It looks like Luiz Felipe Scolari is going to be the next England manager. The FA has offered him the job and all they need is his signature now.

A lot of ppl have opinions about whether he is right for the job, how the next manager should be english etc.

Personally I think The FA should pick the right man for the job no matter what nationality he is. Ideally he would be english – just seems better if the England team had an English manager. However there English managers available are just not good enough. I think we could have had a fantastic manager in Martin O’Neil (or Hoddink – but of course The FA were too slow getting him). However I think Scolari is an excellent choice. He is passionate and jumps about (which we want). He won the world cup with Brazil in 2002 and took Portugal to the finals in Euro 2004. Some ppl say anyone could win world cup with Brazil. Not necessarily. You need a good manager with good tactics. Sven manages a great team and we still lose to teams like N. Ireland and generally play crap. Real Madrid on paper should be winning loads (certainly a year or 2 ago) but they had unperformed – the manager must be a factor!

Sven has shown in the past that his tactics are just terrible. Scolari has shown his tactics are excellent and makes the right subs at the right time. Sven always seems to bring on players like Hargreves!

I am so glad that it looks like McLaren isnt going to get the job. It just seemed like cause he was Svens No.2 (pun intended) and had a few good results recently he was favourite.

It was the FA Cup semi final this weekend. Chelsea played Liverpool at Old Trafford and they lost 2-1. It was a pretty good game. Although Liverpools first goal was lucky – it wasnt a free kick they took there chances. Chelsea had a few good chances themselves – Drogba missed when one on one with the keeper (LOL) and Joe Cole should have scored right at the end.

As usual Jose Moanrinho said they didnt deserve to lose etc etc.

On Sunday West Ham beat Boro. I am glad they did for a couple reasons. I want West Ham to win the cup (for one thing Teddy Sheringham plays for them) and also if Boro loses it may go some way to stop McLaren being England manager.

Talking about the England manager job its just getting more and more stupid – typical FA. They needed to announce and sort this out ages ago. What we have now is stupid speculation about who the manager will be. It changes every day and seems to depend on the previous days results. If Boro win, McLaren will be manager; if they lose then he wont be manager. Apparently he is now not favourite but joint favourite with Scolari. However Scolari has said he has not even had an interview.

We should have got Hoddink as manager – he has fantastic experience. If we want a British manager it should be O’Neil. There isnt really any obvious English manager for the job.

The London derby was played over the weekend at Highbury. The final score was 1-1 but will be remembered for the controversial goal. In the build up to Spurs goal two Arsenal players accidently bumped into one another and ‘appeared’ injured. Of course they werent. When it looked like Spurs were going to score instead of getting up they started rolling about on the floor.

Spurs manager Martin Jol said he didnt see the incident and watching MOTD you can see he didnt. Arsene Wenger has called him a liar about not seeing anything. How many times has Arsene claimed not to see some incident. Hypocrite!

There are some great quotes from the weekend from Jol and poor losers Wenger and Mourinho – read the quotes.

The PFA Player of the year awards were last night. Steven Gerrard won the main award and Rooney won the young players award for the second time running. I would have thought it would have been Henry or Rooney for the main award. Gerrard has done well but not consistantly in my opinion.

Premiership Team of the Year:
Shay Given (Newcastle), Pascal Chimbonda (Wigan), John Terry (Chelsea), Jamie Carragher (Liverpool), William Gallas (Chelsea), Steven Gerrard (Liverpool), Frank Lampard (Chelsea), Joe Cole (Chelsea), Cristiano Ronaldo (Manchester United), Thierry Henry (Arsenal), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United).

The PFA awards are voted by the players themselves. The players get 2 votes. Gerrard voted for Henry for the main award and for Rooney for the young players award. Rooney said: “I voted for Fabregas, but it was close between him and Darren Bent.”

The Sun newspaper revealed recently how much many of the Radio 1 DJs earn. Radio 1 has banned the DJs from talking about it on all but apparently many of them are not happy.

Chris Moyles gets £630,000 but Jo Whiley is only on £250,000. Both do shows 5 days a week and for 3 hours and both a fairly well known personalities. I am surprised she doesnt get closer to what Chris gets.

Sara Cox gets £200,000 but she only does 2 shows a week.

