First off...
Roy Hodgson has recruited a psychiatrist, as if that could haul Adam Lallana up to international standard. This is a guy I saw playing in the Championship and thought 'yeah, he's pretty good' and now he's only slightly better. Roy, meanwhile, is a guy you might've seen managing cavalry regiments in the Boer War (which is a sort-of joke about the fact he's almost as old as time itself); Roy is a guy whose about as up to date and in touch and with the times as Gengis Khan or Alexander the Great (both of whom he tried to sign when he was manager of Thrace United); you can give someone as terrifically ancient as Roy the resources of Jordan Henderson and Dan Sturridge, who are having the best drained out of them by Brendo Rogers, and all he'll do is carry on managing them like he's still managing Fulham and they're Steve Sidwell and Simon Davies. This is a man who would utilize Lionel Messi like he was Zoltan Gera.
In other Roy-related news there's an online petition to ban Tom Cleverley from the England squad, set up by people who really really don't think England gave Gareth Barry enough of a chance to screw everything up four years ago and think he should be allowed another go at being the team's official World Cup dead weight.
In other other Roy-related news, England beat Denmark. Yeah! Take that Denmark! Good to get a win under the belt against a World Cup side...alright not a side from this particular World Cup but they've been in other ones...
And finally, many newspapers have picked up on Morten Olson's comments that England would need luck if they were going to succeed in the World Cup, because apparently someone thought they wouldn't. I can only assume that's why it's considered news.
Elsewhere on the international scene there was joy for Northern Ireland as they didn't lose, and against a team as mighty as Cyprus. Expect today to become a national holiday. Germany, meanwhile, got booed off after only beating Chile one-nil, while elsewhere Scotland won a football match and the Republic of Ireland didn't. Scotland's win was made all the more impressive by Poland not having any of their star players. Did I say all the more impressive? I meant significantly less impressive...
Away from the international scene upstanding pillar of the community Massimo Cellino is facing ANOTHER trial, separate to the one he's facing next year and irrelevent to the two he's already gone through. He's done nothing illegal, ever, it's just a coincidence people keep charging him with stuff. Could've happened to anyone. Anyone who invented a company to own a yacht for him so he wouldn't have to pay tax on it. I did that last week. Well, not that exact same thing...something similar, with beans, I'll explain it to you sometime, it's the sort of story that really deserves a post of its own.
Championship comedy club QPR, meanwhile, have narrowly exceeded the Financial Fair Play limit on losses that Championship clubs are permitted to make. The limit is £8 million, and hold on I'll just check if they've gone over that...one second...they lost...hmm, let me see, ah, here it is, £65 million. Yes, I think, I think that's slightly more than 8...yes, my calculator is telling me that 65 is definitely more than 8. Tough break there Tony.
Elsewhere there's bad news for United fans as Federico Macheda announces he'll leave the club when his contract is up at the end of the season. Yes, I know, it's shocking, I didn't realise he was still there either. He's said that ideally he'd like to stay in the Premier League, and he deserves it after categorically failing to prove himself in the Championship it's only natural that another top tier side will come knocking for the services of someone who is both quite tall, very skinny AND Italian.
In other news, Dermot Desmond (AKA the man who thinks he's Colonel Mustard) says that in two different ways Celtic is the top performing club in the UK; first in terms of the balance sheet (we'll have to take his word for it) and secondly on the pitch, where they regularly avoid defeat against Aberdeen, Inverness, Dundee United and the mighty Motherwell. Heaven forfend they should be troubled with playing anything more sophisticated than glorified pub football.
Manchester United, meanwhile, are apparently willing to make Luke Shaw the best paid teenager in the Premier League, because if you can't beat them then you can at least make sure you have the best paid everything in the Universe, because that somehow might feel like winning.
And in other news, Christian Benteke did this at the weekend, and then did this on international duty...
Now, for the second time in as many weeks, let's have a look at what's happening OUTSIDE of the soccerball universe (also known as the universe)...
