How’s this for stirring the pot prior to Sunday’s Worthless Carling Cup Final?  It should take more than a small bit of badge-kissing for Spurs’ recent acquisition from Spartak Moscow to live this one down.  From the Daily Mail’s William Stewart :

Asked by a Russian journalist whether he wanted to play for United, Tottenham’s Roman Pavlyuchenko (above) declared: “It would be wrong not to dream about this.

“I have realised that the English Premier League is exactly why you should start playing football in the first place.

“And Manchester United is the leader of it. Once your first dream comes true you must start dreaming of another target.”

But in saying how pleased he was to team up with Robbie Keane at Spurs, he was scathing about Berbatov, who made the move from White Hart Lane to Old Trafford.

“Robbie Keane returned to the Spurs as if he never left the club,” he told Gazeta Daily in Moscow.

“It’s evident that he’s a man of authority inside the team which is good for us. He was always liked as far as I can judge.

“If Berbatov returned it would be taken quite differently. I heard tales that he was an arrogant snob who after a training session would just throw his dirty boots to the man who takes care of our footwear saying: ‘Clean them for me!’

“No one likes such people. Still he’s now playing for Manchester United.”