the boring mans carpet showroom Kevin Kilbane, or the BBC wildcard Robbie 'not very fucking' Savage. Let's, in fact, focus on Savage, who the BBC themselves describe as 'outspoken'. Not insightful or intelligent or even capable of semi-rational thought, but 'outspoken', just remember this is 'outspoken' by the standards of Captain Boring, Captain Sewing Machine and Captain Carpet Right. Tomorrow's lively and enthralling installment of Fifty Focusing Shades of Footballing Beige is being broadcast live from Hull and features an interview with Tom Huddlestone, or if that all sounds like too much fun then you could just throw some paint at a wall and spend an afternoon watching it dry.

Once the early afternoon Funball Focus is over and we reach Final Score, now presented by robotic Welshman Jason Somethingorother, who sits opposite a combination of Crooks, Claridge, Kilbane, Danny Murphy and Savage discussing, in the most inconsequential terms, things you arent able to watch happening. Whilst Soccer Saturday compensates with entertainers, Final Score compensates with the drivveliest drivvel. Where Le Tis and Thommo and Kammy provide humour, heated debate and enhancement of the dramatic aspects, the BBC team provide fewer frills than a sack of rubble.

Finally there is Match of the Day, which has in its favour the goals and highlights carefully selected from each game, the problem is in-between them, when Lineker and Friends set about 'discussing' the plainly bloody obvious and saying exactly what's already been said. The lack of freshness and insight on MOTD is just one of the reasons that BBC football coverage has become so detestably awful and intolerably dull, which is why I return to the plan I have already outlined for salvaging the programme, just fucking sack everyone.

Off the subject of the Beeb, AVB has publically announced that Jose Mourinho is not his friend, presumably he followed up the announcement by listing off other people who are not his friends - Queen Elizabeth, Frank Skinner, Ed Milliband, Nicholas Parsons etc. Jose has said that Tottenham are capable of winning the title themselves, although to be fair even Tottenham aren't actually saying that. Mourinho went on to further stoke the fires of a not particularly bitter feud by saying he doesn't care what AVB says, and he then presumably made a list of other people who say things he doesn't care about - Queen Elizabeth, Frank Skinner, Miranda Hart etc.

Robbie Savage turned his outspoken tongue (a tongue frequently outspoken by particularly eloquent mice) to Javier Hernandez, suggesting the Mexican with the nickname on the back of his shirt (what in fuck was wrong with his actual name? Does it have a silent 'fuck' at the beginning?) is being wasted at Manchester United. I would contend, quite rightly, that he is used as well as he could be used being that he is a player who offers nothing except goal poaching attributes. It is difficult to use a player who makes such a minimal contribution to overall play. Savage thinks Hfuckernandez should move clubs, though Savage's opinion is about as reliable as the sort of opinion a slow 4-year-old could give you about quantum fucking field theory.

Simon Mignolet has described team-mate Luis Suarez as a 'nice fella', a description he may have intended comparatively, he may have been saying that Suarez is a nicer fella than, for instance, Ian Huntley or Roy Keane. Mignolet is, presumably, putting forward the suggestion that we've all got the wrong end of the stick about the arm-chewing racist Uruguayan, and let's give him the benefit of the doubt, let's say he's not an arm-chewer (although he definitely is) or a massive racist (which is allegedly is), that doesn't stop him from being quite obviously (at least) a bit of a cunt.

Stan 'the man' Kroenke has, apparently, got his sights set on the title, whether that's the Premier division title or the Capital One LDV Vans Coca-Cola Littlewoods Shield is hard to say at this stage, though I would propose the latter to be a more realistic ambition for a team that is about as used to winning trophies as Wokingham Town.

So with the Andy Carroll gamble having back-fired to the tune of one injury that a blind polar bear could've seen coming Carlton Cole is set to be offered a short-term return to Upton Park, in the hope that he can supply the sort of firepower he never ever remotely offered the first time around. In another timely boost for Hammers boss Big Sam, Stewie Downing may be fit for their trip to Hull, which is a massive positive for a team that has been lacking in terms of mishit crosses and running done only ever in completely straight lines.

Rickie Lambert is of the belief that he can provide a 'different option' for the England squad and is desperate to play in Brazil. Putting aside his lack of goals in the EPL and the obvious comparisons with Grant 'I've finally gone back to playing in the football league' Holt's emergence at Norwich, it is hard to disagree with Lambert's suggestion that he offers something different because he definitely does, the England squad contains players like the pacey Theo Walcott and the skilful Jack Wilshere and the defensively solid Gary Cahill, what none of these players supplies is the sort of abject redundancy that Rickie can bring to the set up.

