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In the continued spirit of desperately attempting to feel festive, here’s The Pogues! 

Pavlyuchenko to Arsenal, discussed

[Football Fancast]

QPR find a job for Paul Hart

[The Telegraph]

Wayne Bridge’s torrid time continues

[Kickette]

40 of the Top 50 Players of the Decade revealed!

[Daily Mail]

Choose your ten favourite players of the year!

[Caught Offside]

The Modric/Kranjcar conundrum

[Pies]

Also appearing on a computer near you…

Ironic that a bloke called Hansen should profit from some of the worst defending in history [via Off The Post]

The Gunners dress up for charidee, Fabregas apparently rocking a weird pony/rabbit hybrid
[Kickette]

Women’s footballer turned stripper goes back to her roots
[Dirty Tackle]

Hopefully these two will play a friendly against Martin Taylor next summer
[The Sun]

Peter (Kenyon) goes to Hollywood
[The Times]

Five players Rafa should sell in order to buy someone who can save his job
[Caught Offside]

Man City offer QPR two squad players + £1m for a 14-year-old
[The Mirror]

Trick or Treat? Probably neither

Brian Clough famously said, “Anybody who can do anything in Leicester but make a jumper has got to be a genius.” How apt it is then, that Leicester City are tonight’s visitors at the nation’s first boutique football club, Queens Park Rangers. Sky Sports 1 offer that at 7:45 whilst at the same time on ESPN, Borussia Dortmund will be looking to swipe bottom club Hertha Berlin.

Germany vs Honduras is the afternoon offering on British Eurosport from the U17 World Cup. Get in quick - it finishes in a fortnight.

Italian is the richest manager in British football

In his most recent book, Richard Branson reveals that rich lists are seldom accurate, based as they are on estimations and public domain information. Nevertheless, the good folks at Four Four Two have this week released the British Football Rich List, and there are few surprises at the top. David Beckham tops the players’ list with a supposed £125m fortune, and the wealthiest person in British football is still the QPR owner who isn’t about to be kicked out of the game, Lakshmi Mittal. The Indian steel magnate is said to be sitting on £18.4bn, nearly £1.5bn more than second-placed Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

In the richest manager top ten, noted money fan Harry Redknapp places at number seven with £10m, while second place is held by under-fire Ipswich coach Roy Keane, who apparently amassed the majority of his £27m fortune in his playing days.

The richest gaffer in Britain is also the one who has to take charge of the least amount of games - England manager Fabio Capello is worth £30m due to his utter refusal to pay tax hugely successful career.

[See the richest player list here, the manager list here and the full top 100 list here]

F1 villain could soon fail the fit and proper person test

A rotund 59-year-old with grey thinning hair and his 29-year-old wife, Italian Wonderbra model Elisabetta Gregoraci. Life, she is not fair.

Unless you have no interest in the sport where they drive around in circles for hours on end in order to sell advertising, you will have heard that Flavio Briatore has stepped down from the Renault F1 team, following the race fixing allegations at the Singapore 2008 Grand Prix.

After Renault bosses announced that the part-owner of QPR is “morally responsible” for an incident which allegedly saw Nelson Piquet Jr massively risk his own safety by deliberately crashing, it looks as if the FIA may throw him out of the sport.

If this happens, he will fail the Football League’s fit and proper person test, which states that a person cannot own a majority interest in a team if they are “subject to a ban from a sports governing body relating to the administration of their sport.”

The knock-on effect for QPR is currently up for debate. The West Londoners would probably miss his commercial nous, new sponsors may be reticent to do business with the club if he stayed. Considering the fact

The latest transfer gossip, rumours and damned lies

Heurelho Gomes to Chelsea
“Chelsea Cech out Spurs keeper Gomes as blunder boy Petr heads for Stamford Bridge exit,” claims a headline on the Daily Mail website.

The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: A very unlikely transfer with a fickle headline. The English press have lauded Petr Cech as the best goalkeeper in the world for years but one high-profile mistake has turned him into a “blunder boy”. Meanwhile Heurelho Gomes, who the media not long ago treated as a laughing stock is now considered good enough for Chelsea.

Carlos Tevez to someone wealthy
Tevez’s two-year loan ends this summer and despite previously expressing a desire to stay at Old Trafford, the Argentine is reportedly annoyed at never starting important games. Chelsea, Manchester City, Inter Milan, Juventus and

A blast from the past on a thoroughly slow news day

Back in January 1997, things were great: Oasis ruled the airwaves, Princess Diana was still knocking about and Trevor Sinclair proved that is was acceptable for a Premier League footballer to wear his hair like he was a member of early nineties rap duo Kris Kross.

In an FA Cup tie with Barnsley, Sinclair experienced the greatest moment of his career, when his decision to perform an audacious scissor kick from outside the box paid off in spectacular fashion. For his acrobatic effort, the former England winger earned himself Match of the Day’s Goal of the Season Award for 1997.

When gaffers lose their cool in spectacular style

For the twelve-thousand time in his career, Joe Kinnear was sent to the stands after reciting his naughty word vocabulary at Phil Brown. The Newcastle manager, however, didn’t get as angry (or punchy or kicky) as some of the gaffers below…

5. A coach in this Egyptian league game between Al -Ahly and Harashuduod gets so animated he starts taking his jacket off and undoing his shirt as he prepares for a fight.