There is one TV company who won’t be getting a squeak out of Sir Alex Ferguson on Wednesday night, after their ‘experts’ had the audacity to lay into one of the Manchester United forwards during a broadcast last Saturday. Step this way to hear about the Scot’s 371st boycott of his managerial career. [Read the rest of this entry »]

There should be a rule that stops people naming teams as ‘a dark horse’ when it’s clear as mud that they’re a talented side that are expected to go well next season. While it might be a reflection that the Premier League has become increasingly easy to call, it’s a shame that former pros that are paid a bucketload of money to talk in a bland fashion about the game can’t come up with anything better than the below. [Read the rest of this entry »]

It’s possible that Sky may have missed a trick by not showing Portsmouth v Fulham on Sunday, especially as the Cottagers’ chances of survival (along with Birmingham and Reading’s) rest in their own hands. However, the Sky Sports website reveals that they’ll be televising the matches from the JJB Stadium, Stamford Bridge and St Andrews instead – which game will you be watching?

Sunday’s title showdown is in danger of being a complete anti-climax, especially if Manchester United tear into Wigan from the off as they did against West Ham last Saturday. The ITV website reports that Michael Ballack expects the Latics to put up a decent fight, although it was only a fortnight ago that Steve Bruce was reporting a smooth operator that goes by the name of Sir Alex Ferguson had been calling him up.

“The pressure is on and I hope Wigan are proud enough to give everything in the last game and we have to beat Bolton.

“United have everything in their hands, but we are relaxed now. We did our job. We will give everything to beat Bolton at home and we will see what they do.”

Goodness me, the German captain is really getting into this fighting talk malarkey. One minute he was out of favour with Mourinho, now he’s leading the calls for United’s opposition to give it their best shot! Let’s also hope that the Wanderers play with pride at the Bridge after essentially guaranteeing their Premier League safety against Sunderland.

The match being televised at St Andrews could also be pretty dull, although the Sky cameras are likely to have some gratuitous shots of football fans in tears, with Birmingham extremely likely to be relegated after their 2-0 defeat at Fulham. Watch out for small children sobbing their hearts out – and a few grown men too!

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Here’s something to cheer everyone up. The goon that is Ian Wright has officially left the BBC, leaving us (relatively) free of inane comments during televised England and FA Cup matches. To be fair, he stuck it out for a number of years with little to no talent, struggling to put a coherent sentence together and banging on about his son, Shaun Wright-Phillips. The Daily Telegraph confirm this excellent news – now they just need to ship Lineker out.

“Times are changing,” said Wright. “I don’t know how long young people are going to want to sit down and watch that same old ‘jacket, shirt and tie’ format.”

“Fans want people who are dressed like them. They’ve got no one to relate to on TV and that’s why I’ve said to them I don’t want to do the England games any more.

“I feel like I’m just there as a comedy jester to break the ice with Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen who just do run-of-the-mill things. I can’t do that anymore. People want something different.”

Wright is now going to present Gladiators on Sky One, the very bastion of credibility. John Fashanu had the awooga shout, what will Ian Wright’s trademark be? Perhaps most viewers would prefer it if he said very little at all.

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It’s all threatening to get out of hand at Goodison Park on Thursday, with the Daily Mirror reporting that Chelsea manager Avram Grant and his team are apparently under instructions not to speak to Sky reporters before or after the match against Everton.

It’s clear that the club are far from happy at having to play this match just 72 hours after their 1-1 draw with Wigan on Monday night, stating that it puts them at a clear disadvantage against title rivals Manchester United.

The club have used the £300,000 TV “facility fee” to supply free tickets and transportation to their 2,900 fans inside Goodison. Chelsea fan Dave Johnstone, editor of cfcuk fanzine, said: “Sky don’t care about the dyed-in-the-wool fans.”

That much is certainly true, why would they care too much considering they have millions of paying customers sitting in armchairs up and down the country watching the game instead? However, is it a case that Chelsea will be biting the hand that feeds them, considering the amount of money the corporation invest into the game?

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Watch Everton live online

Sometimes you just couldn’t make it up. People would look at you strangely, men in white coats would form an orderly queue to take you away, you might even wonder whether your cup of tea had been spiked with a hallucinogenic substance. However, it well and truly appears as though the owner of Mansfield Town wants to do away with the club’s name, history, heritage, you name it and instead call the club Harchester United.

The fabulous Mansfield Chad report that power-hungry John Batchelor is intent on mixing things up at Field Mill in a big way. The team currently occupy 23rd place in League Two and seem destined to drop down to the Blue Square Premier next season. However, if the ‘massive Burnley fan’ is to have his way, the club will become virtually irrecognisable from the ones that the fans know and love right now.

He told Chad: “Do we want professional football in Mansfield or not?

“Speculation as to how we could do it is rife.

“I can’t confirm or deny anything, but this can only be a positive for the club.

“Harchester is a virtual club – Mansfield as a town and club would benefit from that name.

“Fans have to accept that to have a professional club, it has to be done on a commercial basis and be profitable – Harchester is easier to promote than Mansfield. It is as simple as that.

“This would help to make Mansfield more attractive to national concerns, rather than local business. This would help me.

“I don’t mind if the fans don’t like it or call me mad. I have been called worse and I am not in this to be popular to everyone – I tried that at York and it did not work.”

It gets better. Batchelor apparently has contacts with Red Star Belgrade after working in Serbia and has mooted the idea of an Anglo-European Cup, featuring footballing giants such as Partizan Belgrade and, wait for it, Chesterfield. Should be a crowd-puller and no mistake.

He told Chad: “”It would be great to have an Anglo-European Cup in pre-season and Chesterfield would be my first choice as the other English team involved.

“There could be two semi-finals and then a final played at Mansfield.

“Why can’t we bring Europe to Field Mill. It would fill the ground.”

At least the current stadium name is safe then! Are the above ideas that of a madman or does something drastic need to be done if smaller clubs such as Mansfield are to avoid going out of business? What would you choose to re-name your team or is the mere thought of this enough to make real football fans sick?