Bono fide effort to end managers’ spat

WE ALL know the celebrated tale of the Christmas Day truce in 1914 when British and German soldiers stopped trying to kill each other long enough to play a game of football between the trenches.

Heart-warming stuff, even if normal grisly service was resumed once the final whistle was blown.

Still, you have to ask: how many millions more would have been slaughtered if the respective managers on the day had been called Wenger and Mourinho? We jest, of course, but a little perspective even of the darkly humorous kind might not go amiss as, with a heartfelt cry of 'bah, humbug', we turn our attention to the battle of the bosses.