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Remember the good days, Phil Brown?

Guus Hiddink’s ridiculous spectacles!

[Dirty Tackle]

Oop, Gerrard could be in trouble

[Mirror Football]

That Marouane Chamakh has got some weird hair

[Kickette]

Landon Donovan bids farewell to Everton

[Caught Offside]

Leeds United get the army treatment

[Pies]

Neil Warnock funny stuff!

[The Guardian]

“Call me”

You’d think that the inner workings of football would be like a well-oiled machine, or a complicated series of electical circuits, all intertwined, zapping around to a very strict schedule. In many ways, a bit like the offices in Mad Men, only less smokey, and not quite so outwardly sexist.

But you’d be way off.

An interview with Didier Drogba on Chelsea’s official website today paints an entirely different picture of how football businessmen go about things - instead conjuring images of backroom staff with their hands in their pockets coyly wandering up to their star players to sheepishly ask for phone numbers without once making eye contact.

Hiddink - has already worked with Drog-Drog

In 16th Century terms, most footballers are vagabonds, with the occasional Lampard-shaped exception, who might make it as a yeoman. You’ve got your nobility (Abramovich and the robed men of Man City), your gentry (the Red Knights), your merchants (managers).

And then there’s Guus Hiddink, who’s a bloody alchemist!

He’s already performed minor tournament miracles with PSV, South Korea, and Russia. And now, like a one-man A Team, the word on the street is that he’s going to make the Ivory Coast a fearsome prospect at the World Cup.

Rooney - could get 30?

Big newspaper offices will be split down the middle today. On one side, those who stayed in, and feel fresh. On the other, those who thought it wise to attend the Brits, regardless that they’re at least fifteen years too old to ever stand a chance of getting steamrollered by JLS, probably four or five years older than the sniffing music execs who kept leaning back in their seats and bellowing for more wine, and considerably less self-assured than the magazine honchos who were clumsily attempting to flirt with The Saturdays.

And yet, sitting right in the middle of these two groups - much in the way of glue holding them together - are the football journalists. All with a light AC Milan/Man United hangover, but still with enough in the engine to forge forward with important stories. Here’s what we know today (thanks to the likes of The Guardian, The Sun, The Daily Mail, and The Telegraph)…

Watch your back, Rafa

In many ways, you have to admire Rafa Benitez - even if his on-screen confidence is close to becoming both preposterous and absurd. He just will not budge. And should the downward spiral continue, you could yet find the Spaniard waving nonchalantly as he wanders to his seat in the dugout, blissfully ignoring the cabbages and tomatoes that keep splatting on his bulbous face.

Astonishing levels of self-belief aside, the Benitez armour might have felt one of the more dramatic thuds this morning, with news filtering through that Guus Hiddink - a manager keen to get back to work in the Premier League - was approached by Liverpool about stepping in at some point in the near future.

The right man to replace Rafa?

Only a man/woman with a smouldering rock where their heart should be wouldn’t feel a little bit sorry for Rafa Benitez at the moment. The man is having possibly the worst bout of January Blues of all time.

Knocked out of the FA Cup to Reading, Gerrard and Torres screaming on the treatment table, just about every pundit in the country yelling for his dismissal with all of the subtlety and grace of a man barging into a room lugging the head of Osama Bin Laden.

And now Guus Hiddink has suggested that he fancies another bash at management in the Premier League.

Hiddink - Manchester-bound?

Man City have proved pretty hard to beat this season, but a hunch suggests that the men in robes funding the whole thing were mainly after wins, not draws. After the mid-week Spurs humiliation, the whispers on the street are being drowned out by the faint chimes of a death knell in the background.

Is Mark Hughes on borrowed time?

According to today’s Telegraph, City chief exec Gary Cook has already been snooping around in the shadows left by Guus Hiddink. His agent said this:

“He (Cook) asked me if it would be worthwhile having a meeting to discuss the future and what might happen next summer. But I told him that Guus was contracted to Russia.”

A contract which may yet expire in the New Year. 

Also on the Man City radar are the ex-Inter Milan boss, Roberto Mancini, who is apparently keen to enjoy all the glitz and glamour of life in Manchester. Whilst The Daily Star have an inside “source”, who seems to think that a certain Frenchman is the one really getting those glorious white robes flapping:

“The one they really want is Wenger.” 

But what do YOU think? Should Man City scrap Hughes and go for someone a little more craggy-faced and experienced? Or should they be patient with the surprisingly soft-voiced Welshman?

Let us know with a vote and a comment.

Departing Blues boss celebrates with dancing and illegal activity

Unencumbered by inhibition, Guus Hiddink celebrated his final game in charge of Chelsea by performing a merry little jig in the Wembley changing rooms.

The Spoiler can’t help noticing that the Dutchman is also puffing away on a huge cigar - we’re very happy to see authentic impressions of Hannibal from the A-Team, but isn’t it illegal to smoke in a football stadium? Or has Mr Abramovich magically reversed the public smoking laws for the sake of incoming cancer stick lover Carlo Ancelotti?

UPDATE: The press are now picking up on the illegality of Mr Hiddink’s festivities.

[Video: Dirty Tackle]