There are seven persuasive arguments for believing there is still plenty of life left in Jurgen Klopp’s Liverpool.

All of them were evidenced at Anfield on Sunday, March 5th as a formerly rapid, rabid, formidable unit remembered themselves and across 90 minutes decimated a hated rival in record-breaking fashion.  

Not even Liverpool at their best, and Manchester United at their worst – both extremes commonplace between 2018 and 2021 – produced a score-line so comprehensive and a disparity so emphatic.

Twenty-four hours on and it’s a result that still stuns. Liverpool 7 – Manchester United 0.

Talked down, disrespected, even written off, Mo Salah and company flew into United from the off, hell-bent on proving one hell of a point and this they did, and more.

It feels fundamentally incongruous therefore to claim in the aftermath of this awesome display of attacking excellence that this very same team is in decline.

Furthermore, that only regression can be anticipated from this point forward, a reversion to a norm that will eventually lead to the departure of Klopp.

If nothing else, the timing of such a discussion feels distinctly off. It feels like booing at a wedding.

To deny that Liverpool are mired in trouble, however, is to focus all of our attention on a single game of football, a game incidentally – but importantly – that saw the Reds score a xG-busting seven times from eight shots on target.

That alone hints strongly that what we witnessed at the weekend was an outlier. A freak occurrence. 

Elsewhere, Liverpool’s season has largely been one of inconsistency and struggle, with significant flaws evident that aren’t going away anytime soon.

And though we can surmise that thrashing a historical rival will inject a good deal of confidence into a collective that was in scant supply of it, these are problems that will arise again and again before this campaign is out.

It's a diagnosis that especially applies to a failing defence that has conceded 1.2 goals per 90 across 2022/23. 

At first glance it’s a perfectly respectable return but not when you’re Liverpool, not when you play in the manner they do, pushing up both full-backs and deploying a smothering methodology that necessitates a high back line.

Then that defence has to be perfect and moreover protected by a midfield that is highly industrious.

When Liverpool are on top - "We have the best CB, full-backs, keeper, back-up keeper, number six and strikers in the world"

When Liverpool are struggling - "It's too haaard. The deck is rigged"

Mentality minnow.

— Stephen Tudor (@SteTudor123) October 15, 2022

In season’s past both their rearguard and midfield regularly fulfilled this mandate, or more accurately they were brilliant on far more occasions than they weren’t, and what this meant was Liverpool’s ferocious and relentless attacking roster could have an average day, or several, and still nick a determining goal.

In 2019/20, their title-winning campaign, Klopp’s men boasted the meanest defence in the top-flight and won over a third of their fixtures by a single-goal margin. 

They still hammered opponents by fours or fives on their good days of course. It was these tight victories though that secured them the league, brought them success.

Compare and contrast to the here and now, where Liverpool still have afternoons and evenings when everything clicks in the final third – a prime example being last Sunday – and when this happens there are few teams in the world that can touch them. 

When they don’t though, when Gakpo, Nunez, Salah and the rest are frustrated, and chances go begging, no longer does a single moment of magic suffice.

Instead, deconstructions at Brentford, Brighton, and Wolves occur. The disastrous second-half against Real Madrid recently in the Champions League unfolds.

In short, they have become a team of famine or feast, all or nothing; a boxer with a tremendous punch but a glass jaw.

And teams like that typically get excluded from the Premier League betting odds for the title, making do with a drawn-out chase for a top four spot at best. 

The solution to eradicating the vast swathes of space left behind the full-backs, and tightening up a midfield that too often affords time to opposing numbers, is two-fold, one of which Klopp is entirely unwilling to cede to, the other being beyond the club’s capabilities. 

A compromise in Liverpool’s approach and a change to their system would greatly help address defensive frailties but seemingly Klopp, if anything, is more intent on doubling down on his attacking ethos, leaning in on his pacy front three to compensate for vulnerability at the back.

Don’t be surprised therefore if Liverpool succumb to further heavy losses from now until the end of the season, as well as pulverizing those who are wasteful of the chances afforded them.

That’s something to consider in the sports betting in the coming weeks. 

