Roker Ramble: Enuff iz enuff - why cannit peepil pronounce fings proppa on telly?

£14 million a year is a reasonable sum to pay Alexis Sanchez to play for Manchester United I feel - in the same way I feel that Boris Johnson has the best interests of the British people at heart, that coral reefs are a blight on the ocean landscape and won’t be missed, and that Bambi’s mam had it coming.

I mean why stay at Arsenal anyway – no-one likes him. He scores a goal and his team mates look at him like he’s just broken wind in a lift. Why not go to Manchester City - sorry, United... and piss everyone off up there with your publicly announced mega-salary and bad attitude? And we all know how well Arsenal players love the north of England, so he should fit right in.

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He leaves behind an Arsenal team that look like they’re unraveling.

Wenger of late has resembled a man who’s wife has just left him, his dog has died and has come out and admitted he’s a lifelong Sunderland fan. If they’re not careful they’re going to find themselves out of Europe come the end of the season, and without a manager. Surely Wenger can’t continue for another season?

Rumours have it that he’s willing to ‘move upstairs’ but only if Mikel Arteta replaces him as manager, and I’m not sure about that.

When Alex Ferguson (eventually) left Manchester United at least he made a clean break and didn’t interfere with the shower that came after him to completely screw up what he’d achieved. Whereas Wenger and Arteta have history, which could mean that Wenger trusts him to do a good job, or it could mean that he feels he can continue to pull the strings.

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Whichever it is, it’s about time that the people who are supposed to run the club start to do their job and make some decisions regarding his future - he is 68, after all.

Which is two years younger than Roy Hodgson, who was lauded this week for the energy and positive motivation he’s brought to the whole club at Crystal Palace, not just on the pitch. Which is admirable, but maybe not such a difficult job when you’ve just come of the back of a run of Pulis, Pardew and De Boer (not counting Allardyce).

But I was surprised to find out that Palace’s top scorer this season is not Zaha, or Cabaye or the guy with the name I can neither remember nor pronounce, but it begins with ‘M’ and he takes their penalties, and it obviously isn’t Benteke who still can’t hit a cows backside with banjo, but Bakary Sako.

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And, when you listen to the wise words of the learned pundits – in this case Ian Wright, you find out why:

Bakary Sako – he gives Palace real frust up front.

You need frust up front, the real kind of course, not the manufactured sort. There you are, waiting for the frow-in, when some geezer tries to grab you by the froat, and although it starts frobbing, you slip past him and stick it in the back of the net, and it’s a real frill you know?

Wonderful language, English... it’s a pity that so few people in the country can still use it properly.

Big Sam of course did his usual job at Palace and kept them up against the odds - and started well at Everton, but recently has had defensive problems closely akin to those of the French Army – allegedly. Watching Allardyce stand in a torrent of rain looking on as his team ship goals week-in week-out is like watching one of the bad guys on Game of Frones plotting his next mutilation. No surprise therefore that he’s decided that:

It’s a question of becoming a little more boring.

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And it’s probably just as well, because it’s really about time that Jordan Pickford stopped spending all his game time picking the ball out of the back of his net.

Poor bugger... he must wonder what he’s done to deserve all this.

And to help with the quest for monotony he’s ‘swooped in’ for Theo Walcott - who has been sitting on the Arsenal bench for the past twenty years - but can offer ‘pace and a goal threat going forward’, rather like Aaron Lennon, who’s been sitting on the Everton bench for the past twenty years, whilst offering ‘pace and a goal threat going forward’.

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Why is it that whenever journalists want to talk about transfers they always use the word ‘swoop’. It’s lazy, and it’s boring, and I’m sick of it.

What about ‘plunder’?

“Manchester Utd have finally plundered Arsenal for Alexis Sanchez...”

Works for me. Or pillaged? Or despoiled?

Talking of sitting on the bench, how do teams decide who’s going to sit where when they visit away grounds? Presumably different grounds have different numbers of seats, some might have four along the front, some five, some six. I was going to do a survey during the televised action this week, but then I remembered I had a life. But, do they have ‘seating meetings’ in the preparation for an away game?

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Is that why the away manager always comes out first – so he can grab a seat on the front row before the physio nicks it? And if he’s sent to the stands, is there a pecking order for who gets his seat? Every time that the home manager comes out onto the pitch, the away manager is already seated – I’m just saying, that’s all.

So, there was a big game this past week, with Liverpool knocking City off their perch - a great game to watch, although I did wonder why Roberto Firmino bothered to remove his full-sleeved red Liverpool top after scoring, only to reveal a full-sleeved red vest underneath - it kinda reduced the impact.

We really need Mario Balotelli back for the full vest experience.

Photo by John Powell/Liverpool FC via Getty Images

Afterwards, Jurgen couldn’t stop flashing his nice teeth, but did say if anyone dared to criticise their defensive display ‘he could blow up my boots’.

Now that’s original dialogue - none of your ‘swooping’ there - good for you, mate.

Last week I imagined the Stoke fans were experiencing a feeling of optimism for the first time in a long while after the exit of Mark Hughes. They’re probably wondering where it went after a succession of well known candidates turned the job down flat and the Board swooped for Paul Lambert.

And in the first game of the post-Hughes era, Stephen Ireland turned out for Stoke – he’s been out of the game for so long he’s probably arfritic. And they still got frashed.

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