Liz Truss at Leeds? Stevie G at Scunthorpe? Look out: 2023 is going to be wild, starting with Conte’s revenge
HAALAND 57 BLACKPOOL 0
Erling Haaland stands over the twitching corpse of Chris Maxwell, after maiming the Blackpool goalkeeper with a Mitre Delta. He’s just bagged his 57th goal of this FA Cup tie, with seven minutes still to play. It’s rumoured that the Norwegian spent the World Cup rigged up to a giant placenta beneath Stonehenge for a deep, regenerative sleep, finally re-emerging with an extra yard of pace and an even drier sense of humour, something nobody thought possible. Maxwell’s eyeballs hang out of their sockets, his colon collapsed. “If he dies, he dies,” mutters Haaland. There’s no way to tell if he’s joking.
LIZ TRUSS DOES A LEEDS
Having declared she would “channel the spirit of Don Revie” when she took over as Prime Minister, Yorkshire-raised Truss decided she’d rather channel the spirit of Brian Clough, announcing her departure after 44 days. When Jesse Marsch gets his Marsching orders, however, Truss lands her dream job: Leeds United manager. She and her assistant, Kwasi Kwarteng, inexplicably put every player on £400,000 per week (except new signing Seth Johnson, on £700k), then fail in a bid to raise cash by fracking the Elland Road pitch. The administrators are called in and Truss quits 44 minutes after being appointed.
NOTTINGHAM FOREST UNVEIL EVERYBODY
Having bought himself a BMX, Hungry Hippos, a Braun beard trimmer and a new ship for Christmas, Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis finds himself getting twitchy during that boring stretch between New Year’s Day and the first FA Cup games, and swoops on 43 new members of staff, including Eduardo Camavinga, Teddy Sheringham, Steve Chettle, George Weah’s cousin, Stuart Broad and the late Brian Clough, reanimated by AI technology. Results don’t come immediately, so Marinakis extends Steve Cooper’s contract until 2096, just to calm things down.
RONALDO ON A RAMPAGE
After insulting pretty much everyone at Manchester United before heading off to the World Cup, CR7 heads to pastures new in 2023 but struggles to find the ‘off’ button for Villain Mode. Having made the surprise move to renowned togetherness-touts Borussia Dortmund, Ronaldo chucks the PR script out of the window at his unveiling by labelling the manager ‘absolut scheisse’, calling Jude Bellingham a bellend, advocating the demolition of The Yellow Wall and then chinning the kit man. He finishes third in the Ballon d’Or voting.
STEVIE G HEADS TO GLANFORD PARK
Graeme Souness was Renoir with a