Other salaries:

Scott Mills – £130,000
Edith Bowman – £175,000
Colin Murray – £170,000
Zane Low – £130,000
Pete Tong – £70,000 (he does only do 1 show and can get £10,000 a night when DJing in a club)

Terry Wogan (Radio 2) £800,000
Chris Evans (Radio 2) £540,000
Jonathan Ross (Radio 2) £530,000

I would have thought Scott would have got more since he does the drive time show and I think is second only to Moyles.

The Sun also revealed that Jeremy Paxman gets £240,000 for presenting University Challenge and £800,000 presenting newsnight.

It also revealed some Eastender salaries – apparently the Mitchell family earn the most. The top earner is Barbara Windsor (Peggy Mitchell) who earns £360,000 a year.

Went to Edinburgh this Easter weekend with my mum. I had never been to Scotland and I had a good time. We went to Edinburgh castle, the Royal Mile, a place called Our Dynamic Earth, Princes St and the new shopping centre called Ocean Terminal.

I took plenty of photos including some nice night shot ones of the castle. Photos will be on my Photos page when I get round to sorting them.

Football-wise it all looks like its all over for the premiership. We drew against Sunderland on Friday which was a big shock. We beat Spurs 2-1 with two goals from Rooney. Chelsea now only need 1 more point from three games to win league and there next game is against us in a couple weeks at Stamford Bridge. I just hope we can delay there celebrations abit!

Research has shown that if men see a beautiful women there decision-making skills get worst. The more testosterone the man has the ’stronger’ the effect.

Kylie has posted some new photos of herself on her web site of her new look. She is still recovering from breast cancer but is looking well.

Great news!!

The nomination for the PFA Player of the year have now been announced.

PFA Player of the year

Joe Cole (Chelsea)
Steven Gerrard (Liverpool)
Frank Lampard (Chelsea)
Thierry Henry (Arsenal)
Wayne Rooney (Man United)
John Terry (Chelsea)

PFA Young Player of the Year

Darren Bent (Charlton)
Cesc Fabregas (Arsenal)
Anton Ferdinand (West Ham)
Aaron Lennon (Tottenham)
Cristiano Ronaldo (Man United)
Wayne Rooney (Man United)

You will notice that Rooney is nominated for both awards. I think the winner of the main award will be Rooney or Henry. Joe Cole and Lampard were excellent before Xmas but since then they have been very ordinary. Gerrard has been good but not quite good enough. Terry has a chance but Chelsea have been poor recently.

The young player award is possibly more tricky to predict. I dont think it will be Lennon even if he is in some great form at the moment. Bent is one of the top scorers (if not the top scorer in the premiership), Fabregas is developing into a top midfielder, Anton is alright and did score one of the goals of the season, Ronaldo has been amazing since the new year but before then wasnt that good. Rooney has been consistently excellent. I think this will be Rooney, Bent or maybe Fabregas.

Rooney is not likely to win both so I think he will win the main award and Bent will win the young player award.

Old Trafford was on fire today … literally. The fire started in the new North Quardrant where builders are building the extension to Old Trafford. The small fire was caused by scaffolding and gas cylinders being used. The fire was put out within 40 minutes – 3 fire engines attended and also an aerial appliance helped put the fire out.

There are rumours apparently it was “Arsene”

A photo of the fire from a few miles away is in my FlickR gallery

Tom Cruise antics recently seem to be abit ‘unconventional’. It seemed to start when he was on Oprah and wont mad pro-claiming his love for Katie Holmes. The latest is regards to the ’silent birth’ of his new child. Apparently while giving birth Katie will not be allowed to make any noise. A few weeks OK scientologists were seen taking massive placards into her home saying “”Be silent and make all physical movements slow and understandable”. Deary me!!

Related links:

The Superficial

UPDATE: (20-04-06)

Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes are now parents to a baby girl they have called Suri – they have apparently said it means Princess in Hebrew. However it now seem that the name is not Hebrew at all and in fact the name Suri in some Indian dialect means pointy nose!! The name in Hindi is apparently a boys name. The closest translation for princess in hebrew is Sarah or Sara or maybe Sari.

Heard this song over the weekend on The Box. Its a great song. The song is by Nerina Pallot and is called Everybody’s gon to war. Nerina comes from Jersey and this song is actually from her 2nd album which is out in about 2 weeks. It was actually release a year ago on her own label but she is now signed up with 14th floor records. Heard the song on The Box over the weekend. Sounds brilliant. Heard it again in the car this morning and had to turn it right up. You can find more about her on her website or on her myspace page – you can listen to some of her songs there.

Related links:

Nerina Pallot – Everybody’s gone to war video
Nerina Pallot – On Top of the Pops