Taarabt - low blow

The big news from today’s showbusiness desks is that Sarah Harding from Girls Aloud has become more ladylike. They know this because she has a “grown up” hairstyle, and managed to navigate an entire nightclub without once grabbing herself and gurning at photographers. They grow up so fast, these pop stars.

Here’s what else we know, thanks to the likes of The Mirror, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph, The Sun etc…

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Funny stuff from the Tottenham Blog!

The crazy career of Jens Lehmann under the microscope

[Bild]

Things get worse for Wayne Bridge

[Daily Mail]

An ode to David Beckham

[Dirty Tackle]

The Arsenal-Man United-Chelsea Best XI

[Pies]

Iain Dowie takes over at Hull

[The Telegraph]

Basketball cock punch!

[Deadspin]

Yeah, those contract negotiations didn’t quite go to plan…

Were you to study the narrative structure of a typical soap opera, you’d find that the trend seems to be pretty consistent. A character starts out happy/stable, then everything goes wrong for a bit, before eventually they become happy/stable again. Or dead. If you want a writing job on Eastenders, simply repeat this format for as many years as you can stomach.

In soap opera terms, Joe Cole is currently caught up in the middle bit - where Dirty Den has just asked for a divorce, or Toadfish has been stabbed in the spine by Mrs Mangel. His World Cup hopes are all but dashed, and the word from today’s Daily Star is that he’s recently been offered an appalling contract to stay on at Chelsea. One which he’s going to refuse.

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Proof that footballers can be wonderful actors (via Dirty Tackle)

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[The Spoiler] 

Wilson Palacios rather puts his foot in it

[The Sun]

Man United/AC Milan examined

[Caught Offside]

The cheekiest penalty of all time?

[101 Great Goals]

Hark, it’s the Bayern Munich “victory shuffle”!

[Pies]

Uh-oh, Charlton fans will not be happy

[Off the Post]

Get the Thierry Henry look!

[Kickette]

Cole - out in the cold

Should England actually win the World Cup, on current form, it’ll be a bloody miracle. No one’s sure who should go in goal, over half of the defensive line have personal issues, the right wing’s a mess, Rooney still doesn’t have a definite strike partner. And Joe Cole - once so consistent - seems to have plummeted from sight.

Probably not the best time to start negotiating contracts, Joe.

And yet, that’s exactly what the one-time England cert is doing. In almost an exact mirror image of what’s going on with Wright-Phillips over at Man City, Joe Cole has taken a hard line at Chelsea, and is now DEMANDING in excess of £100,000/week to stay on board. He’s currently languishing in the £80,000/week bracket.

Eyes on the prize, Rafa. Eyes on the prize.

It’s been a brilliant Premier League season, one packed to the gills with subplots, dramatic twists and turns, and in the run up to the end of the season, private battles will be blazing in every segment of the table. Not least the race for the fourth spot.

As things stand, you can bet your nan on Manchester United, Chelsea and Arsenal all finishing in the top four - really, she won’t mind. Leaving one place left for one of Spurs, Man City, Villa and Liverpool.

Is an unlikely friendship in the offing?

Whilst showbiz desks are going berserk over pictures of Rachel Stevens’ new-look womanly thighs, which she chose to unveil at last night’s Baftas, sports desks are equally agog today with news of a rather unlikely alliance.

It’s common knowledge that only a big war can unite local rivals - a fact delicately played out with touching sentimentality by Lando Calrissian and Han Solo in the Empire Strikes Back - but no one ever saw this one coming.

Wigan 0-3 Spurs

For those of you far too busy chanting prayers to your respective gods to enjoy the weekend’s football, it was another topsy-turvy one for the Premier League. Liverpool and Man City produced nothing, Man United suffered from some divine substitutions, and the saga of Pavlyuchenko took an interesting turn. More of that above.

(Via 101 Great Goals)