Then there’s the personnel issue, with centre-backs too routinely guilty of making individual errors and midfielders, on the wrong side of thirty, looking flogged half to death. 

Can the club afford to overhaul both areas, bringing in three or four new names at enormous cost? They cannot. 

All of which infers that inconsistency will become the new consistent for Jurgen Klopp’s Reds for some time to come. But the fans and the club have come to expect much better than that.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

Football constantly gets a bad rap and perhaps not without some justification. 

Yet within its grubby sphere, good people exist who do good deeds. And when they do, it warms the very cockles of our hearts. 

5) Di Canio goes against type

It would be quite a stretch to refer to Paolo Di Canio as saintly, the former West Ham and Juventus forward being a controversial and outspoken figure, a self-proclaimed fascist no less. 

If there was trouble, the fiery Italian usually found it. If there was a referee to push over, all the better.

In December 2000, however, the infamous hot-head cooly displayed a charitable side, catching a cross in the final minute at Goodison Park, with Everton’s goalkeeper Paul Gerrard out of his goal and injured.

For declining the chance to score a late winner in unfair circumstances, the player was later awarded a FIFA Fair Play Award. 

4) Restoring order 

Nottingham Forest were a goal to the good against Leicester in a 2007 Carling Cup game but at half-time the contest became an irrelevance when Foxes defender Clive Clark suffered a cardiac arrest in the changing room.

Rushed to hospital the player was thankfully soon after described as ‘stable’ and went on to make a full recovery.

Going back to that awful night, the match was understandably abandoned and in the rearranged fixture Leicester players stood aside at kick-off, to allow their opponents to score and restore Forest’s advantage.

The betting community meanwhile paid out on both the eventual ‘real’ scoreline of 3-1 and the 3-2 official result. 

3) Vittorio the gent 

There are several examples of players correcting refereeing decisions despite it not being in their best interests, the most famous of which is probably Robbie Fowler insisting he had lost his footing when trying to round Arsenal’s David Seaman in 1997.

A particular favourite though is US Tremoli forward Vittorio Esposito taking umbrage with a penalty awarded to his team in 2012 when facing rivals Torres.

After protesting with the official and getting nowhere, the striker purposely skied his spot-kick to ensure justice won the day.

It is not known how those who backed Tremoli in the football betting felt about it, but the rest of the world applauded. 

2) Kahn the consoler 

Sometimes it’s the smallest acts on the biggest stage that tugs at the heartstrings and after winning a Champions League final in 2001 nobody would have begrudged Bayern’s Oliver Kahn from wildly celebrating the pinnacle of his career. 

Instead, as his team-mates hugged and beamed from ear to ear, the legendary stopper spied his opposite number, Valencia’s Santiago Canizares crumpled in despair.

Kahn’s first act on winning one of the football’s most prestigious prizes was to console his fellow keeper, staying with him until the tears had dried. Sniff.

1) Mature beyond his years 

Aged just 19, future Spurs star Jan Vertonghen showed a whole lot of class when playing for Ajax against SC Cambuur in 2006.

In attempting to pass the ball to the Cambuur keeper, after a team-mate had received treatment from an impromptu stoppage in play, the Belgian defender unintentionally scored a worldy from fully 50 yards. 

Quickly acknowledging his mistake, Vertonghen then instructed his side to step aside and allow Cambuur a clear route to goal on the restart.

Picture, if you will, the following scenario.

When watching a Premier League game, aired on BT Sport, you have an inkling that Team A, let’s say Chelsea, are gaining the upper hand. So you head to the relevant football betting market and back them to score next.

Five minutes later and your hunch proves correct, but wait a minute because VAR has intervened, casting your good fortune in doubt. It seems the goal-scorer was offside in the build-up but at this juncture it’s hard to say for sure. 

As uncertainty mounts BT dutifully head over to their analyst for such moments, Peter Walton, who confidently asserts that the goal will be ruled out.

On hearing this you celebrate, knowing the goal will most definitely be given and you’re quids in.

Given how often Walton’s advice and opinion has been sought by his employer down the years, it is reasonable to expect that he gauges the situation correctly most of the time.

After all, here is an ex-Premier League referee of nine years standing. Here is an individual who purports to know the rules of the game inside and out. 

