Troubled Manchester City player Joey Barton will not be charged by Merseyside police following his bum flashing incident at Goodison Park when his side drew 1-1 with Everton.

The incident occurred when scouser Barton walked toward the tunnel after giving his shirt to a disabled fan. Barton cheekily dropped his shorts at the Everton faithful who had been hurling torrents of abuse at him during the game. City manager Stuart Pearce has backed his player even though he thought his act was ‘childish’ as it was done with a smile and was “at best… a bit of comedy to laugh off”.

Barton is not quite out of the water yet as the FA have still to decide if they will charge the player for his recent bout of naturism. With the discrepancy in their judgement at handling disciplinary matters recently Barton could find himself with a severe penalty coming his way. Stuart Pearce will be hoping that it will not involve a suspension as Barton is an integral part of his City side who are struggling for results.

Stan Collymore announced earlier this week that he has a desire to return to football, stating his intent to return to the top flight.

Stan’s agent has indicated that he wants to play for one of his old clubs Aston Villa. The thought of joining Randy’s Revolution and working with manager Martin O’Neill again could be the catalyst for such a decision. O’Neill managed Collymore during the players brief spell for Leicester at the Walkers Stadium.

However when quizzed by Skysports O’Neill was reluctant to state if Collymore would be welcome at Villa or not; saying “He did terrifically well for me in a short period of time at Leicester. But if you’re asking me today whether I could make an assessment that would be a difficult call.”

Tottenham’s summer signing Bulgarian striker Dimitar Berbatov will face a return to his old stomping ground when his new club visit Germany to take on Bayer Leverkusen next month.

Having been monitored by Spurs for some time Berbatov completed his move to the Premiership during the summer transfer window. He got off to a flying start scoring on his home debut but he has been blighted by injury which has limited the number of appearances he has made for club and country.

Manager Martin Jol will be hoping that the front man will continue where he left off at Leverkusen and help fire his new club in to the knock out stage of the competition.

The draw for the UEFA Cup group stage where the top three teams will qualify are as follows:

Group A
Auxerre
Rangers
FK Partizan
Livorno
Maccabi Haifa

Group B
Bayer Leverkusen
Club Brugge
Besiktas
Dinamo Bucharest
Tottenham

Group C
Sevilla
AZ Alkmaar
Slovan Liberec
Grasshoppers
Braga

Group D
Parma
Lens
Heerenveen
Osasuna
Odense

Group E
Feyenoord
Basel
Wisla Krakow
Blackburn
Nancy

Group F
Ajax
Sparta Prague
Espanyol
Austria Vienna
Zulte Waregem

Group G
Panathinaikos
Paris Saint Germain
Rapid Bucharest
Hapoel Tel Aviv
Mlada Boleslav

Group H
Newcastle
Celta Vigo
Palermo
Fenerbahce
Eintracht Frankfurt

Gareth Southgate took his Middlesbrough side to Bramall Lane. Boro started brightly and could have scored but for Lee Catermole’s indecisiveness, they went a goal down when Rob Hulse stroked the ball past Mark Schwarzer.

Southgate’s half time pep talk appeared to have worked, a Pogatetz through ball was pounced on by Yakubu who advanced and put the ball in to Paddy Kenny’s goal. The Ireland keeper will be hoping he can keep a clean sheet in the up coming Euro 2008 qualifiers where he will deputise in the absence of Shay Given who is still out injured.

Both sides looked to have settled for a point, that was until a Gerrard-esque strike form Blades captain Phil Jagielka. Jagielka cushioned a last minute headed clearance on his chest and then as the ball bounced he struck it from thirty yards past an unexpecting Schwarzer, to secure Sheffield United’s first Premiership victory for over ten years.

Just when we thought that the premiership was safe from the diving exploits of Robert Pires it appears that the nasty disease has made the short trip across north London and infected Didier Zokora.

Zokora fell in Portsmouth penalty area when the premierships most unlucky player Pedro Mendes flailed a leg to stop the attack. Job done the attack stopped as the African tumbled even though the former Spurs man failed to make contact.

Jermain Defoe slotted home the resulting penalty adding to the first goal scored by Danny Murphy in just 42 seconds. Former Arsenal striker Kanu scored for the visitors to make the final score 2-1; ending a string of nightmare league results for Tottenham who went in to the fixture in the relegation zone.