England on the interweb: your questions answered by Dr Sport.

Dear Dr Sport, I was looking forward to watching England attempt to extend their unblemished record in World Cup qualifying under Fabio Capello against an unstylish but highly durable Ukraine side this evening. But it doesn’t seem to be on the telly — not even on Dave.

What’s going on?

Yours, Thwarted Dear Thwarted, What’s going on is nothing less than a revolution in the delivery of user-specific live football packages, catapulting sports broadcasting into the wireless age.

Dear Dr Sport, You mean that no broadcasters were interested in being gouged to the tune of £2 million for the rights so it’s being flogged off cheap on the internet?

Yours again, Thwarted Dear Thwarted, That’s about the length of it, yes.

Dear Dr Sport, Can subscribers to the internet feed rely on the high production values that television has led us to expect on these international occasions, or is it all going to be shot on a phone by some student who has posted a lot of videos of himself playing the guitar on YouTube?

Faithfully, L. Roddick (Ms) Dear Ms Roddick, Your £4.99 ought to buy you a proper television show. However, if the post-match interview with Capello begins with him adjusting a webcam in his hotel room, we’ll know something is up.

Dear Dr Sport, I don’t have broadband because I’m in Kent. Can I receive the game via my old dial-up service?

Vincent, Stodmarsh Dear Vincent, I think so. But beware that, in your case, the game will kick-off at 5.15 this afternoon and won’t end until Thursday evening at around 11.

Dear Dr Sport, I was going to order the England game from Amazon, but then it occurred to me that it probably wouldn’t get to me for about three weeks on account of the postal strike. Thought your readers ought to be made aware of that possibility.

Gary, Northants Dear Gary Appreciate the heads-up there. Thanks.

Dear Dr Sport, I’ve been jacking my neighbour’s wireless broadband connection for about the last 15 months. Will I be able to jack his access to the England game, too?

Yours hopefully, Knock-off Nigel Dear Knock-off, Quite possibly. But you may have to stand out in the drive, pointing your laptop in the direction of his sitting room.

Dear Dr Sport, I’m running a basic Linux application via Windows with Javascript enabled, but I’m finding that the stream constantly rebuffers when I open Vyra to attach a JPEG. Can I circumvent the problem by bolting on some extra RAM and rejigging the optical drive, or do you suppose I’m going to have to change the TCC/IP protocols in the Nimbus preferences pane?

Thanks, DarkKnight@mynode.com Dear DarkNight, Like, whatever.

Dear Dr Sport, England’s central defensive pairing looks incredibly sluggish in the pictures I’m seeing. Have I got a slow connection?

Tina, Leicester Dear Tina, No, that’s England’s central defensive pairing.

Dear Dr Sport, My wife came in to my study and caught me with my credit card out, trying to download the England game. I clicked on “close” as quickly as I could, but I’m absolutely sure she saw what I was doing and now I feel so embarrassed. What can I do?

Yours, Anxious Dear Anxious, If you’re really ashamed, you could always pretend it was pornography.

Dear Dr Sport, Do you know the best way to get cheese and chive Pringles crumbs out of the keyboard of a laptop?

Dom, Exeter Dear Dom, No. I’m still trying to get this slice of Domino’s Hawaiian-style pizza with extra anchovies out of mine.

Dear Dr Sport, Was that a goal just then, or just a pop-up?

Cheers, Big Man Dear Big Man, Under Steve McClaren, you would have had to assume, almost certainly, that it was just a pop-up. But under Capello, you can be altogether more confident that it was a goal. That’s the magic of the Capello era. Celebrate accordingly.

Fame is just a pain, moans José Mourinho

We think of José Mourinho and we think of the big, grandstanding performances.

The full-tilt touchline sprint at Old Trafford that launched this most charismatic of artists into the British consciousness. His overcoated bursts on to the pitch in celebration of memorable victories. The flinging of his Premiership champions medal into the crowd at Stamford Bridge. The celebratory donation to the same people of the jacket from his suit (something of a managerial first, that). And the thousand carefully weighed press conferences, seeded with agenda-setting, headline-clinching observations and contentions, all suggesting an entertainer with an instinctive feel for the spotlight and how to sparkle in it.

So what a surprise it was to learn from a candid interview this week that, far from welcoming attention — and, indeed, rushing into its glittering embrace — the Inter Milan coach sees fame as merely the irksome and regrettable by-product of his humbly chosen profession. It pains him, it causes grief for him and those close to him and he wishes it were otherwise. As Mourinho resoundingly stated: “I don’t want to be a star.”

Next week, Barbra Streisand says: “Neither do I.”

A butcher’s at the statistics gives Sir Alex Ferguson’s critics plenty to chew over

Sometimes people unfairly criticise others to draw attention away from their own failings. We saw a classic example of that after Manchester United’s disappointing and fortunate draw at home to Sunderland last weekend, when outspoken critics rounded on Sir Alex Ferguson and accused him of not being match fit.

Even the most cursory glance at the ProZone stats on the United manager’s performance over those 90 minutes shows this allegation to be vicious and unfounded.

With regard to chewing, for instance, the figures reveal that Ferguson was averaging 57 complete jaw rotations per minute at 144.09 psi of pressure, rising to an even more impressive 83 rotations per minute at 269.76 psi during the game’s final quarter. Those numbers easily match the United manager’s chewing rates from a decade ago.

Meanwhile, his average gum consumption (14.4 sticks of Juicy Fruit per league match, dropping to 5.2 sticks for Carling Cup games) far exceeds that of any other Barclays Premier League manager, and so does the speed at which Ferguson both leaves and returns to his seat around the half-time interval.

Last Saturday the United manager positively bombed up the touchline at 17.3mph, which is 8.9mph quicker than the next fastest manager on the list (Tony Pulis, of Stoke City) and four times quicker than Harry Redknapp, the Tottenham Hotspur manager.

In the crucial area of reactivity, meanwhile, Ferguson responded to his team’s goals by rising off his seat within 0.46 and 0.73 seconds, respectively, of the ball hitting the back of the net. (True, these figures don’t allow for the fact that he might have used the arm of Mike Phelan, his assistant, for additional leverage, but that sort of thing is a common enough occurrence in a crowded dugout.) The point is, the statistics overwhelmingly declare the manager to be fit. Not — to use an expression favoured by Ferguson — “fit as a butcher’s dog”, maybe (although it’s only fair to point out that ProZone stats for the butcher’s dog were not available for comparison purposes at the time of writing).

And not fit enough to referee a football match, certainly. (You have to be really fit to do that.) But easily fit enough to watch one from the dugout. So let’s hear no more of these undermining insinuations.