Poetry corner: More lines on Ancelotti at PSG

So Carlo is in the place

to give the Parisians a new face

And to get the girls to drop their kecks

He's going to go and sign Dave Becks

 

And there's bound to be a different offer

To which a certain striker may be proffered

And to put more noses out of joint

Drogba's coming to prove a point

 

So all is well in with the riches

At the stately Parc des Princes*

With a side you could pick on football manager for the Atari

This is actually real life for the Qataris

* - Yes, we know. Artistic license yeah

Poetry corner: Lines on the PSG coaching job

So farewell then Antoine Kombouaré.
You may have been a decent player,
You may have done well at Valenciennes,
But you were never the 'name' the Qataris wanted.
Let's face it;
Your goose was cooked as soon as the sale was complete.
Sacked
With your team top of the league.
That sucks.

So hello Carlo Ancelotti
And your permanently raised eyebrow.
You now have to make PSG play sexy football
Which isn't something you've ever done elsewhere.
It may be handy to learn the Arabic
Word for 'catenaccio'.
You seem a likeable chap
But it'll still be funny
If you don't win anything.
Sorry about that.

PSG interested in signing anybody

Big-spending Paris St Germain today declared that they were interested in signing "anybody".

Sporting director Leonardo revealed that "I've worked with lots of players over the years and I'd be interested in signing all of them. We've proved we're willing to splash stupid amounts of money around and I will sign anybody". Age and recent experience doesn't seem to be a barrier to the Qatari-owned club as Leonardo continued, saying "We're not that bothered about actual playing pedigree so long as the anybodies we sign are big names who keep PSG in the papers both here in France and abroad.

Frankly, I'll tell members of the press from every country that I'm about to sign one of their biggest legends. I told the Argentine press we were after Maradona, the Brazilians that Pelé was coming, Eusebio to the Portuguese and Alfredo di Stefano to the Spanish. But those British journos were the best. They lapped it up when I mentioned David Beckham."

The former World Cup winning full-back concluded by saying "The Qatari Foundation didn't hire me just to look pretty in the stands and have my managerial pedigree loom large over Antoine Kombouaré. I'm here to do a job - to make sure that everyone knows that Paris St Germain are cashed up and ready to spunk it all away on player wages and agents fees. And do that job I will. By the way, I'll give you €500m for that dictaphone".

PSG join legion of Europe's biggest dick swingers

It's taken a while for the Qatari investment in Paris St Germain to really bear fruit, but today the club announced that with their new backers, they're finally ready to swing their dicks like the continents established big spenders.

The capture of Javier Pastore for a dick-swingingly large €45m puts PSG firmly in the big dick-swinging leagues and they look set to remain there for a while. "As the only club in Europe's sexiest capital", said PSG dick-swinging spokesman Richard Swingeur, "it's about time we started swinging our dicks with best from elsewhere. This move cements us as the biggest dick-swingers in La République and over the next few years, we aim to swing our dicks against the best the rest of the continent".

Of course, Qatari money is also helping Barcelona to continue swinging their dicks while investment from neighbouring Abu Dhabi has been the source of large amounts of dick swinging at Manchester City. Both those club showed their dick-swinging abilities remain undiminished in light of the new arrival on the dick-swinging scene with the big dick-swinging captures of Alexis Sanchez and Segio Agüero respectively.

But previous holders of the European dick-swinging record refuse to take the new arrival from France lightly. Real Madrid vowed to carry on swinging their dicks in a statement released to the press. "The world knows how prepared we are to swing our dicks and when it comes to dick-swinging competitions, we bow to no-one". Meanwhile in London, Chelsea seemed more reticent to rest on their laurels when a spokesman said "We've swung our dicks plenty since the current chairman arrived and everybody knows that if we wanted to swing our dicks we could do. We're just choosing not to."

A word of warning over excessive dick-swinging did come from UEFA through Dutch dick-swinging supremo Kok Waggler. "We warn clubs against excessive dick-swinging. It's shown to be unsustainable and that is why we have introduced our Dick-swinging Fair Play rules to prevent any club gaining an advantage by having a bigger dick and being willing to swing it harder and longer".

