#THOSE MOVIES WITH THE FAST ANGRY CAR FELLAS sorry I'm still not over it

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Image description: Roy Kent, glaring during a football match Caption: Roy Kent, all smiles for the press.

HOUNDS CAPTAIN KENT: "P*&S OFF"

"He's here, he's there! He's every-[blanking]-where! ROY KENT! ROY KENT!" It's a chant that's run around Premier League stadiums for as long as many footie fans can remember, though soon it may not ring so true. An uncharacteristic mid-season slump is threatening to bench the AFC Richmond captain, or even to be his undeservedly dour swan song.

An intimidating amalgam of some of the game's most notorious "hard men" — Paul Ince, Roy Keane, Steve Perryman — Kent's talent was first spotted by Sunderland, who signed him as a pre-teen apprentice. A former Champions League winner with Chelsea, his long-frosty relationship with the media has iced over entirely during what appears to be a distracting combination of late-career jitters and mid-life crisis.

"It's because of pricks like you," he explained to me after Richmond's last-gasp win against Watford on Saturday, reprising his prior description of yours truly — to my face — as a colossal prick.

The word around Nelson Road is that the stoic midfield general is struggling to adapt to the almost disturbingly jaunty, utterly non-traditional coaching of newbie Richmond manager Ted Lasso. Yet he seems to be warming to the inexperienced American, particularly since Lasso boldly substituted Hounds star striker Jamie Tartt — who Kent also characterized as a "f(&$ing prick, even worse than you" — just before halftime in the Watford game.

"Obviously, when [Lasso] got 'ere, I thought I was being punked," said Kent, his h-dropping East London accent amplifying a famously unapproachable aura. "But, listen, if you want to work your way into my 'eart, you take Jamie Tartt off the pitch before 'half time."

For someone who appears to have been born with clenched teeth and a frown, this was the equivalent of Kent tearfully bear-hugging the wayward American manager.

"I respected it, he continued, regarding Tartt's substitution. "People say the fans are there for Tartt, which I find a very depressing thing to hear. And, y'know, he scored [against Watford] however he did. And Ted still took him off. And that took b*lls."

When I suggested to Kent that such comments, alongside his recently leading a kick-about with kids at a local primary school, might suggest that he's softening as retirement looms, he defaulted to a deadpanned, "Go f&$@ yourself." "Rumors of [Kent's] softness have been greatly exaggerated," Lasso concurred, with contrasting diplomacy.

Yet Kent's softening, and slowing, on the pitch has been noted by many who've witnessed Richmond's recent performances. Despite his brilliantly setting up Sam Obisanya's injury-time winner against Watford, there's growing pressure on Lasso and his longtime assistant Coach Beard to bench Kent for the first time in his Prodigious Premier League Career.

"Would you put a tarp over the Grand Canyon? Would you douse the Mona Lisa in ketchup?" countered Lasso, who described Kent to me as "the Rock of Gibraltar in human form."

When I asked him hypothetically, what he would think of not featuring in the first team, Kent replied, "Hypothetically, if I punched both of your eyes out and stuffed them up your arse, then told you to walk on your hands, hypothetically, what would you think of that?"

Kent's place in Richmond's starting 11, and indeed in top-flight football, may well depend on his evolving yin-yang relationship with Lasso, who's been drawing praise for his people skills even from erstwhile critics (including this writer).

"Did you ever see those movies with the fast, angry car fellas?" mused the mustachioed manager. ""Well I guess Roy and I are a lot like that." So it looks like, for now at least, Lasso and Kent will continue to suspend final judgement on one another. And this delicately-balanced dynamic between them could significantly shape Richmond's immediate future.

"…Maybe give 'im a chance," said Kent of his oddball gaffer, who's become universally known as "w*nker" among the Richmond faithful. "Because one thing he does know is we're a team. And that's important."

—Trent Crimm, Special Correspondent

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