FOOTBALL

🔌 These fire extinguishers need to go gaffer

As Chelsea boss Mauricio Pochettino plots a plucky bid for 8th place, he could do without constant jibes from Thiago Silva’s outspoken wife Isabelle.

Isabelle spent this week calling for Poch to be sacked, before apologising and insisting: “I'm passionate about the team”.

But if she wants to prove her loyalty to The Chels, she’ll need to report to John Terry for re-education.

Tezza is back at the club as a youth coach, and he’s already spreading his militant doctrine around Stamford Bridge.

This week, he posted a photo of a plug socket at the Blues’ training base captioned: "When I'm at the training ground I have to switch these off because I hate the red in our building”.

After a day removing ketchup bottles from the club canteen, and taking the bulbs out of traffic lights on the King’s Road, Isabelle will no doubt be ready for re-integration into polite society.

ICE SKATING

🍰 Grandma’s testosterone crumble is to die for!

By the time you reach your 80s, any self-respecting cook will have a few personal twists on traditional dishes.

Cream in the scrambled eggs, an extra glug of brandy in the Dundee cake.

Or, if you’re the grandfather of 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva, you sprinkle 2.1 nanograms of Trimetazidine into your pavlova.

Now 17, Valieva says she swallowed the banned drug after her grandad made her a strawberry pudding with the same knife he used to crush up his heart medication pills.

She doesn’t explain why her dedushka was racking up lines of his angina meds, so we’re gonna file this one in the “I slipped, fell and landed arse-first on the ketchup bottle” category of excuses…

FOOTBALL

🍷 Sour grapes

Back in the halcyon days of Sir Alex Ferguson, the United gaffer would lord it over his vanquished opponents by insisting they join him for a post-match glass of red.

And in a bid to recapture that magic, Erik Ten Hag has taken to dishing out Fergie's favourite wine - Antinori Tignanello - to opposition managers.

Unfortunately when Ten Hag presented Newport County's Graham Coughlan with the £230 bottle, the League Two gaffer wasn't impressed, telling him: "I don't like wine, I like beer".

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FOOTBALL

🚬 Onur break

Turkish commentator Onur Yildiz sucks on a dart without realising he’s on air during coverage of Fenerbahce v Gaziantep.

They love a smoke in Turkey - even the kids…

FOOTBALL

🥀 Duncan donuts

It was the move Duncan McGuire had always dreamed of.

As a youngster in Omaha, Nebraska, he’d plastered his walls with pictures of Garry Flitcroft and Blackburn Cathedral, and insisted his mum cook Lancashire Hotpot every Sunday.

And now, the Orlando Pirates forward was on a flight, heading to Ewood Park on a loan deal.

But when he finally connected to BA’s crappy WiFi, bad news dropped in his inbox: the transfer had fallen through.

It turns out Blackburn’s bumbling admin staff had accidentally clicked “save” instead of “submit” on his online paperwork.

Before he could taste the famous Lancashire Goosnargh cake, he was on a flight back to America. He didn’t even have time to check out the massive ASDA.

FOOTBALL

🤝 Roy of the Rovers

Duncan’s disaster isn’t the first time the Rovers’ hapless admin team have cost the club a star signing.

On a sunny Friday afternoon in 1993, Nottingham Forest youngster Roy Keane shook hands with Kenny Dalglish on a deal that would bring him to Ewood Park.

All that remained was the paperwork, but when Dalglish phoned the club office, no one answered - they’d all clocked off early and gone to the pub.

Told he’d have to wait til Monday to sign, Keane headed back to Cork to celebrate, where Alex Ferguson somehow got to him and persuaded him to join Man United instead.

When Roy called Kenny to break the news, Dalglish raged: “Nobody does this to me, nobody does this to Kenny Dalglish. You’re a wee bastard and you won’t get away with this.”

He even threatened to hunt Roy down in Ayia Napa, where he was heading on a lads’ holiday.

AND FINALLY

🔥 Celtic Spark

A fan’s hair caught fire after Celtic supporters unleashed a load of flares before an away game.

That's it for today.

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