From the 'I suppose we should have seen it coming' file... George Graham has 'parted company' (ie. been sacked) by Spurs.

It must have come as a shock to George himself, as only this morning on the official Spurs website, he was 'hoping to add the squad'.

The story seems to be that George had a private meeting with David Pleat and members of the team from new owners ENIC. And when George spoke openly about information which was supposedly confidential, ENIC got the hump. And George got the boot.

'I have dismissed him summarily for breaking his contract,' said Spurs executive vice-chairman David Buchler. 'He had already had warnings, written warnings from the club in relation to this particular aspect of activity. We cannot conduct the affairs of the club in the press.'

But it's surely no coincidence that the sacking comes on the same day that Spurs released a six-month trading statement to the Stock Exchange, the first under ENIC. There's no mention of George Graham by name, but it does include the following, very telling, paragraph:

'Results on the pitch have not been satisfactory for many years. A Club of this size and stature needs and deserves to be consistently challenging for major honours, domestically and abroad. Your Board of Directors is committed to developing a strategy to this end. It will take us some time to assess the current situation regarding the first team squad and it would be wrong to opt for short term fixes.'

Apparently 'some time' came to a total of a few hours...?

Bookies Coral are offering odds of 33-1 against George Graham wearing an Arsenal scarf at the FA Cup semi... and a generous 6-1 against GG being the Sky Sports pundit at the game.

David Pleat will look after the team until the end of the season... and Glenn Hoddle is an odds-on favourite to take charge in the summer.