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Pacman to the point

Andy Murray, short corners, Mihajlovic and a bottle of Rioja

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Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco on why he's unikely to be invited onto "Room 101" and who shouldn't expect any Christmas cards from him this year

Musicals, Andy Murray, Union Jack swimming trunks, sci-fi films, parents who feed their kids junk food, the Daily Mail, the District Line, students who spend all their money on beer (then complain they're always broke), hash browns, pantomime, Justin Timberlake, field hockey, the entire cast of "Red Dwarf" and three-quarter length trousers.

What do all these things have in common? They're all items I'd consign to room 101 if I was ever on the eponymous BBC2 TV programme. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101_(TV_series). The reasons for all these are a discussion for another day and I doubt the producers would extend the usual 30-minute slot to a four-hour moanathon to accommodate my incessant rant at this list of pet hates. For the record, if I was limited to just the one it would probably be Andy Murray.

One more item I'd be desperate to see erased from the face of the planet is the short corner in football. Few things make my blood boil like watching my team Portugal opt for a short corner rather than have a free cross into the box without any pressure in terms of time or opposition. The reason I hate them is they simply don't work.

I know the arguments for them. Firstly, by playing a short pass inside to another player you are opening the angle from which the cross can come and therefore have a bigger target to aim for. Secondly, by doing something a bit different you are making the team defending have to think about how to react to Plan B in just a matter of seconds. But just like the De Lorean, all of Sepp Blatter's ideas and the Common Agricultural Policy, it's a good idea in theory that doesn't work in practice. I reckon this is what results from a short corner in the long-term: Team A = Team attacking

50% of the time- Corner leads to a throw-in for Team A
15%- Team A loses possession
10%- Team A gets another corner
10%- Someone from Team A eventually gets caught offside
13%- Team A get a cross in which leads to nothing
2%- Team A score from the corner

In other words, I estimate that more often than not Team A ends up in a worse position than before the short corner was taken.

I don't think the Premiership is particularly blessed with great corner-kick takers at the moment. Mikel Arteta takes a good one at Everton, Gareth Barry at Villa and I'd say Morten Gamst Pedersen at Blackburn (who are a pretty good price at [2.6] for a Top 6 finish) is probably the pick of the lot. One guy who I feel takes a lousy corner is David Beckham, who so often fails to clear the first defender. Without John Terry in the side I can't see England score from a corner on Wednesday but then again without Owen and Rooney I can't really see them score at all so why they're currently [1.64] against a tough side in a match England don't need to win anyway, is a mystery to me.

As a defender for Yugoslavia and (amongst others) Lazio, Sinisa Mihajlovic was slow, got caught in awful positions, was booked and sent off far too often and was unreliable and inconsistent. Off the pitch he was rude and aloof and was once suspended by UEFA for eight matches after kicking and spitting at Chelsea's Adrian Mutu; on another occasion he got a two-match ban for racially abusing Patrick Vieira. Aside from that, he was probably the best corner-kick taker I've ever seen and a corner from the right to favour his left foot probably carried the same levels of danger as a free-kick from just outside the box taken by a "normal" player. How Lazio, [1.92] shots to beat Parma at the weekend could do with his magic these days.

In an ideal world, just next to Room 101 there would be a Room 102, devoid of all the evils in the world that had been all locked up by it's evil neighbour. In Room 102 I'd have a table and two chairs, a bizarre mixture of Sinatra and Bowie alternating on the jukebox, Heston Blumenthal's finest food in front of me, a never-ending bottle of Rioja and a grey/green-eyed brunette with a smile that could melt the icecaps. Not great for global warming but a pretty attractive prospect nonetheless.

To read more about Mihajlovic's misdemeanours go to:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20031108/ai_n12727110