Unsurprisingly, a lot of the football-related comments on the web this week have centred around Liverpool: whether taking the mickey out of the beach ball incident at Sunderland or seriously questioning the club after their Champions League defeat to Lyon, you can’t avoid the Scousers at the moment.

It’s a shame, as it overshadowed possibly the most interesting thing to happen in football over the last week: Dirty Harry himself kicking off a game in France whilst visiting Lyon Film Festival. As a video posted on the Dirty Tackle blog shows, Clint Eastwood isn’t the best footballer in the world but, to be fair to him, he is 79 years-old, and I bet you wouldn’t say that to his face. Perhaps it was Clint’s visit that spurred Lyon on for that match against Liverpool? Either that or their Umbro shirts.Another big talking point this week has been the sacking of Gareth Southgate at Middlesbrough. Everyone seems to agree that Gareth was a nice bloke, perhaps a bit too nice for football management. That does make this gallery posted on blog whoateallthepies featuring ‘the many faces of Gareth Southgate‘ a little bit cruel, but it’s also very funny. More cultured football high-jinks can be found here at Football Spotter, where a host of footballers are compared to characters from cult TV show The Wire. Surely there must be a McNulty out there?

However, it is hard to avoid Liverpool, whether in comedy clips like this one, or in more serious analysis such as this blog post from the always insightful David Conn over at The Guardian. It’s particularly interesting in terms of highlighting why Liverpool need the big money of the Champions League more than any other club in the ‘big four’.

Amidst all the talk of financial crisis at what are massively successful clubs in the grand scheme of things, there’s an article on plans a little further down the league ladder to put it all in perspective. TwoHundredPercent’s blog exploring the changes going on at the Conference level, where the divide between professional and semi-professional clubs is increasing as some clubs chase the big money of the Football League. Perhaps those fans wishing for rich investment as a cure to all their ills should give it a good read.

Finally, here’s some of the best pics we’ve found in another of our Flickr groups, Football Grounds. Here’s one of Cardiff’s old Ninian Park stadium looking a little worse for wear:

In sharp contrast is this shot of the ultra-modern Allianz Arena in Munich:

Last of all, Manchester City fans make a rather philosophical statement, suggesting that their minds might be elsewhere on matchday:

As an antidote to the last post featuring some post production work, I found this image whilst browsing through our archive.  This image was in the National press in 1965 featuring two girls wearing the shirts of both Umbro teams in the FA Cup final (Liverpool and Leeds United).  I think the setting in front of the radiator really makes the picture!