The Footy Mumble: Di Matteo sacked, Henry to return?

Chelsea sack Di Matteo… surprise surprise!

Chelsea have confirmed that they have sacked Roberto Di Matteo after last night’s defeat against Juventus.

Even Chelsea fans will not be surprised at this bit of news, considering they’ve had almost a decade now to get used to Roman Abramovich and his hire-and-fire ways.

We are more surprised at the possible replacements suggested, with Rafa Benitez leading the pack, and Avram Grant (yes ,Avram Grant!) closely following him.

Wenger may sign Henry on loan, PSG rule out Beckham

Wenger may claim all he want about building a squad for the future, but it seems like he will never move on from the past, as he refuses to rule out the possible re-signing of Thierry Henry.

When asked about the issue, Wenger said, “He has been practising with us. Three times. Will I sign him again in January? I don’t know – I don’t rule it out. I don’t know if he would be interested.”

Wenger will lose Gervinho to the African Cup of Nations, and has all but confirmed Chamakh’s departure, saying, “This year we will lose Gervinho to the Africa Cup of Nations again, so we will be short – particularly if Chamakh goes.”

One manager not stuck in the past is Carlo Ancelotti of PSG, who has firmly ruled out any bid for David Beckham.

Ancelotti kept it short and sweet.”We haven’t made an offer, good luck to him.” Take a hint, Mr. Wenger.

Video of the Day

In our Video of the Day section, we bring you Napoli fans rioting, attacking supporters of Foggia, and ultimately, torching a car!

Luiz Adriano scores a ‘cheat’ goal

As though football wasn’t troubled enough at the moment with divers and racism cases hogging all the headlines, Luiz Adriano has once again dragged the issue of fair play into the spotlight.

In any normal match, when a player gets injured, the play is sportingly stopped and passed back to the team who’s player got injured. Play usually gets restarted by the goal kick after that.

While not an official rule, it was respected nevertheless, as a sign of sportsmanship.

That doesn’t seem to apply to Mr Adriano apparently, as he calmly intercepted the ball passed back to the goalkeeper for the kick and went on to score. This was in the match between Shakhtar Donetsk and Nordsjaelland.

Watch the video here and decide for yourself, if what Adriano did was right or wrong.

AVB gets £20 million transfer purse, Downing exits Liverpool?

And in today’s transfer updates (the real one..no, Beckham and Henry were not transfer news), Daily Mail claims that Tottenham boss Andres Villas-Boas has been given £20 million purse to target anyone of Willian, Christian Eriksen, Joao Moutinho and Alan Dzagoev.

And we’re quite sure he’ll fail to land any of them, considering the least expensive of those four, Willian, is valued at over £25 million.

Meanwhile, Stewart Downing may finally be on his way out of Liverpool, with a return to former club Middlesborough the most likely possibility. Or the only possibility, might we say?

The winger cost Liverpool £20 million but the club should be happy to sell him for anywhere around a quarter of that price.