It's difficult to know which will prove more embarrassing for John Terry: waking up to yesterday's extraordinary tabloid revelations that his father is a regular in an Essex wine bar named Unit 4, or waking up to this morning's fawning tributes to his own mental fortitude from some of his better known cheerleaders in the British media. "Here is a man who rises above adversity. Here is a man who overcomes," thunders Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail, lathering up like Carlton Palmer in that advert for the well known high street bookie.
"This is captaincy of the highest order, Terry putting his mind on the line, as much as his body," he continues, using his sponge to gently massage the stress-induced knots from the back of the put-upon Chelsea's captain's neck. Meanwhile in the Mirror, Oliver Holt has removed the towel from around his waist and joined the others in the nice hot tub. "But emotionally, [the day] belonged to JT," he writes of yesterday afternoon's set-to between Chelsea and Manchester United. "For his indomitability, his leadership and his mental strength. His refusal to allow anything to get in the way of doing his best for his team."
Honestly lads. Get a room. You'd swear "JT" was the first person in British history to be publicly embarrassed by a parent. Have Messrs Samuel and Holt never experienced the cringe-inducing anguish of having their bestubbled faces vigorously and very publicly wiped by their mum wielding a spit-soaked tissue? Have they never stood in crimson-faced horror, knees knocking and hands cupped in front of their shame after the same mums ripped the fitting room curtain in a department store to one side without warning? Today's Rumours don't know either man, so it's possible they haven't. But even so, the embarrassment suffered by England's Brave John Terry yesterday morning is small beer compared to the kind of humiliation visited upon children all over the country by their parents every single day.
Of course all this preposterously over-the-top nonsense means there's little room in today's papers for actual rumour-mongering, but as we're runnning late we'll plough through what little there is and let you get on with the fun. Kolo Touré has told the Manchester Evening News that his brother, the Barcelona midfielder Yaya, would love to join Manchester City, while Russia and Tottenham Hotspur striker Roman Pavlyuchenko has clambered into an escape pod at White Hart Lane and is programming the co-ordinates for Valencia into its sat-nav. The Russian striker arrived at White Hart Lane for £14m just over a year ago but is behind Robbie Keane, Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Sandra Redknapp in the pecking order for first-team places at the north London club. With Valencia set to flog David Villa for £35m during the January transfer window in order to ease some of their notoriously B.I.G debt, Tottenham's want-away striker is seen as an ideal stop-gap.
Atletico Madrid striker Sergio Aguero is so fed up with getting beaten by Real Madrid in local derbies that he'll sign for Chelsea for £35m, unless Internazionale offer more for the Argentina striker. And Leeds United striker Jermaine Beckford will swap one once-great club run by a buffoon for another if Newcastle United get their way and sign him for £5m.