Sean Dyche is apparently now considered to be 'in the race' to become the next Sunderland manager. Whether the big fella can outrun Gus Poyet or Rene Meulensteen remains to be seen, but it's certainly an interesting option, opting for someone who certainly does know how to get a team of half-decent players in reach of the top 6 in the second tier, which is obviously what Sunderland will want once they've been relegated.

Good news for Arsene Wenger, as it seems Aaron Ramsey will be available for their game at the weekend, which will be a relief for the Gunners boss who might've feared he would be without his chief goal-getter and the next player in a line that has included Fabregas, Nasri and Van Persie to now become the driving force behind the Gunners and, from next season, the driving force behind a team that might actually win something - like United, Barcelona or City.

Not giving Patrice Evra any time to settle down after a Summer of indirectly telling him they didn't want him anymore, Moyes is now apparently chasing Madrid's Fabio Coentrao, though with his record in the transfer market since taking over expect Moyes to end up signing Phil Jagielka or Shane sodding Duffy or Marouane Fellaini again.

Sol Campbell has said that he thinks it is difficult to for black managers to get a chance in management in this country. I would say to him, just look at Paul Ince or Chris Hughton or....Chris Powell or....someone else....or Brian Deane, no wait, he had to go to Norway to establish himself in management....well maybe he has a point. 

A notable feud is reignited this weekend when Leeds United travel to Milwall in what may turn into a battle to see who has the nuttiest fans. Expect a lot of violence and a lot of aggression, and expect similar behaviour from the supporters. Do not expect good football, do expect something that tourists might mistake for a memorial reenactment of the Battle of the Somme, only with slightly more carnage and a lot more El-Hadji Diouf.

It's Not the Weekend Yet

Bleacher Report has today usefully listed 6 things we 'learned' from Le Toon's deux-nil win over mid-range Championship bore-specialists Leeds United. First of all we 'learned' that Sammy Ameobi has a 'big part to play this season', the evidence for this is a good cross he put in when he had more space to work with than the Voyager 1 space probe. Second of all we 'learned' that Paul Dummett can 'hold his own in the first team', any young full-back who can, when playing against a team with no wingers, manage to spend an entire game not fucking anything up must indeed be a special talent. Thirdly we 'learned' that Yoann Goufrann's confidence is 'on the rise', which it must be now that he's actually scored a goal, albeit a goal scored past Paddy 'I look like I ate a pregnant gorilla' Kenny. We also 'learned' that Leeds are a 'big miss' in the top flight because they have good fans (although the less said about the players the better), and we found out that Papiss Cisse 'still knows how to find the back of the net', we know this because he did it, and what a biting insight it was to point that out. Finally we discovered that Vernon Anita goes 'from strength-to-strength' when competing in midfield with a mediocre 18-year-old and Michael Tonge, whose heyday wasn't even particularly hey. Read the waste of vowels for yourself here - http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1787733-newcastle-united-vs-leeds-united-6-things-we-learned - or better still avoid the website altogether unless you happen to be a fan of non-insights, opinions that yearn to be half-baked and stories that are slightly less interesting than window sills.

And now Sheep's Foot will propose 6 things that we learned from the game - we learned that Ross McCormack can shoot quite well from long range if given plenty of space, Sammy Ameobi can deliver a pinpoint cross as long as it is done entirely by accident, Jason Pearce will get distracted from man marking duties by the presence of grass near or around his feet, when Paddy Kenny dives it will look like someone is throwing a mattress into a skip, Papiss Cisse will score 40 goals this season as long as nobody bothers marking him and the ball is kicked directly onto his head and finally if you're buying players it's better to buy French than to buy Paul Green. 

Peter Schmeichel has come out and said he is 'not confident' that Manchester United will be able to retain their Premier division crown. He has said he will be happy if they are 'there or thereabouts', and so long as 'there or thereabouts' extends to about 15 to 20 points away from whoever actually does win the league then there will be no reason for Kasper's daddy to be unbelievably disappointed.

Matt Le Tissier has come out and boldly tipped League One shelf-stacker Rickie Lambert to make it on the plane to Brazil. What England really need, if they even make it to the World Cup, is to have a target man forward who can link up with the skilful, creative Jack Wilshere, because they do link up really well, about as well as a moving bullet and a human skull.

