After all the frenzied talk about Liverpool imploding last week – something that will no doubt return if the Reds lose again this weekend – it’s been nice to see the football world return to something resembling normality this week after their victory over Man Utd. There’s something reassuringly normal about all the talk of managers being sacked, clubs in financial trouble and strikers missing sitters – Bobby Zamora’s incredible miss against Man City seems to have disappeared from the web, but thankfully you can see an even worse one over here at Football Spotter- he somehow hits the ball backwards!

The money troubles of clubs such as Rangers, Portsmouth and Hull are worrying however, especially for other clubs in Scotland that see the Old Firm as having all the financial muscle in the country, or for clubs in the Championship who see the likes of Hull as proof that they can one day compete in the Premiership. There’s an interesting in depth analysis of Hull’s predicament over at the ever-insightful TwoHundredPercent, which makes for sobering reading.

However, it’s Friday, there’s a full weekend of football ahead of us, and it’s Halloween, so let’s not get too serious! Here’s the perfect Treat – everyone’s favourite eccentric German goalkeeper, Jens Lehmann, getting Tricked by a ball boy. Guaranteed to raise a chuckle. This is also an idea opportunity to remind people about the ace Football Hero video by Kasabian and Umbro, if you haven’t seen it already:

Also good fun for a Friday afternoon are these Soccer Sequence puzzlers over at new blog Football On The Wire – be warned however, you won’t get much work done once you start thinking about them!

If you’re a Twitter fan, and want to know which footballers Tweet, we’ve put together a handy list here. It’s an interesting mix which features Darren Bent, Celtic keeper Artur Boruc and, perhaps the keenest Twitterer out of them all, Ukrainian player Evgeniy Levchenko.

Finally, just a quick note about the pic at the top of this blog. It’s a great shot by photographer John Garghan, taken from our Flickr group Football In Britain, which shows the tricky path that players have to take to get to a pitch in Handsworth. Gives the idea of a train-ing pitch a new meaning…