Alright?

It's been another amazing week in the Premier League. It's unbelievable how many goals are being scored this season and how few draws there have been.

Every weekend, some poor lads seem to be on the end of a 4-0 or 5-1 stuffing. Apparently there have been 196 goals in the first 66 Premier League matches so far this season, an average of 2.96-a-game.

In all my years of football, I've never seen anything like it.

I'm not sure what it could be put down to. I've heard people say that the defending in the Premier League has never been all that good anyway, and this year it must be especially bad.

I think the problem is coming because defenders in this country are just getting a bit too big-headed. A lot of them have started to think they are better than they actually are. They are trying to do things that they just don't have the talent to pull off - and that's leading to all the mistakes we're seeing this season.

Let's be honest here: defenders are usually really, really bad footballers. You know what I mean?

The only reason most of centre-backs made it into the professional game is because they were bigger and stronger than the other kids in their age-group when they were growing up.

Let's face it: most of them were educationally sub-normal school-bullies who loved kicking the crap out of the more skilful players on the playground.

They are essentially sadists who love inflicting pain. That's how they got into the game in the first place, and that is still the only pleasure they continue to get out of it in the professional ranks.

I've met very few centre-backs who weren't a bit sick in the head. I reckon a good percentage of them would have turned out like Charles Manson or Chopper Read had football not offered them a way out of their inevitable life of crime.

None of them have any actual talent for the game.

Don't get me wrong, punt a football high in the air and they'll clatter through the back of their own 92-year-old granny to head it clear.

But put a football at their feet and tell them to pass it in a straight line to someone wearing the same coloured shirt - and you're asking for trouble. By the expression on their face, you might as well have asked them to explain Einstein's theory of relativity.

The fact is that these numb-nuts just haven't got the brain-power to process anything beyond the most basic of instructions.

Some of the defenders I have played with have honestly been so retarded that the gaffer has been forced to do two team-talks in the changing room before kick-off - a normal one for the midfielders and forwards, and one with pictures and grunting noises and heavy-metal music for the defenders.

They are definitely not the most subtle, talented or intelligent breed. Most of them are only slightly more evolved than cavemen.

And yet this season, for some strange reason, the overpaid, under-developed suddenly seem to think they have transformed overnight into Franz Beckenbauer.

You see them trying all these little tricks and flicks and 50-yard passes - none of them are coming off, and most of the time their mistakes are leading to opposition goals. That's where these high-scoring matches are coming from.

It's embarrassing, frankly. It's like when Ringo Starr begged The Beatles to let him try lead vocals on With A Little Help From My Friends - the results are just cringeworthy.

These defenders should stick to what they're good at, just like Ringo. Let the midfielders like me keep things ticking on the bass, like George Harrison. Let the skilful little wingers make beautiful melodies on lead guitar, like Paul McCartney. Let the strikers apply the finishing touches with the shredding vocals, like John Lennon.

Every man has his place - and Premier League defenders should stick to banging on their bongos like a chimpanzee, just like Ringo.
Midfielders and strikers earn the big money for a reason - because they are the stars, the players that the fans pay the money to come and see. Defenders need to get back to what they do best - heading, hoofing and hacking.

Getting the message through their four-inch skulls will be the difficult bit.

Until next week,

PB.

Alright?

Superb Manchester derby at the weekend, eh? A great advert for the passion and madness of the Premier League. That must have been completely mental for the lads to play in.

You need a special sort of mentality to play in a derby match, I reckon. It is a totally different game of football. Almost a totally different sport at times.

The week before the match you start to feel the pressure building up and building up. You can tell it is a match that means so much to the fans. The local newspapers start the ball rolling with all these stories about derbies from the past, and it just whips the fans into some sort of frenzy.

I find it a bit weird, actually, how mad for it the fans get around the time of derby matches. I have this image of them, stumbling down the street like zombies with their arms outstretched, with their eyes glazed-over and foam dribbling from their mouths.

Thankfully, us players very rarely actually meet any real fans like them, because most of us don't actually live anywhere near the city or town we play in.

While the zombie fans seem to live on top of each other in those crumbling terraced houses that surround the stadium, us players prefer to live 30 miles away in a nice leafy suburb where we can get a bit of peace and quiet.

As the derby approaches, the gaffer usually gives the squad a little pep-talk, reminding us all how much the match means to the fans and that even though your city rivals are 12 places below you in the league and no threat whatsoever, this will be the most important match of the season.

Some players are just made for derby matches. For some lads, the foreign boys especially, it is just another match. I'm not saying they're stupid or anything, but they can't get it into their head that this match is anything more than just another game.

During the warm-up, they will be laughing and joking around as usual. They comb their hair and wave to their family in the stands, perhaps even have a friendly chat on the halfway line with an old team-mate currently playing for the opposition.

