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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).
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).
