No place for Dane in revamped line-up

Sep 21 2006 Blue Watch by Mark O'Brien, Daily Post

Little new to surprise fans in TV 'bung' accusations

DOES anyone really think that football will be rocked to its very foundations by the 'revelations' in this week's Panorama programme?

Haven't we been here before with the whole Rune Hauge affair at Arsenal in the early nineties?

The fact is that everyone knows that football has always run on a system of nods, winks, blind eyes and brown envelopes, and no-one really cares enough to stop it.

Which is why Hauge was only last year involved in the controversial transfer of Jon Obi Mikel.

More to the point, managers who had been caught bang to rights with their hand in the till wouldn't continue to get high-profile jobs in charge of big clubs and in the media if there was a genuine will to clean up the game.

TALKING of players' representatives, who exactly 'advised' Ashley Cole and Wayne Rooney over the contents of their books?

Rooney, who only this week was criticised by Tim Cahill for his comments regarding David Moyes, now faces legal action, while Cole is simply the laughing stock of the game - and there's some stiff competition there, let's face it - due to his self--pitying whining.

The accepted wisdom is that players deliberately include contentious passages in these literary masterpieces in order to provoke controversy, generate publicity and therefore increase the sales.

Given that Cole infamously saw Arsenal's offer of £55,000 a week as an insult though, do they really need the extra royalties that much?

IT WAS nice to see Kevin Kilbane get a big round of applause when he returned to Goodison on Saturday.

It might be argued that it is probably the biggest one he's ever had, as he often suffered at the hands of the less forgiving elements of the Goodison crowd.

Unfortunately it's probably too much to ask that they don't go looking to replace him with another whipping boy.

ACCORDING to the commentators during the ludicrously-titled 'Grand Slam Sunday', the fact that Chelsea paid £30 million or so for Andriy Shevchenko means that he is guaranteed to be amazing.

Three words: Juan Sebastian Veron.