The DA

BRAZILIAN star Adriano has drawn a line in the sand and said he can no longer stand a life of playing football all the time, buying golden toilet seats for kicks and sleeping with the hottest supermodels on the planet. The striker pleaded with Inter Milan fans to feel his pain saying ‘you can understand right? Could my life be any c****** right now?’

The forward, who has struggled with a host of personal problems during his time in Italy said he envied those who lived the ‘construction site dream’ and stated that one day he would love to be able to honk at ‘cracking pairs’ whilst sitting in his transit van reading the Sun.

‘For us football players that’s all we aspire to. It’s horrible being stuck in this dead end job, constantly having to run around the same pitch, having heaps of money thrown at us and having to attend the same old orgies every Wednesday, always starting at half nine sharp. You just fall into a pattern and before you realize it, you’re stuck in this life that no one really wants…Excuse me, I have to go cry now.’

MANCHESTER City have strongly denied claims that they contacted Jose Mourinho with regards to taking over Mark Hughes at Eastlands in the summer, stating that they ’simply haven’t had time’ to call the Inter boss.

A City spokesperson said ‘don’t get us wrong, we are desperately trying to replace Mark, we just haven’t reached M in the shortlist yet. So far we’ve asked everyone up to G in the alphabet which includes people like Ant, Dec and Keith Chegwin. Mourinho will just have to wait his turn.’

During the interview the richest club in the world outlined the ultimate ambition. ‘What we really want is a group a little like the Justice League or possibly the Power Rangers, you know worldbeaters that grab problems by the balls and use awesome superpowers, as well as big **** off machines to get us all three points.’

‘You can imagine it can’t you, 1-0 down away at Blackburn before the team combine their magic rings and grab two late screamers, then Richard Dunne would fly off and save a cat stuck up a tree.’

The spokesmen later denied City were living in a dream world.

A joint message from leading government ministers and top ranking UEFA officials has warned anybody with a sense of attacking flair to stay in their own homes with the door firmly locked tonight as defensive clashes between Liverpool and Chelsea spark up once more.

‘The message is clear, unless your past times include back passing or tight man marking please stay away from this evening’s event. This includes anyone who has ever placed any sort of object between two posts, old people who don’t appreciate tactical genius and say things like ‘back in my day’ and members of the public who have hit work targets within the past six months.’

The warning comes after increasing fears that Liverpool’s 9-0-1 formation, with Fernando Torres as the lone front man, could pose too much of a goal threat. UEFA president Michel Platini has acted quickly to quash such an issue. ‘I have given Chelsea permission to field four extra players providing they are big, brutal, centre halves who do what ever is necessary to stop entertainment from breaking out.’

Bookies are offering odds of 5000-1 that a penalty area will be breached by the end of the evening.

STEVE Bruce has continued his attack on Egyptian forward Amir Zaki by claiming the town of Wigan is a ‘tourist’s paradise’ that ‘no one in the world could resist.’ Zaki has still to return from last week’s international break but denies claims he called the town an ‘unloved landfill site in desperate need of a minimum wage cleaner to remove broken washing machines and shoo rats away’.

Despite Bruce losing his temper with the striker he strongly believes that such comments could not possibly have been made.’What’s not to like about Wigan? We have a pier, a Sainsburys and a fantastic car booty that runs every other weekend. It’s a struggle keeping top talent away to be honest.’

Bruce also fended off allegations that star defender Titus Bramble was injured during an attack by a gang of youths in the area. ‘He did get set upon from behind but instinctively Titus stepped up playing for offside. He tried to chase after the attackers but they unfortunately out paced him, nothing Titus isn’t used to really.’

After a short pause Bruce rounded up the press conference by raising his thumbs, producing a chirpy smile and saying ‘come to Wigan….Come on…..Please….anyone?’

UEFA president Michel Platini reiterated his hatred of top English clubs doing remotely well yesterday, by announcing a new law coming into affect next season, seeing games last for an 80 minute duration rather than the standard 90. The decision follows Platini throwing a French, girly, hissy fit after watching Manchester United and Liverpool once again snatch last gasp wins.

