Fergie's Softer Side?

Is Fergie going soft? Letting a lad have the weekend off cos his marriage is on the rocks? Crikey, I wish we could all go into our bosses and bleat about conjugal complications and get to put out feet up. What next? We find out he’s a fondness for carnations and his favourite musician is Kenny G?

Music to fall into a coma to

Nah. ‘Course not. Rooney wasn’t dropped cos he’s going to get some stick from Toffee fans. He always gets that. Young Mr ‘Once a Blue, Twice Blown’ [in the back office of a night-club] is guaranteed the sort of reception at Goodison that would make the sudden appearance of Pope Benedict XVI in the Shankhill Road look like a WI coffee morning.

There was much talk of what the Gwladys Street End had in mind for Rooney. I understand Bob Marley’s ‘No Woman, No Kai’ was but the start of a cracking medley that included:

Edwin Starr’s anti-prostitution rallying call: “Whore – (Good God y’all!) – what is she good for? – absolutely nothin’”;

And The Kaiser Chiefs sing-along
‘Rooney, Rooney, Rooney, Rooney (Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhh)
Do ya do ya do do ya? (Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhh)
Know how much to pay a hooker? (Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhh)
Can you go online and book ‘er?’ (Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ahhhhh)

Turns out Fergie ditched Wazza cos he’s fed up of the lad. The Sun said the Govan Beetroot gave him a right ‘roasting’ - a term which has for the past few years has conjured up the wrong image in my head.

Still Wayne’s back in training for the Rangers game tomorrow night and I’m sure ‘Gers fans will be giving him a quiet night.

‘Course none of this would matter if United had held on for the win. But Everton’s late equalisers ruined left a lot of us grinning and leaping like triumphant X Factor hopefuls for the rest of the afternoon. Or at least until news came through from Loftus Road of another Caledonian cringefest from the Boro.

Krissy Boyd came with a good reputation but one goal apart I’m beginning to understand what’s meant by the phrase Scotch Missed. It’ll come good mind. I mean you only have to look at how magnificently the Scottish national team over came the might of Liechten-bloody-stein to know the Boro are on to a good thing.

There’s more potential needle awaiting the Hairy Scouse Scoundrel at OT when Liverpool come visiting on Sunday.

Not that the backchat will come from the Liverpool players judging by the performance at St. Andrew’s (who is by the way the patron saint of Middlesbrough Football Club).

In recent weeks many people have dogged by the question ‘What’s the point of Shaun Wright-Phillips?’ but it’s as the two-times table to Professor Steven Hawking when compared to the question ‘What’s the point of Lucas Leiva?’

Every time I watch this bloke I have to remind myself that Lucas is the former captain of the Brazilian Under-20 team. He led the team to victory in the 2007 South American Championships scoring 4 goals in the process.

I mean that’s shocking information, isn’t it? Like finding out that Kelly Brook has a degree in nuclear physics, or George Osborne has met a poor person. (Is it me or has ‘Daz’ Osborne got the bluey-whiteness of a well laundered bedsheet, hasn’t he?)

Here's Kelly thinking: "Why is it that gravity is such a weak force when compared to electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces?"

Lucas scoring? Captaining? Winning? It doesn’t add up. I mean, were it not for the fact that, sadly for Liverpool fans, he stays on the pitch, we’d be talking about Brazil’s answer to Lee Cattermole.

Maybe we’ve yet to see the best of him. And maybe we’ve already seen the best of his centre-forward Fernando Torres. I don’t know what’s wrong with young Nando. But at the moment he couldn’t look more like an adolescent schoolgirl if he sat cross-legged on the edge of Hodgson’s desk twirling his dyed black hair in his index finger.

I think I tipped Liverpool for third this season. Cancel that. Woy sees promising signs – and he knows what he’s doing, that bloke – but hellfire he must be the sort of bloke who falls in a vat of cowshit and says ‘Well at least it’s not chicken!’

I can’t help but think that Liverpool’s current problems have less to do with the thinness of the playing staff and more to do with the fact that the Yank planks are still in charge of the debt.

RBS appeared to have moved the Americans' debt into what they call the ‘toxic assets division’ which sounds like a financial lynch mob, doesn’t it? In July accounts suggested that Tom n George owed, in total, £383 million to RBS. They reckon they should get £800 million for Liverpool. Right. More chance of

I mean clearly these blokes are very successful businessmen. Hicks founded the very successful investmetn business Hicks, Muse, Tate and Furst – it has a sister company that is advising Wayne Rooney called Chicks Booze Wait and Burst.

George N. Gillett likes his meat and currently controls: Petaluma Poultry (natural and organic chicken products); Snowball Foods (processor of turkey and chicken products); Kings Delight (more turkey and chicken products); B3R Country Meats (processes beef); Coleman Natural Products (processes pork products and lamb); Gerhard’s Napa Valley Sausage (a producer of gourmet sausage products made primarily from poultry). You can see now why he’s making such a bloody awful meal of running Liverpool.

'We can highly recommend all o' l'il ole George's lovely products!'

I mean we've all enjoyed a bit of Mersey Misery but both of you... Go! In the name of Shankly, go!

In the meantime I’m looking forward to Gerard Houllier’s first game in charge of Villa. I wonder if he knows when that is yet. Or who his number two is. Or whether he's signed a contract. Or who he is. Bless.