Looking Down the Barrel

It’s a funny thing being an Arsenal-hater. Let me explain. As far as I’m concerned they are always fair game because deep down I know that they try and play the game the right way, and are capable of the spectacular. You can say whatever you want about their pretentious hypocrite of a manager, their spineless players and their mute fans, because ultimately they’re going to be there-or-thereabouts for four pieces of silverware a season without fail. Now though, with things genuinely falling apart at the Emirates, I’m not really sure how I feel; I should be over-the-moon but it’s somewhat bittersweet: Arsene Wenger seems to be losing plot, half their players are injured and the other half apparently now all hate each other.

In comments released today, captain William Gallas has lifted the lid on rifts threatening to tear the dressing room apart:

When, as captain, some players come up to you and talk to you about a player…complaining about him… and then during the match you speak to this player and the player in question insults us. There comes a time where we can no longer comprehend how this can happen. I am trying to defend myself a bit without giving names. Otherwise I’m taking it all [the blame]. It’s very frustrating.”

The question of course becomes, who is this mystery detractor? Well Gallas gave us a bit of a clue by saying: “I’m 31, the player is six years younger than me.” Sooooo, who in the Arsenal set-up is 25-years-old? Bacary Sagna is way too relaxed, Emmanuel Eboue too busy playing with tigers and Emmaunel Adebayor doesn’t really have the English language skills. We are left then with a man with a history of being a tosspiece, Robin van Persie; he’s generally pretty confrontational, has a vastly inflated opinion of himself, and let’s face it, has literally the worst haircut ever.

Word is that van Persie and little Theo Woolcott had a raging fight at half-time during the 4 – 4 draw with Tottenham a few weeks ago, despite the Gunners cruising at that point, and the rest of the team cannot stand the Dutchman these days.

Oh, and in other news, Gallas’ new autobiography is released today just in time for Christmas. Hmmm.

To You, To Me

I always think it’s sweet when established alpha-male footballers get a little mini-Me-style peg boy to follow them around at their club and just generally tell them they’re great. Michael Essien got lonely at Chelsea, so they bought him John Obi Mikel to stroke his hair and toss his salad. When Thierry Henry was getting restless at Arsenal, they bought him little Theo Woolcott to break in his new boots and make him midnight sandwiches. Then of course there’s Cristiano Ronaldo, who was apparently getting so fed up of having orgies with just women that Manchester United bought him a scamp called Nani, so that when he felt in the mood, he could just have sex with himself too.

It didn’t take long for Nani to get involved either, with reports circulating within weeks of moving to England that him and fellow new boy Anderson had teamed up with five hookers in Cristiano’s swimming pool for a night of what the Italians call ‘passione.’ Translated into English that means ‘anal.’ Anyway, a couple of the classy girls decided that the News of the World might be receptive to their story, and thus lifted the lid on just exactly how the Manchester United boys get down. Tyese Cunningham and Gemma Storey revealed how they teased the chaps with Tesco’s Finest underwear, before their WAG dreams were unceremoniously shattered: “I've slept with about 200 clients and I've never been treated with such little respect,” said the interestingly named Tyese. “They didn't care about our feelings. They didn't even talk. They just moved our bodies into the right positions.” Wake-up call Tyese, and I don’t want to be the one to say this to you but, YOU ARE A PROSTITUTE. IF YOU WANT FEELINGS AND TALKING THEN GET A BOYFRIEND AND STOP GETTING PAID FOR SEX.

Finally, hear them complaining again, this time about not being tipped. Anyway, this is all obviously old news, so if you want the full sordid penetrative details then read the story for yourself. I have completely lost my trail of thought. Peg boys…orgies…lesbians…

Right, there we go. It was Nani’s birthday yesterday, and him and Cristiano managed to get literally the gayest photo I have ever seen taken of themselves. It seems they really do share everything. Three guesses what Cristiano might’ve got young Nani as a 22nd birthday present? What…a book? Cristiano, you’re rich you bastard! All he wanted was another couple of prozzies!

In Off the Pink

Those of you with good memories will remember that way back in 1970 Alan Ball was the first player to make a fashion statement with his boots. Until the then-Everton star wore white Hummel boots, it had never been conceived that football boots should be anything other than black. Ball later complained that the white boots felt like cardboard, and he even got the club's apprentices to paint his regular black Adidas boots white until he was rumbled by a sponsor and forced to return to the ropey Hummels.

Since then we have seen some truly incredible efforts, from grass-textured ‘camouflage’ Pumas to 24-carat gold plated Nikes, tailored especially for Ronaldinho to celebrate his Ballon d’Or. Now though, I fear things might be getting slightly out of hand.

