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.”

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 .

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?

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?