TOM HICKS listen up, bring Jose to Liverpool and all will be forgiven


TOTTENHAM mugs better get used to life without Dimi, Berba's off to a club with ambition


AND Manchester United waste £50,000 a week on Wes Brown - why?

Jose Mourinho, the out-of-work Special One, is ready to return to the game this summer. The expectation is that he will go to Milan, where the San Siro might just be big enough for his ego.

• Click here to read yesterday's Hatchet Man

But what if Liverpool – the first English club to pursue him long before Chelsea lured him from Portugal – overcome their in-fighting, decide that Rafa Benitez is an outstanding Champions League coach but couldn't win an English egg and spoon race and offer Jose an unlimited budget.

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How many titles, Jose? Anfield's potential saviour Mourinho

Yesterday, one of their owners Tom Hicks claimed they are between 10 and 12 sponsors short of where they should be for the "biggest brand in football", they are failing to dominate the Asian market in the way that Manchester United and Barcelona do and they have been a "disaster" under Rick Parry.

Mourinho to Anfield would shake all that up. And can you just imagine the faces looking like smacked backsides in the Chelsea boardroom?

There you go, Mr Hicks, it's your election manifesto. Free from the Hatchet Man. Liverpool fans might begin to trust you then.

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OK, children, listen very carefully because here is what will happen this summer.

Dimitar Berbatov will leave Tottenham.

He will go to Spain. Or Italy. Or maybe even to eastern Europe, where Hatchet is told that Shakhtar Donetsk have a growing budget and are looking for an impact signing.

Worse still for Tottenham, maybe he will go to another English club: A winning team, a successful team, a team whose ambitions stretch beyond breaking into the top 10.

When he goes – and it is when, not if - he will blame a desire to join a Champions League team, a lack of a decent contract offer from Tottenham and his need to be closer to his Uncle Bulgaria who lives up the road in Sofia.

None of this will necessarily be true, it's just what he will say. Like Robbie Savage when he claimed a desperate need to be closer to his family in Wales in order to take the pay rise to go from Birmingham to Blackburn.

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Heading east? Spurs wantaway striker Dimitar Berbatov

Tottenham can make all the noise they like (they said the same about Michael Carrick and, er, Paul Gascoigne), but they are fighting a losing battle.

Player power will win the day and Spurs aren't a big enough club to do anything about it.

If their supporters believe otherwise, they are mugs. From now on, they should know him as Dimitar Berbat-off.

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The Champions League semi-final teams have been forced to put their tickets for the final on sale now.

It's all to do with the time it takes to apply for a Russian visa and has inspired the obvious question: Why is this game being played in Moscow?

You count the roubles and work out the answer.

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If Chelsea keep winning, they might get to keep Avram the Undertaker next season.

Ha ha ha.

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Brighton said no. So did Southend. Ian Edward Wright was destined to be a plasterer, until he refused to take No for an answer.

He became an Arsenal legend (128 goals in 221 league games), scored for England, forged a career in the professional game and then was awarded an MBE.

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Wright stuff: Arsenal and England legend Ian Edward Wright

He pulled himself up from the meanest streets in south London to become a national treasure.

He forged a career in television when his playing days came to an end and has been one of the most charismatic entertainers on the football viewing circuit.

He's not as smooth as Alan Hansen or as aggressive as Andy Gray, but he's passionate and patriotic and his man-in-the-street language can be found around a TV in any pub in the land.

The Beeb would show him leaping around, apparently off camera, with as much a lack of choreography as Monty Panesar after spinning another wicket and promoted him as their slouch on the couch.

Now he's leaving because it's too stuffy – good news for the shirt-and-tie brigade, more room for Hansen to tell us what we should be thinking in that lazy Scottish accent (haven't we heard it all before?).

Should we stand for this? Hatchet is sorry to see him go. Let's start a campaign to get him reinstated.

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Brown

Manchester United have agreed to pay £50,000-a-week to keep Wes Brown. Anyone know why?

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Prediction: Arsenal to beat Reading heavily. They have to wake up soon and the Royals could just walk into a Theo Walcott-inspired attacking juggernaut. Weigh on, big style, I say.

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Do not let them kid you it is a big game. Newcastle versus Sunderland has become a meaningless parochial spat.

Does anyone outside the North-east care who wins?

Best derby of the weekend will be in Birmingham. Sharpen those studs, prepare for something lively. When did McLeish versus O'Neill ever go quietly?

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Cruel email doing the rounds yesterday with the new Arsenal strip. Don't shoot the messenger.