The Circus - 29 September

Taken by surprise

Here's news for those feeling pangs of nostalgia for the 2011-2012 English Premier League season all those weeks ago: Blackburn Rovers manager Steve Kean is under the cosh... and now without a job.  

Rovers is third after seven games in the Championship, but the club has narrowly failed to meet the target set by its owners of 16 points after seven games (Rovers has 14). And now enough is enough.

That's probably no great surprise to anyone with ears and with a memory long enough to recall the backdrop of booing to which Rovers played out its last home games in the Premier League. However, Rovers itself says the current discontent from the terraces at Ewood Park has come out of the blue.

"Unfortunately, the momentum built up so fast it was quite difficult to step in and react," the club's global advisor Shebby Singh said.

"It should not have been allowed to escalate like that but it did and the situation gets worse by the day. Financially now it is not a good situation because the fans are staying away."

The situation indeed sounds grim: fan discontent and a worsening financial situation.

But with the club's owners, the Venky family, being notoriously infrequent visitors to Lancashire, would it not have been wise to appoint someone to act as a mediator between the club and its owners? Someone whose specific job it would have been to see the bigger picture, act quickly and do "whatever he has to do" to win promotion?

Ah yes, that would be Rovers' global advisor Shebby Singh. Still, if only someone could have seen all this coming, eh, Shebby?

Referee's post-match report of the week

"After 22 minutes, several cups of water, some flip-flops and a wristwatch were thrown at me," Marcelo Aparecido Ribeiro de Souza wrote after completing his refereeing duties for Palmeiras v Corinthians.

"After 35 minutes, a chair was thrown, but missed. When I sent off Luan for a slap and a kick, he barged me and explained: 'You thief, I will crush you, you shit! Bunch of thieves!'"

Gardener's world

In this week's episode, Norwich City goalkeeper John Ruddy explains how to plant a shrub.

Only the second most obvious red card you'll see this week

The most obvious? That would be Gerardo Bedoya (a name which, for some reason, The Circus cannot read without intoning "you killed my father, prepare to die"). The Independiente Santa Fe defender received his marching orders during Colombia's Bogota derby for elbowing Millionarios' Yhonny Ramirez.

The red card was the 41st of Bedoya's career, a tally that makes Roy Keane look like Anne of Green Gables. But Bedoya wasn't done yet.

The former Colombia international lingered to stamp on Ramirez's face, sparking a mass brawl. He was fined 1,227,850 Colombian pesos ($656) and suspended for 15 matches.

The spoken word

"Streuth, he's wanted Down Under … Fair dinkum, big man." – The Mirror covers most of the jingoistic bases but forgets to mention flamin' galahs when reporting the arrival of England international and video game cult hero Emile Heskey in Newcastle.