Dead Top Secret

IF YOUR NAME'S NOT DOWN, YOU'RE NOT COMING IN

"Just because you're paranoid, don't mean they're not after you," Kurt Cobain once sang, and God bless his rotting carcass if he wasn't right, because a few years later [SNIP!] had [SNIP!] him in his [SNIP!] and [SNIP!] so everyone thought he had [SNIP!] which meant that loads of indie girls in stripy leggings stood around fountains with candles complaining that they would now never have the chance to [SNIP!] him. Still, at least Kurt only had his [SNIP!] and a few inner demons after him. The Special One has the whole of Saudi Arabia baying for his blood. Apart from the women, obviously. They'll be at home where they belong.

Inter are playing Saudi side Al Hilal, you see, and the Special One is so scared of opposition spies that he's banned supporters from the training ground. "I have so much respect for the fans," sobbed the Special One, showing his respect by locking them out of their ground. "But I know that among the many fans who came here to show their appreciation to the players, there are also many coaches and observers from other clubs," he added as a tree YEAH THAT ONE THERE! THE ONE THAT'S LOOKING AT ME FUNNY! noted down everything he said in a notebook marked Dead Top Secret.

Understandably, Inter fans weren't too pleased about the whole thing. "We understand the manager," one supporter/spy said, preparing a zinger 104.9 times funnier and more succinct than anything Jimmy Carr has ever written. "After all, Al Hilal are very dangerous opponents."

Still, it's not all bad news for the Nerazzuri. Ghanaian genius Sulley Muntari is set to join them for £11m later today, meaning Frank Lampard will be kissing his ring at Stamford Bridge for a while longer. As long as a secret cabal of lizardmen from Atlantis don't use their contacts in the CIA to scupper the deal, that is.

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QUOTE OF THE DAY

"He has the upper half of a hod carrier and the bottom half of a ballerina" - Hull City chairman Paul Duffen explains that his temperamental treasure Dean Windass is as Bolshoi as he is bolshie.

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FREE! FREE! FREE! WIN! WIN! WIN!

Like an ambassador giving his butler the nod to hand around the Ferrero Rocher at a party, with these two fantasy games the Fiver is really spoiling you. So read on, you bunch of ingrates and don't even think about skipping straight to the rumor mill ...

Guardian Fantasy Football

Not only is Guardian Fantasy Football the most realistic fantasy football game on the web, it costs nothing to enter and there's a £50,000 prize fund to be won - including weekly and monthly prizes.

From 4-4-2 to 4-1-3-1-1 there are 10 different formations to choose from and the scoring system is richer and more realistic too. Unlike most other fantasy football games you don't just get points for goals, assists and clean sheets, but shots, saves, accurate crosses and more - which means what happens on the pitch is more accurately reflected in your team's points tally. You can also play against your mates or rival supporters in a Friends' League.

To play, click here. Now!

Guardian Pick the Score

How good at predicting Premier League matches are you? Use your mystic soothsaying skills and judgment to predict what will happen each week - you get one point for a correct result and three for a correct score - and you could win some great prizes. For each weekly winner there's a signed shirt of the Premier League club of your choice up for grabs, while the overall champion will win a signed England shirt. The runner-up will get two England shirts*.

To play, click here. Now.

*The runner-up will not get two England shirts.

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THE RUMOUR MILL

Tottenham Hotspur will sell Dimitar Berbatov to Milan or Barcelona for £5m less than the £30m they asked of Manchester United, for no other reason than spite.

Like a tea-timely football email that's spent the summer hawking itself around the websites of Europe's top football clubs for £37.5m and £120,000 per week, Emmanuel Adebayor has resigned himself to the fact that he's going nowhere.

Republic of Ireland winger Aiden McGeady will become the latest SPL superstar to get found out in England's top flight when he pledges his future to Sunderland.

And if you thought Wagner Love's move to CSKA Moscow was rum, you'll definitely be pinching yourself when he pitches up at Goodison Park.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

... fee for Anthony Gardner ... Sky Sports Breaking News: Sky Sources: Hull agree £2.5m ...

Rafa Benítez has signed Jean-Alain Boumsong's cousin David Ngog from Paris St. Germain.

The Fiver's long wait to see Mark Bosnich demean himself on reality TV looks set to go on a little while longer following reports he is attempting a comeback with the Central Coast Mariners, who have included him in their squad for the A-League's pre-season Cup.

Gareth Barry looks increasingly likely to stay with Aston Villa after Martin O'Neill confirmed he hadn't heard for Liverpool for "some time". "It's a long-running saga and I wouldn't mind it ending one way or another," parped O'Neill, prolonging the saga a little while longer.

Gary Megson insists Bolton are yet to received a "serious bid" for Abdoulaye Meite, though he declined to reveal whether there have been any whimsical ones.

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STILL WANT MORE?

Waylon Smithers is among the candidates to become Sir Alex Ferguson's new No2 in this week's brilliant Gallery.

If the sight of Diego Maradona trapping footballs with his backside, Olympic swimmers who can't swim very well and Sir Steven Redgrave sticking his oar in turns you on, then our weekly YouTube round-up is the place to go.

Could Israel and Palestine be preparing a joint bid for the 2018 World Cup? James Montague investigates.

The specialist subject in today's quiz is Olympic football and your time starts now.

Taking up her blunderbuss and pointing it into the nearest barrel of scaled aquatic vertebrates, Marina Hyde sniggers at the efforts of MLS fans to emulate English football hooligans.

And in tomorrow's 40x2p four-piece Big Paper: the week's tunes and motion pictures reviewed in Film & Music; more celebrity pomposity mocked in Lost In Showbiz; the weekend's weather previewed in Weather Forecast; and 12 pages worth of hot, sweaty huff, puff, biff, bang and wallop in Sport.

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FIVER LETTERS

"Re: the burglary at Mr Em's house (yesterday's news in brief). I don't know if the big man has any children, but if so, I hope they do some snooping around, find some seemingly irrelevant clues and piece the mystery together before unmasking the culprit, who will then say 'I would have got away with it if it hadn't been for those Heskey kids'" - David Moore.

"Re: the rickets-ridden Orlando Pirates (yesterday's Fiver). Unless they spend their lives riding around in a submarine, may I be the 1,057th pedant to point out that the Orlando Pirates are more likely to be scurvy-ridden. Unless of course they aren't real pirates" - Lee Barry.

"Unless Michael Owen has signed for Blyth Spartans, then Hobbits playing for Eriador is nothing like him playing for Northumberland (yesterday's Fiver letters), as Newcastle is in the county of Tyne & Wear" - Nik Hanlon.

"Isn't it about time you were getting back to providing us with two humorous and informative articles per Fiver like in the good old days? If nothing else, it would leave less room for desperately sad men to inflict upon us their Tolkien-based football fantasies" - Rod Gray.

"Please, please, please, stop giving these pathetic nerd losers the attention they didn't get from their parents" - Dexter Varley.

"Are these hobbits and TV villages (Fivers passim) any less imaginary than the Golden Generation of England players who were supposed to deliver us victory in the last three tournaments?" - Jim Adamson.

Send your letters to the.boss@guardian.co.uk.

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July 24, 1978: BILLY MARTIN RESIGNS AS YANKEES MANAGER, MARGARET GARDINER CROWNED MISS UNIVERSE, TOM LUTZ - WEARING BASEBALL CAP -LAUNCHED ON UNSUSPECTING WORLD