Pulis: Shawcross is staying at Stoke

who gives a *****, who the ***** is shawcross and why would anyone even bother batting an eyelid at him. talk about desparate to market their players for cash. cock manager

Friday 10 July 2009 14:00 Sky and ESPN have announced which 48 games they will televise through to the end of November. And their choices reflect the popularity of the top flight's 20 teams. It is not a great shock to see Chelsea (9), Arsenal (8) and Liverpool (8) on the telly again and again. But as with the X Factor, it's not just about ability; it's about appearances, perception, and glamour. Which is why the number of televised fixtures doesn't follow the league table as much as it panders to a presumed level of interest. If the number of featured games followed the blatant meritocracy of the league table, for instance, Everton would be the fifth-most featured team. As it is, only 10 teams are featured less often than David Moyes' boys, who will be on telly five times, three of them against 'Big Four' clubs. The thing is that Everton aren't poster boys for The Most Exciting League In The World. (If done by an Italian coach, this would be seen as tactical genius; successfully deployed by injury-depleted Moyes, it was taken as proof that 4-5-1 is strangling the life from the league). As if to further enrage Everton fans, they're on the same number of times as Blackburn. Armchair Rovers fans (and if you think they don't exist, you weren't around in 1995) will be able to enjoy televised Lancashire derbies against Burnley and Bolton, plus visits to Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal. You can see what the fixture-pickers are thinking. In fact, you can visualise the Sky adverts now, with footage of the Premier League's glossiest stars interspersed with shots of Sam Allardyce furiously barking orders through his chewing gum: "Can Big Sam upset the big boys in their own back yard?" If Blackburn (or any perceived minnow) are to triumph against a Champions League team, you can bet your bottom Euro that a smartly-trousered pundit will call it evidence that the Premier League is the best competition on the continent. And true to form, Sky have kept their pledge to cover all teams at least once. But only just. Two teams who finished in lower mid-table last term, Wigan and Bolton, are featured just the once each: Latics for the visit of moneybags neighbours Man City, Bolton for the (second) return of former guru Allardyce. In truth, and with no offence intended to either team, it's no great surprise that these two teams aren't having their doors hammered down. Wigan face an uncertain future without Steve Bruce, while Bolton fans remain fiercely divided about life under Gary Megson. Like nearby Blackburn, both these Lancashire rivals have had to be come up with inventive price cuts in a desperate struggle to hold up season ticket sales. To be blunt, they can barely sell their product to their own fans; what chance have broadcasters of doing it to the remote-wielding majority? Hence Sky only paying dutiful visits, like young relatives to a dying great-aunt in order to stay in the will. With only 17 games to Sky's 31, ESPN have neither the obligation nor desire to pay lip service to each of the 20 teams. With the failure of Setanta demonstrating how difficult it is for fresh broadcasters to turn the outlay on Premier League rights into operating profit, ESPN would be unwise to do anything but maximise their viewing potential. Stay-at-home Bolton and Wigan fans needn't bother augmenting their unfruitful Sky subscriptions with an ESPN top-up: neither team is featured at all. Nor are Pompey or Stoke. Indeed, according to the broadcasters, Tony Pulis's men are the Premier League's third most unwatchable team: blanked by ESPN, they're only featured twice by Sky. One is a Sunday lunch at Hull which will doubtless be described as a "curtain-raiser" for the subsequent Chelsea vs Man United. The other, the visit of Pompey on the same day as Bolton vs Blackburn, is not so much Grand Slam Sunday as Contractual Obligation Bring Your B*st*rd Sons To Work Day. Not that Stoke fans will care a jot, of course, and nor should they. When your team is feared throughout the land, your home ground a passionate theatre of "no one likes us we don't care," it's difficult to be riled by the odd smug comment from Gary Lineker about being last on MOTD. Potters fans won't be puzzled by the polarisation between their team and the glamour boys up the top end. And it's probably fair to say they won't give a dog's danglies if they don't outmuscle Arsenal on the box as much as the do in the box. Television has always yearned for familiarity, and more importantly for glamour. And if you disagree with it, consider this. Besides clashes with the 'Big Four', Everton's two featured games are at Fulham and Pompey. Tell us how you'd sell us those games. You might get a job making TV adverts.