Football

WHOA HO HO HO HO HO HO HO YOUR MOYES WILL BE HEARRRRRRRRRRRRRD

Should be interesting to see what's classed as a win here for Moyesey. You'd think European qualification or perhaps a bit of silverware would be the endgame (clearly, Sociedad lack the resources to compete at the very top), but since he couldn't manage either of those things at United, it seems like something of a stretch to expect it of him now.

Still, I think we're all looking forward to the inevitable interview where he speaks English with a bad Spanish accent.

Loser of tonight's game has to keep Phil Bardsley.

And of course, special congratulations to Lionel Messi, who got to play in the same Argentine side as the great Santiago Vergini last night. No doubt he's pinching himself!

Lose to Scotland? ROO MUST BE JOCKING, WEE MAN

It's hard to imagine any other sport having such a double PR-Hindenburg as Wigan just did with Mackay's appointment and then Whelan's presser defending the appointment...

Wow. That's one way to focus attention away from the annual James McClean poppy furore.

A fiver says the folks currently trotting out terms like 'bleeding heart brigade' and 'liberal PC rubbish' are all straight white males who have never experienced genuine discrimination in their lives. Just a hunch, I could be wrong.

Taxi for the royal family of football's plucky, Werther's Original cologned Dickensian chimney sweep millionaire.

Real Madrid won today against Ipurua, with goals by James (23'), Benzema (69') and 2 by Cristiano (43') (83'). Final score: 4-0.

Five points better off than at this stage last season say the stats, so I can handle plodding. Plod away, Gus.

Wahey, our lowest home league attendance for fifteen years. Needless to say I was snug and sound at home watching it all with my hands over my eyes. This lead to me to learn that our smallest crowd in the 'EPL era' was in fact none other than a desperately scrappy 2-1 win against Sheffield Wednesday, a tetchy, wintery encounter of which I had the 'privilege' of attending. No doubt SympathysSilhouette will recall the great Belgian hitman Gilles de Bilde's net bulging penalty that briefly put the relegation bound Owls ahead. Most memorable of all was Big Dion Dublin breaking his neck in seemingly the most innocuous fashion imaginable (standing still) though mercifully Paul Merson was on hand to do all the good bits while dear Mark Delaney ran like a cheetah all day long. Y'see, kids, the year was 1762, Tony Blair was Prime Minister, Eiffel 65 were number one, the Queen was still a slip of a girl, the Duke of Wellington was-zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz....

I hear they have a wonderfully soft subs bench at Brighton's Falmouth Stadium these days, warm too. As a great man (well, Steve Bruce) once said, wor all shakin' wor heads at Benty.

I hear they have a wonderfully soft subs bench at Brighton's Falmouth Stadium these days, warm too. As a great man (well, Steve Bruce) once said, wor all shakin' wor heads at Benty.

Don't worry, Dazza brings plenty of padding all of his own these days. Quite a remarkable Villa career, a near demigod at the beginning under Hou, then an injury that seemed to completely hit him for six under Eck, then the Lambert genius captaincy appointment/demotion bait and switch, then the inevitably doomed Fulham loan spell and now this. I even posted a farewell to the geezer about a year ago and likable chap though he has always seemed, now I just wish someone would take the old wounded mutt 'round back to put him out of his misery.   

Book duly promoted, Villa duly dropped from the Keane portfolio. Stunned, I tell you, stunned.

Book duly promoted, Villa duly dropped from the Keane portfolio. Stunned, I tell you, stunned.

I honestly dread to think what would have become of us without old Royston's timely intervention back in 2006, but he seems to be reaching borderline dangerous levels of self-parody these days. Citing his commitments to the Republic as reason to walk the day before a Premier League game would have been preposterous at the best of times, never mind when there are no more international fixtures until March. He probably took the job on the understanding that he'd be Lerner's go-to guy when the chop came for Paul Lambert, only to lose patience after Lambert's contract extension. Either that or he's flying out to join the rest of the 'I'm A Celebrity' cast.

À plus tard Eden Hazard, adeus Oscar - http://www.gfycat.com/ComposedCleanGemsbuck
 
I said before the Chelsea game that we needed every single one of our players, many of whom are potentially decent but rarely perform as a collective, to do just that in order to get something. Well, blow me down if that wasn't exactly what happened. Nicely done lads, all you need now is to do the exact same thing tomorrow night.

You always expect criticism after a defeat, although the sheer volume of it was a bit surprising on Wednesday night. Losing to the Premier League champions isn’t going to horrifically damage our season - it would have been nice to have continued our little streak of home wins against them, but realistically, that was never going to last.

Highly dubious decision to include Coates, though. He was thrown in at the deep end and unfortunately it showed.

Back to back wins for Lambert's lambchops, Dortmund off the bottom of the register and Liverpool out of the Champions League: thanks Santa!

Brendan completely out Brendan-ed himself the other night, removing his only recognised striker when he needed two goals in 45 minutes. David Moyes reached similar levels of self-parody in the game against Fulham (blasting 80-odd crosses in the general direction of the opposition box), and only lasted a couple of months afterwards.

Mignolet? More like Me-no-play!