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LENNON PICKS HIS McCARTNEY

The backroom boffins at the Queen’s Celtic have been busy blending the DNA of the club’s most successful managers, taking the carrotty hair of Gordon Strachan, the Norn Irish bark of Martin O’Neill and the managerial experience of John Barnes to produce the pedigree for a Frankenstein monster to take the helm at Parkhead. And Neil Lennon wants it bad. “Hondootely,” he said. “I do want the job for keeps.”

The former Queen’s Celtic midfielder with five league titles under his belt was marginalised under Tony Mowbray, a coach expressly exiled from the team bus and dugout, but still expected to dish out the half-time bollockings when Mowbray’s chocolate soldiers melted under the intense scrutiny of the Glasgow media Mafia and the world’s greatest fans. Mowbray, who every time he looked in the mirror saw Rinus Michels gazing back at him, is believed to have wept when he heard Lennon’s diagnosis of the club’s current malady. “I would like us to be more direct and press teams more,” Lennon said. “Get the crowd going and speed up the tempo of the game.”

“But what of the children, who will speak for them?” wailed Mowbray as he sought out Pep Guardiola and Arsène Wenger to pat him on the head and agree that the Neanderthals are really rather beastly.

Lennon, a noted exponent of brutality on the field as witnessed with his vicious headfirst assault on Alan Shearer’s boot 12 years ago, has picked Johan Mjallby as his Paul McCartney. The Queen’s ex-centre-half has been moonlighting in the pundit’s seat for the Swedish television Channel TV3 and is thought to have perfected the art of speaking in one-word sentences, dressing exclusively in black shirts and tight trousers, and smiling wolfishly at inappropriate moments.

“We wore our hearts on our sleeves,” said Mjallby on a waltz down memory lane, “and tried to get our team-mates going if things weren’t working.” Hearts in the Parkhead dressing room? That would be a novelty this season.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“Ryan? You must be joking. I can’t see it, it must have been a weak moment for Ryan. I can’t see that happening” – Sir Alex Ferguson reacts to the news that Ryan Giggs is considering coming out of international retirement to resume pulling out of Wales matches with niggles that heal in time for the following weekend’s Manchester United match.

ANY OLD IRON! ANY OLD IRON! ANY ANY ANY OLD IRON!

A source close to West Ham has told Sky Sports News that Gianfranco Zola will get the sack unless they beat Stoke at home tomorrow. A source close to Gianfranco Zola told Sky Sports News that the source close to West Ham should just shut up. A source close to Tottenham Hotspur has told Sky Sports News that Gianfranco Zola won’t get the sack, and West Ham won’t lose to Stoke tomorrow anyway. A source close to Fiver Towers is scratching his head and wondering what this all means, so it’s just as well that Sky Sports News are yet to phone for an opinion on anything. Ever.

For the record, however, this is what we suspect: In February, David Sullivan told everyone how rubbish West Ham’s team was. They promptly beat Birmingham and he took most of the credit. “Whether it’s totally down to what I said we’ll never know,” he said, humbly.

Since then, notwithstanding a home game against Hull which they won even though they were actually rubbish, and which was close enough to the original outburst for Sullivan to take the credit for it anyway, the Hammers have lost every game.

So this week David Sullivan, showing the same utter lack of tactical versatility that is currently sending his team hurtling towards the bottom three, told everyone how rubbish the team is. Now if they do beat Stoke, their co-owner’s somewhat uncalibrated sense of self-worth, already hovering dangerously close to ludicrous, will rocket northwards once again. Indeed, at that point he may well replace Zola with himself, spend the entire time telling the team how utterly abysmal they are, sit back and wait for the inevitable Big Cup qualification.

“I think the owner is entitled to have an opinion and to express it, because obviously he is the owner,” said Zola today. “But sometimes words can be very, very painful. They can cause more damage than you can imagine, and I think that can be the case [here].”

