FOOTBALL

🍻 Arabian nights

“You can’t really complain,” chirped a surprisingly chipper Jack Grealish when he was left out of Thomas Tuchel’s England squad a few weeks back.

Possibly because he was eyeing a weekend of overpriced Guinness and gammon steaks in an air conditioned shopping mall.

While his England teammates trudged out in torrential rain in Latvia, Jack was absolutely having it in Dubai, embarking on an all-day sesh at McGettigan’s Irish pub, necking pints and posing with babies like he’s JFK.

According to Popbitch, Jack forked out for roast dinners for everyone around him, before falling asleep in his chair and being carried off to a quiet corner by bar staff to sleep it off.

He pulled a similar bender in Stockholm during the international break in September, belting out Oasis tracks during a seven hour booze up at an Irish bar.

Beats friendlies against Wales…

FOOTBALL

🥶 Antoine Freezeman

Atletico Madrid got their excuses in early before their 4-0 drubbing by Arsenal on Tuesday, complaining the dressing room showers were ice cold after their pre-match training session at the Emirates.

Turns out Simeone’s boys didn’t have a leg to stand on: UEFA’s rules state that away teams must be provided with hot showers - but only on matchdays.

One man who knows all about begging his landlord to fix a dodgy combustion chamber is Man City midfielder Rodri, who returned to his old club Villarreal in the Champions League this week.

While starring for the Spanish side, Rodri was studying for a business degree, living in grotty student halls and queueing up with hungover students to slot his €2.50 in the communal washing machines.

It wasn’t all imperial vodka and cold beans out of the tin though - here he is cooking up a decent looking frittata on a shitty electric hob…

🔔 Captain, Leader, Bell End

For a man who captained his country, John Terry is a proper wrong'un.

The Chelsea defender scrapped in nightclubs, pissed in pint glasses and shagged on motorway hard shoulders.

Get his full scandalous story when you watch our new 7 minute mini-doc on YouTube…

RUGBY

🧴 Smart arse

The deans at Cardiff University were spitting out their rooibos tea as news broke of the “torture” endured by freshers joining the uni cricket team.

Although the “disgusting initiations” weren’t exactly pints of piss - recruits were “pressured to eat raw onions and to get down on their knees in cricket whites without any shoes.”

It’s a far cry from the heinous uni rugby club forfeits of the past, when terrified freshers were sent to have vasectomies or fly to North Korea.

And the professionals weren’t much better either. Back in 1982, the England squad were each given a free bottle of aftershave at a post-match dinner in France.

After one player secretly emptied his bottle, filled it with wine and drank out of it, prop Colin Smart fell for the trick and promptly necked his bottle of eau de parfum.

Within an hour he was on his way to hospital to have his stomach pumped.

As scrum-half Steve Smith put it later: “He may have been unwell, but Colin had the nicest breath I've smelt.”

FOOTBALL

👨‍🍳 Oh yeah? Well I’ll tell you who else has got a soggy bottom

Back in the 90s, the biggest scandal to rock Masterchef was the way Loyd Grossman pronounced the word “spicy”.

But as the once sleepy series is engulfed by controversy, producers of its international editions are getting in on the action.

Masterchef Argentina is hosted by our old friend Wanda Nara, who famously left her husband Maxi Lopez for his Sampdoria teammate Mauro Icardi.

So you can imagine the viewers’ delight when Maxi strolled into the kitchen this season to confront his ex over a steaming pot of carbonada criolla.

Beside the odd jibe about her penchant for frozen food, Maxi was fairly magnanimous, even naming a pork shoulder dish after Wanda.

Wanda, on the other hand, welcomed her jilted ex to show with this jibe:

FOOTBALL

🧥 Mind if I nik that?

An oddball fan is dragged away by security after begging Jannik Sinner for his jacket at the Six Kings event in Riyadh.

💉 Quick hits

✍️ Lamine Yamal has stopped signing autographs after agreeing an exclusive deal with a memorabilia website.

🤩 Among the stars turning out for Sunday League side Wythenshawe Vets this season: Emile Heskey, Papiss Cisse, Joleon Lescott and Maynor Figueroa.

🍢 Spotted eyeing up the shish taouk in a Lebanese deli near Kensington Olympia: England gaffer Thomas Tuchel.

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AND FINALLY…

🌱 Snook Littler

He’s two.