I have some questions...

So I'm watching MOTD2 and I can't help but notice that Mark Lawrenson looks a bit like an old centaur recovering from a long-standing heroin addiction, Michael Owen meanwhile still looks like he's about 7 years old, and their combination as analysts is about as entertaining as having bowel cancer, so we'll turn our attention to the football. Fernando Torres is BACK, because he tapped the ball into the empty net for his first league goal since DECEMBER. Manchester United are BACK because they won 1 game and are still EIGHT points behind Arsenal, but they're BACK. Let's play the reserving judgement game, I'll believe Torres is back when I see him even listed on the goalscoring charts, and I'll believe Manchester United are back when they actually win convincingly and frequently.

1) WHY DIDN'T JOE HART ASSUME NASTASIC COULD DEAL WITH THAT SIMPLE BOUNCING BALL??

Gareth Bale scored 2 (he scored 1 very good goal and got 1 very fortunate deflection), and set up 2. He scored the first 2 goals, then Ronaldo scored 1, then Sevilla scored 2, then Ronaldo scored another 2. So let's tally up - Bale 2, Sevilla 2, Ronaldo 3 (and Benzema 2, if you were counting).

2) WHY DID JOE HART START RUNNING IN THE FIRST PLACE??

So, umm, I think that Javi Garcia is probably sleeping with Manuel Pellegrini, that's basically the only explanation for he's still allowed to inhabit a football pitch wearing a Manchester City shirt. What I also think is that when the pressure starts to lift on Moyes, as it probably will in coming weeks when United dispatch Fulham & Arsenal, then it is probably going to come down quite heavily on Manuel, who could really use a few home games right about now. Speaking of City, Jack Rodwell is still alive - apparently.

3) WASN'T IT TOTALLY UNNECESSARY FOR JOE HART TO GET INVOLVED AT ALL??

Mathieu Flamini is going to miss key games for the Gunners, meaning the Gunners are now going to very quickly stop being top of the league. Oh well, fun while it lasted...

4) WHAT DID JOE HART ACTUALLY THINK HE WAS GOING TO DO TO HELP THE SITUATION??

Thinking about it, the next series of Masterchef might be a David Moyes v Manuel Pellegrini head-to-head if they keep making such a meal out of it. Pellegrini has used ingredients such as Jack Rodwell and Javi Garcia to make a scraped win in the Crapital Two Mickey Mouse LDV Vans Why Do We Even Bother Wasting Everyone's Time Cup, whilst David Moyes has used Tom Cleverley to make a slightly more exciting meal out of Stoke City.

5) SERIOUSLY WHAT DOES JOE HART THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN ONCE HE'S CHARGED OUT OF HIS PENALTY AREA??

So I'm watching the Football League Show, and the Spurs game goes to penalties and the commentator narrating Eric Lamela's penalty says he was bought at great expense from Lazio, which he wasn't, he then says that this is only Gedo's second game in English football, which it definitely wasn't, and then he claimed that Nick Proschwitz was inevitably going to score because he was German, which he isn't. Isn't his job basically to have things to say about football? He has the simplest job in the world, and still manages to screw it up - it's like hiring a golf commentator who doesn't know what a par 4 is. But then Sky do employ Niall Quinn, BT Sport employ Michael 'duller than a sack of scrabble tiles' Owen, and the BBC still seem to also think that John Motson isn't as out of touch as he obviously is.

6) WHAT IS WRONG WITH JOE HART'S BRAIN??

So I'm watching Arsenal-Chelsea, and I had a massive flashback. It was same old Chelsea, looking like classic Chelsea-under-Mourinho: solid & good on the break, and classic Wenger against Mourinho - because he lost. This is it though - they got shown up against Dortmund, exposed against Chelsea (admittedly it's never going to be an easy win if you select Nicklarse 'no, really, i am a professional footballer' Bentdnernerner), and they're going to be exposed even more against Manchester United on November 10th (oh and also against Dortmund again on November 7th). This is it, this is Arsenal's season breaking down, they've surprised everyone by plugging away so far, but now shorn of one grubby little French ball-winner they're going to slide out of contention like vomit sliding down the door of the fridge.

7) SERIOUSLY! THERE WAS JUST NO DANGER AT ALL UNTIL HART GOT INVOLVED. WHAT THE WHAT THE WHAT THE FUCKING FUCKING FUCKING FUCK WAS HE THINKY THINKY THINKY THINK THINKING?!

It wasn't just that they made a meal of dealing with a simple ball, it's that they made a 12-course banquet out of dealing with a Stoke-style hoof that was more speculative than Peter Andre's pop career.

Worth every penny

Celtic last night recorded a 'highly deserved' win, that is according to the BBC website. Honestly, it would be generous to even say they edged it - Ajax should've scored 7, Thulani Serero alone should've scored at least twice, the first chance was so simple and routine you could've slapped it in with a curly straw, the second just required a modicum of attacking competence. Elsewhere in the game Nir Biton attempted to break someones leg, and Jesus Samaras managed to bumble his way through another Champions League match without killing anyone, so well done to him.

People are still giving out to David Moyes in the wake of a comfortable and convincing home win. What was most impressive, and who was most impressive, was the 90-year-old Welshman in the middle of the park who linked everything together and made Champions League football look as easy as getting out of the bath, both that achievement and successfully negotiating the towelling off period remain impressive at his age. 

Arsenal, meanwhile, spent their managers birthday demonstrating the importance of Mathieu Flamini. The tramp-a-like Frenchman was absent from a midfield which folded every time the opposition had possession, looking holier than St Peter whenever it wasn't actually Arsenal who had the ball. What Arsenal can learn from the game is that it might be a super idea to sign someone else who can play that role just in case the grubby little ball-winner happens to ever be missing from any game ever again.

Looking back to Sunday we saw Leeds United score FOUR goals in a home game against Birmingham City. It was a game which saw Brian McDermott finally realise that 3-5-2 might make some sense for a team that doesn't have any wingers, it gave Byram license to get forward, it allowed United to dominate the game, and it allowed MATT SMITH to bag TWO goals. However, Birmingham's first-half display could hardly have been worse. The incompetence of the defence was only matched by its incoherence, and these flaws were compounded simply by the presence of the walking hat-stand that is Dan Burn, a 'defender' who has pulled off the greatest magic trick in the history of magic tricks by convincing people to actually take him seriously as a professional football player. Aside from fielding the new Ali Dia, Birmingham also managed to field an embodiment of nepotism, in the form of Rob Lee's son Olly, Rob Lee being a former team-mate of Birmingham boss Lee Clark, Olly Lee being the most appalling excuse for a footballer since Dan Burn. Elsewhere in the Birmingham team we got to see walking freak-show Nikola Zigic bumble around the pitch wondering, much as everyone else was, what he's still doing there, and we got to see Kyle Bartley charge around the pitch wondering who the hell he'd managed to sign for. That shouldn't necessarily take the gloss of Leeds' biggest win in what feels like decades, but it kind of does. What i'm saying is that the jury is still out on the Leeds revival, in fact the jury hasn't even got its instructions yet, the jury is still sleeping through the trial at this stage.

