A tame affair as Benitez starts life in Roman empire

Orson Welles’ footballing allegiances, if he ever had any, will probably never be known but it would be fair to say that Harry Lime, the character he both played and created for the 1949 film The Third Man, had an attitude that would appeal to Roman Abramovich.

“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance,” Lime proclaimed at one point.

“In Switzerland they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”