The Special One gets a special payoff

Betfacts / Top Dog / 21 September 2007 / Leave a comment Free £25 Bet

Betfair's Top Dog sniffs around the truth behind the latest tabloid tales.

Top Dog
Betfair's top dog sniffs around the truth behind the latest tabloid tales.

• Cruft's champion - Top stories that can dominate the news agenda
• Pedigree chum - Insights that tell you something you don't know
• Dog's dinner - Speculation, guesswork, or ideas that just don't come off.

Top Dog says:

The Chelsea crisis means there's not much space for anything else in this morning's papers. And there's a lot of analysis and a good bit of guesswork going into the follow up to Jose Mourinho's exit. The Mirror sets his payout from Chelsea at only £6million - it's £10million in the Star and £12.5million in the Mail. What's not in doubt is the reaction of the players with Didier Drogba the most outspoken critic of the decision to axe his boss. Chelsea have drifted to 4.8 for the Premier League title and 10.5 the Champions League.

Cruft's:

Daily Express - Done up like a Kippur - Tony Banks spots the significance of Avram Grant's first weekend in charge - Saturday is Yom Kippur and that means Grant, an orthodox Jew, can't go to work the day before Chelsea play Manchester United. Could the players produce a performance in honour of their old boss - there's odds of 4.2 for a Chelsea win at Old Trafford.

Pedigree Chum:

Daily Mirror - They want Jamie - Alan Nixon says Chelsea have made an offer to TV pundit Jamie Redknapp to join Avram Grant's backroom team. Nixon's good with these bits of gossip, and Grant worked with Jamie's Dad Harry at Portsmouth. Speculative but it could happen.

Daily Mirror - Heskey to miss all key Euro games - Nixon is on the ball again with Wigan boss Chris Hutchings telling him Emile Heskey needs eight weeks to be fit. Gives Steve McClaren an easy option to bring Wayne Rooney back. England 3.45 to win Group E now.

The Sun - What made him so special - Former Stamford Bridge star Geremi talks about Mourinho's rare qualities. The best tribute piece in any of the tabloids - although The Mail's Ian Ladyman does well to get live reaction from Ricardo Carvalho through a Portuguese contact

Dog' s dinner:

Daily Express - Stampede Bridge - Tony Banks quotes a source close to Frank Lampard saying "he has still not signed a new contract and may now decide to look elsewhere." Could it be Frank's agent, who memorably turned up for contract talks carrying a teach yourself Spanish book, is putting on some pressure to get the pay deal discussions started again?

Daily Sar - Jose on way home - Danny Fullbrook tips Mourinho to take over the Portugal national team job, and two paragraphs later reckons he could be Martin Jol's replacement at Spurs instead. A lot of guesswork going on!

Today's other stories:

The Sun - Chelsea mutiny - UEFA match reports - Karren Brady column - Giggs warning for Chelsea

Daily Express - Chelsea analysis - UEFA Cup reports - Adebayor on Arsenal's resurgence

Daily Star - Meltdown at Chelsea - Van Persie on Arsenal - United turn screw on Chelsea - UEFA match reports

Daily Mirror - More Chelsea analysis - Ronaldo on his goal at Sporting - UEFA Cup match reports

Daily Mail - Five pages of Chelsea - UEFA Cup reports

Tags: Avram Grant, Betfair's Top Dog, Chelsea news, Jose Mourinho departure