Elsewhere, Ian Holloway has finally departed Selhurst Park. He joined with the club second in the Championship and was fortunate to lead them into the playoffs after a string of average displays, he has since presided over the selection of Stuart O'Keefe and Damien Delaney in Premier League football matches, along with the signing of SIXTEEN players over the Summer. Little wonder, with Kevin Phillips having all the impact of a nail clipping coming off the bench, that Ian has been invited to vacate his position, he departs with a THIRTY percent win percentage, even if you exclude the SEVEN games they've lost this season he's still lost as many as he's won at Palace, although it's hardly his fault that they are a team vastly out of their depth, although that in itself might be the problem.

It's finally time to turn our attention to the book of the week - Bonkers: My Autobiography in Laughs by Sir Jennifer Ferguson-Saunders - she tears into the likes of Roy Keane, reveals what it was like working with Dawn French & talks about her regrets regarding David Beckham. Starting with Keane, Saunders sensationally reveals that Roy has quite an unbalanced personality, we didn't guess that from when he DELIBERATELY ended Alf-Inge Haaland's CAREER for something the Norwegian once SAID to him. I've always thought Keane a reasonable and rational man, I'd never have thought he was mentally unbalanced, borderline psychopathic and unsafe for human consumption, never would I have ever said he was insane, deranged, demented and seven buttons short of a cardigan. Saunders goes on to confess that Eric Djemba-Djemba wasn't a success at Old Trafford during a disappointing spell which bankrupted the proud Cameroonian as he squandered his wages on 10 4x4s. Jennifer did then go on to curiously claim that United 'battered' Man City during a game which finished with the Citizens claiming a SIX-ONE victory, in which United played with the same level of competency with which a fish writes screenplays. Saunders also SENSATIONALLY claimed there was no footballing reason for Beckham to move to L.A, which is obviously contrary to all previous and popular belief, she also professed a dislike for the F.A, and made the absurd, ridiculous and libelous claim that Wayne Rooney was never in charge of transfer policy at Manchester United. What actually comes out is that the greatest revelation in Bonkers: My Life in Telling People Nothing They Didn't Already Know by Sir Alex 'Ab Fab' Saunders is that Ruud Van Nistelrooy was actually Rude Van Nistelrooy. WORTH EVERY PENNY.

Błïmêŷ, so thåt's actually happened...

Montenegro lost 5-2 to the 129th best team in the world, Moldova (who sit perched behind Namibia, Tanzania and Luxembourg in the rankings), and that's a result which would take the gloss off this international break if it wasn't for England being so emphatically not bad throughout it. Poland's lack of quality and motivation sincerely aside, England were as good as they've been in my lifetime, Roy seems to have cottoned on, and they've discovered Andros Townsend. Furthermore, Steven Gerrard was absolutely terrific, and Chris Smalling didn't totally bollocks anything up! The question is whether they'll be so daring against less average opposition, which they won't, they'll be 10-men behind the ball. Although it would appear England and Roy have turned a corner, Roy Hodgson's post-match press interview reeked of a man who had no idea how he'd managed to cure cancer. He referred to a 5-0 win against Montenegro which never ever happened, all the while displaying the demeanor of a bemused elderly gentleman in a home who might shuffle round the day room telling everyone he was Alf Ramsey. And that's basically what's happened to all my optimism, it's been sucked away by the old man in the knitted cardigan. 

In the aftermath of the victory Roy Hodgson has said that qualifying for this tournament is his best moment in football, which is saying something when you consider that he has been in the management game since the time when the Angles, Saxons and Jutes were playing home matches against the Vikings.

While other nations were busy qualifying for the World Cup, Egypt have set themselves quite a challenge, having been on the receiving end of a 6-1 defeat in the first leg of their qualification play-off with Ghana, after the game fans in the stadium were in philosophical mood, unanimously agreeing that Ghana deserved to represent Africa and had been far superior to the Egyptians, which is the difference between living in a country where alcohol is religiously forbidden and living anywhere else in the world.

San Marino, meanwhile, confounded expectations by only conceding 8 against Ukraine. It's amazing that none of the twelve people who've managed to find the net for San Marino in their illustrious history as a team managed to find the net tonight, though they were trying where Rickie Lambert has failed, which puts them in a category with several Conference South strikers. I still want to know who keeps inviting San Marino to participate. They have ended on a -53 goal difference, they've only failed to lose 5 times in their history. WHAT ARE THEY LEARNING FROM THIS? To be fair they've improved, they've improved in their matches against Ukraine to the tune of conceding one less goal, and if that trend continues then in just EIGHT games they'll be bagging a 0-0 draw. What is ever going to change? When is it ever going to be different? It must be demoralizing, it is senseless violence, it's not endearing and it's not brave, it's embarrassing for everyone who has to actually turn up and play against this motley band of turnip grinders and dental nurses. Please, for the love of God, just stop wasting everybody's time (your own included - unless you think that 0-0 draw with Lebanon made it all worthwhile). I'm genuinely interested to know why they keep doing it, what does it achieve? Please, other football teams, come and slaughter us. Maybe in 10 years we'll get another draw, which will only leave us 16 points away from getting anywhere near qualifying for anything.

JUMPING ahead suddenly to today because I forgot I hadn't published this post, it was during the West Ham-City game on Sky that a debate resurfaced that I missed commenting on at the time. The commentators bought up the subject of Sergio Aguero's penalty against Everton, which rebounded off the post, off Tim Howard, and into the net, and counted as a Tim Howard Own Goal in the official record, depriving Sergio Aguero of a statistic. The commentators seemed to think this was a travesty, ignorant of the fact that what happened was Sergio Aguero kicked the ball off target (i.e. into the post), it rebounded out (i.e. away from goal - not into it), and encountered an obstacle (i.e. the back of Tim Howard's baldy head) and rebounded into the goal (an object in whose direction it had not previously been travelling). So let's summarize, Sergio Aguero missed a penalty, the ball rebounded into play, hit another player, went in. This should be Sergio Aguero's goal should it? Because today he hit a couple over the bar and one just wide, should they have counted as well? He scored a couple in the garden during the week, should we be counting them too? What if he had a shot, the keeper saved it and, say for example, Silva followed in, should that be his goal? Let's look at what would be happening in that situation - Sergio Aguero would've kicked the ball, it would've rebounded out (i.e. AWAY FROM GOAL - NOT INTO IT) and then encountered an obstacle (i.e. David Silva's boot, head, chest, knee, whatever) and rebounded into the goal (AN OBJECT IN WHOSE DIRECTION IT HAD NOT PREVIOUSLY BEEN TRAVELLING). Wow, that sounds familiar. In short, it's not a debate, it's an own goal.

Elsewhere, Liverpool floundered in the face of depleted opposition, Manchester United floundered in the face of an impressive string of two passes, West Ham floundered in trying to do an impersonation of Spain by playing without any strikers, and Sunderland countinued to flounder more impressively than anyone else in the division.

