Coaches say some inane things

I love this list of the ten most annoying things that football (that's soccer, mind) managers say. Here are three choice samplings:

I can't fault the lads for effort

This is another way of saying that they're rubbish. There should never be a situation in a professional game in which 'effort' is a benchmark of performance. That's what you say to your kid's team before you take them out for pizza after losing the Under-9’s Cup Final; to say it to guys earning five figures a week is absurdly patronising....

We showed character

We played absolutely rubbish, the opposition hit the woodwork five times, and then we scored a fluky injury time equaliser off a corner that shouldn’t even have been awarded.

We’ve got a great crop of youngsters coming through

The first team’s awful, the reserve and youth teams are pretty average, but there’s no money available for transfers and we need to keep the fans’ spirits up somehow.

Hilarious, and true. Actually, whatever the sport, I find most interviews with coaches and players to be mind-numbingly tedious.

For example, what was Karl Malone supposed to intelligently say about a game? He was simply trying to score baskets and prevent baskets. What more can be said?

Oh, maybe this. Good ol' Malone. :-)