Is there a higher force at work?

Hoddle was right, some people are cursed. Perhaps not in the same repulsively narrow minded and disturbing fashion he attempted to smudge on the nation’s brains, but somewhere in the same spooky ballpark. After all, look at Petr Cech - he obviously spent a former life making scathing remarks to a princess, or waging war on harmless little butterflies. Because, as things stand, his life just got rubbish.

What’s it like being a cursed Frenchman?

Whatever metaphorical rollercoaster Mathieu Flamini thought it worth boarding a few weeks ago, it was a very misjudged move, and has now crashed. Today he was cut from France’s final Euro 2008 squad.

At the beginning of the season he was considered a hyperactive midfielder with a good engine but little in the way of genuine flair, yet by the season’s close he was revered as one of the best midfielders in the Premier League. The future looked great.

Oh my God, is that what you think it is?

Religious maniacs are always quick to jump up and down screaming that they’ve just seen Christ’s face in a piece of toast, or in the ice cream bit of their coke float. The same people, however, are less keen to admit that they’ve just seen the Devil in Petr Cech’s skull (pictured).

And yet, if you look closely at the area walloped by Stephen Hunt’s clumsy size nines, he has quite obviously been branded with a dark symbol. A symbol we haven’t seen for some time…