Oh and vis-a-vis 'that David Marshall incident' - not the first one which was handball, but the second one which ended up as a goal, in what way is David Marshall 'in control of the ball'? I get that the law says he is, but how is he, and why does it say that? He is in control of the ball, when it's in his hands and you'd have to use illegal methods to get it out of his hands, but when he throws it out of his hands, in what way is he in control of the ball? What if the ball then bounces away and he doesn't catch it again, is he still in control of the ball? When does he become out of control of the ball? The way I see it is he's in control of the ball, then he lets go of the ball, then he's not in control of the ball. Law on that is stupid. If he bounces the ball at a Chelsea player it's his own stupid fault if he ends up conceding. Also, congratulations to Torres for almost looking interested at one point, and congratulations to David Luiz for continuing to look about as clueless regards defending as monkeys look clueless regards quantum field theory. 

Oh and vis-a-vis Gareth Barry, what exactly was it that made the on-loan midfielder go into Lee Catermole mode this weekend? After one De Jong style studs up assault on Danny Graham that saw the 'striker' stretchered off, he then went after Sone Aluko's shin bones with a tackle that would've given David Batty an erection. After the game Gareth went before the cameras to straighten the matter out, he confessed that he thought he took the ball in the Aluko challenge, meaning that Gareth Barry now can't tell the difference between ball and leg, so watch out basically everyone. 

Good news for fans of the Football Manager franchise, with the BETA edition now available players have access to the great news features, take this for example - the manager will be informed IF THE CLUB IS BANNED FROM EUROPEAN COMPETITIONS - yes that is the sort of development a manager might like to be kept abreast of.

Ruddy Annoyed

For those of you who preordered Football Manager 2014 and are awaiting the early release of the BETA version, take solace in the fact that semi-decent professional footballers already have it. This is because they give 'invaluable feedback' since they are in the industry. Yes, that's fair, I'm sure ADAM LE FONDRE will give eloquent, inspired and intelligent feedback. It seems his inter team is dominating Italian football - well that was fucking invaluable, well done, you've transformed the game, and what a lot of time you have to play, spending the first 80 minutes of every actual match you're professionally invited to turn up for on the bench, the rest of the week that doesn't encompass those 11 minutes I'm sure has given you plenty of time to become an intelligent and able video-game critic, or maybe this is a cheap marketing ploy by FM - giving the game to people with plenty of fucking Twitter followers so they can spread the word. It's not that, it's not that because they've got PONTUS WERNBLOOM testing it - PONTUS WERNBLOOM gets the game FOR FREE on account of his being PONTUS WERNBLOOM, if only I'd known in advance I'd have become PONTUS WERNBLOOM instead of being the competent and productive member of society I basically am. And who else is on this elite list of persons given privileged access to the game in exchange for 'EXPERT' (MASSIVE INVERTED COMMAS) feedback - well from the evidence I can gather there's Watford 'star' BERNARD MENSAH, who is slightly more anonymous than my left bollock. Then they've drafted in the discerning insight of some guy from Reverend and the Makers, congratulations you're in a shit band, have a free copy of our game. Because they ARE going to provide insights, being industry insiders and industry experts and not just quite famous people who may have expressed an interest. It's not about that. They DEFINITELY WERE NOT asked to promote the game via Twitter, it's pure coincidence that they just have happened to do EXACTLY THAT. Shit bands are notoriously who Apple go to when testing new phones, and of course when a new car comes out it's only after it's been rigorously tested by the fucking drummer from fucking Muse. It's true, who else but shit bands is there to give 'INVALUABLE FEEDBACK' (actual quote) about the game - not the people who play it, not the fans of the game, nah, it's bands, it's definitely bands, it's always bands, you've got to run it past the sort of discerning sort of person who would spend their life trying to make something that someone somewhere someday might actually describe as being 'almost music'. I mean when someone is drafting up a new policy initiative the first thing they fucking do is give fucking Marilyn fucking Manson a quick call. I want to make it clear, early access was NOT granted so that word would be spread to the sort of intolerable halfwits who use Twatter, it was NOT THAT, it was for the INSIGHTS, which I imagine weren't quite so dense as 'it's well good' or 'it's wicked cool' or 'why am I so shit on your game?' - they will have been eloquent and intelligent and insightful and useful, I mean who knows more about how to create an interactive video game than ADAM LE FONDRE and some guy from Crewe I've never even heard of? Seriously though, ALF does give a special and unique insight, I mean there isn't anyone else (probably) in the ENTIRE WORLD who can give you such a brilliant perspective of what it is like to be both redundant, slow-witted and so useful you're only ever the first name on the subs bench.
In short, go fuck yourself Football Manager, I'm not buying your fucking game. OH AND WHO IS THIS PROVIDING UNIQUE INSIGHT - WELL IT'S SHANE DUFFY - THANK GOODNESS FM will have the unique insight of someone who is both Irish and appallingly average at football, someone who has that unique combination of Irishness and footballing talent that is basically indistinguishable from that of the substitutes bench he is lucky to frequent. OOOOOO who else? Luke Wright, someone who is apparently a cricketer (APPARENTLY), who apparently provides 'GREAT FEEDBACK', well there you go. Not someone who loves the game, plays it like a full-time job, no this git - he plays Cricket, which is a sport, football is a sport, well there you go, WHY WOULDN'T YOU ASK HIM?!? Apparently PLAYING THE GAME isn't a qualification, being IN THE MEDIA (i.e. having the platform to spread word about the game) or being a sportsman (i.e. too stupid to do something actually worthwhile)...........
You know what.....
forget it........
Fuck you Miles Jacobson, fuck you Football Manager, and fuck you again Miles Jacobson.
P.S. Miles, if your dishwasher breaks ring the manufacturer, don't ring Elmo.

Let's Talk About Anything

Let's talk about how much we've missed football this weekend. Did any of us find ourselves watching Coventry vs Sheffield United on Sunday afternoon just so we could pretend Super Sunday was still broadcasting? If we did, then we wouldn't have been wanting for excitement and drama in a game that finished 3-2 to the 'home' side, propelling them up to 16th, with the Sky Blues having started with a 10 point deduction, all of which is very impressive for a team that doesn't even have its own stadium, and who manage to seemingly provide the best entertainment of anyone in the football league judging by the scorelines alone (FOUR 3-2s, one 4-4, one 5-4 and a 4-0). This is in contrast to United, who are sinking like a brick in a river. They've so far picked up FIVE points from ELEVEN games, they've just sacked the manager, and now they're losing to teams recently salvaged from administration. Though, to be fair, they're not doing much worse than Bristol City, who are a massive one point ahead of them having come down from the Championship last season, from the outside it's hard to see that Sean O'Driscoll has got much longer at Ashton Gate, though he has asked for patience from fans, promising that their slide down the leagues will have to stop at some stage. At the opposite end of the table, having dropped only FOUR points all season Leyton Orient continue to make light work of the third tier, although presumably having a small squad, no money and no marquee talents is unlikely to permit actual promotion there are, very much for the time being, reasons to be cheerful if you're one of the very small minority that doesn't think Brisbane Road is that one off Richard Street where the off-license is. Elsewhere in League One, Martin Allen has been given the push at Gillingham as thanks for taking them back to the third tier. The club were sharp to offer their 'deepest gratitude' to Allen,  saying the decision was made with 'great regret' - which is interesting because you usually 'regret' things that you feel remorse over,

