Round-Up: International break drives football blogger to depths of despair

NIGHTMARE. Calamity-prone, bad defender who is too old to improve, Chris Smalling, was spotted wearing a leg brace out and about in town. That means that he'll likely be out of action for the weekend's game, which begs the response: shrug. The problem is, it's not like anyone else that Jose Mourinho has at his disposal is any better.

Americans have weird names. Brick Tamland. Buzz Feitshans. Davis Love III jr, snr. Dick Army. Dick Fuld. Dick Pound. And now, Will Vint. The 15-year-old US child is interesting Manchester United, but there is plenty of competition for him. You can read all about that here.

While sexism is never acceptable, you may suspect that the act of calling another colleague 'love' might not be all there is to this story. Not that we'll ever know.

In the Guardian, there's a reasonable appraisal of Manchester United's season so far, our weaknesses, and just what most fans make of Jose Mourinho so far this year. Correctly, they know that there's plenty of work yet to be done.

According to Paddy McNair, Mourinho didn't want to sell him, but wanted to let him go on loan instead. Anyway, we're struggling for news again, we really are.

I've done it! I've found the most boring, tedious and unimportant story that I could today, and it's about Manchester United. Former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson has yet again been stating the obvious, saying he got nervous before playing Liverpool.

PLEASE COME BACK, REAL FOOTBALL, WE MISS YOU.