A MARVELLOUSLY silly tabloid story here in Britain yesterdaydeclared that the number one Google search this past year was for the phrase “I hate Ronaldo”.

POOR PIQUE. Last week he enthused: “You know if you make a mistake you have these great players around you. Rio Ferdinand talks a lot to you on the pitch and helps you out...” Mmm. Well, there’s an easy dig to be had at my least favourite player there but I should be better than that.

GREETINGS from a most agreeable sunny spot off the west African coast, to which I have retreated during this current international break, courtesy of my now-emptied BetFair account. (“Put your money where you mouth is,” sneered email critics: Well, glad that I did — see previous columns!).

THE papers were full of Mark Hughes’s not-so-subtle touting for the top OT job before kick-off on Sunday — very similar in tone, it must be said, to his sniffing around Big Sam’s seat the week before.

PREEN, PREEN. Another good shout from me last week: “A 2-2 draw would be fine, thanks. Though Fergie will be demanding a lot more, such is his mood.”

HERE’S a line you won’t often see inthese columns: thank you Chelsea.

SO much for the post-international break hangover we were all dreading, eh? Mind you, Rio Ferdinand was still crying about yet another aborted Russian invasion by occidentals before kickoff on Saturday: “I couldn’t contemplate watching the European Championship finals without England in it, that is unthinkable.”

I’LL say one thing for these international hiatuses — they do at least allow such rubber-necking free-loaders as your correspondent to slope off to Paris for a weekend of World Cup rugby and heavy drinking, for which I give my thanks.

FORGIVE me for the even heavier air of smugness I am exuding this week but having predicted the Roma match score here last week (and cleaned up at the bookies) I was then thrilled to see the dam burst on Saturday, thus — at long bloody last — fulfilling my weekly promise here that all these strikers would one day pay off.

SO, how was it against Roma last night?