The End of the Town

I'm not going to deny that it was better, but this was an under-strength MONTENEGRO team, MONTENEGRO is still a country of 600,000 people, the keeper was still Debrecen's no.2, their goalscorer still plays club football in SOUTH KOREA, and their star sub was an immobile Blackburn reject/footballing wardrobe. And yes, Andros Townsend was a 'brave' choice for Roy, but let's face it, his selection policy is based on form, not on a plan or philosophy, it's still haphazard, on the hoof, and Andros Townsend, for all that he offers, is still not world class. It was a nice goal, but just before MONTENEGRO scored he had the chance to cross for Welbeck, it was a simple ball to give Welbeck a tap-in, and it was a mess, he is mostly only any use with 15 yards of space around him, and he won't always get that, but he played quite well, but there is a reason he's been out on loan so much, and while he's worked hard at his game he is not an exceptional player, but he is impressive and deserves credit, and he does offer something nobody else in the England camp seems to have got, and yes he should be involved if and when England make it to Brazil, and actually, bizarrely, I am going to come down on the side of Andros Townsend and congratulate him for working hard and say that I like his movement, the way he uses a ball, his very impressive agility and movement, and whilst he might not be technically perfect he isn't so easy to keep in your pocket as Lennon, Walcott, Young etc, so I think he does have something to offer, and I think he should keep his place and I think Poland should watch out, not that they really give a shit what happens. Elsewhere, MICHAEL CARRICK should start against the Poles, because he is more dynamic and flexible than Lamps and Stevie G, that's not to say they aren't useful for Chelsea and Liverpool, they just don't fit the England system so brilliantly and it doesn't get the best out of them and I think it would get more from Carrick than it does from them. Mainly what I actually think is that right now Carrick is the better player, Gerrard and Lampard have had to adapt to having lost a yard of pace and while they've both done that pretty impressively they are up against someone who hasn't had to compromise his style and who is better at doing the things they've adapted to start doing. KYLE WALKER is no major loss, it's not much use most of the time having a defender who can't defend, it's like in baseball having a catcher who can't catch or it's like employing a statistical research analyst who can't analyse statistical research. Mind you, the alternatives are Phillip Jones, a utility lump who reminds me of Lennie Small, and Christopher Smalling, both of whom have been benched since Moyes took over and that hardly fills me with confidence. ELSEWHERE, for all that Sturridge offers you still have to deal with the ego, for instance when he did that shimmy into space and then attempted to chip a goalkeeper who wasn't out of his goal, there is still this selfish mentality and this excessive desire to prove how good he is, Andy Townsend described the attempted chip as the 'right idea', which it just absolutely wasn't, but then Andy Townsend himself is nothing more than a bad idea with a microphone. MONTENEGRO's worst decision in the game was to bring on Vukcevic right after they scored, and further to put him in centre-midfield, where the game proceeded to pass him by like the match was water, the occasion was a river, and he was a very small pebble. Beating a severely UNDER STRENGTH nation the size of Bristol is not a massive step forward, and ROY 'horlicks' HODGSON is still not the right man for the job, he still looks like having to get up every few months and manage England interrupts his daily routine of playing scrabble, watching Countdown and getting a sponge bath off the nurse. HOWEVER, we are past the point of change so Roy and Joe should stay at least until England's first knockout round defeat in Brazil next June, when he should be very adruptly replaced...

He should be replaced by Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville. Young football persons with opinions and ideas, people you can tell think about nothing besides football, they don't have hobbies or interests, if they did then they'd never have won any Champions League titles or F.A. Cups. They are more intelligent and vibrant and represent the new generation, they are iPods, Roy Hodgson is still a grammophone. To compare, Jurgen Klopp and Antonio Conte and Diego Simeone and Brendan Rogers and Paul Lambert are iPods and iPads and iPhones, and Roy Hodgson just isn't. Mind you, Roy was appointed by the F.A, an institution as modern and relevant as scurvy, an institution that failed magnificently to ever give Brian Clough the England job, so expect Roy's replacement to be a wicker basket or a rocking chair.

ELSEWHERE, Michael O'Neill's case for a new contract as Northern Ireland manager went from strength-to-strength as they restricted Azerbaijan to a narrow 2-0 win in Baku, O'Neill has controversially said that his side are progressing in 'small steps' - those are small steps forward followed by falling back down a mountain to join the Faroe Islands and Samoa as being the kinds of team that Lichtenstein and Azerbaijan see as points-fodder. The Republic, meanwhile, suffered a predictable defeat at the hands of Germany, Wales scored a narrow but meaningless win against the mighty Macedonia, so as was the case before tonight none of the other home nations will be joining Iran, South Korea and Switzerland in Brazil next June. Vincente Del Bosque, meanwhile, says Spain need more goals, because what do you get the manager who has everything, and Australia have sacked their coach after losing 6-0 against France, having last year lost 6-0 against Brazil, because somehow they didn't think it boded brilliantly well for the forthcoming World Cup. 

At club level the President of the Spanish leagues says people in the Spanish leagues fix matches, he is now presumably going to launch an investigation to work out why he isn't better at doing his own job. David Weir's shambolic reign of error at Brammall Lane is over, with the Scot having secured a legendary 1 win from 10 games, which makes David Weir as effective as a football manager as geese are effective as a form of light aircraft. Michael Tonge, meanwhile, is aiming for a top-6 place with Leeds, and I'm going to devote the rest of this post to devouring that suggestion...

First of all, the current Leeds keeper looks like he's got a pillow stuffed up his shirt. The defence is average and unremarkable and in some cases HIGHLY unreliable (in the case of brick-eating shelf-stacker Jason Pearce). The midfield is packed full of middling, AVERAGE, unremarkable, boring, slow, nothing players like Micky Tonge and Paul Beige, it's just an overabundance of nothing in particular. There's no wide PLAYERS, just none whatsoever, such a massive absence that fans will be looking back fondly at days when they could've fielded Lloyd Sam or 'man with a van' Andy Robinson. In attack there is nothing in particular to be offered by Noel Hunt or Luke Varney, and they're joined by Matt Smith, whose main talent is being quite tall. As for the youngsters, Leeds' first team boasts Alex Mowatt and Dom Poleon, another pair of average talents with small amounts of potential WHO SUPPLY none of the massive deficiencies of a terminally average squad. This heavily repeated belief that Leeds can challenge for the top 6, a belief being repeatedly alluded to in interviews by squad members and by the gaffer himself, is unhelpful, because it's unrealistic, and it suggests that everyone around the club is swathed in the same delusion, that this team doesn't play THE MOST UNINSPIRING, UNIMAGINATIVE FOOTBALL POSSIBLE, that it isn't the most dreary collection of players ever to grace the pitch at Elland Road, that it isn't exceptionally ordinary and void of exceptional talent. Watching Leeds is just watching a space where something good could've gone.