Harry Redknapp, meanwhile, spoke out in defence of the beleaguered Italian. “I think he’s a triffic manager and a great guy,” said the Spurs boss, relishing the opportunity to be the deliverer of a vote of confidence rather than its recipient. “Zola’s a fantastic football guy in my opinion. I still think they’ve got enough to stay up. They’ve got a tough game tomorrow but I still think they’ll pull out.”

Back to Upton Park, where Zola was impressively keeping his pecker up [Prior to pulling out? - Fiver Ed.] “I’m a person that likes to look to the present rather than the future,” he smiled. Which is just as well, because the present is a rather pleasant Friday late-afternoon/evening, carrying as it does near-infinite opportunities for joy and pleasure.

And the future is a home mauling by Stoke.

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FIVER LETTERS

“Re: your suggestion that today marks ‘one year to the day until Roy Hodgson’s England hammer Wales in Cardiff on the road to Euro 2012′ (yesterday’s Fiver). How terribly presumptuous of you arrogant England fans! We might decide to play the game in Swansea” – Lee Halliday.

“Never mind the Sevilla job, if Giles A (yesterday’s Fiver letters) had waited 24 hours, he could have touted Phil Brown for the freshly vacated hot seat at the Queen’s Celtic, where an orange man would be most welcome” – Mick Ward.

“Ade Akinbiyi doesn’t play for Seattle Sounders (yesterday’s Bits & Bobs). He’s currently warming the subs bench at Notts County (a Sven masterstroke). Also, when he was playing USA! USA! USA! Soccerball he played for Houston Dynamo. Apart from that, spot on” – Jimbob Baron.

“In the very unlikely event that Vinnie Jones does end up remaking Escape To Victory (Fivers passim), at least the Ipswich Town squad will be put to some good use this season” – Ed Parker.

“Re: the unnecessary brutality used by Michael Caine to deliberately incapacitate Allied goalkeeper Tony Lewis in Escape To Victory (yesterday’s picture caption). Lewis didn’t even need to feign hamstring-twang as he could have just dropped a bottle of cologne on his foot, fallen out of his attic or broken his teeth lifting some golf clubs out of his car … y’know, like normal keepers do” – Jeremy Spinks.

“While we’re on the whole Escape To Victory goalkeeping farrago, why was Laurie Sivell (born in Lowestoft) playing in goal for the Wehrmacht? Surely he deserved to have his arm broken by Michael Caine, for his treachery?” – Andy Korman.

“Pointing out that Mancini is Italian and would therefore fight dirty is not a sufficient reason for thinking he would take Moyes (yesterday’s Last Line). David Moyes is absolutely terrifying. He’d easily win a Premier League manager Ultimate Fighting tournament, probably by gouging out Mick McCarthy’s eyes in the final” – Graeme Neill.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk. And if you’ve nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver now.

BITS AND BOBS

The Glazer family will have to look elsewhere for short-term comic relief now that the Knights Who Say Ni have ruled out launching their failed bid for Manchester United before the end of the season.

Despite looking like a member of JLS and sounding like a description of leavened, oven-baked flat bread, Manchester United winger Nani has inked a new contract which will keep him at Old Trafford until 2014.

Knack doubts about Aston Villa players Richard Dunne, James Milner, Mr Em and Gabriel Agbonlahor have led to existential doubts about the futility of tomorrow’s trip to Chelsea in the mind of Martin O’Neill.

Roberto Mancini has been charged with improper conduct by the FA following that set-to with David Moyes everyone except the Fiver thinks he would have got battered in, if some spoilsport hadn’t broken it up.

Chelsea defender Ricardo Carvalho is facing at least four weeks on the sidelines and could require surgery for ankle-knack.

STILL WANT MORE?

England goalkeeping legend Peter Shilton talks confectionery and mid-1980s Blaxploitation flicks with Small Talk.

