Signs and portents

We thought we might struggle today, it being the Tuesday before Christmas week and intriguing spurting stories rarer than a tax collector’s smile.

Instead, we’re sounding the official world of spurt death knell and (slightly) lamenting the passing of Paul Ince, the unfortunate now ex-manager of Blackburn, who’s been sacked this morning following a recent run of poor results. Three wins in seventeen with Mark Hughes’ squad is hardly impressive, but it seems a touch premature to change horses half way through a race in such an arbitrary fashion.

Blackburn got all the plaudits for appointing a young English manager full of promise at the beginning of the season, so they deserve some stick for sacking Ince when it’s barely half way through. And Graeme Souness hot favourite to replace him? That is not so much rubbing salt into a wound as tipping in an extra bucket load. One word: lamentable.

Elsewhere a strange plague of kidney stones seems to be affecting Premier League managers from Phil Scolari to Rafael Benitez who are both currently feeling like they’re pissing razors. What does it mean? We’re not entirely sure, but we’re sure there’s a juicy conspiracy theory to be manufactured there somewhere.

Finally, we have further proof of the genius of Senor Fabio, who is currently in dispute with Wembley groundsman Steve Welch over the length of the sod. Capello wants a grassial bladeage measurement of 17mm while Welch insists 19mm is the correct measure.

A word of advice Steve, let Senor Fab have his way or a man in a dark coat will be paying you a visit fairly shortly.

Yet it’s just one more example of Senor Fab’s obsessive attention to detail which has seen the national side reborn under his tutelage this year. To paraphrase Harold Macmillan, “It’s the details dear boy, the details.”

Second string

Ah the restorative power of spurt. There we were yesterday, with a black cloud hanging around us which seemed sent from the dark lord himself (Sepp Blatter) when the biggest shock of the day suddenly left us with a smile a mile wide.

Nope we’re not talking about John Sergeant’s surprise withdrawal from Strictly, but England’s magnificent 2-1 victory over the Bosch, as we bearded them in their own back yard and which left us with a warmer glow than the sheep around Selafield.

We’ve always had more hunches than Quasimodo, but we called it exactly right (see Round-up, wind-down below) when we said we fancied our second stringers’ chances.

It wasn’t just winning it was the manner of the victory, where we thoroughly outplayed the Germans in every area, showing resilience, flair and endeavour, three words rarely seen in the same sentence as 'England'.

Good to see it was treated properly too without the usual rash of pointless substitutions which alter the shape and coherence of any team. Downing finally looked vaguely convincing as a genuine left winger, Carrick was immense, SWP had a stormer and hell, even Glen Johnson had a good game.

Of course it wouldn’t be Enger-land if the comedy button hadn’t been pressed at some stage, and while John ‘JT’ Terry manfully took the blame on his broad shoulders, the hapless Scott Carson must take at least part of the blame. A nice clear ‘get rid’ would have simplified matters.

Still, ‘mustn’t grumble’ as the old saw goes. This performance proved we have strength in depth and that Senor Fabio can even marshal a mix of disgruntleds and bench warmers into delivering a coherent performance.

Senor Fabio li salutiamo il tuo genio!

Round-up, wind down

It’s a portfolio edition today with tales carefully sliced from around the spurting firmament as we do another one of our lazy round-ups, finding no single issue worthy of our undivided attention.

First to cricket, where following one shellacking and one marginally less embarrassing spanking from India, the colossal intellects in charge of the England one-day side have decided to call up Graeme Swann and are considering issuing a hectic ‘get here sharpish’ to Monty Panesar following the shock revelation that spinners might come in a bit handy on the subcontinent wickets.

Really? You think? By Jove I think they may finally have cracked it.

And now to football and with England due to take on the Hun in a ‘friendly’ tonight, we’re actually fancying the second XI’s chances after the relatively shock revelation that our national side haven’t lost anything in Berlin (four wins, three draws) since 1945 when Bomber Command’s counted them all out, but didn’t quite count them all back in again.