Those of you with a keen sense of sight will have surely noticed that the above new Nike Mercurial Rosas are pink. Yes, pink as in My Little Pony. Now I’m all for expansive footwear, and showing off on a football pitch, but come on, do Nike really expect any self-respecting Premier League players to actually wear these monstrosities? Surely if they were to, they’d have to be basically the best player in the world, with little or no regard as to what other people think of them. Cristiano Ronaldo does clearly know where to draw the line and when to say no however, because do you know who the lucky star who will be showing these off is?

Underwhelming Arsenal failure Nicklas Bendtner.

I hope you’re getting well paid for this mate because you are going to get the living shit kicked out of you. Check here for some amusing Nike viral gauging people’s reactions to the Rosas:

Gameweek 13 – Hotter Than The Sun

Greetings team, and we are now officially over a third into the 2008/09 season! That’s exciting isn’t it? Everything is shaping up rather nicely though it has to be said, with a lot of expectations already subverted. As we currently stand there are just 10 points separating West Brom in 20th and Hull in 6th so a couple of wins back-to-back for anyone and things shift again dramatically.

Chelsea and Liverpool remain the pace-setters, both 8 points clear of defending champions Manchester United in third. They certainly deserve it as well I feel, both combining graft and flare, and knowing when each is required. Questions were asked earlier in the season about Liverpool stamina, but with by far the easiest run into Christmas, don’t be surprised to see them ruling the roost come January. Oh, Liverpool got three points at Bolton this weekend, and Chelsea eased past West Brom away from home as well.

Arsenal’s misery continues with their fourth defeat of the season, and to the team that many (including us) predicted would take their fourth place finish come April, Aston Villa. After a slowish start to the season Martin O’Neill’s men are playing some great stuff at the moment, and along with Everton, are the form team at the moment.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m pretty apathetic about writing this report halfway into the following week, and to be honest can’t really remember much of what’s happened generally since last Wednesday. There were a few draws though, and Harry Redknapp lost his first game in charge of Tottenham at Fulham thanks to his ridiculous Brazilian goalkeeper.

Game of the Week – Manchester United vs Stoke City
Hull and Manchester City played out a pretty entertaining match on Sunday but it was marred by a couple of horrendous errors. The other half of Manchester however needed no such help, as they gave new-boys Stoke City their first proper hiding of the season. The Potters did not help themselves by conceding after 3 minutes, and then just before and just after half-time, but still take nothing away from the European champions who pushed forward with frightening fluidity and maybe could’ve had double figures. Two Ronaldo freekicks and a cracker on debut from 17-year-old Danny Welbeck made this a treat for the non-Stoke-supporting spectactor.

Player of the Week – Nicolas Anelka
The grumpy French journeyman has been in frightening form of late, with 8 goals in his last 4 games, and still virtually no trace of any effort being expelled. Do wish he’d stop doing that gay pigeon-hands celebration though…the Premier League is not an amateur hand puppet theatre…

Goal of the Week – Ryan Taylor
A few contenders knocking about this week after a slightly barren patch of mediocrity, but kudos must go out to Wigan defender Taylor for the outside-of-the-foot nonchalance of this effort.

Gaffe of the Week - Heurelho Gomes
Another week and another nightmare for the man they call The Octopus. Not only can he not deal with crosses without injuring his own colleagues, but apparently he has also now forgotten how to catch. Sure he made a couple of great saves elsewhere from long-range, but dropping a tame shot into your own net kind of cancels those out.

Misses of the Week – Almost the entire Bolton and Liverpool teams
Not sure quite what happened at Bolton this weekend as many golden opportunities went begging as both teams seemed afraid to score. Ricardo Gardner produced two of the misses of the season, and even the infallible Torres missed a couple of gifts. Strange.

Debut of the Week – Danny Welbeck
It was basically a dream come true for young Welbeck, who scored an absolute screamer on his first-team debut for Manchester United. Picking the ball up on the halfway line, he played a nice give-and-go before firing into Sorensen’s top corner from all of 30 yards. People rave about Arsenal’s kids, but United have a couple of tasty looking teenagers coming through as well.

Smugness of the Week – Cristiano Ronaldo
101 goals in 253 games for Manchester United, not bad eh? And see how fast he’s reached this milestone compared to Frank lampard and Emile Heskey who we highlighted reaching 100 a fortnight or so ago. This calls for an expansive prostitute-covered jizz-cuzzi party!

Say Goodbye to Outside

If you are male you probably know that the latest incarnation of Championship / Football Manager has been recently released. I’m sure we’ve all enjoyed (or “wasted” according to girls) many an hour in front of the classic title in one form or another over the years, but it seems that there might be a more serious use for the encyclopedic level of knowledge contained in that magic database.

