Those of you (and there are many) who ran straight down to your bookmaker last week to wager an enormous sum on Foul Play’s Premier League forecast, may be feeling a bit nervous right now.

The Arse – or Arsenal as they are otherwise known – have fallen flat on their arses in the opening phase, allowing their chief rivals to open a gap straight away. Their defeat at Liverpool was particularly humiliating, and a crushing blow to morale from which they may never recover.

Fuck them.

It would be easy for me now to make a revised prediction, to alter my forecast due to totally unforeseen circumstances, a policy which would be in line with Foul Play’s comprehensive tipping service, which keeps you abreast of all developments as they happen.

It would be so easy, in fact, that it seems very foolish not to do precisely this.

I like doing easy things. Unlike John F. Kennedy, I do things not because they are hard, but because they are easy.

Forget Arse. Cancel that prediction. And put your mazooma on Blackburn Rovers instead. There is only one factor which makes me harbour a lingering preference for The Gunners. It is something which Foul Play is virtually alone in identifying as a salient factor in the Premier League.

It is this.

Are you ready?

This is a good one now.

The League is a marathon, not a sprint.

Take the case of Liverpool, for example. Liverpool, who you can now admit to supporting, seeing as how awful they became in recent seasons . . .

Last season the ’Pool took off like a bat out of hell, winning all before them in the early exchanges. Then they did a very good impersonation of one of those rockets that NASA used to launch from Cape Canaveral, which would rise about twelve feet off the pad, and then disintegrate horribly, scattering itself over a wide area of the southern states of America, with horrible consequences for everyone concerned.

They had forgotten that the League is a marathon, and not a sprint!

Perhaps they are still forgetful of this, and have been hopelessly naive in winning their first three matches in tremendous style.

In desperation, manager Roy Evans has mounted a damage limitation exercise, signing our own Phil Babb for £3.75 million.

If it means avoiding relegation, then it must be regarded as a sound investment. And with the way things are going, unless The Pool start losing a match or two like their more cunning rivals, they will be facing the drop by the turn of the year.

And is Mr. Babb worth all that lolly? Of course he is.

Phil will be a great star of the Nineties, Coventry will get to build a new stand, which is all that they desire from life, Liverpool will stay in the Premier League, and in a couple of years time, people will say that Coventry were unmerciful fucking eejits, all the same, to give him away for loose change.

You may argue that by starting badly, Arse have shown an acute understanding of the fact that The League is a marathon, and not a sprint. Unfortunately, for Arse, it is neither.

For the hardy men from Highbury, it is more like a dogfight, and they seem to have contracted distemper, the mange, and worms — all at the same time. They should be put down for their own good. George Graham should give them the Black Pill and get it over with.

Meanwhile, our very own Phil Babb is a player of such creative ambition that he has expressed an interest in playing centre-forward. Some eminent football philosophers have even suggested that he might do so for his country.

Oddly enough, as we embark on a new European Championship, it looks as though we are well-served in the striking department at the moment, in poignant contrast to the recent famine we have experienced in front of goal (two goals in four matches in the World Cup finals!).

My spies in the South of France tell me that Big Cas is hitting the cobwebs for Marseilles like a man possessed, setting the onion sack a-dancing on seven occasions in four matches, or something like that. Actually, I tell a lie, I read it in the paper.

Big Niall with his two good knees is almost back to full action with Manchester City and will certainly be eager to bag a few for the Republic, after a summer spent traipsing around Orlando with Brendan O’Carroll and an RTE camera crew, trying to conduct intelligent conversations with hopelessly drunk people.

Aldo just can’t stop scoring for Tranmere Rovers, but then he couldn’t stop scoring for anyone except the Republic. We will need him to net a hatful against the joke nations in our group, as is his wont.

Looking into the glorious future, I would urge Maureece Setters to trick Kevin Gallen of QPR into signing up for Ireland before it is too late. He could notch many a score for us in the years to come.

Both of his parents are Irish, so in a way, he is over-qualified for us, despite being a blatantly English person.

His brother Joe Gallen has already declared for the old sod, which would be a cause for rejoicing were it not for the fact that Joe plays for Exeter, or Wrexham, or some such lowly outfit with an “X” in their name.

We should bring Kevin on board to avoid the potential embarrassment of an Ireland .v. England fixture with brother against brother — and us having the wrong brother.

We have been lucky in our trawling expeditions through the sea of green. We have certainly been luckier than Marseilles, who bribed their way out of the European Cup and into the Second Division, and then took delivery of Big Cas, where once they thrilled to the antics of Papin and Waddle and Desailly.

And then there’s the small matter of a large backhander to Noel Whelan of Leeds United, to bring him on board. Perhaps Gary Kelly could be the one to deliver it . . .