Charlotte Green, who is a woman who talks on the radio, has the scarce distinction this week of being the person who, at about 5 o'clock on a Saturday, tells you that Doncaster have beaten Ipswich by 1 goal to no goals. She has admitted, ahead of the big debut, that she is feeling 'nervous' about having to read words from a page in a dull monotone. Further, she has regaled a BBC news team with an excellent anecdote about how she used to sit at the table when she was a child reading the scores, mimicking the style in which it is professionally done, and that her carryings on were to the annoyance of her demented lunatic of a sister who incomprehensibly found the whole ordeal 'boring'.

Mohammed Al-Fayed, professional conspiracy theorist and the worlds 1031st richest man has finally been reunited with his colour statue of pop legend Michael Jackson, much to the dismay of Fulham Football Club, who will surely not hesitate to recommission another statue, or perhaps a whole collection of statues showcasing pop through the fucking ages. Al-Fayed, meanwhile, having relinquished interest in Harrods and Fulham is now able to concentrate on accusing other people of things they obviously haven't done.

Lewis Holtby has made the bold suggestion that Tottenham can compete for four trophies, although it's not difficult to be quite sure that fans of the North London club would be very much happy enough if they just about bothered to try competing for one.

Fernando Torres has insisted that he is competition up front for Samuel Eto'o rather than being that massively overpaid baldy guy who looks like a washed up Fernando Torres and scores goals occasionally in cup competitions when he is playing european teams from countries with a GDP lower than his weekly wage or lower league teams who have transfer budgets smaller than the sum of money he got paid for that Samsung advert where he baked a cake.

Luis Suarez has pledged to 'try his best' for Liverpool. Whether he's promising to try his best not to bite anyone or say anything obviously racist or hand in a transfer request or take a massive shit in the corner of the pitch is not entirely clear at this stage.

Great Britain keeper Jack Butland has switched sunny Stoke for beautiful Barnsley in an emergency loan deal. Jack, of course, played for Birmingham last season having come through the ranks and made a big impression. He also kept goal for Team GB in the Olympics and then in January 2013 he turned down the chance to move to the likes of Liverpool and Chelsea and United in order to get more first team football, signing a deal with Stoke City, which is why he's now moving onwards and upwards joining a team that's leakier than the fucking Titanic.

Roberto Mancini is apparently in the frame to take over at Galatasaray after they relieved Fatih Terim of his duties. Mancini is presumably hoping to follow in the footsteps of Frank Rijkaard who, after leaving his job as Barcelona manager in 2008 moved to Galatasaray, over time he fell out of awareness in the big leagues and he most recently spent time in charge of the Saudi Arabian national team, that is until they sacked him, he now works for a Florida prep school. But seriously Robbie, good luck.

Michael Laudrup has said that Leroy Lita's time in the Swansea first-team has come to an end, which seems regrettable, Lita himself will presumably be disappointed to see his time come to an end so soon after it didn't even start in the first place.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic has added another 1 million pounds to his annual salary, now taking home a totally reasonable 12.6 million pounds per year, which should at least be able to buy him a less shit haircut or maybe a personality transplant.

Chris Hughton's job as Norwich manager is under threat after their average start to the season. The club's directors naturally see the Canaries as obvious challengers for a place in the top 4, and failure to secure even Europa League football would, of course, be a massive massive disaster for a team which includes the likes of Michael Turner, Russell Martin, Bradley Johnson and a goalkeeper with the surname of Ruddy.

The race to fill Paulo Di Canio's military issue grenade-launching combat boots is ongoing. Gus Poyet is rumoured to be out in front with Tony Pulis lagging behind him, with Gianfranco Zola, temporary incumbent Kevin Ball and Steve McLaren still further back, although it may be Gus' for the taking if Zola isn't interested, Ball isn't deemed experienced enough and McLaren trips over his umbrella.

Finally, Carlo Ancelotti has promised that his team can still score goals, even in the absence of Mesut Ozil. And it is seemingly true that Madrid are capable of finding the back of the net without the little German, so long as the ref is bribed and Cristiano Ronaldo doesn't mind doing it absolutely all on his own.

