ESTIMATE

“I wouldn’t recognize him if I saw him.”

Roy Hodgson hails the man replacing him as Watford manager – *checks notes* Forest Green Rovers’ Rob Edwards.

NUMBER: 86

That’s how many goals Erling Haaland has scored for Borussia Dortmund in 89 games, his last appearance on Saturday before moving to Manchester City. Within reason.

missing panda

It was in October that Luciano Spalletti’s car was stolen from outside the Naples hotel he was living in. Sad, though the fact that his engine of choice is a Fiat Panda and not, say, a Ferrari or a Lamborghini, was very cute.

There has been no trace of the vehicle since, but the mystery of its disappearance may now be solved.

After his Napoli team’s failed title challenge, some of the club’s supporters decided that they would very much like him to leave the gaffer seat. So they hung a banner next to the stadium last week that said, “Spalletti, we’ll give you your Panda back as long as you leave!” [Signed] The thieves.”

It was the mother of all confessions, but Spalletti responded quite elegantly to the blackmail. “First of all, we have to see what condition the Panda will be in, how many kilometers it has traveled, if there are still Pino Daniele CDs inside. We will assess when that happens,” a- he declared.

Is he leaving? Is he the devil. “I got a quote for a motorhome and next year I’ll be driving around the neighborhood every month so I can attend all the local parties.” Defiant, this man. Let’s just hope he invests in a high-end lock for his new engine.

Word of mouth

“The fact that there could be a 5mm offside remains an issue for me. You get penalized if you have a big nose or big feet.
UEFA President Aleksandr Ceferin on VAR discriminates against players with big noses / feet when it comes to marginal offside decisions.

“They have an incredible history behind them in European competitions. But not in the Premier League, because they won one in 30 years.
Pep Guardiola meows just a little when bringing up the subject of Liverpool.

“Unstoppable, Brilliant, Awesome, Outstanding, Perfect.”
Guardiola again, this time underestimating Kevin de Bruyne’s four-goal performance against Wolves last week.

“What you believe is not proof. You may believe Derby County will win the Premiership in two years, but that doesn’t mean they will.
Rebekah Vardy’s lawyer Hugh Tomlinson opposes Coleen Rooney whose her husband’s Derby side have just been relegated to League One so they are highly unlikely to win the Premier League in 24 months .

Naughty but nice

You will remember the heartbreaking fate of Emiliano Sala, the Argentine player who died when the plane carrying him to Cardiff in 2019, after the Welsh club signed him from Nantes, crashed in the English Channel.

To this day, Nantes fans salute his memory in the ninth minute of games, nine being the shirt number he wore when he played for them.

Last week, however, some of the Nice supporters, during their match against St Etienne, chose to chant: “He’s an Argentinian who can’t swim, Emiliano under water.”

The response from Nice coach Christophe Galtier said it all. “I have no words to describe what we heard. If they come to insult the dead, they can stay at home. It is often said that what you see in stadiums is a reflection of society. If that’s what our society is, we’re really screwed.

breaking Bad

The most disappointing denial of the week: the Brazilian center half of Bordeaux Marcelo Antonio Guedes Filho after an article by L’Équipe on the termination of his contract by Lyon last January.

“Thanks to L’Équipe, after a long time, I came back on Twitter to deny all the allegations,” he wrote. “Journalism these days is a joke!”

What were they claiming? That Lyon dumped him in part because he repeatedly farted during a team chat following a shock loss to Angers, prompting uncontrollable laughter from his teammates, diminishing the solemnity of the situation.

If this ends up in court, from an entertainment perspective, it just might put the Wagatha Christie case (aka The Scouse Trap) in the ha’penny spot.