Just ask Everton supporters. David Moyes insisted that the Toffees needed to rest players against Oldham last weekend, in strict accordance with Big Club rotation policies.

He overlooked one glaring contradiction, however. Everton are not a big club.

Manchester United are a Big Club. Arsenal are a Big Club. Havant & Waterlooville are a Big Club. The Toffees are a medium-sized club who lose to Oldham in the FA Cup.

Watching Moyes after the match reminded me of childhood trips to the Tower Of London and my failed, puerile attempts to make the guardsmen smile by pulling faces.

Those guardsmen are not allowed to smile, make eye contact or display any kind of facial expression other than dourness.

Rather like Moyes.

There are only two people who betray less emotion than Moyes.

Avram Grant and Sir Stamford Raffles - and one is a statue.

The other is Stamford Raffles.

Chelsea continue to knock over sleeping giants like Queens Park Rangers in the FA Cup with swashbuckling 1-0 victories as they once did under Jose Mourinho, but at least the Portuguese provided the showmanship and played to the crowd.

Now the Blues are stuck with Avram Grant. They must feel like they've swopped Freddie Mercury for Bob Dylan.

By the time Mourinho made his hasty departure from Stamford Bridge, I was the first to admit that the Premier League deserved a rest from his monotonous rants and touchline histrionics.

Now, I look back at his efforts to slide along muddy touchlines in the knees of his Armani with a touch of nostalgic fondness; like I would my uncle's woeful attempts to pull off Michael Jackson's moonwalk at family weddings.

He couldn't, of course, and often ended up tumbling, head first, into the lap of the bride (which I now suspect was his intention all along); but it was undoubtedly the highlight of an otherwise lacklustre gathering. Rather like most weekends at Stamford Bridge.

According to recent reports, Mourinho is monitoring Anfield's ongoing shenanigans.

If Liverpool's owners are finally convinced that Rafael Benitez is guilty of the most scandalous waste of resources since Elton John's cocaine-fuelled tours of the 1980s, then Mourinho could step in.

I found myself desperately hoping there was a grain of truth in the speculation. The English Premier League needs Mourinho like never before.

Sam Allardyce, who could be out of a job soon, has succeeded only in making his predecessor, Glenn Roeder, look like Robin Williams in interviews.

Even his Newcastle players are having trouble staying awake.

According to one media report, the team sat through another 30 minutes of Allardyce's scientific examination of what their opponents' left-back ate for lunch 15 years ago, when one of his players asked bravely: 'But what do you want us to do when we've got the ball?'

Allardyce's team of staff are allegedly bigger than George Bush's. They are rumoured to be around 32, including a clinical psychologist.

Just how a clinical psychologist is going to help Mark Viduka lose weight, turn a defender and rediscover his ability to trap anything other than a bag of cement remains a mystery.

The most intriguing manager involved in English football is Fabio Capello and the man can't string together two coherent sentences in English - although that doesn't set him apart from a number of EPL club managers.

Before the Aston Villa-Manchester United FA Cup clash, the Italian signed autographs for fans in the stands and displayed more emotion than Grant, Moyes or Allardyce all season.

Thank god, then, for Sir Alex Ferguson. He still whines like a hormonal teenage girl who can't get tickets for a Spice Girls' reunion concert. But, at least, like Mourinho, you know where you stand with him.

Old Trafford isn't littered with more psychologists than an episode of Grey's Anatomy and he doesn't grow trendy goatee beards as if to say: 'Yes, I did sign Peter Crouch, but I also bought Fernando Torres and am I not a dedicated follower of fashion?'

Fergie is an old school, swearing, gum-chewing, celebrity-destroying gunslinger and if a crowd is c***; he'll say it's c***.

'The crowd were dead,' he moaned after United's workmanlike victory over Birmingham City on New Year's Day. 'It was like a funeral out there.'

Only Fergie could get away with putting out a disjointed team (who played like they'd just been introduced to each other before kick-off) and then blame their sluggishness on the fans.

Only Mourniho came close to matching such devilish antics.

And if he's not sliding on his knees at a new Premier League club any time soon, I'm sending for my uncle.

stsports@sph.com.sg