No way, Jose!

I'll come to the story behind the title soon enough, but firstly it was an up and down European week for Scottish clubs. I thought Celtic were the most likely candidates for a good campaign, but clearly gubbing Caley 5-0 is no longer necessarily an indicator of good form as they were destroyed by an apparently rather good Shakhtar Donetsk. I didn't see the game, but am convinced that this is further evidence of my belief that Gary Caldwell is utterly hopeless against strikers of international quality; of course, he doesn't play many of these in the SPL. Much better at Castle Greyskull, where Rangers came from behind to beat Stuttgart, the Bundesliga champions no less. Alan Hutton had a hand in both goals, with fantastic forward bursts leading to an assist for Chic Adam and a penalty which Jean-Claude Darcheville (who seems to be modelling his facial hair on Socrates - take your pick over whether I mean the Greek philosopher or the Brazilian footballer). However, my best mate's claim that Hutton is the "Scottish Cafu" seems to be accurate only in that Hutton can't defend very well either. Finally, Aberdeen got a creditable goalless draw with Dnipro, though I was feeling too lazy to walk the whole 7 minute to Pittodrie and watched it on the box instead.

Of course, though, British football fans have been rather more interested in the end of "the special one" at Chelsea. Love him or loathe him (to be honest, I thought he was fantastic), Jose Mourinho was always a source of good entertainment, and the Premier League will be a duller place for his departure.

Of course, the decision made perfect sense as:
1) It's not as if Chelsea had any success during his tenure, what with 5 trophies, including 2 league titles, plus 2 Champions League semis

2) They had gone three whole matches without a win, and the absence of your best defender (Carvalho), your two best goalscoring midfielders (Lampard and Ballack) and your best striker (Drogba) could hardly be called a handicap

3) Abramovich blatantly has a real eye for top signings, having been proved so right by insisting on forking out the GDP of a sub-Saharan African country on Andriy Shevchenko

4) A quality replacement was available immediately, not just some bloke who has achieved nothing outside Israeli football (and not even that much in it), who has never managed a club in a top league and who just happens to be Abramovich's mate

5) It's not as if the pressure will be on immediately, with only an away game at Old Traffordon the immediate horizon

I'm so cynical sometimes that I even disgust myself.

L.