Everton have done a deal this week with the makers of the bestselling game to get an early look at their unbelievable register of 370,000 players worldwide. Football Manager's scouting team is apparently the largest in the world (1000 scouts in 50 countries monitoring 20,000 teams), and the footballers featured from junior level upwards are meticulously researched and rated, so from now on Everton will be a step ahead in the race to find the next Cristiano Ronaldo. Previous highly-rated youngsters on the game included a couple of teenagers you might’ve heard of – Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi.

So why have no other teams thought of doing this before you might ask. Well they’ve probably inquired with no avail, but surprisingly one of the game’s creators, Paul Collyer, is actually an Everton fan. He said: “The database is the most extensive scouting network in football so Everton FC is making a top signing.” Get it? He said: “top signing,” talking about the game, but also the opportunity to sign players, so it works on two levels. Ha ha ha ha ha, oh Mr Collyer you slay me!

Anyway, no article about Football Manager can be complete without this fact however: the game has now been cited in 35 divorce cases nationwide. Amazing.

Warning: May Contain Actual Porn

Over the years, we at STT have longingly suggested that football and porn could be successfully meshed. However, the distinct lack of cameras, a studio and willing ‘models’ have held us back from producing the future-classic Any Hole’s a Goal™ that we know we have in our locker. After more than four man hours of expansive story-boarding and internet-based ‘research,’ the towel has had to be thrown in because, well, stupid shit like girlfriends and jobs kept getting in the way.

Brazilians have no such problems. You see, they have persuaded one of Ronaldo’s (the transsexual-prostitute-loving-one, not the multiple-regular-prostitute-loving-one) ex-girlfriends to star in a porn movie with a bonafide genuine Ronaldo look-a-like. The delectable Vivi Brunieri has thus changed her name to Vivi Ronaldinha, and the inspirationally-titled: Vivi Ronaldinha, My First Time is out there now for everyone with an internet connection to see for themselves.

A couple of treats for you now then, courtesy of those excellent chaps over at Dirty Tackle. Firstly, what appears to be some kind of attempt at a viral video, in which someone with a video camera conveniently catches Ronaldinha and Ronaldo messing around through their hotel room window:



Secondly, a Behind the Scenes featurette which is obviously all kinds of awesome-



The guy’s face just makes me laugh so much!

The Shoes Maketh the Man

Often I have thought that the one thing holding me back from going pro was not having the right pair of Astroturf shoes. Now however, I think my time has come because finally I have got an awesome pair of Adidas F30.8 indoors to stroll around in majestically while I carve open many a hapless opposition team.

There are made by using science, and that involves the grafting of a lightweight microfiber synthetic material by Eastern European virgins for a comfortable fit. That’s why these beauties are so prestigious. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find an Eastern European virgin these days?

Finally, here’s the sexy part: not only do they look like NASA discovered them, but they also have a handy Agion antimicrobial lining to limit bacterial and fungal growth.

Aesthetics – 9 / 10

Opinion-dividing to say the least…many of my male friends think they’re a bit “garish,” but they all have appalling dress senses anyway, so their collective opinion is void. Chicks dig ‘em though, and most importantly so does the person giving the final rating, i.e. me

Touch – 9 / 10

These shoes have a nice little fold-over tongue feature, which goes over the laces and increases proper usable kicking surface. So, if unlike me you aren’t amazing at football, you won’t have to middle all your passes and shots quite as well to get a favourable outcome. Also if you struggle with laces generally, the velcro’s got you covered.

Scoring ability – 1 / 10

Alas it was a poor week generally for Boafista, and I myself am in the midst or a relatively barren scoring spell. This is not because I have lost it though. It is in fact more reflective of the responsible Claude Makalele-esque water-carrying job I am doing at the back.

How much of a kicking did I get wearing them – 8 / 10

Opposition meatheads took exception to the stylish translucent blue panelling along the sides of the shoes and thus tried to break my ankles because of it. Do not let this put you off however; the more people try and blood-thirstedly kick you, the easier it is to nutmeg them. Fact.

Big thanks go out to the kind folks over at SoccerPro.com for sending us these delightful shoes to try out. They’re good folks over there, and provide top quality gear whether you want shirts, balls or shoes. They definitely didn’t pay us to say that.

Make-a-Wish Foundation

A couple of years back during the 2006 World Cup, you might remember Carlsberg running a great little advert about the best pub football team in the world. They roped in Sir Bobby Robson to manage the outfit, and opted for a tidy little starting line up of Peter Shilton, Des Walker, Bryan Robson, Stuart Pearce, Chris Waddle, Peter Beardsley, Peter Reid, Terry Butcher, Alan Ball, Jack Charlton and Bobby Charlton. Sure it was pure fantasy, but bizarrely word has reached the press this week that it might not be that far away from actually happening, with a team made up entirely of former FA Cup winners being put together to enter next year’s competition.

