Guest colmunist Sam Wheeler takes a light-hearted look at the world of sport this week.

Clown of the week

Leeds midfielder Olivier Dacourt, for his foolish comments before his side's clash with Lazio on Tuesday night. The Frenchman had some words for the Italian side's defender, Sinisa Mihailovic, who had been handed a two-game ban for calling Patrick Vieira 'a black monkey' earlier this season.

That punishment was fully deserved for an appalling piece of racism, and Dacourt, who is black, had every right to speak out against the Yugoslav. However, his outburst was particularly ill thought-out.

He said: "If he says anything bad about me, don't worry, I'll kick him." It seemed inevitable that Dacourt, who has a shocking disciplinary record even by Leeds standards, would get himself sent off, reacting to provocation from Mihailovic.

The referee would have been looking out for just such an incident and it was a major surprise that nothing happened.

Legend of the week

Nasser Hussain the England captain is in the middle of a miserable run of form with the bat, averaging just 13 in first class cricket this year.

In the second Test in Pakistan, he was the victim two shocking umpiring decisions, but accepted his fate with admiral stoicism. He received the Sod's Law double whammy of being given out LBW in the first innings when he hit the ball with his bat, and caught behind in the second when it hit his pad.

It was unbelievable, and I don't know how Nasser resisted the temptation to set about the umpires, the pitch and the stumps with his bat. Fair play to the lad.

There has been a lot of talk about Bryan Robson's position at Middlesbrough. There are two schools of thought about his managerial talents.

One is that he hasn't a clue. A team featuring Ravanelli, Juninho and Emerson should not be relegated,as Boro were in 1997.

The other school is that only someone with a playing pedigree as Robson could have enticed these players, and the star names that followed, to such a godawful place as Middlesbrough.