BTW in a ‘let’s mock those wacky continentals moment’ watch out tonight if Bayern Leverkusen’s Patrick Helmes scores, apparently he’ll be casting teary eyes to the skies to dedicate any goals scored to his recently deceased Labrador, Emmy. Bless. (Thanks to The Spoiler for the spot).

Finally homo-erotic glamour pin up sulky Galactico wannabe Cristiano Ronaldo has apparently humbly opined he’s not only the greatest player in the world, but the ‘first, second and third greatest player’.

Another triumph for tact and diplomacy from the boy blunder; rumours that his ego is now grown so swollen and huge it’s negotiating its own separate endorsements and transfer deals are believed to be pretty much right on the mark.

Club versus Country

It’s back to work on Monday where we return suffering from the last vestiges of a lingering hangover from our adventures in the land of Po and a proper Polish wedding where we drank for England into the wee small hours

But while we’ve been holding up our end, what of our great national hopes? Well it’s business as usual we’re afraid, England spanked in both forms of Rugby, thrashed twice in the cricket and Andy Murray’s semi-final defeat meaning it hasn’t been a good few days for the Great Britishers.

And we also walk straight back into the eternal club v country debate as the Scouser’s Stevie G is forced to report for England duty despite apparently crocking his hooves during the weekend’s fixtures.

Now the past has seen clubs and the wilier managers declare all sorts of spurious injuries to let their key men duck out: bloaty head, freaky stomach and hurty knees being among the more credible of the past sick notes.

But this time Senor Fabio has decided to flex his muscles and make the Liverpool skipper turn up for assessment by the England sawbones to make sure he (or more accurately Rafa) is not pulling a sicky.

You’ve got to feel a little sorry for the clubs with the congested fixture schedule, but if we’re going to challenge for an international trophy again. Senor Fab must have his way even if it’s in a meaningless* friendly.

(*no friendly against Germany is ever meaningless);

Enger-land versus Belarus: post-match analysis

It’s our best ever start we’ve had to a competition and we don’t mean that tenner we’ve just spunked on lucky dips for tomorrow night’s Euro Millions.

Last night Minsk was the arena for another splendid showing from Senor Fabio’s new look ie. actually pretty good Enger-land as they negotiated a tough away fixture against technically tidy opposition, eventually putting Belarus to the sword 3-1.

The old England would have been lucky to scrape a draw in a game like this not even six months ago.

A decent start capped by Gerrard's virtuoso strike was marred by a deserved equaliser for Belarus, who played us off the park for perhaps 20 minutes to pull the scores level at half-time.

Senor Fabio continued to show he’s worth every one of the millions he’s paid and possibly even a few more by turning the game completely around in the second half. Don’t know what he puts in their half-time tea, or whether he gives them the hairdryer, but whatever it’s working.

Upping the work to deny Belarus time to weave their magic worked a treat, Heskey pounded the centre backs, Rooney’s on fire and hell even Wayne Bridge looked like he knew one end of a touchline from the other. Heartening stuff.

We’ve had more false starts than Ussain Bolt’s rivals, but finally, for long suffering Enger-land fans ottimismo is no longer an untranslatable word .

WAG-ging the finger

We were raking through the ashes today in a desperate attempt to find something interesting in the spurting firmament but fortunately - and not in the usual way - the ever dependable Rio came up with the goods.

Newly born statesman, stand in captain and first minister of Enger-land Rio has opined that the England camp was a ‘circus’ pre-Senor Fabio and that our last futile World Cup bid was sabotaged by the ‘whole WAG situation’.

Well no shit Sherlock, the WAGs or ‘slags with bags’ as some of the more uncharitable elements (like us) would have them, proved a big Baden Baden distraction for the tabs, but we’re not so sure they had such a big effect on anything other than the paper’s soaring circulations.

Rio differs of course saying ‘"People were worrying more about what other people were wearing and where they were going, rather than the team."