Even if we’re being generous in our estimation, it’s absolutely fair to expect the 63-year-old to be accurate in his assessment some of the time. After all, even a stopped clock is bang on the money twice a day. 

Yet bafflingly, staggeringly, and to some considerable and legitimate annoyance on our part, this well-paid expert someone manages to be hopelessly wrong virtually all of the time.

Indeed, it’s almost admirable how consistent he is in being proven wrong and you suspect his strike-rate would improve significantly if he simply flipped a coin off-camera. 

A sizable reason for his constant wrongness derives from Walton repeatedly backing up the decision made by the on-field official, even when that decision is clearly an error of judgement.

In fact, there is an advert that Walton appears in, where he sends himself up in this regard, for his default bias towards his former colleagues. 

Let’s pause for one moment and consider this. 

BT’s football coverage is subscription-only meaning viewers shell out a set fee each month to watch games they air. To provide the best coverage and offer value for money, BT then employs an authority on such matters to help untangle the complicated process of officiating and VAR to the laymen masses.

Only he’s not an authority on such matters at all. He is an anti-expert, there to simply defend his profession, often when colliding head-on with conclusive logic. 

Walton is then further remunerated by making fun of this fact in an advertisement. 

That Johnny Rotten line springs to mind. The one about getting cheated. 

Even on the very rare occasions when he sides with the studio over the referee, Walton’s success rate at being unsuccessful persists.

In early 2021, Manchester City scored a contentious goal that saw Rodri come back from an offside position to relieve an opposition defender of the ball. It was an important goal too, shortening City’s betting odds in the title race.. 

On witnessing this perceived transgression Walton was as outraged as the panel, claiming the decision to be farcical and just plain unfair.

That was until the Premier League contacted the BT studio during a commercial break to explain why the goal was very much within the laws of the game as it stood. 

Cue a dramatic change of heart from Walton, and if this was fair enough in context, here’s what he had to say during his pious reappraisal. 

“The rule has been in for a while now so for managers and players to not know it…they need to.” 

So do experts, Peter. So do well-paid experts.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

FIRST PUBLISHED: 6th March 2023

A self-obsessed, banter-saurus who puts Alan Partridge to shame, former Sky anchor turned prolific blogger Richard Keys is just too easy to make fun of. But heck, let’s do it anyway.

Not included in our best-of-Keysy moments below are his instances of infamy.

• The time when he was caught making derogatory comments about female referee Sian Massey, comments that ultimately led to his sacking at Sky.

• The time when he responded to Karen Brady’s assertion he is sexist with a flippant, ‘Do me a favour, love’.

• The time when leaked footage revealed his crude one-way conversation with Jamie Redknapp concerning a female acquaintance.

• The time when he was accused of humiliating a heavily-pregnant Gabby Logan on a flight. 

There is nothing funny about any of this. It’s just gross.

Elsewhere though, when he’s not residing in a previous century, this legend in his own lunchtime – not to mention his opinions – can be pure comedy gold.

5) Be Careful Moysey

You don’t have to look far to find a steaming pat of mature that passes for a hot take from the seasoned, hirsute presenter. In fact, just this week he was at it again.

With Premier League bosses Graham Potter and David Moyes both speaking out about the heightened criticism they receive in their job – the former revealing he has been subjected to death threats – Keys promptly took to his typewriter.

Highlighting the need to talk, in an age when mental health awareness is thankfully ever-increasing, Keys then insisted Moyes should be careful when complaining about his lot, managing a club tipped for the drop in the football betting. 

No, it doesn’t make any sense. But then again, nothing does when it comes to Keys and his successful career.

4) #BringAndyBack 

The man himself can take no credit for this one. Indeed, he probably deserves a little bit of credit for not responding, despite presumably really, really wanting to.

In 2015, a grassroots campaign began on social media, championing the idea of Andy Gray returning to our screens.

Quickly growing in stature, the campaign studiously failed to mention Gray’s partner-in-crime Keys. Frankly and truthfully, the whole point was to omit him completely. 

Yet a favourite vignette arrived when this rule was broken and a prominent Twitter account directly contacted the ex-TV-am sofa-dweller, asking him to back the appeal. Perfect. 