Meanwhile, the local lads are giving it 100% focus. They stand in the middle of the pitch, granite-jawed, eyes closed, breathing slow and deep, chanting some weird mystic mantra to themselves in this disturbing, animalistic voice that seems to come from a very dark place in the pit of their stomach.

Those are the lads who you really want on your side in a derby match. Those mentally-unstable characters who would literally saw off their arm and throw it at an opposition striker if it meant denying him a goal-scoring opportunity.

Remember that image of Roy Keane stood over Alf-Inge Haaland, phlegm flying out of his mouth, veins bulging in his temples as he screamed his satisfaction at the knee-high tackle that had supposedly just ended the Norwegian's career?

That is the sort of character you want by your side in a derby match. That is the sort of character the fans love to see fighting their corner. They might be mentally unstable, but they seem to understand how much a derby match means to the everyday fan.

There aren't many of those sorts of players about nowadays.

I think that maybe the fans might see myself as one, I don't know. Perhaps they look at me and say: "You know, I'm glad we've got Pharrell Bell playing for us against the scum on Saturday. He understands what it means to the fans. He's one of us."

I hope so.

Anyway, it was a cracking Manchester derby and it has really got me fired up for our next derby match. Hopefully the Gaffer will see that I am the sort of player who can raise my game another notch in these high-pressure matches and see that I can do a job in these unique sporting occasions.

Because although Pharrell Bell might live in a nice five-bed mansion in the suburbs instead of a two-up, two-down council house with an outside toilet, he has never lost touch with the working-class fan.

Alright?

So, the transfer window has been and gone, and Pharrell Bell remains where he is. I'm pretty glad, all things considered. I've had a few moves in my career but I feel settled here.

I'm on a sweet contract, I've got a nice pad in the city centre and a good bunch of lads around me making training a good laugh.

Okay, so I'm not at one of the "Big Four", and we hardly set the Premier League on fire last season, but we survived - and that's better than winning some tin-pot trophy like the League Cup in my eyes.

And obviously, it's fair to say that my England chances are being done loads of harm by staying at a little club like this. I reckon had I been playing for a bigger club, I would easily have caught Senor Capello's eye by now.

Although, that said, I do have a bit of a gripe with the media calling us an "unfashionable" club. I actually think that's well harsh. It is just another example of the media sticking an unfair label on someone.

Of course the media are going to call us "an unfashionable club". They only ever see us when we're in our club tracksuits - it's no wonder they don't think we like decent clothes.

Actually, some of the lads are well into their fashion, especially a couple of the foreign boys. They love their designer gear. Big sunglasses, tight-fitting suits, white open-necked shirts and shiny, pointed shoes - all that sort of clobber.

We've got a couple of African lads, too. Some of the gear they show up in is incredible. All these bright colours and random patterns on baggy shirts that look like tents. Each to their own, but not the sort of stuff I could wear as a teenager growing up on the mean streets of Leeds.

Pharrell Bell is more into a bit of "urban chic", you know? I like my over-sized jeans, designer boxer-shorts, baseball cap, bit of bling around the neck. Classic stuff.

Like I said, it's totally unfair to say we're an unfashionable club. Small, poorly-supported, out-dated, unambitous - fair enough. But not unfashionable.

Anyway, I'm just happy to be settled at a club that appreciates my talents and rewards me with a contract that I deserve. What I'm trying to say is that I'm here for the next four years, and no-one but me can do anything about it.

On another matter, it was great to see the big fuss being kicked up about players diving this week. I loved that. If there is one thing that pisses me off in the Premier League it is nancy boys throwing themselves on the ground, trying to win a free-kick or a penalty. It's cheating. Nothing more, nothing less.

They are cheating the referee, they are cheating their fellow professionals, they are cheating the fans. If I see someone breaking away through the middle and I am giving chase, I do not expect that player to unexpectedly throw himself six feet in the air and land on the turf clutching his knee-cap like he has been the victim of some gangsta-style shooting, just to try and get me yellow-carded - or worse.

It's so frustrating and annoying to see players diving like that. Even more so when you haven't actually touched them. What these lads need to realise is that even if I do give them a little tap on the ankles to bring them down, I am only doing it so that my team-mates can get back and get themselves into position.

It's all in the spirit of the game. If I give someone a little kick on the ankle, I'm not doing it to hurt them, I'm doing it to put them off, just letting them know I am around. It is a bit of gamesmanship.

If someone throws himself to the ground, trying to con the referee - that's cheating. There is a big difference.

And I think it is absolutely wrong to just blame the foreign boys for this culture of diving. I'm going to stick up for them here.
Sure, it was Jurgen Klinsmann and David Ginola and those lads who introduced it to our game when they arrived in the early 1990s, but if you look around the Premier League now you'll see as many British boys throwing themselves around as the foreign lads.

And for Wayne Rooney to get on his high horse about diving just makes me laugh. Him and Steven Gerrard are as bad as anyone. I find it all a bit embarrassing, actually. What happened to football being a man's sport?

Until next week,

PB