The mask slips...

We’ve been waiting for this one all season: nope not Cristiano Ronaldo winning the Ballon d’or (more on that tomorrow), but for the mask to finally slip and for Big Phil Scolari to reveal his true colours.

Big Phil, like Vesuvius has been strangely dormant all season, winning friends and influencing people with his halting ‘please love my Chelsea’ English and an unprecedented charm offensive which has seen him fail to rise to Sir Alex’s bait, and perhaps most surprisingly of all, make Chelsea a watchable enough side.

Could this really be the same Big Phil who once punched a Serbian sub and is said to have a temper as volatile as wearing Nitro Glycerene underpants while watching Penelope Cruz strip?

Has it all just been a cunning ploy to lull us into a false sense of security while Big Phil secretly smirks and covertly plots behind his bound human skin copy of The Art of War?

The answer is yes! For just like those poor Pompeians suspecting that distant rumbling signalled something ominous, the kraken has finally awoken and Big Phil has asked, nay demanded, an apology from ref Mike Dean after Chelsea succumbed 2-1 to Arsenal over the weekend.

Splendid, now the gloves off, Big Phil should go for the jugular. Despite the Scousers currently sitting top of the table, this season like the OK Corral, is going to boil down to just two teams of elite gun slingers, Man Utd and Chelsea.

Time for the real Big Phil Scolari to please stand up!

Conspiracy Theories

Spare a thought for shy retiring wallflower Sir Alex Ferguson today, as it looks like he’ll be up before the beak again.

Fergy’s in the steaming stuff after claiming that referees’ boss Keith Hackett was apparently involved in letting John Terry off with a slapped wrist after the England skipper’s straight red against Man City on Saturday.

Now Sir Alex isn’t exactly the most unbiased individual, understandably sees the world through Red Devil tinted shades and probably sees more conspiracy theories than an Alabama Survivalist’s message board... but on this occasion we have to agree with him.

Terry got a deserved red for ‘serious foul play’ which FIFA defines as "excessive force ...against an opponent" and Terry’s rugby-style tackle on Jo certainly falls under that heading. To rescind that card so quickly and to send the ref involved to the lower league doghouse sure looks a bit suss, particularly given Chelsea ‘welcome’ Man Utd this weekend.

Not that Fergy hasn’t been his usual calm balanced self with his reaction being slightly more over-the-top than a Dennis Wise patella breaker.

But we’re pretty sure he’s right when he says the same wouldn’t have happened if it had been a United player.

Chelsea the new Ferrari?

Value for Money

After the excitement of the Olympics, there’s not much cooking on the spurting front today* and we cast a desultory eye over the weekend’s footy with scarcely a backward glance.

We’re sure that’s a phrase that’ll resonate with Andriy ‘Sheva’ Shevchenko, England’s most expensive player and the Chelsea striker who never was.

Today Sheva’s slunk back to Italy with his tail between his legs completed a move back to his spiritual home at AC Milan for an 'undisclosed sum' after failing to make much of an impression apart from on Chelsea’s treatment couch (which now has it’s own permanent memorial Sheva arse-print).

Why this formerly most lethal of strikers couldn’t translate his finishing skills to the PremierShip remains a mystery. Injuries played a part no doubt, but he cast a forlorn figure under Jose Mourinho and big Phil wouldn’t even grant him an audience with the bench this season.

At £30m quid and just nine goals from 47 Premier League games that works out at around 333k recurring per goal which is not exactly a good return on Roman’s investment.

Still we remember the glory days or Sergei Rebrov (another failure in England) and Shevchenko banging them in for the Ukraine and Dynamo Kiev and we wish him well at the Milan home for retired warhorses.

*We did have a strange anecdote concerning ex-Indian skipper and ‘Prince of Calcutta’ Sourav Ganguly and the Sound of Music to fall back on, but we’ll save that for a rainy day.

Opening Shots....

We’re so close to our summer hols now we can almost smell the fromage and taste the quarts of delicate vin rogue we intend to quaff like l’eau.

However before we depart it’s comforting to realise some things will never change and that when we return to Blighty, our treasured summer spurting rituals will remain largely untroubled by the passage of time.

Of what do we speak? Of Sir Alex Fergie’s annual pre-season mind games of course, with today’s target Big Phil Scolari and his merry band of Chelsea millionaires. As we’ve said before forget Calzaghe versus Roy Jones Junior, this is really the fight that everyone wants to see.

Fergie’s gone on the offensive with a none-too-subtle leading jab saying the Chelski squad are a touch on the seasoned side and ‘I don't see outstanding progress coming from a team in their 30s.’ Marvellous an almost perfect inversion of Hansen’s famously dis-proven Law which states ‘you can’t win anything with kids'.

Hitting his stride Fergie continued, “Maybe they have reached a plateau - although perhaps that's not the right word” which roughly translates as 'That’s exactly the write word’. And he wasn’t he even threw in a little feint and misdirection with "I wouldn't write off Liverpool or Arsenal either.”

Hilarious.

Quality stuff from the big man, who quite clearly sees Chelsea as the major threat. But how will Big Phil respond? In print? Online? By buying Kaka or Robinho? Or both?

This is going to be fascinating stuff....

Handbags…

A weekend of old skool partying this weekend leaves little room for spurting endeavours and it’s a weary, wasted yet happy correspondent who eventually limps home to fall asleep during Sunday’s Barcelona GP, which, Heikki Kovalainen’s
big stack apart, is a Ferrari processional, although it’s good to see young Master Hamilton sneak back onto the podium.

But now spring has truly sprung, when “a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love”, or at least ‘I fancy a bit of that’, you’d imagine some of it might rub off and a spirit of comradeship or at least détente might pervade the sporting air.

But honestly, not a bit of it, we stop pounding the spurting beat for one short weekend and what happens? The whole sporting world decides it’s time to play handbags at ten paces.

First up: the battles of Stamford Bridge; now for the neutral it’s hard to decide what to despise more Man Utd’s arrogance or Chelsea’s tedious efficiency, but the 2-1 win was a good result meaning the race will go to the wire.

But onto the important bit the violence and England skipper wannabe Rio Ferdinand, who accidentally booted a female steward when he meant to kick a interview room door in frustration. Rio we thought you’d eliminated those annoying lapses of concentration, door = big, wooden, steward = female, human. Absorb, reflect, yeah?

Next up a classic spot of ‘afters’ where following the game Park Ji-Sung and Partrice Evra got stuck into Chelsea’s ground staff in a warm down spat of epic proportions and lusty blows. Disappointing, not least because they forgot the cardinal rule: let’s keep violence where it belongs: on the pitch and during the game where we can all enjoy it.

Finally, the continuing sorry saga of Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh who reportedly bitch-slapped fellow Indian team mate Sree Santh in the Mumbai Indians vs Kings XI Punjab IPL game. Sree Snath had opened with a vicious innocuous pleasantry on the lines of “bad luck on losing the game old fella” and for Singh that was enough for the red mist to descend. Is he related to Craig Bellamy by any chance?

Anyway TV failed to capture the incident but apparently Sree Santh subsequently wept on the outfield and had to be comforted by team-mates.

What a big girl.

Today’s Spurt was bought to you in a spirit of love and understanding by the United Weapons Manufacturing and Export Corporation, ‘a safer world through bigger guns’. If you’d like to sponsor a spurt, send us a mail at World of Spurt