ADVICE for Rafa: Keep your head down, stop moaning and win a league match


SPURS have merely replaced a bad keeper with a bad keeper


ANYONE worked out yet why Fulham appointed Roy Hodgson?

As they search for either a new buyer or a new manager, one thought will keep cropping up for the American owners of Liverpool.

Another look towards the league table reveals his expensively-assembled team is 14 points behind Manchester United. So there goes another season.

Here's some advice: Keep your head down, stop the moaning, maybe even win a few games. It's a strategy that might take you above Everton and it might keep you in a job.

But finishing outside the top two again is hardly an endorsement, whatever he achieves again in the European Cup.

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NO PLACE like home. Unless you look at the results from the Barclays Premier League this past weekend.

Only two home wins – one for Portsmouth and the other for Tottenham. The other eight home teams failed to collect three points.

What does this tell us? Well, of course, the best three teams all played and won away from home (Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea), but also the system of playing 4-5-1, with rapid counter-attacking moves is working.

West Ham, for instance, have won more on their travels than at home.

With the emphasis on the home team to come out and attack, unless you are Manchester City, they are being drawn forward and then being hit on the counter-punch.

All very continental. Must have something do with the vast foreign involvement in our league. It's just not very English, old chap.

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THE biggest problem for Fabio Capello is finding a goalkeeper. This is how Hatchet Man currently rates his contenders for the jersey.

David James (Portsmouth)

Joe Hart (Manchester City)

Robert Green (West Ham)

Scott Carson (Aston Villa)

Ben Foster is on the way back from injury, Paul Robinson has lost the plot and Chris Kirkland has to play behind Titus Bramble, which gives him more chance of landing a plane at Heathrow than playing for England again.

And, no Fabio, you can't ask if Dino Zoff qualifies.

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ON THE subject of goalkeepers, Tottenham have replaced one bad one, with another.

The BBC commentator who described Radek Cerny's late stop against Sunderland as a 'brilliant double save' was getting a little carried away.

What happened was he fumbled the first shot, which was an absolute howler of a mistake and then threw his body at the next one with everything he had left, a sort of 'if I don't get to this then there is still a week and a half left in the transfer window' kind of desperate last stop.

It's goalkeeping, but not as Pat Jennings, Ray Clemence and even trophy-winning goalkeepers such as Barry Daines and Tony Parkes knew it.

The cheque book will be open soon.

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ANYONE worked out yet why Fulham appointed Roy Hodgson? Perhaps we could come up with a prize for the best and most original idea*.

For the winners: A day out at Craven Cottage. Second place: Two days out at Craven Cottage.

*Of course, there is not really a prize for this competition; we wouldn't inflict such pain on readers of this column. Go find some entertainment instead.

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ALAN Green on Five Live: Outstanding, opinionated commentator – or yob with a mike? Discuss...

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HATCHET JOB: This column will pay attention to football's dark side

TODAY: Emre's tackle on Jon Eustace. It took place last week, but it can't pass without comment. Retaliating an earlier tackle by the Stoke midfielder, was a late, malicious stamp and as bad as anything we have seen in this season of horror tackles.

If it happened on any night other than when Kevin Keegan had been announced as the new Newcastle manager, it would have seen Emre plastered all over the back pages. He is a disgrace. Ouch rating: 9.

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THEY SAID:

"Scott Carson should not have been thrown into the team like that by Steve McClaren" -Robert Green, Sunday Times interview

THEY MEANT

"It should have been me."