Ticket prices: Blackburn Rovers will again slash prices for today's game at Ewood Park against Middlesbrough. Adult tickets have been reduced to £15, with children gaining admission for just £5 as Blackburn try to boost flagging attendances. A similar initiative met with some success when Bolton came to Ewood earlier in the campaign and the club are now hoping for a similar turn-out to the 29,000 who saw Rovers beating Liverpool on Tuesday.
Transfer boost: Sheffield United manager Neil Warnock's transfer budget was boosted by five million pounds when shareholders approved a new fund-raising scheme yesterday. Warnock is now ready to invest in home-grown talent. "I don't think we're the type of club that can be signing three or four foreigners," he said. "If you look at someone like Vidic at Man. United, he struggled for six months and now he's magnificent. We can't gamble like that."
Valeron: Spain forward Juan Carlos Valeron returned to training with the Deportivo squad after recovering from his second knee ligament operation in a year. "I felt good in training and now all I want is to get back up to speed again. I'm looking forward to playing again," the 31-year-old was quoted as saying.
Zidane sweatshirt: After laughing at the jokes about Zinedine Zidane's head-butt at the World Cup final, how about wearing a sweatshirt inspired by it too? Italian Alessandro Ferrari has come up with a line of sweatshirts with two stick figures depicting the incident. The line's brand name is "Xqua", a play on the French word pourquoi (why in English) - a question millions asked after the French playmaker rammed his head into the chest of Marco Materazzi.
New team: Nine players from Romanian club Universitatea Craiova have been fired for "under-performing" just four months after winning promotion. As well as the nine players who have been let go by the club, four other players were loaned out - leaving Craiova to assemble almost an entirely new first team squad during the winter transfer window.
Akinfeyev: CSKA Moscow goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev has been voted the top player in the former Soviet Union. The 20-year-old Russian international beat Arsenal's Belarus midfielder Alexander Hleb and Chelsea's Ukraine striker Andriy Shevchenko.
In England: The Champion-ship - Birmingham vs Luton 2-2.