Pretty little Dane picks the perfect moment to wear pink boots

Sorry Arsenal, the days of Patrick Vieira screaming in people’s faces and fighting all the way to victory are long gone. Now it’s all about captains who who whinge about their peers and forwards who wear pink boots.

As promised, Nicklas Bendtner was the prettiest thing at the Eastlands ball on Saturday, but his new pumps didn’t help him bag his second league goal of the season…

The bookmakers expect Mourinho to swap Milan for Eastlands

It looks like the folks at SkyBet agree with The Spoiler and its readers with the belief that Mark Hughes’ days are numbered after he received the managerial kiss of death earlier this week. They have opened a market on who Manchester City’s next manager will be and the list is loaded with big names. Here are the five leading contenders to take charge of the billionaires:

Jose Mourinho
It’s only five months since The Special One took charge of table-topping Inter Milan, yet he finds himself in the curious position of simultaneously being favourite to become the next manager of Manchester City and Manchester United. The former Chelsea boss became the first man ever to win the Premier League in his first season, but do City really want a manager who will turn their exciting young attacking talent into flair-free workhorses?

Frank Rijkaard
Two years ago, Rijkaard guided Barcelona to a La Liga/Champions League double, but his stock has plummeted since then and he was axed earlier this year after a run of just three wins in thirteen league games saw Barca finish utterly trophyless. The fact his inexperienced successor Josep Guardiola has instantly taken the Catalan club to the top spot while scoring seventeen goals in their last three home games makes you wonder where the Dutchman was going wrong.

Roberto Mancini
The Italian kindly ended Inter Milan’s seventeen year wait for the title by winning three in a row (the first of which was handed to them after Juventus’ enforced relegation and Milan’s points deduction) but his reward for such drastic over-achievement was the

Premier League, Sat, 5.30pm, Setanta Sports 1, Free £10 bet

There might not be a Sky Sport’s super-duper Grand Slam Sunday this season but this pretty enormous Saturday is probably the closest thing to it. In the morning, Liverpool face Manchester United and then, at half five, the two richest clubs in the Premier League - Robinho’s new club and the team Robinho actually wanted to join - go head-to-head. Here’s why chickendinner believe the original success buyers are going to come out on top:

1. Chelsea are the only team in the country that haven’t lost a league game in 2008.

2. The Blues have won their last four league away games and comfortably had the best away record in the league last season - winning thirteen of their nineteen games.

3. Manchester City have beaten Chelsea in just one of their previous eleven home games against them in the Premier League - although that win was the first loss of Jose Mourinho’s Chelsea career.

Shinawatra’s best friend didn’t get the memo

Just a few days ago, City executive chairman Garry Cook was boasting about how Manchester City will be more popular than Coca-Cola around the world, thanks to the ten year plan of a disgraced former Thai Prime Minister. He also assured us that the Citizens were financially stable and uninterested in attracting additional investors:

“I was in Beijing last week,” began Cook, “sitting with [Thaksin Shinawatra] and the second richest man in China and other guys. They all want to be part of Manchester City. I’ve had representatives of companies from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait on. Some of those representatives have actually phoned the supporters’ club because they couldn’t find the club number. So I get the supporters’ club secretary saying to me, ‘So the club is for sale, then, because I’ve got Anwar on the phone from Saudi Arabia?’ This club is not for sale.”

The man who wants a break-away league of 10-14 clubs obviously wasn’t kept in the loop on this one…

[Quote: The Guardian]

And the biggest transfer deal of the day is…

Things start looking good for Manchester City on the pitch, but there’s a right old kerfuffle going on behind the scenes at eastlands. According to Sky Sports, Thaksin Shinawatra agreed a deal last night to sell the club to the Abu Dhabi United Group for Development.

Dr Sulaiman Al Fahim, the chief executive of Hydra Properties, will represent the new owners on the board:

“We will release details later, but this is a great event for both the club and Abu Dhabi. Our goal is very simple - to make Manchester City the biggest club in the Premier League, and to begin with, to finish in the top four this season.”

So, just months after Shinawatra sacked Sven Goran Eriksson for failing to meet his ridiculous expectations, along comes a new owner with even tougher targets. Is this good news for Manchester City? Will Garry Cook continue to defend his favourite disgraced Thai? Let us know with a comment below.

UEFA Cup Final, tonight, 7.45pm, ITV1, bet here

The last time Rangers played in a proper European final, in Barcelona against Dynamo Moscow in 1972, General Franco was still directing policing operations in Spain. Unfortunately for the old fascist, his forces of law and order found Rangers fans in a boisterous mood, as they celebrated their win by joining the players on the pitch before the game was over. The truncheons of the fat-bellied Guardia Civil were no match for the granite-headed protestants, and the soundly thrashed police were forced to beat a humiliating retreat, thus guaranteeing a warm welcome for all Scots in Barcelona for years to come. According to Graham Hunter, writing in Scotland’s Daily Herald, the referee in that game, one Sr. Ortiz, refutes the idea