No room for Ireland, Hamann, Bojinov, Kompany, Benjani, Ben Haim, um, Mills

Can anyone remember the days when Arsenal were in the Big Four and Man City were just a bunch of also-rans? Those were great times - feels just like yesterday doesn’t it?

But now look at them, Arsenal have a tissue paper midfield, and Man City are all over this year’s Premier League like a rash, baby! They have, of course, promised us a top four finish, then bigger things to come next year.

As an aside, how must little Wright-Phillips feel about leaving Chelsea, only to find himself back at Chelsea?

Gutted.

Cardiff/ Portsmouth, Saturday, 3pm, BBC1, bet here

In an early episode of the League of Gentlemen, demented old bag Tubbs Tattsyrup (favourite food: worms) retires to a cave with a road map of Britain. The map comes from the belongings of yet another unfortunate traveller she has done in with her brother/husband Edward, and as she flicks through the pages of this strange document, enjoying a hair sandwich, she suddenly stops and announces in wonder, “There is a Swansea!” This weekend, all those millions of foreigners in their Canadas and their Thailands who have become addicted to Premier League football, with a particular weakness for regular Big Four action, will discover that there is also a Cardiff. They will find that football grown in a less financially privileged environment is so ugly as to be barely watchable. And they will also discover a need for powerful dictionaries to help them interpret all the guff about plucky underdogs and “the romance of the Cup”. Although the Wager generally has little time for underdogs - we like winners! - all our cash is going on a Welsh win.

Think we’re mental for liking the Bluebirds? Or traitors? Then get on ‘arry’s Pompey!

The statistics

* Cardiff won their final league game 3-0. The last four teams to score three or more in their final league game before the Cup Final have gone on to win - Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United.

* With Benjani sold and Jermain Defoe cup-tied,

Ex-Zimbabwe striker lifts the lid on hotel steamrollering incident

In his monthly column on footyhighlights.com, Peter Ndlovu recalls a salacious incident from the Africa Cup of Nations 2006:

We had just played our final group game, ending on a high by beating a strong Ghana side but still crashing out of the tournament. At the hotel that night we decided to have a few drinks and toast to our victory. I had invited my friend, who I can’t name for legal reasons (fans of English football will remember him from his highly successful period with Leeds United), along as he had been watching the match.

The lads started giving my friend a lot of stick for his country’s loss, especially our head coach. My friend was taking it quite gracefully but, as a proud Ghanaian, I could sense his patience was wearing thin. Nevertheless, the drinks kept flowing and so did the jokes.

It came to the end of the night and some of the lads had disappeared to bed, most notably our coach and my friend. Now during the whole tournament the manager had personally entered the hotel rooms of our most lazy players (Benjani was the worst) and pulled them out of bed in the morning to get ready for training so myself and a couple of the other lads decided to repeat the routine on him. We got the keys from reception and seven of us bundled into his hotel room at 4 a.m. To our horror it was not our coach who we found in bed, it was my friend. The worst part was that he was having sex with the coach’s wife!

I quickly rounded the boys up and ushered them out of the room, frantically hoping to keep a lid on the situation. After all, it was I who invited him to the party! We found the coach in one of the hotel bathrooms. He had had far too much to drink and crashed out.

The next morning, at breakfast, I quizzed my friend about what happened and he delivered a line which I will remember all my life:

“When a man insults my country, I insult him by taking his woman“

Our manager did eventually find out about the incident and I think he separated from his wife for a period. The last I heard though was that they are back together and he’s now coaching in the USA.

The moral of the story is never to slag off someone’s country!

Ndlovu is hardly subtle about revealing the identity of his ‘friend’. A Ghanian striker who was successful at Leeds? He might as well have titled the story ‘Don’t let Tony Yeboah near your wife.’

Did you do what we told you to at the weekend?

While Kevin Keegan failed to uphold his excellent record with new teams (he has never lost a match with a newly-managed side, and has always scored), plenty of the weekend’s Premier League action went according to our statistics.

Firstly, we told you Birmingham’s January blues would continue:

» chickendinner superfact: Birmingham are yet to win a game in January, and they picked up