No more excuses

Football faces a huge crisis as decent excuse levels hit a record low. With experts predicting more pressure on managers to come up with excuses for the next round of FA Cup fixtures this weekend, it's feared that stocks of excuses could dry up altogether.

My dog ate it

"Even the most tried and trusted excuses are now reaching feeble levels," according to Dr Julius Limbani from the Centre of Excusology at Croydon University. "Managers have been far too eager to come up with weak excuses for the short-comings of them and their teams, it's gone on so long now that what excuses are left are pretty much useless."

Even some of the richest clubs are having to rely on very old, worn out excuses with Arsene Wenger still trotting out "I didn't see it" even though it holds no water whatsoever. Meanwhile at the other end of the scale, Portsmouth have found they've had to resort to "we haven't got any money" as their only excuse for continually not paying their players on time.

It was like that when I got here

Rafa Benitez has come under particular fire for using huge volumes of tissue thin excuses after each pathetic display from his Liverpool side. In post-match interviews following his side throwing away a win at Stoke he was only left with shrugging his shoulders, looking at his shoes and mumbling "dunno" to questions posed.

It's in the post

Premier League officials have issued a statement promising a massive new investment in the formulation of new excuses for a new decade. However, when asked why they weren't here already, all they could say was "We'll get back to you."