"We also made a move for that Lionel fella"

Steven S is away this week so our guest reviewer Noel Draper looks back on seven days of delusions of grandeur, a mad as frogs Italian, and a rock star’s forgiveness.

Hey everybody. Great news. Finally the footballer in the middle of the injunction, banning order, don’t tell anyone you bint or I will have you killed high court malarky has consented to being named. Hold on to your hats because it’s a biggie. Here goes. Ready? He’s very famous you know. Really, really famous. It’s…Ryan Giggs. I know. I’m as shocked as you. I only found out in May 2011 and still can’t quite believe it. I need a sit down.
Talking about footballers who are really in touch with reality it was reported this week that Nicklas Bentner was in court for speeding. I say speeding, it was 103.6 miles per hour, but as his brief said he was late for a plane and the road was really, really empty that’s ok then. What’s not ok is the comment made by said brief. “My client has a “substantial” disposable income and could pay the fine immediately with a credit card”. Quite how a jobbing footballer with a quite frankly huge 4.6 games per every goal ratio has a “substantial” disposable income is beyond me. Throw the book at him, oh wait, he’s in Denmark. Just a £660 fine and a 56 day ban then. We want him to come back don’t we?

A week’s news without something about Tevez would be wrong so here goes. He said sorry. Mancini accepted the apology and said he could play within “2 or 3 weeks”. All sorted and everybody is happy. Well, not really, because most City fans I know haven’t accepted anything, contrary to what Mr Noel Gallagher has said. He doesn’t speak for all of them. Honest. He left before the final whistle in the play off final in 1999 against Gillingham and everything. In other City-ish related news, Porto’s quite deluded manager has said that his team dominated both games and the score line was all wrong. Vitor Pereira has history for not fully understanding the facts as he has also said in the past that dinosaurs never existed and no-one has ever landed on the moon. Probably.

Why sack an experienced manager without having a replacement ready to take over?

The managerial saga at Huddersfield continues with the chairman, Dean Hoyle finally owning up to why he sacked Lee Clark. What I wanted to hear was Clark had been sleeping with his missus and 5 of his 6 kids looked like Clark. What I got was the bog standard “he couldn’t take us further” and “I did it for Lee as I felt he couldn’t handle the pressure”.  One day a manager is going to be sacked for something that is interesting. One day. While I am talking about managerial saga’s, my attention is drawn to Wolves and their search for a new manager. As usual, Curbishley turned it down before it was even offered to him, in fact, I think he turned it down before the job became vacant. With Walter Smith, and others, pulling themselves out of the running, Wolves have appointed Terry Connor as the caretaker manager until the end of the season. Read into this what you will but why sack an experienced manager without having a replacement ready to take over?  Delusions of grandeur over at West Ham as big Sam has come out and said that he made loan bids for Torres and Tevez but was turned down. Really? What were they thinking saying no? Total madness.

Chelsea, not happy with their London rivals getting a hammering in Italy, decided to follow suit and lose at Napoli a week later. When asked after the game what went wrong, Ashley Cole told the gathered press that “we lost it in the first 12 minutes” and that “I didn’t ignore Villas Boas when he was talking to me, I just can’t concentrate on more than one thing at a time and I had seen a ladybug on the grass. It was one of them new ones, you know, the ones that are displacing our indigenous population”. New boy Gary Cahill has asked his teammates to “pull their fingers out” and that Chelsea lost to “simple, basic errors”. Nothing to do with the fact that Cahill looked completely out classed by Napoli’s forwards then. On a side note, David Luiz has defended Chelsea’s new signing saying “I’m glad we signed Gary as playing alongside him means I look like a real defender”.

Oh, Frazier Campbell, cherish your only cap.

Another England squad was announced this week and for once the usual debate about why player A has been picked and player B has been left on the sidelines again hasn’t happened. Sure there is a case for Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain to be included, but Stuart Pearce, interim manager and all round exciting guy, said this was due to him not having played that many games before going on to name Tom Cleverley who has just returned from injury and has played less games than Alex. I’m splitting hairs here.
What has pleased me is the leaving out of Lampard and Ferdinand. Finally, we have a manager with a few balls. It’s only a friendly of course and I fully expect the proper caretaker manager for the Euro’s who definitely will be from a North London Premiership club that isn’t called Arsenal to bring them back in for “experience purposes” unless Pearce gets the job as apparently he is “available”. Oh, Frazier Campbell, cherish your only cap.

The last word on this weekly round up goes into the very full category of “things managers say that come back to bite them in the arse”. Step forward Swindon Town manager Paolo Di Canio, who, when asked about the season so far said, “Swindon proved that they are far away from other clubs that are near the top.” and “I don’t see any side in this league that is dominated by the opponent and then clears their brains, scores two goals and creates more clear chances.” I’ve quoted him in full for a reason, and that reason is simple, at the end of the season we can all say “ner ner ne ner neeeeer” at the mad as a bag of frogs Italian. He’d like that.