Garth Crooks

RESPONSIBLE for all strategic operations and military planning, the Defence Secretary must be hard-headed, passionate and tactically adept. Step forward Ronnie’s chosen war chief: excitable football pundit

GARTH CROOKS.

“Stoke-born Garth has spent the bulk of his post-playing career carefully analysing the tactical nous of Britain’s top football teams. And since, to quote George Orwell, sport is just ‘war minus the shooting’, I see no reason why the ex-Spurs man’s scalpel-sharp soccer strategies couldn’t be applied to the modern battlefield.”

“The same clear-sighted analysis, observation and tactical cunning Garth employs when picking apart a lacklustre Wigan back four would be invaluable when it came to masterminding a covert drone strike on a suspected ISIS stronghold.”

“What’s more, it falls to the Defence Secretary to make some of the toughest decisions in government – such as whether to invade a foreign country, or push the big red button and release a crop of deadly nuclear missiles. As such, fence sitters and wishy-washy thinkers are no use: you need someone with strong, passionate opinions who’s not afraid to fight their cause. Anyone who’s seen Crooks gabbling hysterically about poor box-to-box marking on Final Score will know that the former Charlton man more than fits the bill here.”

“Yes, when it came to bravely leading our country into battle, I think that the hotheaded Match of the Day pundit would be a Gar th-gantuan triumph.”

NEXT WEEK: Battle of Star-Lingrad! We team up with a top military historian to find out which A-List celebs would have fared best in the iconic World War II fracas.