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It's the Carling Cup! Your chance to see some of the players that might be coming to your gaff on loan in the next month or two.
I enjoy the competition these days. All right so the big squads use it as a testing ground for some of their lesser lights - and Stoke do too. Might as well have sent his team out on to the Fratton Park pitch with 'spank me' sewn into the back of their shorts.
Even Kanu was able to burst clear of a static defence with 10 minutes to go and Nwankwo looks increasingly like a giraffe about to hit the deck under the influence of a recently fired tranquiliser dart. But there seems to be a spirit to the League Cup matches which is lacking in the Premier League grind and often in the FA Cup, too.
Well done, Rafa. Well done, son. I cherished his
I kept thinking, ee, that's the last time we'll see him with his cub reporter's notebook. That's the last time he'll do that funny dance with his index fingers. Purslow, Hicks and Gillett had made his demise even more inevitable by publicly backing him. And Gerrard and Torres weren't fit.
On the other side stood the wily Ferguson, chewing away frantically like a grazing water buffalo on fast forward and eyeing up the referee's waistline in the hope of finding something to talk about other than the tripe his team has turned out.
Always an unfair name for as he couldn't make his nose grow for love or money, such was the honesty of the bloke.
There's been enough dark mutterings about Gareth in the Teesside boozers for a while now but every criticism has been double-edged - as in 'lovely man, terrible manager'.
Even this year, a point behind top spot, we've had the feeling that Boro have been on a wing and a prayer (that wing being Adam Johnson).
Attendances have been getting lower and when you think that even last season it sometimes looked like the terraces had been block-booked by a party of plastic chairs, you can imagine how empty it feels. If it wasn't for some of us, it'd sound like a funeral.
The top of the Premier League is getting tighter than a bacofoil cocktail dress - and isn't it nice to see? Not one of the big four put over a convincing performance this weekend.
Arsenal proved they're never more vulnerable than when they go 2-0 up. I've a Gooner mate who says as soon as they get a comfy lead they start playing like teenagers showing off to their watching girlfriends. (To be fair, in the Carling Cup at least, that's exactly what they are).
United were almost overhauled by doughty Bolton. Again a 2-0 lead looked comfy, even allowing for Valencia celebrating his first United goal like his dog had just died.
It's been a weird one for England fans. We've got used to grabbing the early bar-stool and watching our knuckles turn white on the pint glass as we pray for divine intervention to see us through to another long summer - or not as the case may be.
Instead you've had the odd spectacle of England players and pundits muttering wryly about the prospects of Mad-Dog Maradona's Argentine beefcakes falling short and the first World Cup since 1970 being shorn of the lankest hairdos in sport.
They got through, though - some other hand of God
Much like the defending on Saturday evening, the Blue Bell regulars left it to each other to find a way of watching the
Following a lot of narked buck-passing by all and sundry, Tony Thompson organised a posse to scour the surrounding area for some sort of information technology that we night be able to plug into the telly. You've never seen so much computer hardware lugged in toa boozer before: I swear the word Amstrad appeared on more than one of them.
Cables that had apparently been cocooned in dust for a couple of decades were unwound and various ends were put in various sockets until the place looked like a particularly shoddy market stall.
Eeee, the mysteries of football club ownership!
And not by the digitally-challenged hands of Calamity James either! Capello might reassure us that at least he's not Ben Foster, who couldn't put his foot on a dead squirrel right now without it squirming over the line behind him.
This fella with the , Al Fahim has lasted six weeks as owner of Portsmouth. That's surely the least impresive effort since did them ropey keepy-uppies in front of the Stretford End (he had a dodgy 'tache n all... coincidence?)
Can you see it coming?
The faint ; the hands twitching in the pockets and reaching for the dogs' leashes; the post-match stonewalling of the awkward questions; start the car, , 'cos Keano could be on his way.
The most obvious signs that Ipswich are going to need a new manager for Christmas was the little interview on Saturday evening. the eyes go so cold and clinical that I fear he's re-imagining the reporter's head as the leg of .
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I'm Derek Robson. People call me Robbo. Legend has it I was raised in the furnace and smog of Teesside. Some might say I took the hard road. I like to tell folk I had trials for Middlesbrough, for Hartlepool and for burglary (not guilty). I've always loved sport. My job is to say it as I see it - whether it's in the bar of the Blue Bell or on this blog. You won't find me calling a spade a soil-redistribution implement.
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