Manuel Labouring

So another filthily rich football club prepares to ditch a nice man coz the players can't really be arsed. Manuel Pellegrini wears a haunted look these days, and given that at the best of times the Chilean appears to have just stepped off the world's most terrifying ghost train, that's saying something.

Of course for those of us who observe from a distance, like inquisitive paupers in Downton Abbey, there's a certain delight in watching the wealthy fall. Self serving millionaires tend to get a little bored and complacent at times. Even Bill Gates must have a day off but unlike say Yaya Toure that tends not to coincide with a need to up your workrate to avoid being overrun in midfield.

As  Citeh's form goes up and down its easy to blame Yaya for the yoyo. He's a paradox, that lad, a combination of grace and fatigue. One moment he's powering through opposition like an American through pizza, the next moment he looks he's moving through glue.

But it's not all him. Joe Hart's done well since definitively holding off the man with the Mexican porn name Willy Caballero, and you can never fault Zabaleta for effort. Aguero will never be less than a brilliant forward but when your best player this year has been James Milner you've got to ask yourself what's going wrong.

There's no doubt Vincent Kompany has been astonishingly shit. Watching him flail around like a plastic bag in a jacuzzi has been as shocking in its way as seeing Ian Poulter in grey slacks or hearing Robbie Savage successfully arrive at the end of a sentence.

His direness is not down to lethargy unlike say the mercenary ex-Arsenal brigade. Of course the solution will be a managerial change rather than ditching the lax and lazy. FIFA fair play rules haven't helped but even then they've forked out a fortune on Mangala, a defender who makes Phil Jones look assured, and Bony who has merely become the latest in a long line of Etihad bench decoration.

Were it not for the eminent graciousness of the manager I'd be chuckling like the mean-spirited sod I've always been. Still maybe management of a ruthless organisation is too rough a post for such a bloke. If I were him I'd take the money and set up a nice over 50s five a side league in Santiago and never look back.

Lest we forget mind you we are talking of the Premier League champions, the team that robbed us of a lovely sentimental story last season when they pipped Liverpool. This season there's less romance riding on the Kop's achievements so people (and the press) are more able to focus on the misdemeanours of the misfiring Reds.

Perhaps Kevin Pietersen 's every move will be monitored more closely than Raheem Sterling. But I doubt it. The lad may be less bouffant this season but his head's much further above the parapet. His agent is clearly unconcerned about the boy's wellbeing and is fuelling his client's agitation for a move to somewhere like Madrid.

"STERLING TO EUROPE" There's a headline that will confuse Ukip voters.

But all the kid's done so far is turn down a lot of money and taken laughing gas, neither of which are that unusual amongst rich young men right now. Indeed if Sterling was, say, a successful stockbroker we'd all be expecting this rampant self-interest. After all it's what the Conservative party manifesto is all about.

While we're on the subject can I just remind people that Inheritance Tax does NOT mean that you pay tax on your money twice. You pay tax on it once. Then you die. Your children then pay tax on it (and even then that's only when it gets above a very healthy amount). It's called redistribution and it's perfectly reasonable. Sorry children of the reasonably well off you'll just have to pay the same sordid tax-dodge shysters to help you avoid that one too.

Where was I? Ah yes, Raheem. Yes he's greedy. It's how this country works right now. But for God's sake can we stop this scuzzy snooping when people are simply having a bit of a legal laugh. The odd ciggie or even spliff isn't the end of the fecking world.

Listen if Sterling is burning off defenders inter 2016 Euros and getting England the odd victory he can Robbie-Fowler up the touch line for all I care.