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Gossip Shop has been feeling the heat from you dear readers in recent weeks as we struggle to satisfy your insatiable appetite for decent transfer rumours.

So in such troublesome circumstances an international week is about as welcome as Pete from Big Brother at a minute's silence.

On such weeks, the red tops close down their dream factories of wonder and fantasy in favour of putting the boot into England win, lose, or draw.

The tabs are usually great at making stuff up (so we don't have to) but it's all about the booing and cheering of the Coles in today's papers (don't you think the lovely Cheryl is wasted on that idiot?).

Even old reliable Thierry Henry refuses to play ball, usually you can bank on the grumpy Frenchman for an oblique comment on his future, or at least for him to shrug his shoulders and flick a suggestive pout, which in the transfer rumour world is more than enough evidence to suggest he is gunning to leave Barcelona.

However, he was uncharacteristically blunt when asked for the 165,467th time this weekend whether or not he is going to Manchester City.

"One thing's for sure, the Manchester City thing and all the things you're talking about need to stop," he said.

Okay Thierry, calm down: we are just trying to write a column here. Although GS concedes it gets similarly annoyed with persistence interrogation as to whether or not it has a Tesco clubcard - we would tell you if we did shopkeep!

However, on the plus side, at least we can speculate that the few transfer rumours that have slipped through the net this week may actually have some truth in them - as surely they are far too dull to be made up?

Blackburn are linked with both an Arsenal AND a Liverpool player, but if you weren't in the truth business, surely you would link them with names a little more household than Jason Banton and Nathan Eccleston respectively?

Marc-Andre Kruska hasn't been able to get into the Borussia Dortmund side this season but The Sun assures us he is still a "star" so start getting excited West Brom fans because you are set to sign the midfielder in January.

Meanwhile, Birmingham will decide whether or not to sign attacking midfielder Souleymane Mamam after he plays for their reserves tomorrow.

It is perhaps apt that a player whose surname sounds like something a baby might say when crying for his mother is, according to FIFA records, the youngest player to ever play in a World Cup qualifier.

Mamam is said to have been only 13 years and 310 days old when he played for Togo against Zambia back in 2001, but it is now widely considered those were actually "Freddy Adu years" and that he was really closer to 16 at the time.

Mamam was still hot stuff back then, and was even on Manchester United's books at one stage, but he has recently been released by Royal Antwerp in the Belgian second division and had work permit problems while on an unsuccessful trial with Motherwell.

GS hopes this will be the last time it has to devote a whole five paragraphs to Souleymane Mamam, but desperate times and all that.

In the Championship, Derby boss Paul "tell me I'm sweating" Jewell is hoping to sign Hull defender Wayne Brown, while mega-rich QPR could spend up to £2 million on Peterborough's England U21 keeper Joe Lewis.

Posh could also lose striker Craig Mackail-Smith who is a reported target of Cardiff City.

There has also been another twist in the transfer saga that nobody is talking about: yes, that's right - Arsenal's search for a new chief executive.

After being snubbed by Celtic's Peter Lawwell and Millwall's Heather Rabbatts, former Charlton man Peter Varney is now top of the most boring shopping list in football.

And, well, that's about it really!

Those Cristiano Ronaldo to Real Madrid rumours are back again but we just refuse to go there - no matter how dry the rumour well may be.

I suppose we could continue guessing as to who Tottenham might sign next, or we could just do what everybody else was doing down the pub on Saturday night and speculate on who is going to win X-Factor?

We like that crazy blonde chick who sang the U2 song since you asked. Stick her up front with Pavlyuchenko - she can't be any worse than Darren Bent!

Seán Fay / Eurosport