Footywatch 2011

Ah, 2011, what leather-bound, spherical-shaped joys shall you bring to us? First of all there's a few promising signs from the Beeb:

Presenters: Gabby Logan has been doing an excellent job in taking the edge off the smug, lads-on-a-Costa-Del-Sol-stag-mini-break feel of the Gary-Alan-Alan formation. Plus she has great new hair!

Shirts: Startlingly, Alan Shearer's recent number was plain black with a glaring lack of epaulettes, frills, pocket detail or piping. Has someone had a word? Happily, another sofa-expert did the honours. Lawro, a tip if I may: you're supposed to wear the shirt your wife got you for Christmas, not the wrapping paper it came in...

Pundits: The QPR's Neil Warnock was great fun last night, with a refreshing Northern 'football's great, in't it?' enthusiasm and cheerfulness that knocked spots off MOTD2s oft-also-rans. However he did often forget to finish his sentences ('they've got a fantastic - ') and say, with not exactly medical precision, 'It was so exciting I wish I'd had one of them pulse things for your heart', so there's still some work to be done.

In other New Year news, Wycombe are up to THIRD after a 2-1 win at Cheltenham, whoopee! So 2011 shall obviously, no doubt about it, it's a sure-fire thing, rest assured, be back in League One with the big boys (well, the boys who've lost their milk teeth and have started thinking girls aren't totally disgusting) come August. Elsewhere, the multifariously-tattooed wonder-god who is David Beckham may come to London, in which case I shall bunk off work one Saturday in order to go to White Hart Lane/Upton Park plaintively holding up a homemade sign saying 'I HEART DAVID'...