Well it’s an interesting point, but we see the WAGs more as a symptom, rather than a cause – and of course they’re well fit too innit.

We hope Senor Fabio has taken note and will rapidly introduce the traditional cold showers and a pre-game nookie bans to keep the lads ever hungry for our next glorious World Cup fail ...er attempt.

Enger-land - the eternal dilemma

It’s probably only an England fan that could look at a 5-1 pasting of Borat’s brethren and see the down side, but alas even with Saturday’s spectacular scoreline still reverberating around our foreheads, all is not well in the state of Denmark this Monday lunchtime.

Sven, Steve Mclaren they both tried it to make it work, so we suppose Senor Fabio deserved his chance too, but surely Saturday’s game proved once and for all that Stephen Gerrard and Frank Lampard can’t be accommodated in the same midfield.

We have two world class players who play in exactly the same role, sure it’s an embarrassment of riches, but call it what you will, two does not go into one in this case and the blend of the team is suffering when they both play.

It’s an old cliché but the best players do not necessarily make the best team.

We’d probably give Stevie G the slight nod as the better all around player, but ‘Fat’ Frank played very well against Croatia and whoever he picks now, Senor Fabio has to choose one and leave the other warming the bench.

As for Ashley Cole’s mistake: good player but very difficult man to like.

We’d probably have booed him anyway.

Miracles Do Happen

WTF is the world coming to? Not to an end evidently following Wednesday’s CERN black hole experiment (well not yet anyway, we’re still here in all our misery), but something’s up.

England thrash Croatia 4-1 away and Setanta relent on their previously tight arse position to deny the long suffering sports fan highlights of future England games.

It’s evident something in the fabric of reality has subtlety altered. Was it the Spurt wot done it or the large Hadron accelerator? We’re making no claims, but it’s funny how the stars sometimes align.

But of course the story of the week is Senor Fabio’s New England. We say ‘new’ because this was like watching a team of strangers, ones that could actually play football.

Theo gets the plaudits naturally and rightly so after scoring a superb hat-trick, but this was a team performance of exceptional quality. Not flawless of course, there was time for Calamity to have the odd flap and the Coles to look distressed, but Heskey, Rooney and the rest finally looked like a properly balanced team and played like one too.

England’s overall possession was 61%. They passed well and retained possession and stroked it around like a bunch of Brazilians in the second half - even spectacularly failing to get a dose of the jitters when Croatia pulled a spawny one back with ten minutes to go (and instead preferring to keep playing and put another one pass the exasperated Croats).

There’s still plenty of time for it all to go to shit naturally and seasoned England watchers have seen too many false dawns to start rejoicing prematurely.

But it seems Senor Fabio certainly has the magic touch. His middle name isn’t Gandalf by any chance? Maybe its something to do with those glasses?

Setanta Ranter part 3

Once again Steve B joins the Spurt to well and truly put the boot in on the troubled Irish rights holder provide depth and insight into the Setanta situation.

There have been new developments regarding Setanta – leading me to believe that we may hear more of those delicious “We hate Setanta” chants in Croatia tonight. I’m an avid Five Live devotee, and this morning, Victoria Derbyshire hosted a discussion on the England-Croatia game. All of a sudden it mutated into – guess what – a vehement discussion about how impossible it is to extricate yourself from a Setanta subscription.

Sound like a familiar subject? It took Victoria by surprise. Which just goes to show that she needs to start reading World of Spurt. Indeed, I emailed her, detailing my Setanta woes, and adding a helpful click-through to Setanta ranter. Alas, no response. But here’s a telling comment on her blog:

Seems I'm not alone in feeling the pain...

Home front

With all this Olympic golden glory going on it’s easy to (temporarily) forget just how shite we can be at conventional sport, but as Burt Bacharach observed 'there is always something there to remind me', in the case the English footy team.

