News of Martin Jol’s demise came via text message

You could see it in his eyes when he stood on the sidelines during the first weekend of the campaign. Martin Jol had the look of a dead man walking when Michael Chopra scored a 90th-minute winner to lead lowly Sunderland over Jol’s Suprs.

It was just a matter of time before his tenure ended. Having gotten only one win in ten league matches didn’t help matters and it seemed that everyone predicted his sacking. But this is kind of strange:

But Jol knew long before the final whistle [of last week's UEFA Cup loss] that his time was up after receiving a text message from a friend during the match telling him he was to be fired.

Via the always-fantastic weekend edition of The Offside, written by the super-fantastic Daryl.