General Twitter Thread

[little dave hedgehog]

poor staale.

[red g]

Definitely poor Staale! He was doing a live interview in his flat when he got the phonecall informing him of his sacking.

[little dave hedgehog]

ouch.

[Resu]

The Norwegian manager invasion failed badly. I guess Berg and Solbakken lasted for less than six month combined.
I never got the appointment of Berg, he was never really that highly rated here, but I thought Ståle could do well.
So the our managerial exports to England are the great successes Olsen, Berg and Solbakken.

[Bender]

League One Doncaster have confirmed that they have given Dean Saunders permission to speak to Wolves about their managerial vacancy.

[little dave hedgehog]

olsen

[kingfunk]

Hahaha Rory Smith on drugs!! Poor Lampard/Terry...


John Terry wearily opens his eyes, and bleakly stares at the huge portrait of himself, lifting the Champions League trophy in full Chelsea kit, painted on the ceiling.

“Joy,” he says. “Its warmth is fleeting. Its glow cannot break the grip of the eternal cold.”

He turns to his left, and, through a frosted window in the shape of his own face, sees a milky sun struggling to break through the slate-grey clouds.

“Futility,” he murmurs. “The fight to illuminate that will eventually be cast into dark.”
Heavily, he lifts himself from his bed. Carefully, he slides his feet into his slippers, made from the hairs of albino goats and woven from gold thread.

“Frippery,” he scowls. “There is no comfort in the endless expanse of the afterlife.”

His shoulders slumped, his eyes downcast, he walks down his stairs, each one covered in hard-wearing rhino pelt. He scans the console table, made of human skulls, by the front door. The post has arrived. Bills, bills, bills. Gas bills. Gardener’s bills. Telephone bills. Automobiles.

“Trivia,” he sighs. “Stress, that opiate to distract us from the reaper’s scythe.”

John Terry is troubled. Not just troubled. Devastated. We know this, because he told us, on the Instagram account he has previously used primarily to post photos of himself in his pants and pictures of the stuff he’s had mown into his lawn.

And we know why. Even though Chelsea requested that he delete the post in question, we know that he thinks the club’s apparent refusal to offer Frank Lampard a new contract is a decision so baffling as to be masochistic. We know that he thinks they should retire the number eight shirt in his old friend’s honour.

But we might have misinterpreted what this indescribable sadness signified. We assumed it was a gesture of loyalty to a comrade, a man with whom Terry has lifted countless trophies, many of them after games in which he was involved.

We thought it was, perhaps, a lament for times past, a sign of his regret that the era of Terry and Lampard and Didier Drogba and Ashley Cole is coming to a close. We even suggested it was a hint to Chelsea that their captain, their leader, their legend, was not entirely happy with some of the decisions being made by Michael Emenalo, who in any other industry would be described as the Head of Human Resources.

It is more than all of that, though. Much, much more. Terry is not devastated because Lampard is leaving. He is devastated because we are all going to die.

Football fears mortality. It is a sport that celebrates energy and verve and vim and vigour and all of those indulgent luxuries of youth. It is contested by glorious Adonises, images of human perfection, their jaws chiselled and their muscles honed and their legs shaved, for no apparent reason.

They are young and they are invincible (and they are waxed). They are heroes, and like all heroes, they are immortal. They are going to live forever, and today is never going to end.

It does, though, and they won’t. Age catches us all. It eats away at us, destroys us, makes us weak. Nobody is immune. Nobody is spared. And it will catch Lampard. That is what Chelsea understand, and what Terry does not want to accept. Because if he does, it means it will come for him, too.

There is no doubt that Lampard, at the age of 34, has been exceptional this season. He has hit a rich vein of goalscoring form in recent weeks, but, infinitely more importantly, he has adapted his game in a way few would have expected. He is not a deep-lying playmaker, a Pirlo or a Scholes, but he is a hugely gifted, keenly intelligent organiser of matches.

Rafael Benitez, Chelsea’s interim first team caretaker temporary line manager, sees Lampard as the only player he possesses capable of performing that role. By all of those criteria, the club’s continuing refusal to countenance offering Lampard, a loyal, gilded servant, an extended contract is so wilful that it is almost deliberately negligent.

But it isn’t. Because Lampard, like all of us, is going to die*. Age will catch him. It may not have done so yet, but it will. It may be next season. It may be the season after that. But it will.

There is a yin and yang at work inside football, a force which ensures, when the sky falls and the lamb lies with the wolf and the horsemen ride, everything will look pretty balanced.

It manifests in myriad ways, but one of the most important is that any team which is blessed with an iconic player, the sort of player that comes to define an era for a generation of supporters, always struggles to replace them.

*This should in no way be interpreted as a threat.

[Gibbo]

[ame]http://youtu.be/AWzl9P_YTmw[/ame]

Sign these lads up!!!

[Shaggy]

Matt Fortune @MFworldfootball
Stay classy, Jermaine Pennant. Here is Stoke's fantasy football league. Check out Pennant's team name http://bit.ly/10bBmPN (via @F365) #SCFC

[Lee]

Can't believe that Pennant actually played for us.

Crouchie.

[Vermilion]

No MO ? I looked for 'Smarmy Midgets FC' but no sign of it ?

[Leyton388]

No MO ? I looked for 'Smarmy Midgets FC' but no sign of it ?

I think sidelines united is already taken.

[Gibbo]

What was it, all I say is been a pleasure?

[ame]http://youtu.be/idAxY2zR_Hs[/ame]

[Frenchie]

http://youtu.be/AWzl9P_YTmw

Sign these lads up!!!

I quite enjoyed that in a non paedo way..

[Fivex]

Thanks for clarifying