Holding pattern

Marseille 2-0 Le Havre
Lorient 1-1 Valenciennes
St Etienne 1-1 Le Mans
Grenoble 0-2 Lyon
Nice 2-0 Auxerre
Toulouse 3-0 Nancy
Nantes 1-2 Bordeaux
PSG 2-1 Sochaux
Caen 2-2 Monaco
Lille 1-0 Rennes

It was that man Yoann Gourcuff again that grabbed the headlines, this time with his scoring of a header that gave Bordeaux the lead up the coast in Nantes. And so it looked like remaining until late on when Mohamed Chamakh rose above the Nantes defence to nod his side into a 2-0 lead. Filip Djordjevic's late goal was mere consolation. Lyon won comfortably, Ederson and César Delgado relieving a bit of the pressure that was beggining to mount on Claude Puel. Marseille were also comfortable winners at home to struggling Le Havre; Mathieu Valbuena and Ronald Zubar scoring in a routine win. Sochaux gave PSG a scare. Guillaume Hoarau's penalty put the Paul Le Guen's men in front, but Vaclav Sverkos hit right back and it took Pegguy Luyindula to snatch it, this coming after he'd missed an open goal very much in the Chris Iwelumo style.

Toulouse also won easily which means that Rennes were the only one of the front runners to lose this week. They couldn't have done much more to ensure this result as they scored Lille's goal - Petter Hansson getting the vital touch on Nicolas Fauverge's shot - and Bruno Cheyrou seeing red in the final minute. While it's a setback for Rennes, it puts Lille back in the hunt. At the bottom, Le Havre are pretty much screwed already while St Etienne keep picking up the points that allow them to keep their heads above water. Realistically, it looks like three from five at this stage, but the likes of Monaco, Nantes and Caen need to start stringing some wins together.

The table:
1 Lyon 21 42
2 Bordeaux 21 41
3 Marseille 21 38
4 Rennes 21 37
5 Toulouse 21 37
6 PSG 21 36
7 Lille 20 35
8 Nice 20 33
9 Lorient 21 28
10 Nancy 20 25
11 Le Mans 72 20 25
12 Grenoble 21 25
13 Caen 20 24
14 Monaco 21 24
15 Nantes 21 23
16 Auxerre 21 20
17 St Etienne 21 20
18 Sochaux 21 17
19 Valenciennes 20 16
20 Le Havre 21 12

Open wide

All fun and games in Ligue 1. Once the sole preserve of Lyon, they've been dropping points at will this season, the latest being a home draw against mid-table Lorient. However, nobody else has managed a sustained challenge to put themselves in the frame to break the Lyonnais monopoly. Rennes have been the surprise packet, losing just once but managing ten draws already. Marseille are marvellously inconsistent and PSG win a lot, but lose a lot as well. Instead, it's Larry White's Bordeaux who procide the main challenge. Just before the christmas break, they managed to turn round a 3-0 deficit away at Monaco into a late, late 4-3 win and in the first game of the new year, battered PSG 4-0. And the guy making it all happen isn't even their player. They have a €15m option to relieve AC Milan of the services of Yoann Gourcuff, and the available evidence suggests they really ought to.
His free-kick created their first and the skill for his goal - Bordeaux's third - comes pretty close on it's own to justify those "new Zinedine Zidane" claims. So many have been labelled such in the past - it's the French football equivalent of labelling an English cricketer 'the new Ian Botham' - and such luminaries as Bruno Cheyrou have suffered under the weight. And it looked like Yoann would suffer also. Since leaving Milan for Bordeaux, he's flourished and it's been his performances for the national side that's keeping Raymond Domenech in a job. Whether that's a good thing or not is a different matter. If he stays fit, Bordeaux have a very real chance of taking the trophy away from the Gerland for the first time since Noah was a lad.

It's league cup quarter-finals this week, with PSG travelling to RC Lens in a repeat of last season's final. Lens got relegated, but are storming the second division and will be tough opponents. Both sides have appealed for calm among their supporters. Good luck with that. Bordeaux have a home game against second division Châteauroux in a game that looks to have just the one outcome. Yesterday, Vannes beat Metz on penalties after a 1-1 draw in an all division 2 clash despite going a man down in extra time. And Nice beat Le Havre in the other game. No surprises there with Nice looking for European football and Le Havre bottom of the pile.