The Spoiler considers the top flight’s finest in Austria/ Switzerland

Although England fans will not get a chance to make fools of themselves on the streets of Vienna, the best league in the world is very well represented at the European Championships. With this in mind, The Spoiler has whittled down the top flight’s best imports to form some kind of monolith XI of continental talent. And Petr, you may have more arms than a Vishnu God, but you’re on the bench for this one…

Jens Lehmann
Forget the increasingly gaffe-prone Petr Cech, Lehmann is the guy to watch. He won’t be a Premier League player next season but he has a point to prove and could well lift the trophy.

Patrice Evra
Ridiculously, he still isn’t a regular in the French team, but a lack of Premier League left-back’s potentially up for selection in this XI means he creeps in ahead of Alvaro Arbeloa.

William Gallas
When he’s not sulking, Gallas is actually a pretty good defender and France will be relying on him being back to his best if they are to challenge.

Ricardo Carvalho
John Terry’s better half will be keen to show he can perform just as well without the blubbering wreck by his side.

Don’t leave them alone with the wife

And so to the less charming side of football - the players who would demand extra money if you dared to make them sweat, even just a little bit. The kind of men you wouldn’t want next to you in the trenches. Were this wartime… and people still used trenches.

GK Carlo Cudicini (Chelsea)
Cudicini is in his goalkeeping prime, and yet he’s happy to lay back in the dugout until Cech gets his face obliterated again. Then he’ll feign an injury of his own - slacker films should be made about this guy.

DL Ashley Cole (Chelsea)
A revolting little man, Cole is totally unaware of a world existing outside of his self-made bubble. In his head, he is king, and Chelsea isn’t his club, it’s just the latest in a long list of suckers to tend to his every bottom wiping whim.

DC Sol Campbell (Portsmouth)
Such are his addled nerves and fragile mind that no club could ever rely on keeping Sol Campbell happy - he’s just too sensitive, bless him. For now, he loves Portsmouth, just adores them, but should they EVER show evidence of not being hopelessly devoted to His Highness, he will go. And that’s not a threat. He actually will. Won’t you, Sol? Ahh, why are you crying? See what you’ve done? Now he’s crying.

The latest rumoured relief for the burning hole in Rom’s pocket

No one cares about money any more, everyone knows that. You could walk into Spurs HQ with £1 billion this afternoon and you wouldn’t even come out with an Aaron Lennon or Younes Kaboul (okay, you might) - football clubs want extras, they want deals. Hence, it’s all about the packaging.

Liverpool, for example, are unlikely to get Gareth Barry unless they throw in a Riise, or even a Crouch, and now it looks like Mr Moneybags over at Chelsea has twigged that it might take more than the smell of Sterling to attract the attention of the Spurs boardroom. He is instead relying on the perfumed allure of Shaun Wright-Phillips and Nicola Anelka to pry the tricky Bulgarian, Dimitar Berbatov, from the North London death grip.

There is no time to rest in football. Ferguson might have been dancing on the tables last night, but he’d have been back at his desk this morning with a muesli bar from a garage to plan how to best inflict pain on others come August.

Today’s transfer rumours read like this:

Dimitar Berbatov to Manchester United
Wow, where did this one come from? Who knew that Berbs wanted to leave? Might it have something to do with his agent demanding that he leave? As things stand United are front-runners, with Ferguson after a mature football mind to spearhead his attack. But there have also been increasingly fervent whispers echoing in from Barcelona insisting that he can go there if he wants to. Sir Alex will have to be at his most charming and flirtatious to bag this puppy. So to speak.

Samuel Eto’o to Inter Milan
More bad news Spurs. Apparently Inter are set to stroll up to the Barca striker and casually ask whether he’d like to join the Italian champions or the eleventh best Premier League side.

…but Chelsea may not get the result they want

According to the brainboxes at chickendinner, Nicolas Anelka has never gone more than four games against a former employer without scoring - and has now gone four games. This means that Anelka must score against old club Fenerbahce to maintain his career record (get on at at 9/4).

His success rate against former clubs, however,

Who was responsible for Drogba-Anelka?

As the Chelsea Bureau of Investigation sits down this morning to examine yesterday’s Carling Cup crime scene, some of the witnesses will undoubtedly trot out some unconvincing theories. The slippery pitch, the accuracy of the penalty decision, the fact that the referee failed to prevent the opposition from tackling whinging Didier Drogba, all will be blamed at some point for yesterday’s miscarriage of justice.

However, as the detectives travel a little deeper into what happened, they may find that their conclusions have a rather unpleasant flavour. Because at the heart of Chelsea’s downfall was the decision to play Drogba and Anelka from the beginning. Not only did Anelka contribute little up front, he also left Chelsea’s midfield far more exposed than had Joe Cole played, and Tottenham swept into that space from the kick off. The slightly unfamiliar look of Chelsea may also have contributed to Chelsea’s seeming to lose possession much more casually than usual, though the investigators may have a tougher time making that charge stick.

So, who made the decision to play Drogba-Anelka? Under Mourinho,