Crunchie time

Roy Hodgson is backing his England side to finally beat someone that isn't San Marino or Moldova in this qualification phase.That, incidentally, is an actual statistic, eight matches played, 4 draws against Ukraine, Poland and Montenegro plus 4 wins against Moldova & San Marino. Another statistic is England sitting in 17th place in the World rankings, sandwiched between footballing powerhouses Chile and Bosnia & Herzogovina, below the USA, Greece and Switzerland. The most worrying fact is the inability of a team managed by Roy Hodgson to beat middling international outfits like Poland, whose one star individual is offset against the distinct averageness of everyone else involved in the squad, or a team like Montenegro, whose population is approximately 1% of the size of England's, and then there's the mighty Ukraine, whose players almost exclusively play in the Ukrainian first division, although almost none of them turn out for the best team in it, which is entirely composed of Brazilians.

Watching England play at the moment does bring it home how poor a decision it was not to hire Harry Redknapp as manager. A manager who would play vibrant, attacking football with Theo Walcott, Dan Sturridge, Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck, Jack Wilshere etc etc, was passed over for a manager whose footballing style is slightly less interesting than being circumcised against your will. What you get from Hodgson is a team as bland as his face, you get someone who will manage a team containing Lampard, Rooney and Wilshere like he's still managing Simon Davies and Bobby Zamora back at Craven Cottage. At least with Redknapp we'd lose in style. But heck, when Roy fails to steer England through these last two challenges maybe the current QPR boss would be willing to trade posts.  

On the question of Adnan Januzaj, Arsenal midfielder Jack Wilshere has quite strong views, saying that if he went and played in Spain he wouldn't play for Spain, which of course he wouldn't because he already plays for England. Jack has said that the only people who should play for England are English people, but what Jack hasn't explained is what makes an English person an English person, what if someone is born in England but then moves abroad (like Simone Perotta, who played for Italy without Jack raising any objections)? What if someone is born abroad to English parents (like Michael Chopra), is raised speaking English and moves to live in England? What if someone is born in England but educated outside of England (like Ryan Shawcross)? Is Ryan Shawcross Welsh because he is eligible to play for Wales or because he went to school there? Or is he English because he self-identifies as English? When does an English person become an English person Jack? If I wasn't born here but held a passport and self-identified as English, would that make me English? I don't fucking know if it would, I'd have to go and ask the new Home Secretary Theresa Wilshere. 

Jack goes on to say “We have to remember what we are, we are English and we tackle hard and we are tough on the pitch and we are hard to beat. We have great characters. You think of Spain and they are technical, but you think of England and you think they are brave and they tackle hard.” I agree, I agree so much I don't know where to begin agreeing. England 'has great characters' I mean except for the likes of Gareth Barry, Phil Jagielka, and the manager Roy 'wet blanket' Hodgson that is definitely absolutely universally TRUE, and England has brave players like Scott Parker, Ashley Young and Theo Walcott, and they are hard to beat (unless you're a half-decent footballing nation), and England do tackle hard (except for when they don't). Well said Jack mate, now why don't you have a cigarette on me.  

Renowned brainbox Alan Shearer is in Jack's corner here too - he thinks that to play for England you should have to be born in England, though he never objected to Owen Hargreaves, Wilfred Zaha, Terry Butcher or John Barnes, I'm sure he would have, if someone had asked him. Thank fuck they didn't. 

It's not as if Jack Wilshere would just be rattling off an easy phrase without really thinking about what it means to be of a certain nationality. Jack Wilshere, I happen to know, is a very deep philosophical young man. He will have thought through exactly what it takes to be English, what it means to be English, he won't just be borrowing tired, easy patriotic stereotypes and manipulating them into speech with all the rhetorical skill of a bucket of dead shellfish. That is absolutely not what Jack Wilshere would do. FYI - I actually used to like him, as a player.

Wayne Rooney has come out and PROMISED "We're going to do it. We are going to get to the World Cup" - which leads me to propose the following tentative prediction - England won't qualify automatically. It's an evidence based prediction rather than a gut feeling. The evidence is that England have won 4 games at home & away against Moldova and San Marino, they have drawn against everyone who wasnt one of these two eternal no-hopers. So the evidence would therefore suggest that England will fail to win their remaining qualifiers given that they are being played against teams who can actually field professional footballers rather than semi-professional fish-mongers.

But what of England's final opponents. Well, first there is Montenegro, with their population which is significantly smaller than Birmingham (imagine if England could only pick from Gabby Agbonlahor, Micah Richards and Richard Hammond), they will be featuring star players drawn from the likes of Tom Tomsk, FC Seoul, Amkar Perm, Kuban Krasnodar, Kayserispor, Gaziantepspor, Spartak Nalchik and Anorthosis Famagusta. Manager Branko Brnovic is a veteran of 100 league appearances for Buducnost, in an illustrious career that also took in Partizan Belgrade and FC Kom. Expect 10 men behind the ball against the tough, quick, aggressive Montenegrin attack. Poland, meanwhile, offer the opportunity for making insensitive World War II jokes. Let's see if they can cope with Roy's British Expeditionary Force and their uniquely un-blitzy take on blitzkreig, which involves keeping shape and playing a patient passing game. That'll have them on the run.

Putting Group H to one side there are the other home nations - the Scottish Express runs the headline 'Gordon Strachan will get us back among the elite' - yes BACK among the elite, that is the elite of Norway, Iceland and Slovenia, I can only assume. Mansfield-born Kris Commons has opened the door to an international return for Scotland, though NOT IF JACK WILSHERE HAS ANYTHING TO SAY ABOUT IT (which he fucking might). Craig Bellamy has refused to rule out becoming the next Wales manager following his international retirement, he has also refused to rule out becoming the next Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and a judge in the 2014 Miss India pageant. The Welsh squad meanwhile has been severely depleted by injury, they've lost TEN players ahead of their final two qualifiers, two crucial games which could make all the difference in the race to still not qualify anyway. Michael O'Neill has challenged his Northern Ireland team to end their campaign on a high by maybe not actually losing Azerbaijan or Israel. O'Neill himself is chasing a new contract, and he has the unique bargaining point of having guided a team of basically professional footballers to defeat against the mighty Luxembourg. He will get that extension, unless that kid that won 10 titles with Crawley Town on Football Manager makes himself available to take over after he finishes his GCSE's. Richard Dunne and Andy Reid's call-ups will add some very serious weight to the Republic of Ireland effort, as they face two games which count for much less than nothing.

The Good, the Bad and the Defensively Inept

The first goal of the sure to be memorable Steve McClown era at Pride Park involved Derby stringing together an impressive sequence of two simple passes, outwitting three Leeds United defenders in the process, all of whom were drawn to the ball as if it was a secret to eternal handsomeness, leaving Chris Martin in 3 years of space, with Alex Mowatt reliably trotting back from midfield and the left-back so far out in the wilderness he's now Missing presumed Incompetent. What was exposed by Derby was, first of all, Jason Pearce's severe lack of positional awareness and his complete inability to manage a simple defensive situation. What was further exposed was a lack of confidence, as well as a total lack of viable talent in a squad which, apart from being weak at the back, is also weak in the middle, weak up-front and non-existent out wide. Brian McDermott, meanwhile, bemoaned Leeds' lack of a winning mentality, which was a subtle way of expressing his regret at ever having accepted the job of managing a squad containing a group of players who are so appallingly average you couldn't offload them at a car-boot sale.