From Karel Poborsky’s scoop to Antonin Panenka’s outrageous smart-arsery, Paul Doyle presents half a dozen examples of exquisite elevation in The Joy of Six: Lobs, chips and dinks.

Richard Williams suggests 10 ways of reviving Formula One, but stops short of suggesting oncoming traffic or getting rid of the cars, putting nine extra men on each team and throwing them a football.

And in tomorrow’s £2 very heavy, supplementastic Massive Paper: famous authors bickering childishly in Review, depressing facts about credit card bills in Money, and a photo of some middle class folk looking smug in Family.

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AFTER 15 YEARS, YVONNE’S GONE. WHO’LL SPOON-FEED US NOW?CelticWest Ham UnitedGianfranco ZolaSimon BurntonRob Bagchiguardian.co.uk

• Zola ready for relegation battle with Wolves
• Cole, Faubert, Parker and Ilunga set for recall

It was not quite on the Mick McCarthy scale of wholesale changes but Gianfranco Zola will discover tomorrow whether his player selection gamble has succeeded, when his West Ham United team play one of their most important matches since the dramatic conclusion to the 2006-07 season.

Zola made the decision on Saturday not to press his two best players, Scott Parker and Carlton Cole, into the Premier League fixture at Arsenal, with one eye on the visit to Upton Park of McCarthy’s Wolverhampton Wanderers, a match that the Italian described as “massive, a six-pointer”.

Parker, who looks certain to win the club’s player of the year award for the second season in succession, was said by Zola to have felt “a little tight in the muscle” in training last Friday and he was stood down at the Emirates Stadium, where West Ham lost 2-0. The midfielder is also on nine bookings, one away from a two-match suspension; West Ham entertain Stoke City at home on Saturday.

Cole, meanwhile, has needed to be nursed along since his return at the end of January from the knee ligament injury that had ruled him out for two months. The decision was taken not to address the damage with surgery but with rehabilitation and careful management, and the striker has, consequently, been forced to sit out spells of training. He was used as a 57th‑minute substitute against Arsenal, having also come off the bench at Chelsea the previous weekend.

There is little doubt, though, that Parker and Cole could have started at Arsenal, if urgently required, and Zola will welcome them back for the fixture against Wolves. Julien Faubert, who has returned to full training after a hamstring problem but was not risked at Arsenal, is in contention to play at right-back while the defender Hérita Ilunga, the midfielder Mark Noble and the striker Benni McCarthy also hope to start. Noble and McCarthy were second-half substitutes against Arsenal; Ilunga was left on the bench.

Zola could make five or six changes, although this would pale when compared to the 10 that McCarthy made to his Wolves team against Manchester United at Old Trafford in December, when they lost 3-0. He chose to prioritise the home game against Burnley five days later, which Wolves won 2-0, although the Football Association took a dim view of his selection at Old Trafford and gave his club a suspended fine of £25,000.

“Cole has not been training much recently,” Zola said. “We had a game on Saturday and now another one on Tuesday so I couldn’t think of playing him 90 minutes and 90 minutes. The other one was Parker, who felt a little tight in the muscle on Friday. I couldn’t take any risks. Faubert was injured while Noble and Ilunga were coming back from injury and they couldn’t play 90 minutes. That was why I selected the team I did at Arsenal and, in my opinion, it was the best team I could play.”

Cole, who came on as a late substitute in England’s last match, the friendly victory over Egypt, will have Franco Baldini, the England assistant manager, watching him from the stands tomorrow night. Fabio Capello, the manager, will not be there, although Cole’s primary task is ensuring West Ham avoid relegation, as they did so memorably under Alan Curbishley in 2007.

“The first half against Arsenal was probably our best football of the season,” said Zola, who has endured a turbulent campaign and faces an uncertain future. “If we manage to maintain the same performance over 90 minutes, then I am very confident.”

West Ham UnitedWolverhampton WanderersPremier LeagueDavid Hytnerguardian.co.uk