In games console sales news it seems the PS4 is outselling the Xbox One by two to One. These figures prove that when entering a competitive industry it isn't necessarily an advantage to offer basically the same product but for quite a lot more money, a business lesson we can all learn from when we're flogging our used crap on eBay. And whilst we're on pointing out the obvious flaws in business plans, where did HMV expect to get selling the precise same products as you could get online or across the road for thrice as much?
In 'lifestyle' news sugar could be addictive. Sally Davies (I don't know who that is) wants to introduce a tax on sugar to combat obesity, which is clever because what will happen then is people will say 'yes, on the one hand I'm addicted to sugar, but on the other hand this Mars bar is 29p more expensive, so I think I'll just stop being addicted to it now...'. Here's the way I see it - heroin is addictive, and heroin users notoriously beat up old people and steal their pensions, so what Sally Davies is proposing is that we force fat people to work off their excess flab going on the rob to fund their sugar habits.
In other news the dark fire will not avail you (worst luck). Elsewhere I saw the phrase 'Twitter error' and was disappointed to learn that it wasn't an error which had terminally infected absolutely everyone who uses it. And in other news I love Jesus and Jesus loves me (which makes it consensual).
Finally I just tried to do a search for Alex Ferguson and accidentally did a search for Alan Ferguson, who is an American Music Video Director who probably hasn't ever signed Juan Sebastian Veron or been knocked out of the F.A. Cup by Leeds.
Anyway, so when I actually get to Sir Alex I discover this from Piers Morgan; 'Bumped into Sir Alex Ferguson at an Oscars party in Hollywood tonight. We shook hands, I said 'Thank God you're gone', he laughed. End.' - Well, that certainly was unmissable. How have I failed to get into this Twitter phenomenon when it contains fascinating 200-word treasures such as this? I mean, how could anyone find an entire website dedicated to such thoroughly entertaining and informative insights suicidally infuriating?
On which note, we're going to start the next segment, which I am provisionally calling 'Twatter' which is a mix of 'Twitter' and 'Chatter' and is basically ingenious...
To make this segment fair and even I'm going to put in a random search item such as 'Andre Schurrle' and then examine the results...
Someone named Rob says "Chelsea midfielder Andre Schurrle has revealed how he followed the advice of manager Jose Mourinho and worked on his body strength": well I never. Body strength? You're kidding me. I not only needed to know that, but I am fascinated by the intricacy of this fascinating news item. A manager gave a player some advice, the player followed it. You know people have often wondered how the enormous complexity of everyday existence could be expressed in however many characters you're allowed on Shitter, seems they needn't bother.
Someone named Jose Mourinho Fans says "André Schürrle saying that Mourinho told him to change his game style and body, "that's what I have worked with in the last two months."" this is what I love about Shitter, it takes things that wouldn't normally be news and makes them shorter and less informative.
Now, leaving Andre Schurrle alone as the law says I must, it's time for a new segment which I'm not going to bother giving a name to. Using Twitter's strictly enforced character limit I will now review literature...
Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) - Could've been worse, can't imagine how. Lots of shouting, lots of incomprehensible rambling, lots of bollocks.
Survivor (Chuck Palihaniwanninanichuk) - Imagine if Fight Club was less good but still written by the same bloke.
Given the success of my 'Twitlit' section, I will now, with the same character limitation, explain some stuff to you...
Azerbaijan - Borders with Russia, Georgia, Armenia and Iran; almost Asia but not.
Gravity - everything sucked into the middle of the earth except for space which is too far away.
Chairs - things for sitting on which aren't the floor and have legs but aren't people or animals.
Ice Hockey - men in hats with sticks hitting puck around frozen oval, mainly in Canada.
World War II - Germans grr grr grr, france surrenders, blitz, barbarossa, stalingrad, kursk, berlin, holocaust, victory in europe, hiroshima, etc etc.
I think that went well. Take my description of World War II, it was vivid and extensive, and apart from missing out absolutely all of the finer details, it was brilliant and useful.
