Cliche of the Week 5 – Sick as a parrot

THE football team's future hangs by a thread as an anxious nation waits to see if pride will be restored.

Individual players look sick as a parrot as they squander their chances and suffer a bitter blow when injury ditches them from the team.

The World Cup coverage turns on the style with bountiful cliches.

Sick as a parrot was apparently popular in the 1970s. Today it appears to be used most by British media to describe disappointment.

Difficult to pick a single cliche from coverage of the...