(any excuse to run the same jpg of Sham 69, really)

Underachieving Newcastle sacked Sam Allardyce yesterday, provoking widespread speculation The Most Boring Man In The History Of Time might be the new manager. The Fiver’s Sean Ingle and Barry Glendenning are focused on another prominent candidate, however.

While the bookies make Harry Redknapp odds-on favourite to take over at Jongleurs, the man himself insists the story has as many gaps in it as Nicky Butt’s hairline. “There’s nothing in my being linked with the job,” ‘Arry growled to The News today. “I had an offer not so long ago to take over at what I consider a massive club but I didn’t go. I’m ‘appy dahn on the sarf coast.” Maybe he is. But seeing as Redknapp said much the same thing before jumping ship from Southampton to Portsmouth, his comments are best taken not so much with a pinch of salt but the whole of the Red Sea – even if his best mate, Fat Frank Senior, has warned that: “Up north is a different kettle of fish.”

“Harry’s a top manager,” Lampseenya added. “Only a couple of months ago, he was in line for the England job. He was one of the frontrunners.” Ah, indeed he was. Until those pesky policemen started banging on his door, of course.

Meanwhile Sam Allardyce has spent the day counting his cash and booking a holiday (the Fiver’s saying Dubai). “There is no point being bitter and twisted about it because that will only affect you, it does not affect the people you have left,” he said, mentally burning an effigy of Mike Ashley. “Me and my wife will get away in the sunshine and then come back and re-focus and obviously stay in football. When that will come, who knows?”