3) Better Business 

In the summer of 2017, Everton went a bit mad in the transfer market, spending over £125m on a cluster of new signings, almost all of which turned out to be horrible duds. 

Gylfi Sigurdsson was brought to Goodison for a whopping £50m. Davy Klaasen and Cenk Tosin stunk up the place for huge fees. Across Stanley Park meanwhile, Liverpool purchased Mo Salah and Andy Roberton for a million more than Sigurdsson. 

Having spent nearly a lifetime in the environs of football you would expect Keys to make the right call here, to have his finger on the proverbial pulse. 

Instead he went with the following – ‘Loving Everton’s business this summer. Here’s an early call – they finish above Liverpool this season.’ Oh Keysy...

2) A High-Five Too Far 

Arsenal took a lot of flak last season for the manner in which they relinquished a top four spot. Their winning mentality was very much brought into question.

On beginning this term with three straight victories therefore it was entirely understandable when they wildly celebrated coming back from behind against Fulham. Slowly but surely, they were proving a point.

Hopelessly misreading the room however, Keys was severely critical of their overt happiness on the final whistle, claiming their high-fives were over-the-top. 

When he received pushback on this, he of course took to his cathartic blog, penning this masterpiece…

“Arsenal over-celebrated their win over Fulham. It was disrespectful to the opposition. And for me - it is a measure of how far they’ve fallen,”

Presently, Mikel Arteta’s men have fallen five point clear at the top.

1) Big Sam To The Rescue

A stonewall classic in the Keys canon arrived via his presenting of beIN Sports back in the autumn of 2020, in the immediate aftermath of Manchester City drawing with Leeds.

With the Blues’ title odds lengthening in the sports betting all eyes fell on their defence that had become uncharacteristically porous of late, and the font of all footballing knowledge had just the solution. 

“They should bring Roy Hodgson or Sam Allardyce in temporarily. I mean, any of these guys have shaped teams defensively, haven’t they.”

City went on to boast the meanest defence in the top-flight that season, winning the league by 12 clear points. It is not known if this is because the greatest coach of our generation sought advice from a man who once won promotion with Bolton.

FIRST PUBLISHED: 6th March 2023

Having been schooled at Barcelona’s famed La Masia academy, Cesc Fabregas arrived in London in the autumn of 2003, aged just 16.

A mere month later this skinny Catalonian kid made his debut for Arsenal, against Rotherham in a League Cup game but mostly that season he absorbed himself in English life, fending off homesickness and training with – and looking up to – giants of the Premier League in the form of Patrick Vieira and Thierry Henry, the latter an ever-present in the Premier League top scorer odds.

That year the Gunners became Invincibles, and the highly-promising teenager watched on from the sidelines, recognizing the towering standards that needed to be reached week in, week out in order to be successful. It amounted to a masterclass. 

Twelve months later came his most prominent contribution to date, a contribution we only found out about much later, when it all royally kicked off at Old Trafford following a fractious game that saw Arsenal relinquish a 49-match unbeaten run.

In a melee down the tunnel, an infamous fracas that became known as the ‘Battle of the Buffet’, it was Fabregas who threw a slice of pizza at Sir Alex Ferguson, further enflaming the situation.

Cesc Fabregas is enjoying life under Maurizio Sarri 🗣️ pic.twitter.com/tIcStFzkmv

— 888sport (@888sport) October 14, 2018

This isn’t mentioned here purely because it’s funny – and absolutely it is, a 17-year-old frisbeeing some pepperoni at a stonewall legend of the game – but also, such a wanton act of anarchy gets to the heart of how the midfielder later established himself as one of the very best of his ilk, over and above his rare talent. 

He was fearless. He was combative. Added to his silky array of continental attributes was a scrappy edge to his character that the likes of David Batty and Paul Ince would wholly have approved of.

It was an edge that ensured he always put in the legwork when out of possession before transforming into a Rolls-Royce with the ball at his feet.

Indeed, unquestionably Fabregas was one of the best Premier League midfielders of all time, elite in every aspect. His achievements more than back up such a lofty claim, with an astonishing 111 assists carved out across 16 top-flight campaigns.

