MANCINI SAFE FOR ANOTHER YEAR - BUT IS HE ANOTHER RANIERI?

ROBERTO MANCINI will ride out the storm at Man City - despite their second successive Champions League exit at the group stage.

Winning the Prem and the FA Cup guarantees him immunity from the sack, at least for another year.

But some of his decision making is baffling. His dropping off the competent Lescott for the unpredictable tennis player Illie Nastase for one, and his constant rotation of personnel in Europe.

Two things in particular point to someone who is not always of a sane disposition.

1. He bought Maicon who is so far over the hill he could be in the sea.

2. He brought on James Milner, a grafter and defensive tidyer-upper, for Kun Aguero late on last night against Real Madrid. Why? Why, when there are only minutes left and you need to win the game, do you bring on a killer like Milner and take off the one man who has consistently proved he can win a match for you in the final minute? Crazy if you ask me...

GUARDIOLA IS HEADING TO UTD; JOSE BACK TO CHELSEA

FOR what it's worth as speculation continues to abound, I would like to point out that I said a while back that Pep Guardiola will NOT be Chelsea boss.

So here we go again - Pep is lined up for the Man Utd job and will work alongside Fergie for a season.

And Abramovich wants Jose back at Chelsea and, indeed, thought he had done a deal with him last summer.

MESSAGE FOR JARVIS COCKER

JARVIS,

Hiya mate, how you doin'? Long, long time no see since that first interview (which I have published word for word below after someone pointed it out to me on the web).

Way back then you said that if you 'ever made it' you would get me to do your life story in a book!

If you still fancy doing that, email me and we'll have a chat, it would be good to speak to you again.

All the best, Frankie W

MY FIRST EVER INTERVIEW - AND JARVIS COCKER'S FIRST, TOO

PULP

Frank Worrall, Melody Maker, 30th January 1982:

From ecstasy to suicide

"As a yardstick, I suppose you could see our inclusion on 'Your Secret's Safe With Us', the only Sheffield group on the album, as fairly indicative of our development." Jarvis Cocker, Pulp's supremo, is almost shouting down the phone, and I wished I'd never asked him to convince me just why I should travel to Sheffield to find out about the poppier side of life there.

After all, there now seem to be an altogether exaggerated number of hopeful pretenders appearing every week, in the wake of the Human League's success.

But after listening to the deliciously innocent pop session they produced for John Peel and finding myself unable to resist the track they have produced for the aforementioned LP (which is the successor to the diversely genial "Hicks From The Sticks"), how could I resist their invitation to meet?

Pulp proved to be a most bizarre visual proposition. Fronted by Jarvis, the tallest teenager I've ever shook hands with, they flocked round me like curious vultures eyeing up a prey. I'm haunted by splashes of wild colour, off-beat clothes and hair and an underlying purity which just doesn't seem to fit.

Pulp tell me who they are too quickly; they don't want to spend too much time on such tedious formalities.

But for the record, here's their list:Jarvis (vocalist, guitarist and main lyricist), Peter Dalton (synthesizer),Wayne Furniss (drums) and Jamie Pinchbeck (bass).

Innocence. Pulp admit to a basic love of everything pulpy. If it's pure, unadulterated, lovable or poppy they'll go for it, they tell me. But they're not naively stupid.

"Yeah, we've learned that innocence doesn't always click when you're involved with something like being in a band, which will ultimately become marketable," Jarvis explains.

"Like when we played our first real gig at the local arts centre, we thought the future would be super fine, just because we had our own flashy dressing room. We soon hit the ground during the following two weeks when we had to play pubs like the Hallamshire, with shoe box rooms to get ready in."

Peter tells me of Pulp's basic ambition.

"We'd like to see pop getting back to an innocent, trashy, disposable medium, which allows more time for humour and cuts down on the gloom."

Jarvis quickly intervenes: "But just because we've got a sense of humour doesn't mean that we want to be seen as some kind of 'joke' band.

"I just don't want to write about kicking the Russians out of Poland," he continues. "I'd rather that be said from a political platform than having somebody on a music stage saying it. We're simply not interested in either sloganeering or coming on all pretentious and illegitimately boastful."

What slant do you actually write from/on, then?

"Well, at bottom I suppose I write what you'd call love songs," says Jarvis.

"It's universal, probably the main emotion in life. So if I can say something politic about love everyone can at least relate to it."

How did the Peel session came about?

"He was appearing at some unemployment benefits at the local Poly when we just approached him with a tape of ours," says Jamie. "He said he'd listen to it on the way home, we said 'liar', but the week after we got a call from his producer asking us to do the session."

Pulp are solid in their defence when I suggest that Peel's selection criteria have shown glaring holes over the last year.

"Alright, so perhaps his show has gone off the boil lately, but it's hardly his fault that there's much to choose from, but not much that's any good," Peter shouts at me. "Put it this way; without him we'd probably not exist and you'd not be here."

We move sideways to discuss the less controversial subject of Pulp as a live commodity. "We see ourselves very much as a challenging live group," Jarvis says.

