A (very selective) review of the year

Oh boy...

It was most refreshing to see 2013 become the year in which football finally started to move away from the hysteria over managerial movements, controversial on- and off-pitch incidents, minute scrutiny on even the tiniest perceived slight or indiscretion, ridiculous transfer fees and generally threatening to disappear forever up one of those particular proverbial arseholes at any given moment. EXCEPT THAT DIDN’T HAPPEN, DID IT.

Second (manager of the) season syndrome

'This is going to be a piece of pi- oh'

Following the undignified scenes at the weekend (we haven’t heard ‘you’re getting sacked in the morning’ sung with such venom since a Christmas party we were at a couple of years ago), it was good of Tim Sherwood to prove that the new dawn at Spurs is going to look suspiciously like the dusk that preceded it. SHERWOOD OUT!

A Load of Balls

World cupping

It’s perhaps one of football’s greater ironies that FIFA spend a great deal of time trying to make the game produce more goals and excitement to the general detriment of draws, only to spend an inordinate amount of other people’s time and money on one that is so pointless and overblown that from an initial level of anticipation at the start, viewers are forced into to a general state of torpor and indifference by the close. A bit like this paragraph.