Tune in after the international break when Ross McCormack F.C. will be failing to break a funk that has seen them lose 6 out of their last 7 with a home game against Birmingham City, who on Saturday became the first team to lose against Dougie Freedman's previously abysmal Bolton Wanderers team. One observer asked, of Leeds, whether the McDermott honeymoon was over. The honeymoon is usually over when the bride's been sold to Norwich, and the husband is crying himself to sleep. McDermott can be thankful his side already have 14 points, because that at least means they won't be getting relegated, at least not unless Sheffield Wednesday, Barnsley and Yeovil suddenly stop being the kinds of team for whom it is a massive show of resilience, strength and character to turn up.

That's not to say excitement isn't to be had elsewhere. The FFP rules seem to be Championshipifying the Premier League. Although it will probably settle down eventually, it won't become predictable because of all the new fun variables - Man Utd are no longer predictable now that they've become not good to the point of having to rely on children with strange names to salvage away wins against the worst team in the league, Man City are erratic under their new manager, who is himself an interesting addition, Jose Mourinho's Chelsea are only really being Jose Mourinho's in spells so you can never really tell when they're suddenly going to become Felipe Scolari's Chelsea or Avram Grant's, Liverpool are also unpredictable, take Jordan Henderson for instance, who is so unpredictable even he doesn't know what he's going to do next, and Spurs have many many decent players but a manager who seems to sometimes do odd things with them. There's also all the new players making the squads look all different, with the exception of United where a new manager is making the old squad look all different. The only predictable thing is Arsenal, who will finish 4th.

Highlights from the weekend included dodgy penalty decisions, brilliant goals, odd behaviour and the look on Kevin Ball's face when he realised he wasn't going to get the Sunderland job full-time. MOTD was a predictably tedious vessel for goals and highlights, as Alan Shearer settled for blandly narrating visual images, Roy Hodgson pointed out that Adnan Januzaj is good at football, and Gary Crisps tried to find space in the show to ask something that could almost be construed as an interesting question. Still, it beats that ridiculous thing they've got on Sky, where you get to watch all the lovely extended highlights, featuring all those juicy mishit crosses, badly timed through balls and long throw-ins that didn't come to anything.

Jose Mourinho, meanwhile, has backed himself, promising that when he makes a tactical decision it is the right decision and if it doesn't work then it's not his fault. Pep Guardiola, on the other hand, looked nice in a hat, in what was an intense weekend for their personal rivalry, as Chelsea made hard work of Norwich, Pep made hard work of pretending to be German at Oktoberfest.

Mob-fixer and occasional football manager Gus 'fingers' Poyet has returned to the football management game with Sunderland appointing him as their new head coach, with the brief of really trying his very very hardest to help them maybe possibly not actually get relegated. Failing that, beating Newcastle will do.

Elsewhere, United are offering Adnan Januzaj 60 grand a week, and so impressive were the only 2 goals the youngster has professionally scored, Roy Hodgson is now considering bringing him into the England set-up, despite the fact he can't, which is a real testament to the level of overreaction surrounding someone who hasn't yet played 300 minutes of Premier League football. Expect to find out very soon that Adnan has been made King of the Universe, and Associate Professor in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Exeter because he scored a brace in the Capital One Cup.

Jonny Howson has promised that Norwich City will learn from their defeat to Mourinho's Chelsea, quite what they will learn is a matter of debate. They may learn not to put Eden Hazard through on goal, so that next time Chelsea visit Carrow Road they DON'T put Eden Hazard clean through on goal. Perhaps they'll learn how not to spend all their money on a Dutch striker who gets in fewer goalscoring positions than Crash Bandicoot.

Gareth Barry, who has found a new lease of life at Everton, has not given up hope of an England recall. Elsewhere, Doncaster have not given up hope of winning the Champions League, the Cape Verde Islands have not given up hope of winning the World Cup and Elvis has not given up hope of being bought back to life. Leroy Fer hopes an impressive debut season at Norwich will end with him earning a place in the Dutch national squad for the World Cup, and it might, if someone first tells Louis Van Gaal what a Norwich is and that a Leroy Fer isn't actually a close friend of the Cheshire Cat. James Milner has said he is dreading the thought of having to watch the World Cup on television, and to be fair he won't have to watch it on TV, he can just switch the TV off and maybe go to the gym.

We'll end with a quick discussion on bringing the keeper up - there comes a  point in every game when a team is narrowly losing when they will win a corner and they will send for the man in the gloves who has to run the length of the pitch to get there. My point is that there is no point if you have to leave a defender back anyway, just bring the defender, the one more likely to be useful in heading the ball or shooting if it comes to it, you send him forward and bring the keeper to halfway so he's halfway back if the opposition counters. Keiran Westwood at the weekend flopped at that corner like a confused hostage jumping out of a window. It has become the default protocol for added time, and yet it is never ever necessary.

The real loser here is football

Chelsea, Leeds and Oxford United LEGEND Michael Wayne Duberry has hung up his not inconsiderable boots after failing to find a new club following his not remotely controversial release by Oxford United last Summer. Duberry enriched the quality of 413 league games during his time playing with Chelsea, Bournemouth, Leeds United, Stoke City, Reading, Wycombe, St. Johnstone, Oxford United and Hendon. He will be fondly remembered by everyone for some of the running about that he did, and how he would often turn up for games when invited to do so. His punctuality, his robust physique, his occasionally not-mistimed tackles and his baldness were a credit to the sport. In honour of Dube we will now have two lines of mourning...
Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning Mourning

Elsewhere, Joe Hart has the full backing of Roy Hodgson, the grumpy old retired gentleman who manages the English national football team. Hodgson's backing comes in spite of the keepers erratic form, with Hart making mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake after mistake with very little in-between redeeming his status as no1. What more does Fraser Forster have to do get a look-in? Should he re-tile Hodgson's patio? Seriously, time and again Forster performs in big games whereas time and again Joe Hart fails to perform in any. This is a guy who keeps goal behind Vincent Kompany, as opposed to Iffy Ambrose and Charlie Mulgwho?, what's obvious is Hart's confidence seems to have been brutally murdered, rolled up in a carpet and thrown in a river. Then again I suppose looking for fresh ideas in Roy Hodgson's brain requires the building of a time machine to take you back to his heyday as manager of the Old Carthusians in their great cup run of 1881. We are talking about changing the mind of someone who personally shook the hand of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, someone who is basically a VCR manager in world football. Where Spain, Germany and Italy have blackberries, ipads and blu-rays, England have a battered 8-track.

In his defence Hodgson knows he can't change keepers now, not so close to the final 2 qualifies, but it has to be under consideration going forward, at least to get Forster more involved, to get him on the pitch, if only to make the dull and repetitive friendlies that clog up the international calendar move a step closer to at least pretending like they might mean something, rather than being a chance to waste Leon Osman's legs on a stage he'll never grace again.

