NO MORE HEROES ANY MORE

HMMM, what to say that hasn’t already been said a thousand times. On the Suarez thing, I entered the pit of perma-fume last night (aka Twitter) to have a mooch at what people were saying. Surprise surprise, many people were angry. Not without reason if you take everything that tumbles out of footballers’ mouths as gospel.

After all, it was only five months ago that Suarez extended his Liverpool contract until 2018 and told the world:

“When I hear [the Liverpool anthem] on the pitch or even in the dressing room it still gives me goosebumps. It is incredible and even more so in the stadium when the people become emotional and show their passion.

“The world stops and everyone sings with their scarves up and it”s such a feeling and such a motivation to play for this club. I”m very happy here and my family love the life here too. I want to enjoy being at this club where I, like all the kids, dreamed of playing and now I”m fulfilling that dream.”

Now he’s on speed dial to Uruguayan radio, he’s winking at Arsenal and seemingly can’t get out of the place fast enough. Look at this pic he tweeted today: defo got the hands-free on, conducting an interview under the hood, even while he”s out with the fambo. What a c***.

All this seems to have taken some by surprise, but it all boils down to one simple fact: players, in general terms, don’t love the club like we do. They SAY they do, because it’s to their advantage to do that – it’s player PR. I’ve decided the best way to proceed is to cynically assume every one of the millionaires taking to the pitch is only in the game for what they can get out of it, and I’ll take their clichés with a pinch of salt. For further reading, see Fernando Torres.

The other side of the coin is, Suarez can do or say what he likes. Ditto his agent. If no club coughs an acceptable bid – and as that’s likely to be £40m plus, that’s not within many clubs’ budget – then he stays. And if he stays, what then? Maybe a bit of pantomime booing from some fans and a titty lip from him? Ultimately nothing another 30 goals in a red shirt wouldn’t fix. And strikes, walk outs and the like that people are predicting. Nah. He wouldn”t do that in a World Cup season. Would he….?

The bookies reckon the most likely outcome is he will go to Real Madrid (6-4) followed by staying at Liverpool (2-1). Arsenal and Chelsea are at 5s, Bayern Munich 10s and Man City 25s. Everton are 500 (I know it’s hot like lads, but er…).

Arsenal – according to some ‘sources’ – have now offered £35m for Suarez. What are they thinking? Don’t they know that figure automatically engages the social media button marked ‘Carroll fume’? Not going to happen – try again, Arsene.

I’d never normally suggest anyone reads the Daily Mail or its website, but today I’ll make an exception because there’s some cracking pictures of Bill Shankly on there and on Saturday I’ll be in a stand named after the great man – seems a good enough reason to me. If you are going the Preston game by the way, and you’re considering getting the train, you might want to read this.

So what else has happened? Well there was a press conference at Anfield and Kolo Toure and Simon Mingolet spoke. Toure revealed he said ‘wow’ when Liverpool came knocking. The keeper said he wants to Standard. Michael Ngoo has joined Yeovil on loan and Iago Aspas and Luis Alberto are ‘nice lads’ according to Stewart Downing, whose link to West Ham has been dismissed as ‘paper talk’.

And what about Carra? Now that he’s hung up his boots and he is preparing to spend more time with Gary Neville than can be good for any Scouser’s sanity, how is he spending his summer? Holiday? Ales? Bit of shopping? Nah, he’s smashing it in the gym with boxers:

Be warned, Gary.

Finally today, Man United launched its official Twitter account. They posted this. There are no other words: What. The. Fuck:

ANNE WATT