The Warm-Up: Jose Mourinho's 'poisoned gift', and Big Ralf lined up for England

It's not like Jose Mourinho to complain of some kind of structural bias or perceived agenda against his side. Oh no, not Jose. So when he started talking about a "poisoned gift" after seeing his Manchester United team defeat Ukrainian long-haul shipping firm Zorya Luhansk in the Europa League last night - 'Zorya Luhansk! You need? We bring!' - the Warm-Up assumed he meant the pint of wine it had presented to him as a leaving gift after being sacked by Chelsea.

But no, like the canary in the coal mine, Mourinho is chirping his head off about the imminent danger of United's upcoming fixture list - and a particularly busy period starting when United go to Anfield on October 17 for Monday Night Football, then take on Fenerbahce on the Thursday before going to Chelsea on the Sunday. Ouch.

“Well, we could play Liverpool on the Saturday, we could play Liverpool on the Sunday, we play Liverpool on the Monday," he said. "So maybe we don’t have the best conditions, especially because we play against two top Premier League games that don’t play in European competitions. We had this kind of poisoned gift of playing on the Monday. That creates a very difficult situation... The poisoned gift is already there, so what can you do? We just have to play Monday, and then Thursday, and then Stamford Bridge on the Sunday."

To be honest, complaining about fixture lists is like complaining about the inevitability of death: there's nothing you can do to change it and sooner or later it will stiff everyone anyway.

We're leaving the EU to take back control, they said. Brexit means Brexit, they said. No more faceless Eurocrats dictating our way of life and controlling our most cherished institutions from Brussels, Paris or Berlin, they said.

So imagine The Warm-Up's surprise when it opened its copy of the Daily Express and spat out a mouthful of builder's tea and full English when reading that one of the men being lined up for talks over the England job is RB Leipzig sporting director Ralf Rangnick - a German!

Just look at him - he could have been plucked straight out of the European Parliament. And now he comes to drape his towel over the manager's chair at St George's Park at some ungodly hour? He might have taken Schalke to the Champions League semi-finals, masterminded the rise of Hoffenheim, overseen Red Bull Leipzig's lightning ascent through the leagues and been one of the spiritual leaders of the tactical and technical revolution which made Germany the world champions, but no thanks. If it didn't happen in England then it didn't happen at all.

Those Europeans eh? Coming over here, taking our jobs, possibly finally addressing the deep-rooted structural deficiencies which have retarded the development of English football while implementing a progressive and successful playing style. What a terrible, terrible idea that would be.

After making the biggest of splashes by dethroning England manager Sam Allardyce on day one, the Daily Telegraph's highly admirable probe into football corruption is now steadily going about building a picture of how money corrodes the soul of the game from the inside, via many different methods and many different channels.

The latest subject of a front-page story is Southampton assistant manager Eric Black, who stands accused of advising the fake business people, who have seemingly spent much of the past few months hanging out in tacky wine bars and restaurants with cameras secreted about their persons, on how to secure influence at clubs.

There have been no scalps to match Allardyce - at least not yet - but the Telegraph's investigation is prompting action. On Thursday, Damian Collins, acting chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, said MPs are thinking of giving football's top suits a grilling over the growing body of allegations. "We are considering getting the FA to discuss the revelations exposed," he said.

Yes, because if there's anyone in a position to lecture about hidden-camera stings, sleaze, alleged corrupt behaviour and conflicts of interest, it's our upstanding Members of Parliament.

"The Journey has begun" read the headline on the postcard received by England's players on Thursday morning. If by that they meant the journey into the depths of national scandal and embarrassment, then they were probably right. For this was a postcard sent by the FA on behalf of a noted keynote speaker who suddenly has a lot of time on his hands. "Well done! Our journey has begun with our first win together. Looking forward to seeing you soon. Sam Allardyce." Not that soon.

He's good again, people. After the sparking blue Mediterranean seas of the Cote d'Azure proved just the tonic for Hatem Ben Arfa to resurrect his career after a death spiral in the north of England, Mario Balotelli is going through the same process and now has five goals in four games since his summer move from Liverpool. Okay, Nice lost 5-2 to Krasnodar last night but as we know by now, Balotelli is always the story.

Incidentally, if you want to know what awaits Balotelli next season, Ben Arfa is already fighting for his future at PSG after not working hard enough in training.

As an upstanding member of the football journalist community, there's nothing that offends The Warm-Up more than overpaid, overhyped young men ignoring us in the mixed zone after a match and refusing to impart their half-baked views on whether Wazza had a good game for around 30 seconds.

(Okay, this is pretty funny)

Bravo isn't a TV channel which will feature frequently in these pages - or at all after today. But thanks to one Twitter user, you can now immerse yourself in the entire first series of "Danny Dyer's The Real Football Factories" in just one minute.

It's what you would get if you crossed any Guy Ritchie film with the Reduced Shakespeare Company. Apologies for the one quite rude word in there - that's pwoper nawty.

It's time for Friday Night Football, as Alan Pardew begins his pitch for the England job in Crystal Palace's trip to Everton, live on Sky Sports 2. If that doesn't float your boat, you can see Rangnick's work in practice as RB Leipzig take on Augsburg over on BT Sport 3. Motherwell also face Hearts on BT Sport 2, Rennes take on Guingamp on BT Sport ESPN and it's Real Sociedad v Real Betis over on Sky Sports Mix - whatever that is.