Captain battered 8-track will, incidentally, be playing the same old tired tunes very appropriately on Match of the Day this weekend, when he will sit opposite Gary Lineker and assert that he believes England have a couple of tough games coming up but that, controversially, he would like it if England qualified for the World Cup. He'll be asked about Tom Huddlestone and he'll agree that the grossly overweight Hull midfielder has done well so far, and then he'll go back to doing his 30-day a year job with all the competency of an eel playing the piano.

Owen Coyle, meanwhile, is backing Scott Carson to get a return to the England squad after his 'heroics' in their home win over NK Maribor, the footballing equivalent of a broken tractor covered in grain. Coyle said "Scott Carson was an England keeper not by accident", although I would propose an alternative explanation 'Scott Carson was an England keeper completely by accident' - I can explain how as well. A press campaign backing the concept of an English manager for England was misguided because it led to the ginormous accident that was current Derby County head coach Steve McClown being handed the national team job, that massive accident had the repercussion of Scott Carson being selected as England goalkeeper. Ergo, Carson was an England keeper not not by accident. Even if you don't believe that, and admittedly it's quite difficult to because it's total nonsense, we can all agree that Scott Carson's England performances were about as positively received as tuberculosis.

It is also worth pointing out that if Hodgson did want to replace Hart in goal then he has Fraser Forster, proven against top opposition, or John Ruddy, who actually plays in the Barclays Premier League. Still, this is Roy we're talking about, so expect his second and third choices to be Gordon Banks, Bert Trautmann or Henry VII.

Daryl Duffy, former Cheltenham forward now plying his trade in the top-standard Indian Premier League, has spoken to the BBC of his shock at his new surroundings, saying that having played for Falkirk, Cheltenham and Bristol Rovers he has "known nothing but first class till now". Okay Daryl, if you say so. The closest Cheltenham have ever come to first class was when one of their players got upgraded on the train journey down to Torquay for a cup game in 1997.

Ally McCoist has taken a wage cut at Rangers, he has lost close to half his ludicrously high income to help Rangers through their current financial difficulties. His former salary, of over £800,000, has been cut down severely after somebody realised that having a wage bill of several million pounds in a division which plays something that isn't even glorified pub football actually means you can win without a high-priced manager, or even a manager, the team could be managed by a desk or an upturned bucket and it still wouldn't lose to Stranraer, Arbroath or Stenhousemuir.

David Moyes has said he is learning as he goes at Manchester United, he is presumably learning how to come up with some almost quite plausible excuses for why his team sucks so heavily. Pepe Reina has 'opened the door' to a Summer move to Barca, whether Barca will come along and close that door remains to be seen, but Valdes didn't do himself any favours at Celtic Park by looking bemused by the arrival into his penalty area of crosses (although he may simply have been confused by the vision of Jesus Samaras, our lord and saviour, wandering into an offside position down the left). Jose Mourinho has pointed out that playing for Everton is different to playing for Chelsea, which it is, you just assume that playing for a better club a striker might get more chances to score goals and therefore might score more goals, although Demba Ba...so maybe not.

Martin Keown, meanwhile, has controversially asserted that he 'believes' Joe Hart is Man City's number 1 - let's examine the back of his shirt...oh yes, he is. Let's examine the alternatives City have...Dracula, and Richard Wright...yeah, maybe he is number 1...maybe. Well fucking done Martin you cretinous shithead. These 'opinions' of Martin's were produced in the company of blonde bombshite Robbie Sewage and Captain Beige Dan Wanker on a radio 5live discussion programme so lacking in opinion, insight and intelligent conversation it might as well have been a conversation being held between a pack of wild trees. 

Elsewhere, the race for the Market Drayton Town job is really hotting up with ex-Hammers bruiser Julian Dicks and ex-Rover Timothy Flowers throwing their names into the very small, tatty ring. Apparently their interest has been expressed through agents, who are presumably actually just Dicks doing a silly voice and Flowers' uncle Bob, rather than actual agents. The Northern Premier League Division One South club certainly have their work cut out choosing between a mouldy apple and a sack of potatoes, they may well also ask for input from their star player, who is in fact PASCAL CHIMBONDA. No seriously, it is. At least Wikipedia says it is. Wikipedia also thinks Stuart Pearce is secretly a lizard.

Jack Wilshere has controversially been spotted smoking outside a nightclub after the Napoli game in midweek. This is, to be fair, one of the less controversial things a footballer could be found doing outside a nightclub. He wasn't in the company of a prostitute, and he wasn't beating a schoolboy to death. Credit to Jack for avoiding the default footballer-outside-nightclub controversies.

Sheffield Wednesday striker Gary Madine, meanwhile, has put an interesting new twist on the footballer convicted of assault, after he assaulted two fans INSIDE a nightclub and will now serve an 18-month prison sentence. The first fan, it turned out, was a Wednesday supporter who paid Madine the horrific tribute of looking at him, sending psycho Gary into a catastrophic rage which ended with him breaking the fans nose. In the second case soon-to-be mental health patient Gary asked the fan who he supported, and upon discovering it was United, he calmly and reasonably broke his jaw. This greaviously provoked violence may well cause irreparable damage to a football career with a trajectory which, in any case, was mostly plummeting like an aircraft whose engines had just fallen off. The question for Wednesday now is how they'll cope without his tremendous input of 4 goals a season. Expect them to announce shortly that they're replacing the psychotic mans nutcase in the team with some lawn furniture.

Stephane Sessegnon has elected to follow the path less travelled by, as he has collected a 20-month suspension for driving and drinking. As well as being at twice the legal limit, Sessegnon was found to be unlicensed and the car was found to be uninsured, the incident also occurred while his then team Sunderland were busy playing a football match, which explains entirely why Sessegnon was racing drunk through Newcastle. In Sessegnon's defence he avoided falling into the same trap as Lee Hughes or Patrick Kluivert, he didn't actually kill anyone. There you go, well done Steph (or in actual fact well done to Northumbria police for mobilizing units and stopping him before he hit any one or thing).

A tuesDay of Celebration

Sky really put BT Sport in their place once again this weekend with another Sunday cracker in the form of Stoke against Norwich, a game which moved at a slower pace than Emile Heskey weighed down by shopping. Moments of quality were so rare at the Brittania that if you blinked at all during the game you would've missed every single one of them. Another feather in Sky's massive gold-plated cap is Saturday Afternoon Football, which has the brilliant concept of getting men and women into a studio to observe the punditry as it happens live, whilst simultaneously offering them no tangible benefit for doing so, that's to say nothing of letting Niall Quinn do commentary, someone for whom getting a sentence out coherently is fucking Everest.

Martin Jol has urged for calm from his seriously miffed Fulham supporters, whose ire over their late defeat to Cardiff almost threatened to flow over into some rather rude chanting and shouts of 'yes, well, really it's just not on' and 'you aren't doing your job very well, I'm going to write a strongly worded letter to someone or other if it continues'. Thankfully, for Martin, urging Fulham supporters to calm is like urging a chair to continue being a chair.