"I know it sounds a real cliche but we'd really like people to move away from their preconceptions. We find it amusing to get up on a stage six inches above everyone else. They're expecting something abnormal from us, so we just try to make them see that they shouldn't do.

"They're as important as us; together we can have a real fun party, but if they won't play we find it difficult to motivate ourselves."

Pulp live is a carnival of lunacy, probably the future focus of live performance in essence: humour, participation, letting your hair down, but backed up by a whirling synthesizer pop music which ultimately keeps the party punching.

"You're dead right, we are interested in performance art," Jarvis tells me. "We want to bring fun back into pop but not facile fun, like driving cars into swimming pools. That's stupidly excessive."

Pulp have confident ideas about their future. "I'm wary of signing to a big company and then releasing a single," Jarvis explains.

"I think it's better for credibility to release a single on an independent first," he adds, "then you can build from a good base, with people looking at you with that important initial respect."

Apparently, Armageddon are already giving some thought to a possible deal and Pulp are relishing that or a similar prospect.

"We just want to get onto 'Top Of The Pops' as soon as we can," Jarvis says, tongue firmly in cheek. "Wacky surrealist comedians, that's us. You've got to laugh or we'll cry."

Pix: Marcus Featherby

262 DAYS: THE TRIUMPH AND BETRAYAL OF ROBERTO DI MATTEO, CHELSEA'S MOST SUCCESSFUL MANAGER EVER

262 DAYS: THE TRIUMPH AND BETRAYAL OF ROBERTO DI MATTEO (CHELSEA'S MOST SUCCESSFUL MANAGER EVER)

He lasted just 262 days – 262 days that transformed the fortunes of Chelsea Football Club and finally laid to rest Roman Abramovich’s holy grail. Yes, by winning the Champions League, Roberto Di Matteo made everything Roman had done – and all the millions he had invested worthwhile. But six months later the Russian owner of Chelsea rewarded him for his brilliance…with the sack.

Di Matteo was the manager who took the club to its greatest ever triumph – one which marked him out as the club's most successful manager ever - that balmy night in Munich which now seems an age ago.

Even then, as Roberto celebrated, you could clearly see from the body language that Roman didn't really want to acknowledge his part in the triumph. He never really rated him; he only saw him as a stop-gap and was really forced into giving him a full-time shot at the job until he could get his own full-time next man in (ie Guardiola).

But what Di Matteo achieved that night in Munich was extraordinary - almost miraculous, as he urged on his men to a triumph they really had no right to expect. They were playing the hosts and favourites and emerged with the cup with the big ears against all odds (including beating Barca on the way).

Fast forward six months (to now) and Di Matteo has tried to implement Roman's desire for Chelsea to play a la Barca - with three little guys in Mata, Oscar and Hazard - and passing from the back (which meant keeping David Luiz at centre-back instead of the more reliable Ivanovic). 

He has had three months (from August and the start of the new season) to implement a brand new, revolutionary change in playing approach and, as the players inevitably needed time to gell and get used to each other and the new system, he found it difficult to achieve overnight. His reward was to bestabbed in the back. Betrayed for not beating or drawing with Juve away - and let's not forget this is the team who could well go on to win the Champions League. OK, there have also been a couple of dodgy results in the league too, but as Istress again, he was trying to overhaul a way of thinking; from the time of Drogba and Co, when brute force won the day, to a more sophisticated style of play. There were always going to be lean spells as the change took shape. 

In essence, he was expected to work another miracle from August to November (changing the mentality and style of play) after already working one in Munich in May. His sacking was the end game – a shocking way to treat someone who had done so much for a football club close to his heart.

RDM deserved better – and Chelsea fans certainly deserve better than the interim, defensively minded joker who will surely now take their team back to the dark ages…even if it is only for six months.

Forget the dreams of being the new Barca for the next few months – Rafa Benitez will underpin his team with a dour defensive edge. Ironic that when Roman wanted to move forwards with entertaining football, he ended up with a man whose philosophy is to bring about the exact opposite.

I wouldn’t be surprised if RDM is laughing in his beer at that irony tonight and probably saying, ‘They deserve each other!’

CHELSEA 'DONE DEAL' FOR FALCAO - TORRES BACK TO ATLETICO

MORE news on the transfer front, I am told Falcao will be leaving Atletico Madrid for £40million and heading to Chelsea - although the deal may now not happen until June if they do not qualify for the next stage of the Champs Lge.

Fernando Torres will be a makeweight in the deal - possibly along with Chelsea keeper Courtois who is currently on loan there.

Torres will no doubt be glad to go back to his first club after his nightmare time at Chelsea.

WATERSTONES CONTRIBUTE TO THE END OF BOOKS!

I was surprised the other day when I walked into Waterstones on Kensington High Street - and found a whole range of Kindles for sale.
  At a special table, they have the Kindle Fire, the Kindle Paperwhite and the traditional Kindle set up for you to try out.
   All very helpful - but aren't they contributing to their own downfall?
   If people start buying the Kindles en masse, they won't want to buy old-fashioned books, will they?
   And if they don't buy books, won't the likes of Waterstones be redundant? Or do they plan to just become stores for Kindles?
  All most unusual, if you ask me.