LONG ago, one of the widely-voiced opinions of Jimmy Greaves was that he did not work hard enough.

“All he ever does is score goals,” was how his critics summed up Greavesie in his days at Chelsea, Spurs, Inter-Milan and West Ham. For the record, he scored 423 - including 44 for England.

It’s a bit like criticising a goalkeeper by pointing out that all he ever does is make saves.

Oh, hang on - doesn’t Manchester City outcast Joe Hart know all about that? He is now in exile in Turin partly because he is not some modern day Stanley Matthews.

Pep Guardiola - by common consent one of the world’s greatest-ever coaches (at least among the ex-players on every TV panel) – has now turned his attention to getting more out of Sergio Aguero who, in the opinion of those same panellists, is the world’s second best striker behind Luis Suarez.

Aguero, like quite a few more, had a quiet afternoon in City’s 1-1 draw with Southampton, but Pep is clearly a perfectionist who has an “it’s my way or the highway” philosophy and if Hart isn’t safe then who is?

There was a Sunday newspaper story suggesting that City are looking at Borussia Dortmund’s Pierre-Emerick Aubemayang (imagine that on the back of a jersey!).

So despite his Greaves-like ability to score, Aguero may find himself on the outside of a team with a ball-playing goalkeeper and a tough-tackling centre-forward.

After all, City are without a win in five games even though they are still top of the Premier League. Watch this space.

AND across the city, life is getting really interesting.

It’s an accepted view that honeymoon periods in football rarely lost as long as the real thing and Manchester United’s 4-0 defeat at Chelsea was meat and drink to the regular callers to radio phone-ins.

Rubbish; shambolic; embarrassing – and all that was the verdict of just one man. He stopped short of blaming the manager, but was not too kind about £89-million man Paul Pogba or free transfer goal machine now as famous as Madonna or Elvis as he needs only one name – Zlatan.

United fans, who could not wait to see the back of David Moyes and Louis van Gaal, won’t be gunning for Jose Mourinho just yet, but it doesn’t take an Einstein to suggest that the Special One has still to convince the 75,000 faithful that they have got the right man to take them back to the top.

To do that, even Jose needs better players than he has got at Old Trafford right now. Again, watch this space.

ENGLAND won a thrilling Test match in the early hours of yesterday morning. But the victory in Chittagong was probably watched on TV by fewer people than it takes to fill a taxi.

Test cricket is keen to maintain its place at the peak of the sport, so when it gets the chance to provide an exciting finish to a Test match what happens?

The players walk off to return to play for 20 minutes the following day. With England needing two wickets and Bangladesh 33 runs to secure victory it was decided that the light was too bad for Alastair Cook to call on his fast bowlers.

Fine – except the ground has floodlights and if their light takes over from nature’s source then the umpires call a halt. Which begs the question: What is the point of floodlights?

KARL Robinson is the latest manager to fall off the merry-go-round after six years in the job at MK Dons and he certainly won’t be the last this season.

And one name already on some hit lists is David Moyes, who is still waiting for his first win.

Ian Wright, Radio Five’s phone-in go-to pundit, has a suggestion for rock bottom Sunderland. They should pay off David Moyes and get Sam Allardyce to ride to the rescue before it is too late.

Don’t bother watching this space for that one.