Our Two Penneth

Welcome to Our Two Penneth, the blog that brings you all the best and all the worst from the footballing world, every day...

WHO NEEDS SCOUTS? - Football management games have been popular for a long time now, and it seems that it isn't just wannabe managers who like them. Everton have signed an exclusive deal with Sports Interactive - makers of Football Manager 2009 - granting them access to the game's full database of players for scouting purposes. So, instead of employing a whole load of scouts to find the hottest youngsters in football, Moyes just needs to go through FM 2009, search for the attributes he's looking for and unearth pure gold. With Sports Interactive founders the Collyer brothers both Everton fans, everyone's a winner.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE - Tottenham Hotspur have dismissed goalkeeping coach Hans Leitert after just a few months of employment, presumably because they can't so easily get rid of their real goalkeeping problem - their goalkeeper. Heurelho Gomes has been an almost unmitigated disaster, despite a decent reputation before he came and some impressive saves here and there since he arrived. However, they can't get rid of him yet, with Harry Redknapp admitting: "He's our number one so he's got to do the job - we're relying on him heavily. I believe in him and we have to believe in him."

BURGER OFF! - You might think that modern footballers, even in this country, would have pretty restricted and healthy diets, but Gerard Pique claims that wasn't the case at Man United during his team there: "At United there were some incredible things happening. Everyone was allowed to eat what they wanted and one must remember that the English diet is just like people say," he said. "Every two weeks we had to be checked out on a machine that measured the amount of fat we had in our bodies. It would be a surprise that none of the players broke the machine because of the amount of hamburgers and beer they had." He'd better hope he doesn't play Wayne Rooney in the Champions League any time soon.

FRAIZER CAMPBELL - It's been a good few weeks for young English Man United strikers, with Danny Welbeck's spectacular introduction to the Premier League at the weekend and Fraizer Campbell making his breakthrough into the Spurs team with goals against Liverpool in the Carling Cup. Now the youngster has grabbed a goal for England under-21s. Can either of them give Sir Alex Ferguson his first real success (Mark Robins doesn't count) in bringing a striker from the youth team to the first team?

LIVERPOOL FC - It's civil war on Merseyside. Liverpool vs Liverpool. The problem is that the Anfield club have made a trademark application to try and register the Liver Bird symbol from their badge as theirs, to stop counterfeiters using it on fake merchandise. But obviously, the council aren't too happy about the idea of the city's most famous symbol belonging to the football club: "It belongs to the city and nobody has a right to claim it exclusively as the own," said Deputy council leader Flo Clucas. "It's a symbol for the city."

The WAGs are finally starting to show what producers have been waiting for - some flesh. Joe Cole's future wife Carly Zucker stripped down to her bra while Tommy Williams's lady Nicola McLean probed her soft exposed skin while, erm, looking for ticks. It's nothing but glam in that jungle, you know. Speaking of which, Dani Behr has been talking about the songs that Man United fans used to sing to her while she was going out with Ryan Giggs, but at least she dodged the bullet of applying lotion to Joe Swash's bum, handing that unpleasant task to Mr Sulu, who seemed to enjoy it a little too much.

"England won a World Cup with a goal that never crossed the line, so it's not fair that people should judge me." - Diego Maradona says that England can't complain about the Hand Of God goal when they won the World Cup in 1966 partly thanks to a controversial goal by Geoff Hurst. Of course, he's missing the point somewhat, as a goal that may or may not have crossed the line is rather different from a goal that was punched into the back of the net by a cheat who couldn't possibly have scored any other way when jumping for the ball against a man about 1ft taller than him.

Ideally, that floodlight should have been flooding the Recreation Ground for Grays Athletic's FA Cup replay with Carlisle United. Instead, rising damp from the Thames was playing merry hell with the electrics, leading to the match being delayed by 27 minutes and then abandoned after 20 minutes of play. Needless to say, Carlisle and their fans aren't amused, having made the rather long journey down south for nothing...

There's not much funnier than seeing a footballer (or, even better, a referee) fall flat on his face or backside, but we reckon seeing a boxer make a complete fool of himself whilst showing off probably just about edges it...

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