Spanish striker could be working for a bank next year

According to The Times, Liverpool will be forced to sell Fernando Torres and Ryan Babel if they do not stump up £31.5m owed to creditors.

Usually, Premier League clubs fund purchases through television income, but Liverpool made the unusual step of borrowing the money from banking institutions to pay for their star striker and the tricky Dutchman. The club refinanced the £31.5m debt in January, at the same time as they secured a £350m refinancing package. Liverpool will have to pay £30m a year in interest alone on the huge loan, the terms of which end next July. If they fail to repay the smaller loan by the end of the 18-month agreement, the Reds will have no choice but to sell Torres and Babel.

Most football fans and doggers could create a better likeness than this



Yesterday’s edition of The Game carried an interview with Stan Collymore, and nothing was more intriguing than the illustration that came with the article - it looks absolutely nothing like the outdoor sex enthusiast we all know and love. It looks more like Les Ferdinand doing a cameo appearance on King of the Hill.

[The Game @ The Times]

“Tragic ace” has more vivid inner life than the rest of England’s footballers put together

As part of their Gazza coverage, the Times have run an extract from Hunter Davies’ outstanding book, Gazza My Story, written with Paul Gascoigne in 2004, which you can read by clicking here. Amongst the many insights into a lifetime of mental turbulence are these two:

“I should have had counselling. Years ago, when I was a boy in Gateshead, I had my first chance to get help, but I didn’t go back.

“When I was seven, I had a weird experience. I’d been playing football in the park all afternoon and

Writing in the Times, Simon Barnes describes Paul Gascoigne’s last few weeks as an increasingly unhinged guest at a Gateshead hotel, including the line “Gascoigne, 40, had apparently also spent hours in his room playing on a Nintendo Wii handheld computer game console.”

One reader’s reaction to this harrowing account? “The only one comment I have to say on this is that the Wii isn’t really a handheld device as such.”