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...

CAPTAIN MARVEL - As in, it's a marvel he's still captain. Exactly how has William Gallas held onto the armband at Arsenal? There are claims that Arsene Wenger won't even take it off him after his latest mad rants, but that would be a dangerous indulgence by the French manager, as Gallas was lucky to be kept in the role after his disgraceful antics at Birmingham earlier in the year, and must have run out of warnings now. None of it is looking good for the Gunners are the moment, is it?

SORRY, COULD YOU SAY THAT AGAIN? - Didi Hamann is in trouble at Manchester City for 'refusing' to warm up while on the bench at Hull City last weekend, but he is claiming that he didn't hear the instruction from Mark Hughes. So, is he telling the truth? Hughes is a softly-spoken person, so perhaps the German veteran really didn't know he'd been told to go warm-up, but it's hard to imagine that happening, even in a noisy stadium. And what's Michael Ball's excuse? And how does he even get on the bench there these days?

GET IN THE RING - Both Ricky Hatton and his opponent this weekend, Pauli Malignaggi, have got football connections in common. Hatton's dad Ray played for Manchester City between 1966 and 1971 (this cursing his son to a life of shattered football dreams), while Malignaggi's dad Sebastiano was a professional footballer back home in Sicily. If only they could settle their differences with a nice kickabout instead of knocking each other's teeth out...

RIO AND CASHLEY - What do you get when you put 50 Cent, Danny Dyer, Brenda Blethyn, Ashley Cole and Rio Ferdinand together? The answer is Dead Man Running, a cockney gangster movie starring Fiddy, Dyer and Blethyn (a random cast if ever there was one) and being bankrolled by Ferdinand and Cole. It sounds like an absolute belter, obviously, particularly if Mr Cent attempts a cockney accent for the role rather than going for the boring 'playing an American in London' approach. At least it can hardly be less successful than Rio's last couple of attempts to become a media mogul...

SVEN GORAN ERIKSSON - With Fabio Capello making Sven Goran Eriksson's achievements as England boss seem pretty insignificant, as well as providing a mirror image of the Swede's lax, liberal style of management, you'd imagine Sven would be glad to be over in Mexico away from it all. Unfortanately, things aren't going well for him over there either. They only just made it into the final stage of the CONCACAF World Cup qualifiers on goal difference (ahead of the mighty Jamaica) this week after losing 1-0 to Honduras, and there is already pressure to ditch the Swede. But still, at least he's not Steve McClaren.

"It happens. It's my own fault." - Sir Alex Ferguson admits that he was to blame for the two-match touchline ban he has been given by the FA for a rant at referee Mike Dean. Yes, you read that right.

Is this Flavio Briatore unveiling new QPR boss Paulo Sousa at Loftus Road or is it two members of an ageing rock band backstage at some awards show?

Here's that man Maradona again, with a virtuoso performance as he makes fun of Terry Butcher in his post-match press conference.

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