Only Ryan Giggs can top that. For Arsenal he was a 21st century Liam Brady, capable of changing a game’s course with a sumptuous throughball. For Chelsea he was a title winner twice-over. On two occasions he was included in the PFA Team of the Year.

Moreover, seeing him play was a scenic pleasure. The elegant manner in which he moved, dancing through challenges, making them futile.

The flicks and tricks that elicited fifty thousand smiles. The unfussy nature of his passing even though he could ping a cross-field ball with the best of them. 

Presently, Arsenal are in serious contention to win a title that eluded Fabregas at Highbury then the Emirates, but their chances would be improved further if he was there still.

Lighting up Arsenal’s centre-circle, forever aiming to match the towering standards set by the Invincibles. More times than not, he reached them too, week in, week out, giving us a masterclass.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

FIRST PUBLISHED: 6th March 2023

It is never less than amusing when a player whose C.V. traverses both north and south of the border, is asked to compare the Merseyside derby, or the North London derby, to an Old Firm dust-up between Rangers and Celtic. 

They try to hide a smirk, they really do. They try to be diplomatic and offer a politician’s answer. 

The humour lies in them hopelessly failing each and every time. Their face betraying them. Their words careful but revealing.

Because the indisputable truth is that when it comes to electrifying atmospheres and visceral meaning, to searing joy in the heart, or searing pain in the gut, no fixture in British football is in the same stratosphere as an Old Firm clash.

The same can be said too of the most fractious affairs the continent can offer, though perhaps Spain’s Clasico comes close. Even then, it’s close but no cigarillo.

Whether battle commences at Ibrox, Parkhead, or at Hampden Park in one of the numerous closely fought finals they’ve competed in down the decades, with little to separate them in the live betting, when these sides meet 135 years of hostility, religious and political divide, mutual loathing, and a fundamental difference in identity is all fused together into one tremulous stadium, packed full of natives ready for war-fare.

And somewhere amongst it all there just happens to be a football. 

The games are frenetic, feisty, played at a thousand miles an hour, and woe betide any player who shirks a challenge, not that anyone would dare.

From the days of black and white to technicolour splashes of blue and green some truly wonderful and gifted players have graced this encounter, but even they roll up their sleeves for this one, propelled by a level of adrenaline that is usually reserved for hanging off a cliff.

Ready to die – but thankfully not literally – for the cause. 

Brian Laudrup, that most stylish and artisan of talents, called the games ‘terrifying’ but loved every minute. Graeme Souness insists an Old Firm is the world’s ‘most special derby’ and for good reason.

And the cause being chased and fouled for is always ultimately the winning of three points, no matter how loud the songs are celebrating their religious leanings and castigating the beliefs of a rival fan-base each hates with a passion.

It’s a passion that frightens from afar and yet is infectious, and it’s often wondered how Rangers vs Celtic would fare if their frightening, infectious football was transported to the English top-flight. What would their Premier League odds be?  

But this is a Scottish stramash right down to its marrow and should always be wholly that. It’s embedded to a place – Glasgow - but not a time, because history seeps into every matchday, informing, dividing, making every meeting between them infinitely bigger than eleven players taking on eleven players. 

And we, the outsiders, watch on, aghast and transfixed in equal measure. Voyeurs to a pitched-battle we only half understand but totally get.

It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience to be there. One to tell your grandkids about. Try saying that about Arsenal v Spurs.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

FIRST PUBLISHED: 28th February 2023

The increasing popularity of weekend football breaks is a clear illustration that these days we’re no longer content simply supporting our football clubs. We want to experience too the iconic stadia around the world.  

Naturally, Barcelona’s Camp Nou is a big favourite in this regard while a couple of nights spent in Milan, complete with a trip to the San Siro, also ranks highly on our collective wish list. 

For those with an especially adventurous streak however, who are willing to venture outside of Europe, one ground stands head and shoulders above the rest, a ground widely known as the ‘Chocolate Box’.

Home to the famed Boca Juniors, champions of Argentina on 35 occasions and the club that introduced Diego Maradona, Riquelme, and Carlos Tevez to an unprepared audience of millions, La Bombonera is located just a few kilometres south of Buenos Aires, a capital that itself elicits excitement and the tease of danger.  

