Roker Ramble: Wait... other things happened apart from Sunderland’s glorious triumph this week?

McElheney and Reynolds experience Parkyball first hand

If you had told me 12 months ago that our manager, Phil Parkinson, would be zooming with Hollywood A listers the following season, I would have assumed that the spectacularly bad decision had been taken to turn Sunderland til I Die into a film, and Parkinson had been made consultant producer.

Reynolds, no doubt, would assume the role of Jack Ross. Maybe Danny DeVito could have played Stewart Donald. What about Methven? I’m thinking Will Arnett. Or Helena Bonham Carter.

But no, it was in fact even more bizarre than that, and that Reynolds, once voted the sexiest man alive, and McIlheney from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia actually wanted Phil Parkinson - aka Chorley’s stubbonest football manager - to lead their charge out of non-league.

Who else applied for this job? Big Bird? Lloyd Christmas?

Photo by City-Press via Getty Images

Fair play to Wrexham’s owners though, they rocked up to a corner of Berkshire on a Tuesday night to mark Parky’s homework, being there in person to witness a 3-2 defeat to Maidenhead.

The penny (or should I say dollar) for many of Wrexham’s fans is beginning to drop, with despite an expensively assembled squad, the Red Dragons have toiled somewhat and currently sit just above mid-table.

They then held a press conference in Wales yesterday in which their aim was promotion but that they were “reticent” to talk up their ambitions too much, preferring to take it one step at a time. Makes a change from some of the other claptrap we’ve had rammed down our gullets in the last few weeks from elsewhere.

Who knows if this one will have a Hollywood ending - but I do know one thing, serious progression might be best achieved under a different manager.

Photo by Morgan Harlow/PA Images via Getty Images

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Danny Mills says what we’re all thinking

Ah Danny Mills. ‘The Shark’. The man of a bald head and a blue mouth. That’s what we learned following an on-air snafu on Wednesday.

We also discovered that in the aftermath of Manchester United’s demolition by Liverpool, Mills was the man who has piled the earth on top, and patted it down with a spade.

Because whoever’s in charge of the faders in the Sky Sports News gallery didn’t exactly have their fastest finger first, as Mills, Pete Graves and Sol Bamba discussed Man Utd.

It was the jazzy channel’s biggest bugger up since previewing our game in the Carabao Cup which confidently stated Jordan Willis and some bloke called “Stuart” would start. Along with Broadhead, Xhemajli, Flanno and Huggins. No, wrong, no, no, no and nope.

Photo by Robbie Jay Barratt - AMA/Getty Images

“Great chat lads there, well done, that was really, really interesting. I could have listened to you two chat all day about the tactics and so on” said Graves.

You liar, Pete. No offence but Mills is the sideways passer of football punditry. Mainly forgettable, except for an air of superiority.

“Basically” Mills replied, without realising he was live to the nation - or at least various pubs up and down the land - continued on “United are just sh*t”.

Which is perhaps his most insightful take for some time.

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Barton out-stupids himself

BUT... Danny Mills wasn’t the biggest foot-in-mouth moment this week.

More inadvisable comments, this time from Joseph Barton, who has come out with something sketchier than a Beano annual. Following Barton’s defeat to Newport County this week he raged “Someone gets in and does well but then gets suspended or injured. Someone gets in for a game, does well but then has a Holocaust, a nightmare, an absolute disaster.”

It’s a bit like when Alan Pardew said someone got absolutely “raped” in a match. You just can’t do it. The verbal diarrhea which emanates from Barton’s gob with more regularity than a sewage pipe overflow has now reached a crescendo - and everyone who has their head screwed on remotely correctly must realise he really does have no place in the game. Managing, playing, commenting, watching.

In his “apology” he denied that he should have said something sooner, “It’s our duty to be word-perfect and not create controversy”. I’ll stop you there Joey. If that’s your job you’ve been doing the exact polar opposite all these years - and I don’t need to list them, we all know. Even your choice of breakfast cereal is controversial; when you look up that word in the dictionary, it’s accompanied by a picture of you.

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He continued “I get that everything we say, even this I’m saying now will no doubt be pieced together in such a way that it will be there to grab and capture the attention of people”. Well, quite. That’s sort of the point, isn’t it?

To report what you say. Still, blame the media as usual.

Just when is this guy finally going to get the boot? When a nuclear bomb strikes the earth, the only things left will probably be the cockroaches scuttling around, and Joey Barton chatting absolute sh*te to anyone who will listen.