Teddy’s View: No English speaking for Capello, Harry’s playing percentages, and King Kenny for England

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There’s no escaping this week’s main story – Capello out, Harry Redknapp probably in. Starting with Capello, and apparently he’s still going to be going to the European Championships but as a pundit for Italian TV. The terms of his severance package from the FA are said to mean that he’ll be unable to talk about the England team though. Going to the Euros, not allowed to talk about the England team due to contractual arrangements with the FA…he’s in pretty much the same situation as if he still was England manager.

Harry Redknapp is the hot favourite to take over from Fabio, but the job may be a harder sell than the FA imagine. For one thing, there won’t be any transfer fees for him to be on a percentage of. Good luck to the FA trying to explain that to him…

“So what am I on for transfer fees then? 5%? 10%?”

“No Harry, you can’t transfer these players…they’re the England team, remember?”

“There’s no need to be negative! Some of them are good players, they just need an arm around them and then Brazil will come in for them.”

Still, even if the England job doesn’t offer the transfer rewards that Harry enjoyed when he was Portsmouth boss, he may yet be due a cut from Spurs. After all, if they have to pay the FA £5m for his services, surely he’ll be asking Daniel Levy for £500,000?

“I saw my potential, brought myself into the club, trained myself up, got myself a good move…I’m due 10%!”

The view seems to be that Redknapp is universally popular and is the players choice. If this teaches us nothing else, it’s that journalists don’t speak to Darren Bent enough. He can’t be looking forward to the ignominy of England’s starting XI for their first game in the Euros having “My Sandra” playing at No.9 ahead of him.

Redknapp does seem the obvious choice for the job though, and the combination of his ‘not guilty’ verdict in the tax evasion trial and Capello’s resignation means that he might have fancied buying a lottery ticket on Wednesday evening. He’d have needed somebody else to fill it in for him though, obviously. As we’ve heard, he’s not much cop with understanding words, numbers, or forms.

Stuart Pearce has been named as caretaker manager for England’s next game, a friendly against Holland on February 29th. Pearce’s appointment – given the unchallenged allegations over what he said to Paul Ince on the pitch in 1994 – sends out a strong signal to John Terry that he can’t be England captain while court deliberations are ongoing, but that in the event of a guilty verdict – he can always apply for the manager’s job. Pearce as caretaker boss, John Terry until recently the captain… surely in the interests of keeping up the FA’s commitment to soothing race relations, an ambassadorial role can be found for Kenny Dalglish? As well as an English granny for Luis Suarez.

Suarez, of course, made his return for Liverpool in midweek against Spurs. He marked the occasion by becoming ‘not the sort of player’ to attempt to kick Scott Parker in half, something which had Wayne Rooney tweeting his view that the Uruguayan should have been red-carded. Presumably Wazza wouldn’t object to Roberto Mancini using his hand to signal for cards so long as he was doing it by punching in a tweet to send via his iPhone.

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About the Author

Twice runner-up in Scottish Comedian of the Year finals, Teddy was named ‘Best Up and Coming Comedian’ at the Scottish Variety Awards in 2010. He’s written for two BBC Radio 5 ‘Unsporting Reviews of the Year’, and has also worked as both writer and script editor on the BBC1 Scotland football shows ‘Offside’ & ‘Only An Excuse?’. He’s been a Rangers season-ticket holder for the past 17 years, but he’s all about the football not “all that other shite”. Also has a fondness for Dynamo Kyiv that can be traced back to an unhealthy obsession with Alexei Mikhailitchenko (or Oleksiy Mykhalychenko if you prefer to transliterate from the Ukrainian rather than the Russian. That’s the unhealthy obsession we’re talking about.)

“brilliant Scottish comic” Kate Copstick, Scotland on Sunday

“Head, shoulders, knees and toes above the rest…mighty stage presence and impressively high punchline ratio” Brian Donaldson, Scotsman

“freshly minted topical gags…pin-sharp lines…great routine…a class act” Steve Bennett, Chortle.co.uk

“has flourished…cracking lines” Jay Richardson, Scotsman

“there are few of his Scottish-based contemporaries that can spin the same high standard of punchlines” Brian Donaldson, Scotland on Sunday

You can follow Teddy on Twitter: @ComedyTeddy

Check out Teddy’s website: http://comedyteddy.com/

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