Football Diary

by Patrick O'Connor

FABIO Capello and Harry Redknapp have been the names in the headlines this past week but for the majority of football clubs in England there are more pressing matters.

Apparently those wise men at Fifa are planning to scrap the emergency loan window (whereby clubs outside the Premier League can loan players outside the main transfer windows) in 2014.

THE sacking of Liverpool manager Roy Hodgson  on Saturday morning was preceded a couple of days before by comments from the chief executive of the League Managers Association warning that clubs should not be “treated as the playthings of the super rich”.

Hodgson was one of four managers reportedly at risk from the axe along with Gerard Houllier at Aston Villa, Carlo Ancelotti at Chelsea and Avram Grant at West Ham.