If you missed Wednesday's Capital One LDV Vans Coca-Cola Shield action then here is a roundup of what happened...
- Some 12-year-olds from anywhere except North London joined forces with Nicklarse Bendtner to help Arsenal to victory over West Bromwich Albion after a penalty shootout at the Hawthorns.
- Mark Hughes' Stoke all-stars saw off Tranmere Rovers with help from a cheeky goal by the big man with a good touch for a big man and a shit touch for a giant panda Peter Crouch, and a rare goal for Stephen 'yes, I am still a professional footballer' Ireland.
- Le Toon brushed aside Leeds United in a result some people will insist on reading far too much into.
- The holders Swansea were eliminated by Birmingham City's not actual brilliance.
- And David Moyes' Manchester United saw off Liverpool at Old Trafford with the aid of the worst marking I have ever encountered in all my years of watching under-7's football.

Happy Wednesday

Steve Bruce today said the only thing he's ever said that I actually agreed with when he likened early league cup games to friendlies. I would liken them to ipads, because both are pointless and unnecessary and i don't know who they're for.

BBC Sport today tried to examine whether Liverpool were missing Suarez, which isn't really a question worth asking, because he is a good player, any team can benefit from a player like Suarez who can do a lot of things without a lot of help. I've written an equation which accounts for it - Good Player + Luis Suarez + Another Good Player + Jordan Henderson on the bench + no Stewart Downing/Andy Carroll = a team which might sneak into 4th place.

Palermo have sacked confirmed nutcase Gennaro Gattuso, Sunderland have sacked escaped mental patient Paulo Di Canio - what we are learning from this is that teams are beginning to work out that having managers who are a couple of somethings short of a something else is no way to run a footballing club.

Robert Lewandowski has confirmed that he will be a Bayern player next season. I have an equation for this too. Good player in the German League + continued existence of Bayern Munich with wealth in tact, no match-fixing scandal, no bus crash killing the first XI, no massive financial scandal = transfer (for clarification see Manuel Neuer, Mario Gotze, Mario Mandzukic, Dante and the recently-departed Mario Gomez).

Kevin Ball(s up) wants to be the next Sunderland manager. Let's play a game of examine his record in professional football management. Last time he was given the job he was given 10 games in charge of the Mackems, he won 1 game, but yesterday he won another game (at home against League One opposition), which for me qualifies him to manage in the Premier League absolutely definitely no question whatsoever. Of course an alternative would be Gus Poyet, who amongst other things did basically good work at Brighton, he has the advantage of being an actual football manager, and he would be available immediately. Of course that doesn't put Kevin Ball on the bottom of the list, not at all, because Steve McLaren is also on the list, and before hiring him I'm sure they'd have the good sense to ask the kitman or the physio to have a crack at the job.

Jose Mourinho, apparently, went mental when they gave Moyesy the United job and only pretended that he already knew about it when the press asked him, this is according to someone who confirmedly hates his guts. It's like me writing an autobiography about Roy Keane, every other word of which would be 'fuck' or 'fucking', with every other word to that first word being an exceptionally thinly veiled insult. Anyway, apparently what Jose pointed out, when turned down for the post, was that David Moyes has won fuck all and hasn't, if you didn't notice, even worked his way out of Everton, until now. What you'll notice about Jose is that he's won fucking loads and knows how to win stuff. David Moyes couldn't win a raffle if he had the only ticket.

Jos Hooiveld is backing Southampton to follow in the footsteps of Swansea and lift the Crapitall One Mickey Mouse LDV Vans Shield next February. Unfortunately nobody has mentioned to the lanky and basically incompetent Dutchman that there are, in fact, other teams in the competition.

Alan Pardew says he is seething about his sides performance in their defeat to Hull, and if he's seething about that then you'd have to assume he's probably going to be absolutely furious when he gets sacked for doing an awful job with an excellent squad.

Good news for Arsenal fans - Nicky's back. 'Never before have I met anyone so proud and yet so utterly useless' is what Glen Cullen said about Terri Coverley on the Thick of It, but he might as well have been talking about this lanky waste of space. Expect misplaced passes, mistimed headers, misguided touches and inappropriate media comments about how good he is.

Questions...
This is the segment where I, the writer, pose questions to you, the sort of twats who would actually read the things I write...
1) why does Arsene Wenger spend all Winter watching football in a sleeping bag?
2) why is Romelu Lukaku playing for another team that isn't Chelsea?
3) does anyone else think David Moyes looks a lot like he knows he's really really really far out of his depth?