When I listen to British football managers and players at post-match interviews, along with commentators and pundits, I sometimes wonder how they would fare in a language test. Here is my academic analysis:

Steve Bruce (Birmingham City manager): Mr Bruce’s consistent (or inconsistent) use of the present-perfect tense instead of the past simple impedes his ability to get his message across, as in: ‘He’s gone and went down the wing’.

Glenn Roeder (Newcastle United manager): Mr Roeder’s use of the present-simple tense instead of the third conditional is intolerable. For example, in this description of his unfortunate goalkeeper Steve Harper, who was trying to get back and save a long-range lob from Xabi Alonso: “If he doesn’t slip, he saves it.”

David Beckham (Real Madrid): “We do need to share that out because Frank's showed this season that he gets forward.” I think Mr Beckham means ‘shown’ but who am I to argue with £100,000-plus per week?

Chris Kamara (former player and manager, now a Sky TV pundit): “Barnsley have started off the way they mean to begin.” Quite. One would require the services of the World War Two Enigma code breakers at Bletchley Park to decipher that. Mr Kamara is to the English language what Genghis Khan was to trial by jury.

Alan Hansen (ex-Liverpool defender turned BBC pundit): “The one thing England have got is spirit, resolve, grit and determination.” Sorry Alan, I think you meant to say: “The things England have got are…” (Or perhaps you didn’t mean to say it correctly in the first place because you don’t know how to. But we, the licence-fee payers, are stupid enough to pay your high salary at the BBC).

Mark Lawrenson (same credentials as Hansen): “'The fact that Burnley got beat here already will stick in their claw.” There is no rating scale for this. Return to sender.

Alan Green (BBC commentator): "It was that game that put the Everton ship back on the road." Was it indeed, Alan?

Compare these quotes with the fluency of foreign players who grace the game in the UK. Given that English is not their mother tongue, their use of language is often remarkably good. They may not be at the level of Joseph Conrad or Arthur Koestler, who wrote prodigiously in English despite not having been educated in the UK, but they are easy to understand.

So, dear Sportingo readers, please send in more gaffes from the gaffers and word plays from the players for us all to enjoy. All contributions will be gratefully received, or to put the request into ‘football manager mode’: “Get them quotes in, I’m asking for 110 per cent.”