HAS someone painted a target on Xabi Alonso’s shin pads?

Were he still around, I’d suspect Craig Bellamy of such a jolly jape, conceived as fitting punishment for a perceived misdemeanour such as failing to dance the flamenco at the club’s Christmas Party.

Perhaps it’s Rafa himself, nursing a paranoid grudge for Alonso’s indirect role in the failure to land Gareth Barry.

Whoever the culprit, Xabi will be well advised to be wary of buckets left delicately balanced over door frames, and mousetraps inside his socks.

For someone has clearly put the word out that he must be stopped.

Tim Cahill was the first to have a crack at claiming the reward, launching a two-footed scissor-kick to the Spaniard’s shins and ankles.

Realising his failure to do lasting damage, he retreated 30 yards in the vain hope that Alonso would not be able to identify his assailant to the police.

Luckily an eagle-eyed bystander, Mike Riley, intervened and shopped him to the local constabulary.

Next up is Pablo Zabaleta, a hired gun from Argentina, who decides to take a more direct approach, and lunges over the ball to score an ‘outer’ on the lower portion of Xabi’s standing leg.