Firmly entrenched in a working class area of the city, it also happens to nestle up close to the Caminito of La Boca, a neighbourhood of great cultural significance, not to mention a neighbourhood of great beauty, its houses painted a multitude of colours.

It is here where Latin music was born and continues to thrive. 

As for the stadium itself, its distinctive name derives from its distinctive structure, with its curved three sections awkwardly encountering a ‘flat’ stand that runs the entire length of the pitch.

This used to be lateral metal boxes until the ground was refurbished in the mid-Nineties and prior to this, and now, it’s shallowness is from necessity, the stand backing onto houses. 

Legend has it that when La Bombonera – now regrettably named the much more prosaic ‘Alberto Jose Armando Stadium’, after an esteemed former president, though thankfully nobody really calls it that – was first designed, its architect noted the unusual D-shape and compared it to a box of bon-bons given to him as a present.

This nickname, shared among the few, quickly entered popular parlance. 

If the ground itself is a welcomed curio in a modern world where so many stadiums all appear identical, its highly unusual design pales to La Bombonera’s biggest selling point, that of its ferocious, tribal atmosphere. 

With a capacity of 54,000 and a pitch that just about meets the minimum size requirements set by FIFA, watching Boca is a cramped, intense affair, surrounded as you are by flare-wielding, blue-and-yellow zealots. 

Here you can completely forget about your side’s depressing Premier League odds, and for that matter, the lengthy live betting odds as they trail back home and instead immerse yourself in relative carnage.

It’s an atmosphere that will make its mark forever, the memories remaining long after the tinnitus has eventually passed.

This is particularly true should you be fortunate enough to visit when River Plate are in town, the pair sharing a mutual antipathy that is legendary in the sport.

In 2004, the Observer observed that the ‘Superclasico’ makes the Old Firm look like ‘a primary school kick-about’. 

A weekend in Milan therefore would undoubtedly be fun. An afternoon at the Chocolate Box however, would be little short of unforgettable.

*Credit for all of the photos in this article belongs to AP Photo*

FIRST PUBLISHED: 27th February 2023

The Champion Bumper is the only flat race at the Cheltenham Festival. The event is open to four, five and six-year-olds only, and has been a popular race with trainers, owners and punters alike since its inception in 1992.

The winners of this content generally go on to bigger and better things as their National Hunt career progresses, horses such as Florida Pearl and Cue Card to name but two, so it’s well worth logging the full result for future reference.

Here at 888sport, we will guide you through the main protagonists in the Cheltenham races betting odds we have for this 2m½f contest:

The Willie Mullins-trained It’s For Me (7/2) currently tops our list and there are plenty of reasons why that is the case.

Winner of a point-to-point for Stuart Crawford team, owners Munir and Souede sent him over to Willie Mullins who trained him to take a Pro/Am Flat Race at Navan in January.

The sent off the 4/9 favourite he easily won that contest by ten lengths and it could have been more. He’s clearly got an engine and punters have been keen to bet on him with us.

Proving popular in the betting too is the John Kiely-trained A Dream To Share (5/1).

He has already won his first three races and was recently purchased by legendary owner JP McManus after he romped home in fine style in the Dublin Racing Festival bumper.

Amateur rider John Gleeson will be in the plate again at Cheltenham, with the purchase not resulting in any different riding arrangements which is nice for the young jockey.

Fun Fun Fun (7/1) is a nice mare trained by Willie Mullins. She’s two from two at the moment and won with any amount in hand at Leopardstown at the start of February.

Munir & Suede also own this five-year-old who will carry their distinctive double-green colours at Prestbury Park.

Owner Ronnie Bartlett has a Flemensfirth-gelding called Ballyburn (8/1) in training with Willie Mullins and he must be fancying his own chances too.

He could be smart 🏇

Winning pointer Ballyburn motors home to land the @punchestownrace bumper and throw his hat into the ring for @WillieMullinsNH Cheltenham Festival bumper team! pic.twitter.com/tfjZXSV4kK

— Racing TV (@RacingTV) February 19, 2023

A winner of his one and only point-to-point race, he was a 7-4 poke for his bumper at Punchestown and scored going away under Patrick Mullins.

