How long is it, do you think, before Martin O'Neill goes postal in the BBC studio?
Not long, I'll wager.
At half time during Holland's match against Serbia & Montenegro, talk turned to England. And this prince among men was making an intelligent point - ie doing the job he's being paid for, and doing it properly - regarding Sven-Goran Eriksson's tactics, use of substitutions and powers of motivation. He was halfway through a reasoned polemic when Ian Wright butted in.
WRIGHT [making the afternoon's 343rd joke about alternative sexual practises]: I bet you'd rather talk about S&M! Huh huh!
LINEKER: Huh huh!
HANSEN: Huh huh!
[O'NEILL lightly seethes]
After losing his train of thought - perhaps he was daydreaming of buffing, cleaning, polishing and preening a small hand pistol - O'Neill showed a unique and welcome unwillingness to fill dead airtime with pointless tat, falling silent until he found it again. Finally, upon questioning Eriksson's wisdom in sending home Jermain Defoe while clearly being unwilling to play Theo Walcott (even against a team as poor as Paraguay), Lineker butted in to suggest the youngster couldn't play as he was "taking his afternoon nap".
O'Neill sucked his teeth slowly.
After the game, in which Serbia & Montenegro had improved thanks to the introduction of substitute Ognjen Koroman, Lineker took his chance to wisecrack: "So are you going to moan about the substitutions?"
"You're on form today," O'Neill smiled through thin lips.
I give it a week and a half until he unsheathes a derringer and cuts loose. Should he? You couldn't blame him.
Of course all this could be avoided if a BBC suit identified Lineker's inane old-boys-in-the-dressing-room approach to anchoring as the root of the cancer, and sacked the quippy bugger with immediate effect. Nobody wants to see a serious incident unfold, after all.
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