With all of the renewed talk recently about a possible mid-winter break for English football, I thought I'd test the water and have arranged one for myself next week. If my week on the beach in Tenerife is successful, I will report back to the FA that I would like to see it introduced into the calendar permanently. However, I have a feeling that I'm going to be too concerned with trying to discover ways of finding out how my team is getting on this Saturday to relax too much. All this means that there won't be a bulletin next week, and I'll leave you with a potentially rewarding treble for the coming weekend after a preview of the next round of Premier League matches, which is slightly shorter than usual due to the League Cup final being played on Sunday:

At about 4:30pm on Saturday afternoon, I was probably enjoying the extraordinary and exhilarating entertainment being provided by most of our Premier League teams even more than most people, as last week's suggested bumper accumulator was heading for the most comfortable of victories. Man.City, Leicester, Raith, Annan and, yes, you've guessed it, Ar*"+al, were each at least two goals ahead in their matches, and a near 10/1 payout was within touching distance. Then came that now well-documented capitulation that has resulted in me requiring a new television, a visit to the vet for my cat to repair its broken ribs, and a decorator for my living room walls.

Isn't it comforting to know that while we are all concerned about our jobs, struggling to keep up with tax rises or to get sufficient credit to build a small business or buy a decent house, the lunatics and egomaniacs in charge of many of our beloved football clubs remain completely oblivious and continue to find more outrageous ways of spending obscene amounts of cash that, in many cases, they don't even have. £50 million for a player who has done nothing but sulk for the best part of a year. £35 million for an injured player with just a few months' experience of Premier League football and who is more likely to see the inside of a prison cell this year than to get his hands on a trophy. At least Liverpool's owners waited until they could secure a replacement before letting Fernando Torres depart for Chelsea, but Mike Ashley was so desperate to get his hands on the ridiculous sum of money waved in front of him for Andy Carroll's services that he neglected to address the inevitable question of who exactly is