Crazy managerial world

Apologies for the absence, but your ever-opinionated Spy was living in a vale of urine-stained air, several miles outside of Leeds for three nights, watching live music, all for the sake of 'experience'. And do you know what? I'd do it again - although going three straight days without doing a sit-down job at the disgusting toilets will be difficult to emulate once again.

And in the absence of me being off-line the whole footballing world seems to have gone into meltdown. England manager Steve McLaren is becoming increasingly desperate and delusional - to the point where he thinks recalling Emile Heskey to the international squad is a good idea.

Carlisle bosses will be feeling extremely smug with themselves after seeing their club string a succession of impressive results together since they inexplicably sacked their manager after just one week of the new season. So good is this system that Leicester have followed suit by sacking London laugher-boy Martin Allen. He did well with Barnet, Brentford and then MK Dons, and on the strenght of that he was given a contract at the Foxes before being told that, actually, despite his decent history, he's not the right man for the job. The only thing I have against Allen is that he thought dropping a division to manage a franchise club was a step-up in the managerial merry-go-round.

Manchester United have finally found their feet by winning a couple of games, and they've achieved this by injuring Wayne Rooney and suspending Christiano Ronaldo. Good work, Sir Alex!

Look at Scunthorpe go! Bryan Robson's amazing managerial skills, coupled with his superb summer signings, weren't quite enough to beat a small club from Lincolnshire, despite the massive gulf in wages. Scunny are proving to be a plucky little club with a physio as their manager. Sometimes it's not who you know, but what you know. He knows how to look at men's bodies on a treatment table, and clearly that alone makes him a better manager than an ex-England captain.