Botox?? Who needs botox? Injecting rat poison into your boat-race always seemed like a fairly stupid thing to do, though when you saw the wrinkle-altering effects on those injected, you then knew it was a fairly stupid thing to do. Their faces stopped working. Smiling like a zombie was never big on my ‘must have’ list of looks. As was ‘complete lack of expression’.

The ageing process bestows character. Its a sign of experience, of having lived life, of reaching a point where you may indeed look, not like shit but more like really fucking ancient shit, but you have a knowledge and understanding that the youth can only envy. They don’t though. They’re happy, they have youth instead and in a society tragically ranked on some glossy magazine cover version of ‘beauty’, there’s no place for the Jeremy Clarkson jowels in this superficial and size zero world.

But now instead of botox, they inject you with your own blood. In the face. Like you don’t have enough of your own blood in there already. Kim Kardashian does it so it must be beneficial. Or give you an abnormally large bum.

And thus with ‘old’ footballers. Once you reach 30 you’re on the edge. Some will play another 5 or six years. Ryan Giggs managed to play til he was 40 at about as high a level as you can get. But that’s rather unusual. The injuries and constant stresses and strains on the skeleto-muscular system mean that these superstars generally retire at 32, and then enjoy their billions in the bank from the comfort of a wheelchair. A really flashy one with solid gold wheel-spokes and sat-nav (or sit-nav as its called in a wheelchair), and stripes. Loads’a stripes.

But older players have a massive value to a club. Because ‘they’ve been there before’. Wherever ‘there’ may be on any occasion. They’ve played the big games, the crunch matches, the must-wins, and they know what is required. So they can add their calming and instructive input to the younger guys who will do all the running around. They can motivate, they can inspire, they are the voice of experience, the mentor, the guru, they have the benefit of wisdom.

So what the fuck was Steven Gerrard thinking yesterday when he came on for Liverpool at half time, into a bad-tempered match, as all matches against Manchester United tend to be, and lasted precisely 41 seconds on the pitch before being sent off for stamping on someone’s leg?

You may not like Steven Gerrard, may see him as a miserable, moany, unintelligible Scouse git who ran off shagging size zero babes when his woman was pregnant, but you have to admire his career. It has been stellar. Who can forget when he lifted Liverpool to win the Champions League virtually single-handedly from an impossible position? A feat he repeated in many other situations for his team. He’s always been a strong player, aggressive in a good way, as opposed to a Roy Keane type, more psychopathic way, and he has a deep understanding of the game.

And the first rule of that game is that you ain’t gonna win with 10 players on the pitch. Particularly when you’re 1-0 down to start with.

They need to work out some kind of ‘botox for the brain’, to stop minds from getting old, wrinkly and stupid. And give Stevie Gerrard the first jab. I’ll pay for it.

Happy Monday. But ain’t they all??

A xxxx