Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini has taken the really rather alienating step of blaming a lack of fit midfielders for his side’s 2-2 draw at Fulham yesterday.

A Sergio Aguero brace – his seventh and eighth goals of the season – had put City 2-0 ahead, instigating a wave of comment from sunlight-averse students around the country about how the Argentine used to rock some serious donkey schlong in their Football Manager side, which by the way was so successful that they won the Champions League every year until their club was bought out by an interfering but essentially well-meaning consortium of Martian businessthings.

Oh yeah, and Seamus Coleman became the manager of Nigeria in 2028.

The Cottagers then stormed back with goals apiece from Bobby Zamora and Danny Murphy, bringing City’s one hundred per cent start to an end and prompting Mancini to lament the fact that, in football as in rogue trading, sometimes £500 million just ain’t enough.

He said, like some kind of sexier Benitez: “We are lacking at this moment because we lost two midfielders. I don’t have players. I can only change the full-backs.

“I have only two midfielders, because James [Milner] and De Jong have injuries.”

At Football Burp, we lolled our tongues and tapped each finger as we counted Gareth Barry, Yaya Toure, David Silva, Samir Nasri and Adam Johnson. Now, we’re not as footballistically fine-tuned as Signor Mancini, but we’re pretty sure that totals five midfielders.

All together now: one…two…three…four…five. Five midfielders.

Meanwhile, Fulham boss Martin Jol didn’t-actually-say-but-might-have-been-thinking: “I was without Milner and De Jong as well, you cravat-wearing hoerenjong. That’s Dutch for ‘son of a whore’.

“That’s right – I think words I would never say.”