The Sunday Supplement 28/02/10

Firstly apologies for late report, busy day for the watcher today.

Right, so Paddy Barclay to kick us off - Stoke's 'anti-football' approach, echoed by Custis (N) illustrates the reason why 3 Arsenal players have sustained broken legs in recent years. It's the English mentality to allow upstarts like Stoke to rise above their station and physically intimidate superior artisans such as Arsenal. Tackling is "out of control" according to Paddy.

I'd put it down to awful luck, especially the injury Ramsay sustained yesterday. Surely it's unhelpful and bad taste sensationalising it by laying the blame squarely with Stoke et al.

Onto the continuing uber-dull Wayne Bridge / John Terry saga; Paddy reckons all the press hype made it a better game. Blimey, well done lads! Carlos Tevez "beat the Chelsea back four on his own", too.

I must apologise to '5 chins' Curry here, he said there'd be no handshake, and I doubted him. Silly me. Steve knows. I will never doubt him again.

Next, replacements for ailing England defenders and that problem left back area:

1. Warnock
2. Baines
3. Shorey?
4. The "out-of-control" Shawcross
5. Cahill (G)

Henry Wanker's still banging a drum (from a distance) for Milner of course, given his record in that left back position. His tweets really do make fantastic reading, and afford him special dispensation to appear on this blog without actually appearing on the days' TSS. He towers above his peers like a colossus clad in pastel v-necked cashmere.

Finally, the Carling Cup. "It's a better competition than the FA Cup", according to Custis. Better crowds too, apparently. I think this nugget of complete and utter horseshit is a fitting place to end todays' entry.

The Daily Shite

Oh dear. Only three stories in town today for Darren Lewis, but that's three impressive piles of steaming horse-shit, if you can take it.

Number one, naturally, is Wayne Bridges' decision to stand down from the England squad. What we get is a multitude of differing opinions on this in the papers who all find someone different to blame. The Guardian, naturally, takes the touchy-feely approach and expresses some regret that it's come to this. Oliver Holt in The Mirror is a man apart and blames Fabio Capello for the "circus". The Daily Star lays the blame squarely at Wayne Bridge's door, calling him a "bottler". The only man completely innocent in all this is John Terry, having done absolutely nothing wrong . Which reminds me, did anyone watch 'Green Street' on ITV4 last night? How embarrassing is that!?

Second up, Portsmouth into administration. Like a forgetful stable lad suddenly recalling that he's neglected to do up that door, the players are allegedly considering taking a pay cut. You really couldn't make this shit up (but somebody has to).

Final story from Darren concerned Roberto Mancini's "awful record" at Manchester City (or Manchester United, as Darren called them twice). Now I know a bit about City, and I know his record, though far from perfect, is at least as good as the former managers who the press believe City were wrong to sack (even though they were summoning the vote of confidence demons prior to his dismissal). I look forward to the press nodding sagely as Mancini is dismissed at the end of the season.

Bollocks watch 25/02/10

'5 chins' in the chair again, not much room for bollocks today due to the amount of football last night but we were treated to one non-story of note:

"Wayne Bridge will refuse to shake John Terry's hand in the upcoming weekend fixture".

This is according to close friends of Wayne Bridge apparently. I'm a bit sceptical but the revolution, sorry, the truth, will be televised.

To make a small point, this is the kind of story which relegates Sachin Tendulkar's unbeaten double hundred, in a one day international against excellent opposition, to around the 5th item in the paper review. It's the first time this feat has ever been achieved, and has convinced Nasser Hussain to write that Sachin is probably the best Batsman there has ever been. Still, let's get our priorities right.

Paper review 24/02/10

Today we were treated to Paul McCarthy of The News of the World; I couldn't find a picture of Paul to illustrate unfortunately, but he's the particularly miserable looking one.

Top billing was granted to the always interesting David Conn's piece in The Guardian regarding Premier League finances. It's a sorry state of affairs, which David has seemingly been telling us about for decades. The headline is that "the Premier League is carrying 56% of European football's debt", based on two year old figures. Paul mentioned a plethora of Premier League clubs with special focus on Portsmouth and West Ham, whose combined debt based upon press figures is about £170m. This meant "UEFA wouldn't grant either a European licence" apparently. He didn't mention the Premier Leagues' most indebted club, Manchester United, running at a confirmed £716m, until prompted by Mike Wedderburn. An easy fact to forget I'm sure.

