rare football post

#Excuse me for crowing, but the new England squad has been announced and there are five Tottenham players in the squad (Robinson, King, Jenas, Carrick, Defoe) and four who plied their trade at the club previously (Campbell, Konchesky, Young and Crouch). Add that to the fact that if there was any justice Dawson and Lennon would be in there too, and surely will be before long, and... blimey.

#It takes a hell of a lot for me to spare Arsene Wenger an admiring word, but I've always been reluctantly impressed by his stylish and cutting response to Alex Ferguson's claim, a season or two back, that Manchester United were the more stylish footballing team. "Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home", Wenger replied. Ferguson, whose loathing of Wenger is undoubtedly fuelled by his rival's more urbane and aloof persona, took this as a personal insult to his wife, when that was clearly not the barb intended.

Which makes it all the more surprising that Wenger, whose wit only partially redeems him against all the other things I hate him for (he's Arsenal, basically), has taken grave offence at Jose Mourino's similarly cutting remark that Wenger, who is always very happy to offer an opinion on Chelsea, is a "voyeur" - in other words, someone who is always looking at other teams rather than his own. Indeed, for a manager who perpetually "didn't see the incident", he is indeed always very happy to slate other teams.

Yet he genuinely does seem to think that by calling him a "voyeur" Mourinho is making a personal insult. Granted it's a petty trading of insults from men who should know better, but there's something very sad indeed about news that Wenger is thinking of suing the Chelsea manager over the comment. Daft.

#We turn again to Tottenham, then, for closing comments. The Spurs manager, the lovely Martin Jol, had a similar set-to with Iain Dowie last year. Unlike Wenger, Jol and Dowie never went to court. They just got it over with.

Jol said Dowie wasn't "fit to mend my shoelaces". Dowie told Jol to "show some balls". And then they made friends. Jol says:

"He's a nice fellow, and I would drink a lager with him".

Quite proper.