Hughes 6-5 to win the undignified sack race

SPORTS BETTING: 

WE are barely a quarter of the way through the Premier League season and already the Sword of Damocles is hanging over an unhealthy percentage of managers.

The annual sack race looks all set to begin as panicking chairmen prepare to load their gun — and even though this course often proves futile, those in charge still fire the guys they appointed.

I don’t know who the next chairman to pull the trigger will be, but if the bookmakers are to be believed it will be QPR’s Tony Fernandes.

Current Rangers boss Mark Hughes, who performed a minor miracle to keep the club in the top flight last season, was recently given a vote of confidence by his chairman.

At other clubs, that has proved to be the kiss of death, so let’s hope Hughes, a decent guy given a raw deal at Manchester City, is given time to lift his club off the bottom of the table. Don’t bank on it, though.

With Harry Redknapp out of a job and keen to return to the big time, Hughes will do well to defy odds of 6-5 that he will be the first managerial casualty of this Premier League season.

Nigel Adkins, whose Southampton side can’t stop leaking goals, is 9-2 to be first; Norwich’s Chris Hughton is 10-1 and Swansea’s Michael Laudrup 12-1.



MY wish that Kevin Pietersen had played his last cricket match for England was scuppered by news of his impending “reintegration”.

This description of his impending return suggests it won’t be straightforward, the reason being his attitude and the unrest he established.

I doubt we have heard the last of Pietersen’s negative impact on the national side and while I admire him as a player, he is not so good that we should be moving the goalposts to accommodate him.

If will be interesting to see how England fare without him should Pietersen not be chosen for the four-Test series against India.

I hope they do well, but given our ineptitude against spin on the sub-continent, it is is hard to see anything but defeat before our hero rides to the rescue for the (much easier) New Zealand series in March.



THE karaoke contest known as The X Factor has, for the first time I can remember at this stage, an odds-on favourite for victory.

Ella Henderson is 4-5 favourite and we aren’t even into November.

As for Strictly, the show is the pattern of last year: three early contenders and the rest making uo the numbers.

Louis Smith (2-1 favourite), Denise van Outen (7-2) and Kimberley Walsh (4-1) are this year’s most likely performers.