A decent call naming John Terry England skipper earlier in the week and to all those surprised Rio didn’t get the nod, well JT’s (whoops that’s banned now under senor Fabio) erm rather Terry’s brand of chest-thumping-lead-from-the-front-never-say-die-bulldog-spirit-three-Lions-tattooed-on-me-soul captaincy is probably just what we need.

However a limpid, some might opine piss-poor display against the Czech's, following some very questionable selections: (Gerrard and Lampard in midfield together again? I thought we’d put that one to bed), make us start to doubt Senor Capello as the true Messiah.

We’ll reserve judgement until Croatia and a proper competitive game when the boys should have at least a modicum of fitness.

Surely it’s too early for the wheels to be falling off already?

Enger-land pt. 2

Sunday is normally considered a day of rest (and not just for the Trinidad and Tobago back four), so it was a touch unusual to find ourselves tuning in at 10.30pm last night to catch England’s ahem epic finale to the international season.

Reader, it wasn’t quite as we’d originally dreamed it, with JT lifting the European championship trophy to be followed by wide acclaim and nationwide domestic rioting, but instead a piss poor friendly which had so little nutritional content, it might have crawled straight out of Sainsbury’s Back to Basics budget range.

Yup we know it was all about the politics and now we’ve fed the ego of T&T’s Jack Warner, he might vote for us in the second round for the 2018 finals (or not, who’s going to make him, now we’ve played the fixture?).

But really this was of pretty much zero interest with the T&T boys giving the England midfield so much time and space they might have been fielding eleven Doctor Whos.

Now we’ll watch pretty any much football on TV (barring the ladies of course) but this was so one-side even we were forced to call it quits and retreat to bed at half time, like a disinterested dogger who’s suddenly found the windows are far too steamed up to appreciate the action.

On this evidence thank god it’s all over for another season and there’s not a big tournament to occupy our thoughts during this long and hopefully extremely hot summer

...oh wait.

Enger-land

And just like that we’re back from the land of Po, where we’ve been accompanying the normally less-than-devout Mrs Spurt as she watched her niece take the first tentative step on the long path of unholy indoctrination and mind control by the Catholic mafia take part in the joyous celebration that is first holy communion.

Now we don’t usually ‘do’ Fridays considering them the day of spurting rest as we’ve often noted in the past, but due to the lack of recent updates we thought we’d better ‘knock one out’ just in case you thought we’d died or gone senile or something.

And so it is to the ahem highlight of the sporting week, England’s ahem mighty 2-0 victory over Uncle Sam’s yanks (in your face George Bush!), which as our mate Misogyny Mike noted was like “having sex with a fat bird, not exactly pretty to watch, but if you closed your eyes at the appropriate moment, you usually get the right result in the end.’

So what did we learn and what would our esteemed advice be to Senor Fabio (we know he tunes in occasionally for help with the long words and more importantly, we’re considered a set text on the Sporting English for Foreigners primer)?

Well, we look solid enough at the back and JT, Rio and Ashley Cole are naturals although Wes Brown might eventually have to make way for Micah Richards when he returns.

Even ‘Calamity’ looks solid between the sticks and there’s a phrase we never thought we’d end up writing, but fair play to David James, he’s earned the number one slot until the next high profile howler.

Up front Rooney’s natural position is support striker (and angry young man) and we need Owen fit and ready for the qualifiers when things begin in earnest next Autumn. The alternatives are sparse, Crouch provides a ganglier and much underated option, but Defoe failed to convince and looks set for more bench warming duties in the near future. Dean Ashton may well get his chance.

Midfield? Ah the ever tricky equation. In the centre it’s Gerrard or Lampard for us, which means it’s Stevie G, who, dovetailing with Gareth Barry looks the best combo right now. Hargreaves is a great enforcer in the Makele role and it’s two or even all three of these which should form the core of midfield with Becks or Bentley on the right, Joe Cole an alternative on the left.

Easy as, that’ll be six million quid Mr FA.