‘It’s just not fair these top teams exploiting time better than anyone else. The game shall now run to 80 minutes sharp and those scoring past 75 will be banned from European competition. I can’t stress enough how much more exciting football is when a team gets an early one nil lead and then sits on it for the rest of the game.’

Other rule changes suggested by Platini include English teams being forced to train on hot coals prior to crucial Champions league matches, and a large wall being constructed around the British Isles to limit foreign imports, both football related and crucial food supplies. Platini was speaking at the lookalike of the year awards where he picked up the ‘Jack Nicholson in the Shining’ prize for the 4th year running.

MIDDLESBOROUGH manager Gareth Southgate has confessed he is considering his options after “having an ephifinay” that he really isn’t particularly good at what he does. Southgate’s team were destroyed by Bolton Wanderers, an equally pointless Premier league outfit yesterday and the former England defender admits results like that are genuinely ‘more embarrassing than doing Pizza Hut adverts on the back of crucial penalty misses.’

“I took a long hard look at my career and just suddenly realized, I lost the FA cup final with Villa, UEFA cup final with Boro, cost England their one chance of silverware in the last forty years and I sign players like Marlon King. That’s not a great CV. To top it all off, I guaranteed that Alfonso Alves would be the best striker in the Premiership..whoops.’

Southgate has registered with a number of recruitment agencies online and has drawn up a list of potential career paths. ‘I’ve considered modeling, but I’d quite like to get into movies. I’m born to do horror films, you know, that character that always does everything wrong, goes into the woods on his own and never checks behind him, before getting picked off effortlessly. I’m a born entertainer, they call me the circus ringmaster on Teeside, which I believe has something to do with our defensive capabilities, but I’m not sure, I’ve never been a great judge of these things.’

ALAN Shearer today admitted he hadn’t quite understood how bad Newcastle were before taking the hotseat earlier this week. His comments followed the 2-0 loss to Chelsea in which his Newcastle team were described by some pundits as a ‘flock of sheep on speed trying to knit jumpers with their own wool.’

Shearer confessed ‘I hadn’t really been paying attention since I left, I’ve been too busy making quirky and enlightening comments on Match of the Day. I saw the big stadium, the fans, and players that used to be good in the 90’s, and assumed we’d at the very least be above someone as s*** as Stoke, apparently not.’

‘As it turns out, Nicky Butt and Damien Duff have apparently always been useless, just hidden in amongst good teams, Steve Harper is a part time plasterer who never thought he’d actually have to play a game; kept the dressing rooms looking nice mind, and Michael Owen was a bit distracted all game trying to find out the result of the Grand National. Still, we’ve got Joey Barton to come back so that should add a bit of discipline.’

The former Newcastle striker is still convinced he can keep the magpies up adding ‘we’ve got seven games to find some talent from somewhere. And if we don’t, I’ll still get my ten million, so every cloud has a silver lining I guess.’

A BBC report today piled more pressure onto football league managers after warning they now need to be worried about their health as well as the expectation of a worldwide fanbase and a squad of dependent cry babies with a mental age of around three and a half (rounding up).

The research indicated health problems were likely to creep into the game if levels of stress continued to soar. Sir Alex Ferguson responded to the findings by screaming ‘you don’t know f*** all about stress!’ before yelling at an out of position photographer ‘play in the f***** hole son!!!!’

Former Chelsea manager Luiz Fellippe Scolari was also quick to criticise the report. ‘What’s stressful? I turn up, I teach good football players how to kick ball better, I mastermind home draw with Wigan, then I get told to piss off with 10 million pay packet, I could do this many times quite happily.’

The most stressful job in football was revealed to be that of Cristiano Ronaldo’s PA who commented that it was an “ongoing struggle” to teach the Manchester United star how to walk without falling a*** over t**. The unnamed personal assistant added ‘the record is 5 steps but I believe we’re taking big strides to 6.’