Most pleasingly, Gazza is being touted as one of the still-unnamed team’s stars. The plan is to have the legends join a non-league side but only play during the team’s FA Cup campaign. The organizers of the Legends football series, Toast Events, are arranging players as we speak, with a view to raise plenty of wonga for charity in the process. Other names already mentioned are Ray Parlour, Lee Sharpe, Bryan Robson, Dave Beasant, Graeme Le Saux and Roberto di Matteo, with assurances made that “it will be a serious venture…(not) a laughing stock.”

Imagine lining up for your local Sunday league team on a sunny afternoon next July, and rather than one of the usual selection of overweight boozers to mark, you’ve got Gazza. Ok, all jokes aside, this is exactly the kind of thing he needs to focus on, so please let this happen and let’s save our Gazza!

Warning: Contains a Tenuous Analogy

The world of wannabe WAGs / glamour models is apparently a fickle one. Just days after the office party in honour of Danielle Lloyd and Chantelle Houghton becoming official BFFs, they have fallen out spectacularly according to the usual gossip channels. The big-chested Celebrity Big Brother winner was on the receiving end of Lloyd’s sharp tongue for dating her fantastically desirable ex, the irrepressible Jermain Defoe. So yet again the pint-sized Portsmouth striker has hot girls fighting over him. It just isn’t fair.

Anyway, Lloyd was overheard at London’s Embassy Club mumbling this somewhat oblique insult: “If Jermain wants her, he’s welcome to her. She’s not like me — she’s like Woolworths.” Interesting analogy there Danielle, but I’m not quite sure it works. You see, both Ms Lloyd and Ms Houghton are pretty cheap composites of various plastic items, so I’m not quite sure what that makes Lloyd if Houghton is “Woolworths.” Costcutters maybe? I don’t know.

An unnamed insider helpfully clarified though: “Imitation is the highest form of flattery. So Dan is entertained by Chantelle’s style-stalking. She got a boob job, started the glamour modeling, and began hanging out with Danielle’s friends at her favourite nightclubs.” So far, so impressively descriptive and egotistical. “But there’s only one Danielle Lloyd, and she’s amused that her ex has pulled the Woolworths version of herself,” the source concluded smugly. I still don’t get it.

In case you care, Lloyd was out celebrating the 21st birthday of former Big Brother girl Chanelle Hayes. You know, the one that thinks she’s Victoria Beckham. Suffice to say, it was a truly magical night.

“But He Called My Son a Nonce!”

Ok I’ll just get the shit pun out of the way now: two teammates from Hull City brawled with each other in a casino last week, “like snarling animals.” Hull are of course nicknamed the Tigers. Tigers snarl, and also behave like animals. Sometimes I despair.

Anyway, the on-loan star Marlon King is said to have head-butted fellow striker (and STT messiah) Dean Windass in a rumble that ended with the pair having to be pulled apart by other Hull players. Windass was left with a bloody nose, and King reportedly insulted the staff before bizarrely pretending his £19,000 watch had been stolen. And where did all this go down you might ask? Well the epicentre of all things cultural and decadent, Scarborough’s Opera House Casino.

A mysterious tipster said the barney followed “weeks of simmering tension” between the two, as the aging Windass got more and more pissed off that King was starting ahead of him, despite promises being made to him in the off-season that he would feature in the Premier League. An actual eye-witness said: “Windass appeared to say something to King that had him raging like a bull. King was shouting, ‘You bastard. Wait until I tell my boy what you said.’” Windass then reportedly shouted back: “It was a joke. You know fuck all about anything.” Sounds pretty exciting doesn’t it folks?

As things started to get a bit tasty, “blood and drinks were sent flying,” the witness said. “It was embarrassing. They were like snarling animals.” Team-mates eventually pulled the pair apart and the players were allowed to stay after promising there would be no more trouble. This was when King then tried to pretend his expensive watch had been pinched, even though: “staff clearly saw him put it in his own pocket,” according to this anonymous font of knowledge. Richard Koval-Meth, gaming manager of the casino in North Yorks, offered this concise summation: “There was a fracas, but it only lasted a minute or two.” He also confirmed that the missing watch was luckily found in King’s pocket.

Other fights we’d like to see: John Hartson vs Duncan Ferguson (weapons free), Ashley Cole vs Theo Woolcott, Robbie Savage vs David Ginola, Joey Barton vs A Rabid Bear, and finally, Cheryl Tweedy vs A Strip-club Pole