Chapeau Du Soleil (9/1), again for Willie Mullins, tasted defeat by Better Days Ahead at Fairyhouse but is expected to bounce right back and is well regarded at home.

Better Days Ahead (12/1) looks like one of Elliott’s better prospects and he has been successful in the bumper on two previous occasions. It would come as no surprise to see this Bective Stud-owned five-year-old take top honours.

Of the others Western Diego (12/1) was a £125,000 purchase after winning his point-to-point and comfortably won his Naas bumper at the end of January, while Gordon Elliott’s Pour Les Filles (14/1) won at Leopardstown on Boxing Day from Did I Ask You That and will have plenty of each-way supporters when they place their horse race bets online.

Champion Bumper Selection:

In a wide open contest I am going to oppose the Willie Mullins throng and side with an each-way bet on Gordon Elliott’s Better Days Ahead. I personally thought he would be a single figure price but the Mullins horses have kept his price slightly inflated.

Champion Bumper 2023 prediction: Better Days Ahead @ 14/1 EW

If ever gullibility can be wholly excused it is during the genesis of a global pandemic and it’s easy now to forget just how crazy a time March 2020 was for each and every one of us.

Airports were shutting, save for essential travel, and football as we knew it simply and suddenly ceased to be.

One minute we were discussing Liverpool’s Premier League odds and the probability of the Reds winning their first title in thirty years. The next, there was nothing. The stadiums closed and the fixtures ground to a standstill.

On our televisions screens meanwhile England’s Chief Medical Officer held up graphs that we tried to make sense of, while out in the streets people walked around in makeshift masks.

On March 23rd, the Prime Minister announced that the UK was in full lockdown. We were permitted to take one form of exercise outside per day. That aside, the world was shut.

It was amidst this paranoia-inducing, unprecedented tableau that a rumour began to circulate, one that originated from an audio-clip on Whatsapp, sent by a prankster to a group of his football mates.

🚨 It has been a whole year since confidential information relating to a large-scale food production project being undertaken at the Stadium was leaked. After numerous requests for comment we now in a position to confirm that it is, in fact, crispy. #WembleyLasagne pic.twitter.com/QOBjdaPDoZ

— Wembley Stadium (@wembleystadium) March 24, 2021

It was claimed that the Ministry of Defence planned to requisition Wembley Stadium and in effect turn it into one enormous oven, making the largest lasagne known to mankind.

Once cooked, the lasagne was to be cut into hundreds of thousands of portions, to be distributed across the country to assist with a food crisis that was said to be forthcoming.

Now of course, in more reasoned times, we hear this and laugh, and it should be said that the vast majority of us did precisely that, recognising the silly joke for what it was. 

Some however bought it, hook, line and stinker. Indeed, it fell upon the FA to release an official statement, insisting the story was a spoof. That it was all the result of an over-active imagination.

The imagination in question belonged to Billy McLean, a 29-year-old Londoner who one evening, bored and by his own admission ‘sitting in my pants’ composed the following message to his buddies - “My sister, her boyfriend’s brother works for the Ministry of Defence and one of the things that they’re doing to prepare … is building a massive lasagne. At the moment, as we speak, they’re building the massive lasagne sheets.”

He went on to elaborate that the undersoil heating in the stadium was going to bake the popular pasta dish while the roof was to be closed, to keep in the heat.

Within hours of sending the message, McLean was receiving the message back, from other friends unaware he was the source of it. On Facebook and Twitter it was rife. Soon, it was everywhere and all anyone was talking about.

Looking back now, it is exactly such examples of daftness that we need in desperate times, to help uplift us and unite us. In 1966, the national stadium showcased England’s greatest ever sporting moment.

Two generations later a fake story involving the famous ground gave us the giggles, when we really, really needed a fit of the giggles. 

In due course life returned to semi-normal, as too did football. We began to talk about the top scorer Premier League odds and whether Aston Villa and West Ham can avoid the drop instead of apocalyptic scenarios. 

We should never forget though the Wembley lasagne farce. It was a tonic when all around us was so remorselessly grim.

