If you could read my mind, son

AMONG his many other talents — bustling striker, informative pundit, man who chuckles at commentators “jokes” — Sky’s Andy Gray also appears to be blessed with paranormal powers.

And, as early as the Community Shield this season, he was giving a demonstration of his by now familiar yet still uncanny ability to read players’ minds. Mere mortals like us might have thought that Craig Bellamy just grunted as he crossed the ball to Peter Crouch but Andy, in that excitable way of his, was able to transcribe verbatim what was going on in Bellamy’s brain as he picked out the big man: “He’s sayin’: ‘Go on son, go and win us the Community Shield.’”

If only all footballers were as eloquent off the pitch as they are, according to Mystic Andy, in the privacy of their own minds.