Apart from that not much going on, apart from a few non-stories regarding Fabio Capello and his disciplinary ethos and Jose Mourihno's paranoia. Not even a mention of TEAM SKY this morning. I'll look out for the surf report, if anyone's interested...

Paper Watch 23/02/10

Five-chins Curry held court this morning, starting with the relentless rolling shitball of news which is the Shagger Cole saga.

Not much to report here apart from the shagger feeling like the club are 'forcing him out'. I think Paxman's job is safe, but the erudite Mike Wedderburn asked Curry where the story had come from, given that there were no quotes from the player yet all the papers had run it. Curry informed us that the shagger's advisers will have briefed the press, who will have then "got their heads together" and "decided on which angle to take".

Amazing stuff.

It's over there if you're interested >>>>>>

Henry Wanker tweets :

"Amused by media outrage over England's spartan training facilities in Rustenburg."

Henry obviously doesn't consider himself to be part of the media. Mustn't have got an invite on the SA junket, I can see how that might upset a chap.

A quick snippit from yesterday's BIG game...

Alan Parry said not once but TWICE: "and a draw here today will put Liverpool level on points with Manchester City"

Via snide internet feed - thanks to those who pointed this nugget out to me.

22/02/10 - SSN news update...

The Mirror's Darren Lewis held the reigns of this morning's sports pages review.

If we were being unkind to Darren we'd describe him as 'a bit boring', but let's cut him some slack and say he's 'slightly less bullshitty' than, say, Steve '5 chins' Curry.

First up was comment on affairs at Chelsea concerning Shagger Cole. He's about to be hit with a "club record fine" of £400K, all at the behest of Roman Abramovich. This is because, apparently, "no player is above the law". Darren didn't divulge which specific law Cole had broken, and there was no mention of if this law applied to other players, including John Terry.

We were then treated to snaps of England's unfinished SA World Cup training camp. It looks unfinished. Still, with 15 weeks to go you'd hope they might have enough time to get it finished. Not according to Darren. He's seen builders in action before. I'm guessing he's had Vance Miller's kitchen fitters round, so he would know. Potential quote of the day goes to Darren's unnamed SA building source who reckons "there's more chance of a man getting pregnant than the complex being ready in time".

If I was a gambling man I'd be prepared to take Darren on here, at any price above even money.

Today's other burning question is "where is Carlos Tevez?". He's in Argentina Darren, probably quite concerned about the welfare of his 6 weeks premature daughter in intensive care.

But Darren knows this, and thinks "he should take as long as he likes". Mainly because he reckons City have "ordered Tevez to return". It's hard to keep up with exactly what Darren thinks sometimes.

Finally, onto a couple of my favourite 'news' items on SSN:

'TEAM SKY' (or one of their riders, I have no idea how it works) have finished 9th in some cycle race you've never heard of. This was after finishing 8th in the final stage. One of their other riders managed 15th. We are not told who finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th or 8th so it's difficult to gauge how much of a success this actually is, but I'm guessing there must have been some pretty impressive competition for them to get so excited about 9th.

And then there's the surf report. Head high waves on the north coast of Scotland, "Ideal surfing conditions" apparently. Have these people never been to the north of Scotland? I wouldn't risk the north sea in August up there, but if they want to go surfing in February, please do. Naked. You cocks.

Henry Wanker's QUEST for an England fullback continues...

With the unfortunate injury to Shagger Cole, our 'enry has been desperately seeking a replacement for him, preferably someone who doesn't play at left back for his club or a youngster yet to earn a single cap at full international level. This is the kind of insight which makes 'enry a TOP journalist, an acquired knowledge which us normal fans will NEVER fully understand.
I'd like to keep a record of those 'enry has suggested, my favourite 2 fitting the EXACT profile so far being James Milner & Jack Rodwell - both fine young players admittedly - any more?

quote of the day, 21/02/10

Regarding Wayne Rooney:

"as an example, he's exemplary"

By Paul Hayward

Welcome to 'knitwear & croissants'

A blog which will be dedicated to the bollocks spouted on sky sports 'sunday supplement'.

Personally, I can only manage approximately 10 minutes of it before turning over to something, anything else, so I invite contributions from all regarding the blatant untruths and fawning SKY4 bias by the sitting 'journalists'.