Toxic Web v4.0

…is Stay-Rod?

That was a bit of an about turn by all involved, except of course Scott Boras who will no doubt try and spin his way at some point but will you feel be weakened when he next stumps up for negotiations with any team.

Peter Abraham over at LoHud has a good run down as to how it could have gone down between Rodriguez and Boras.

So can they all come out of this without losing face, A-Rod will yet again sign the biggest contract in the sport and the Yanks hierarchy can point to the fact he came cap in hand to them even if they did say they wouldn’t talk to a player who they said didn’t want to be a Yankee.

So all that talk of handing over all sorts of young players for the likes of Miguel Cabrera from the Marlins or would Lowell swap Beantown for the Bronx - though that might have only died down for third not first base - can be put on the back burner as the hot corner looks have been filled with a reasonable player.

It must have been the resigning of Posada that swayed his choice to return.

Or maybe he got wind of what was going to happen with Balco Barry (and his unfeasibly large head) charges of perjury and obstruction of justice and didn’t want the Bonds grabbing all of the headlines.

Ten years for $270/280 million well if Beckham can get close to that for five years then the best player in baseball has to be coming cheap.

…hard to believe I know.

But rumours that Alan Shearer is thinking of giving up TV punditry - well sitting there like the dullard he is and just repeating what Lineker has asked him while adding “they done well” - to go into management should send shudders through any England supporter.

McClown currently occupies the worst England manager ever spot, I have a feeling this has clouded Graham Taylor’s view that he should be retained by the F.A. no matter what, as he keeps Taylor from the number one spot. Keegan was close to Taylor for the number 2 position but all the caps the former Villa boss gave to Carlton Palmer is the clincher over Keggy’s general ineptitude which also in his favour he had the good grace to admit during his resignation speech in the Wembley tunnel.

Not going to get any admission like that from McClown, even though it’s blatantly obvious to anyone who has witness his career as the man in charge.

So how would Shearer be worse than McClown? Well it would be the old pals act we see with the grinning ginga twats selection for tonight’s friendly against Austria - now where have I seen that midfield fail miserably time after time over the last few years - but at least McClown has dropped Beckham and Lampard where as Shearer insists the latter can play with Gerrard in the middle and that the show donkey is the player for the right hand side.

But it’s typical of McClown to field the team pictured and his mealy mouth reasons for picking them

Gareth Barry has performed excellently in the last three games but Frank’s form since he has come back from injury has been a revelation - he has played some of the best football I’ve seen him play. I just want to have a look at Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard together again. It is no slight on Gareth, who’s been excellent for us in the last three games. - McClown

Yes it is a slight on Barry, he has performed unlike Gerrard so why wasn’t Gerrard dropped for Lampard, who has played well for Chelsea of late. Then you can see how Barry and the Chelsea player work together as you and everyone else knows what the other two are like in there together, we’ve had how many years of it failing now?

Yeah and a run out against the might of Austria, whose fans are petitioning to get them removed from their own tournament (Euro 2008) because they’re an embarrassment, will show what they can do against Croatia

And then there’s seeing what the fringe players can do, yes bringing them on in the second half, disrupting things with changes and not giving them time or really the opportunity to show what they can do. Ashley Young should have started on the left in this game, but McClown is scared, Young has a stormer shows Cole up for the waster he can be with that stupid showboating he’s back to doing then the manager would be faced with dropping Cole and so he’s taken the easy option and chickened out. He has learned something from picking Gareth Barry in that respect.

Only thing that surprised me about the team is Micah Richards at rightback I thought he go for the easy option, put the City man in the centre of defence and pick his other favourite dullard Phil Neville for the role behind Beckham, christ what a right side that would be

So anyway with a bit of luck McClown will be gone soon, as will Allardyce at Newcastle, Shearer will be instantly installed as the boss at his beloved club where he’ll fail miserably and we’ll see the end of his name being linked with the England job…though of course you never know with the F.A. I wouldn’t put it past them to have short list of McClown’s replacements down to Graham Taylor, Kevin Keegan and Bryan Robson.