Umbrella wielding Dutchman, Steve McClown, is the new manager of Derby County, ending his spell as Harry Redknapp's luxury kitman at QPR . McClown may be heavily mocked in this country, but Steve started out well at Boro and had some success abroad, notably in his native Holland, people will however insist on focusing upon his persistent and glaring failures, it's hardly Steve McClown's fault that that untried goalie he suddenly threw into the team against Croatia repeatedly screwed up, or that the team had no interest in playing for him, or that I've met better candidates for a Championship managerial post at a meeting of the blind-deaf schizophrenics society.

Leroy Rosenior, meanwhile, was flabbergasted that after 4 years of making no tangible progress, Nigel Clough was given the push. Rosenior used the Football League show as a platform from which to suggest Clough hadn't been given enough time, he also went on to say that only time would tell whether this 'inter-net' phenomenon would really catch on.

Meanwhile, Leeds United, owned by the only investors from the Middle East with no money, whose transfer policy of selling good players and replacing them with Luke Varney and Noel Hunt has seen them most recently subjected to a surprisingly non-violent defeat against Milwall, are poised for a return to the transfer market. Brian McDermott's hopeless band of rejects, misfits and Luke Varneys are hoping to reinforce to the tune of someone who has attacking quality but isn't just Rossy McCormack doing it all on his own. A deal to get Luciano Becchio back has already been shot down, so expect Leeds to continue to aim way too high and end up with no-one, who are they going after next? Serge Gnabry? The same Serge Gnabry who started and scored for ARSENAL at the weekend? Yes it is him, but Brian, did you not manage to bag him? Well, never mind, I'm sure you can still tempt Wayne Rooney or maybe you could just persuade God himself to lace up his boots (it's probably just worth asking him since Macca will probably already be down on his knees praying for a miracle anyway).

This weeks' Match of the Day 3 (for those who miraculously didn't get enough from 1 & 2) has scented bin-liner Mark Chapman discussing massive if's with a pair of multi-ethnic crash test dummies named Jason Roberts and Peter Schmeichel. It was a conversation which was itself loaded with ifs - what if they tried to be entertaining? What if the BBC hadn't sacked its one mildly interesting presenter and replaced him with Mr Cardboard? What if they bought on pundits with considered opinions and witty rhetorical styles? What if they tried, just for one week maybe, to be less abysmally dull?

On Sunday afternoon Dan Sturridge and Luis Suarez teamed up to destroy Sunderland's rock-solid and reliable defence of Carlos Cuellar and John O'Shit. Their 'shining' display was a bright spot on an otherwise bleak weekend for Liverpool fans who by and large, after the game, still had to go back to the city where they regrettably continue to live. Steven Gerrard, meanwhile, later revealed that he was sure Suarez was going to leave in the Summer, thankfully for Anthony Gerrard's less incompetent cousin nobody apart from Arsenal really seemed that interested in signing a racist cannibal.
 

Joey Barton is hoping to follow in the footsteps of ACTUAL ROCKET SCIENTIST Iain Dowie, who gave up a job working with British Aerospace to move to LUTON TOWN (doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that's a step down in the world), by taking a degree. Barton, who probably does seem like the cleverest man in a side managed by fruit & veg market trader Harry Redknapp and his colleague Shaun 'I can't even spell -' Wright-Phillips, may be surprised to find out that some of his fellow students have, for instance, read books, although this is Roehampton University so they were probably only the Hunger Games, Harry Potter and Twilight. Barton has signed up to study Philosophy, maybe he could end up revising his own philosophy on life, and become less of a dickhead. Still, genuine credit to the dopey haired twit for not just living in a massive house with his feet up playing video games, and credit to both him and Dowie for providing evidence that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, no matter how tatty and seemingly illiterate that cover may be.
Carlo Ancelotti has said that he thinks his Madrid team plays too slow, other adjectives he might've chosen would be 'shit', 'rubbish' or 'abysmal'.

Shinji Kagawa has stated publically that he 'must try harder' in his efforts to persuade David Moyes to permit him to board his sinking ship. The Japanese midfielder was pulled off at half-time in the match against West Brom, an act which David Moyes has described as inappropriate and something that really shouldn't happen in a professional dressing room.

Mr Pantomime and professional 'man not of the bottle' Jose Mourinho walked out of a press conference ahead of his sides midweek Champions League game, apparently the Chelsea boss was frustrated by questions about the eggs he chose to play with at the weekend, with the press seeming more interested in asking why he wasn't selecting certain eggs instead of sitting around telling him how good his omelettes are. Although, if you watch the footage he did look quite a lot like a man who was trying to wrap it up quick because he'd forgotten it was his turn to pick up the kids.

Paulo Di Canio has insisted he did not row with senior Sunderland players prior to leaving the club, a claim which seems quite difficult to believe considering yesterday afternoon Paulo Di Canio was caught having a row with the milkman, the postman, the fridge, the cat, the garden shed, his Volvo, a pair of nike trainers and a large-print copy of the New Testament. In fact the arguing mans squabbler went on to suggest that many of the players have texted to thanked him in the wake of his sacking for improving them as footballers, although he insisted nobody could see these texts unless they were wearing his special magic glasses, the same magic glasses through which he watched every match they played and then didn't go home and hang himself. 

Jack Collison has moved on loan to Bournemouth and may feature in their away game at Elland Road tonight, not that they need someone of his considerable talent to overturn their hosts, all they need for that is probably 7 players, not necessarily all of them professionals or even necessarily sober, and a very small obstacle to put in front of Noel Hunt in order to stifle the not at all considerable talents of Captain Appropriate Rhyming Slang.

The FA have cleared Torres of improper conduct after he lightly stroked the side of Jan Vertonghen's, pointing out that because one of the match officials saw the incident, they CANNOT TAKE ACTION, that is CANNOT TAKE ACTION under the LAWS of their institution, irate Liverpool fans have taken to the internet (wonder where they're stealing that from) to complain in consideration of the severity of Suarez's biting ban in comparison, that was a ban given for Luis Suarez BITING an opponent, with his teeth, mitigating circumstances are hard to conjure in such a case. Perhaps Luis Suarez confused Branislav Ivanovic with a large juicy steak and in a fit of excitement attempted to tuck in without waiting for a knife and fork. The difference between the cases, and I'm going to make this as clear as possible, is that the FA COULD TAKE ACTION against Luis Suarez AND DID, the FA COULD NOT TAKE ACTION against Fernando Torres AND DIDN'T, the FA were just acting within the laws by which they operate, and I could very easily make a joke about law-abidingness and the DNA of the Scouser, but I'm not going to because I enjoy owning a car with its wheels completely attached.

The BBC went straight ahead and asked people what they thought. Of course, it doesn't fucking matter, just like it didn't matter what people thought at the weekend when they were controversially asked who would finish higher out of the two Manchester clubs, or yesterday when they asked their severely mentally disabled followers who they thought was the best loan signing ever. As for the sort of people who contribute on demand to the BBC's 'get involved' programme of asking the mentally ill what they think about footballing issues, evidence of being such a person will soon be admissible in court as evidence of severe mental incapacity.

I'm leaving it fucking there for now because it's just going to more of the same...