By Tim Stannard

1) Mourinho in the firing line after Stamford Bridge surrender

It was only recently that Radiohead decided to play their 1993 breakthrough hit, ‘Creep’ once again. The hit was off the set lists largely on the grounds that the band hated the song, with its Loser City tag line of “I wish I was special.”

In a link that might break the laws of journalistic gravity, the alternative-angst classic very much sums up Jose “The Special One” Mourinho’s mood on Monday morning after a 4-0 humiliation for himself and his Manchester United team against Chelsea in Stamford Bridge.

Aside from Antonio Conte geeing up the crowd, most of his players failing to turn up for the occasion, losing the general touchline coolness battle, the worst part of Manchester United’s loss was perhaps parts of the Chelsea crowd jeering that “you’re not special anymore.” That must have caused a stifled sob.

It was mean, but the Chelsea supporters had a point, and that appears to be the gist of Monday’s reaction to a big, bad weekend for the Old Trafford club. Of course, the nature of Mourinho’s crisis at Man Utd depends on how special the feelings are towards the Special One, but there was one statistic in particular published by Opta that was fairly damning.

Worse could be to come on Wednesday with the Manchester derby up next in the EFL Cup – live on beIN SPORTS of course – however, the match could also be a chance for Mourinho to comfortably beat Man City, shrug it all off and point the finger of shame at Pep Guardiola, who is also going through an early season blip over the other side of the city.

2) Real Madrid make plans for inevitable post-Zizou world

Real Madrid may be top of the table in La Liga and defending Champions League…er…champions but that hasn’t stopped Florentino Perez hunting for a replacement for the inevitable day that Zinedine Zidane is fired. The man at the top of the short list appears to be Borussia Dortmund coach, Thomas Tuchel – a wearer of very natty jerseys, too.

Rather this being scurrilous rumor-mongering to annoy Real Madrid fans, the source is the Dortmund CEO, Hans-Joachim Watzke. "I have a good relationship with Real Madrid and I believe that they are tracking him,” said the Bundesliga bigwig assuming that Manchester United don’t get to Tuchel first.

3) France Football drip feed 30-man Ballon d’Or shortlist

Normally, the announcement of the Ballon d'Or shortlist would produce a weary, sneery diatribe into how everyone in the beautiful game except Leo Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would be ignored by football's most pointless prize. 

But then Sports Burst remembered that the prize had been taken out of the organizing hands of FIFA and returned to the studied opinions of journalists working for France Football, how it was back in the day before 2009. 

The 30-man shortlist is being published on Monday and the names are being drip, dripped throughout the day in alphabetical order. Don’t worry – King Zlatan has made it.

4) Icardi getting hammered as Inter squabble over de Boer replacement

TRANSFER GOSSIP! – Never too early for this. West Ham United have thrown their hat into the ring to try and bring Mauro Icardi away from troubled Inter Milan and into the fold of the Hammers.

Meanwhile, while there seems to be unanimous decision at Inter that coach Frank de Boer must be fired after three defeats in a row, reports from Italy say there are disagreements between the club’s Chinese owners and those in Italy over who should take over.

The former want former PSG man, Laurent Blanc, while the latter prefer an Italian stop-gap before bringing in Diego Simeone next season.

5) Study links heading footballs to memory loss

A study published in EBioMedicine by a Scottish university reports that heading a football can significantly affect a player's memory for 24 hours. “Small but significant changes in brain function,” had been identified after players headed the ball 20 times.