Rix and McLeish feel their seasons are turning awry

It seems reasonable to suggest that The Daily Telegraph and Tittybangbang would not normally be paired in print, so for the illumination of those readers who have not seen the BBC3 series - which, you should be warned, is desperately unfunny - it features a parade of bizarre characters who are female equivalents of the grotesques in The League of Gentlemen.

One such is the eastern European vamp who is a monument to the worst ravages of cosmetic surgery. Whenever she displays her inflated charms to men they invariably notice that she has sprung leaks, to which she replies: "Don't vorry, darlink - it is only a little seepage."

Football dressing rooms can get slippery with seepage, too. Last week this column addressed the difficulties faced by coaches whose situations become ambiguous, citing Graham Rix at Hearts and Rangers' Alex McLeish. Bang on cue, both managers saw their players obligingly hand Celtic free championship gift vouchers in the form of six points which have all but formally closed the Scottish title campaign.

In Rix's case, Hearts' home defeat by an Aberdeen team they had seen off in the Scottish Cup with some ease only a week previously could be attributed - and, behind the scenes at Tynecastle, it certainly was - to the coach's admission to his squad that he was "not currently picking the team". Vladimir Romanov, the club's majority shareholder, met a delegation of players after the Aberdeen defeat and a form of words was cobbled together which gave the impression that a solution had been found.

In fact, Romanov made it clear that as long as he pays the piper he will call the tune whenever it suits him.

One of his confederates, the president of the Lithuanian Football Federation, has since declared that the Hearts owner has never picked the team at Tynecastle, to which the only fitting response is the retort: "Aye, right!"

McLeish's situation is different in kind but not, perhaps, in effect. Like Sven-Goran Eriksson, he knows the date of his departure and, crucially, so do his players. Since the principal power available to any coach is that of team selection, are McLeish and Eriksson any better off than the unfortunate Rix?

At least Eriksson knows that his players are desperately keen to appear in the World Cup finals and, even if his successor as England coach is named before they travel to Germany, he can maintain that much of a hold on them. McLeish, meanwhile, has two games - maybe three - to prevent Rangers' season from unravelling entirely.

If Rangers lose to Hibs tomorrow and to Villarreal in the Champions League last 16 next week, McLeish's situation becomes untenable. Ibrox will have all the jauntiness of a morgue for the remainder of the season.

In these circumstances, the protracted wooing of a possible successor is a serious liability. Paul le Guen may accept the Rangers job soon but the fact that the former Lyon coach has been undecided, four months after he was first approached, does not suggest unwavering resolve.

Speculation rushes to fill such vacuums. The dictates of the media mean that names - some realistic, some fantastical - are offered up to frustrated and voracious fans. Chairmen feed these frenzies while denouncing them; would-be candidates let it be known discreetly that they want to be considered and then state publicly that they are entirely committed to their current paymasters.

Latching on to all of this is a sub-species of parasite, the commentators who would not recognise a real story even if it presented itself with government-approved ID. And, for all their insistence to the contrary, footballers are as much affected by this stew of contradictions as anyone else whose employment prospects are in doubt.

A manager working his enforced notice is like Groucho Marx singing, "Hello, I must be going!"

Or to borrow from Shakespeare's more elevated sentiment: "With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action."

Taken from telegraph.co.uk