FIRST PUBLISHED: 27th February 2023

By the time you read this, Graham Potter may already have been relieved of his duties at Stamford Bridge after being responsible for a quite remarkable and sustained slump. 

On taking charge at Chelsea, diminished from the off as a surprising choice by a club that routinely employs proven, elite fare to govern their squad of proven, elite players, Potter began his tenure brightly, unbeaten in nine.

It was a run that kept the Blues firmly in a top four chase and had them progress confidently from their Champions League group, and though nobody got carried away, it was certainly a promising opening gambit from a coach who had blazed a burning trail at Brighton.

Only then came a sudden jolting of momentum that soon enough turned to crisis. 

Since forlornly watching his new side get dismantled 4-1 at the Amex at the end of October – to players and a set-up that he himself put together – Potter has presided over just two wins in 13 in the Premier League, exiting both domestic competitions along the way to Manchester City.

The performances have been disjointed, sometimes horribly so, and with the goals drying up at one end, and with clean sheets becoming a rarity at the other, it’s inevitably left the 47-year-old a short-priced favourite in the sports betting to be the next top-flight manager to be sacked.

Indeed, during the writing of this article, the BBC website has been refreshed twice already. 

That’s how imminent it feels that Potter’s brief time in West London is due to come to an end following yet another loss at the weekend and should that transpire a degree of sympathy will be warranted for a manager who has been dealt all manner of bad hands, over and above the challenges that a new appointment traditionally faces. 

From a reputational standpoint, as previously alluded to, Potter was very much cast from the get-go as a big fish in a small pond at Brighton, who would now be out of his depth on taking the reins at a ‘big’ club.

That the Seagulls resided two places higher than Chelsea at the time was never factored into this thinking, nor was it acknowledged that the best efforts of Potter’s three immediate predecessors at the Bridge – Tuchel, Lampard and Sarri – had all come to sticky ends, two of these supposedly imbued with the kind of managerial calibre that a big club demands. 

As unfair or otherwise this playing down of Potter’s credentials was, you have to wonder if the players bought into the logic too, thus having a real effect on output and results.

Chelsea's owners continue to back Graham Potter but there is now a growing feeling that the next two games will be make or break for him. It's not just the owners' faith that is being tested either...#CFC https://t.co/oIgVbtyPqs

— Matt Law (@Matt_Law_DT) February 27, 2023

Furthermore, while it’s hard to feel sorry for any coach furnished with £323m worth of talent halfway through a campaign, it’s undeniable that great upheaval was the last thing Potter needed this January just as he was making inroads into moulding his squad. 

Bringing in eight new players post-Christmas felt like a move that was in Chelsea’s long-term best interests while conversely harming the short-term goals of their manager.

Still, it’s hard to look past Chelsea’s abysmal output that at this juncture amounts to a collection of highly undesirable stats. 

Since mid-October, the Blues have averaged 0.8 points per league game and if that was extended across a full season it would have seen Chelsea relegated in nine of the last ten years, finishing rock-bottom twice. 

At this stage last term they were 16 points better off and all season long they have scored just 23 goals, six fewer than struggling Leeds.

It is an incoherency in attack that has produced a scant number of big chances created – just 34 – and tellingly, they have failed to convert in well over a third of their fixtures.

Such figures, when aligned to apathetic performances, means one of the best football tips for today is to back Grahan Potter to depart the capital, not of his own volition, sometime very soon and yet another refresh of the BBC homepage reveals that hasn’t happened. Not yet anyway. 

Could it be therefore that club owner Todd Boehly is staying true to this word, when insisting recently that Potter’s job will be safe, regardless of whether a top four spot is secured?

More likely, it is the Blues ongoing participation in the Champions League that is currently keeping him in the job. After all, would it be the wisest strategy to dispense with a manager – and install a temporary stand-in – in the middle of a two-legged last 16 clash with Borussia Dortmund? 

The moment that Chelsea exit the competition you fear for Potter because there will be nothing left to save him bar the tentative hope that a so-far failing project might ultimately come good.

And clubs that strive to compete at the highest level – and who are used to doing so – typically don’t hang their futures on tentative hope.