Lesser Transfer Gossip for December 3, 2009

Because I read all the papers, I often come across news that the rest of you miss. Here are a few gems that your ill-advised loyalty to the Buxton Advertiser might have caused you to overlook.

• Arsenal target Andre-Pierre Gignac sure does like his garlic mashed potatoes.
• It’s okay, Manchester United intern Will Forthwell is pretty sure he can keep improvising to avoid having to pronounce the word “Dzeko.”
• Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp finds that leaning against a wall shifts the weight pleasingly off his knees as he watches this tape of Watford goalkeeper Scott Loach.
• Juventude’s Brazilian playmaker Zezinho, reportedly a target for Arsenal in January, sometimes looks at his hands and wonders how God made them exactly the same.
• Meanwhile Leeds striker Jermaine Beckford is paging through a Wolverhampton phone book and yelling to a friend in the next room that they do have a bit of Thai.
• Portsmouth striker and possible Celtic loan signing John Utaka is reportedly a big believer in the sleep masks they have on airplanes.
• Powerful agent Rachid Tajmout tried on so many ties this morning that his wife was like, “this is ridiculous.”
• Hungarian ace Zsolt Korcsmar, who is being trailed by Everton, noticed a caterpillar on the pitch a few weeks ago, but soon forgot all about it.
• If he only had a time machine, thinks want-away Hibernian goalkeeper Yves Ma-Kalambay, he could cut an impressive figure in “times of honor.”
• No one told Birmingham target Mamadou Niang that there are certain things he would be better off not putting in a wood-burning fireplace.
• Ex-Germany boss Jürgen Klinsmann, who is reportedly in talks with Liverpool, thinks that the secret to thriving at this moment is not letting on that you know about the financial crisis.
• Luca Toni is praying that the press never connect his desire to play for West Ham with his well-publicized “things that have been owned by people from Iceland” fetish.