Nolberto Solano celebrates as his shot rebounds in off of distraught goalkeeper Craig Gordon for an own goal during the Premier League match between West Ham and Sunderland at Upton Park on October 21, 2007. Photo Phil Cole/Getty Images

Aston Villa 1-0 West Ham
Craig Gardner won the match for Villa, but Dean Ashton is now a doubt for England after picking up a knee injury.

Birmingham 0-1 Manchester United
Crissy Ronaldo (© Pies) pounced early in the second-half to give United victory and keep up with Arsenal.

With the boy made from glass, Michael Owen, seeing a specialist about his brittle bones, the Newcastle United striker going to miss England’s crucial Euro 2008 qualifiers against Estonia and Russia next month. It’s a damn shame as he looked like he might be returning to form with some decent goals in recent weeks…

Arsenal 5-0 Derby
Emmanuel Adebayor scored a hat-trick and Cesc Fabregas stole the show as the Gunners hit top gear.

Last time we saw Dean Ashton he was going bald gracefully, but things change. He has returned from his long injury lay-off with this bleached blond barnet (because a healthy dose of peroxide was just what his dying hairs needed). All of this means the West Ham striker has been left looking like a born-again monk who gave up his life on the early 1990s rave scene to spend his days in the monastery.

West Ham’s recent signing Kieron Dyer receives physio treatment and comfort from his team-mates after suffering a double leg fracture in last night’s Carling Cup tie with Bristol Rovers. Dyer was injured in a tackle by Rovers’ Joe Jacobson, which left Hammers boss Alan Curbishley fuming. Click here to see the incident.

Arsenal 1-0 Manchester City
Cesc Fabregas finally found a breakthrough, despite an excellent performance from Manchester City goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel. The young Dane made a string of saves, including Robin van Persie’s 65th minute penalty.

Rodders may have been an East End wideboy, but West Ham’s Mark Noble is an East End central midfielder.

West Ham are starting to see why most clubs like to have some sort of wage structure in place. Barcelona forward Eidur Gudjohnsen is stalling over an £80,000 a week offer from the Hammers because he wants £100,000. It would be easy to blame the ex-Chelsea man and accuse him of greed, but if I was a player of Gudjohnsen’s class I would want to be a few leaps up the salary scale away from £60,000 a week Lucas Neill!

Cheeky chappy Craig Bellamy just can’t hold his tongue. Here he is signing autographs for West Ham fans when one asks for his thoughts on Kieron Dyer (who at this stage is on the verge of a move to Upton Park). Craig the populist takes over Craig the professional, and can’t resist splurting out: “He’s like Reo-Coker, except he can play.”

Following yesterday’s imaginatively titled Part One, today Pies profiles the home kits of the 10 Premiership teams who would have their names called at last on the school register.
Manchester City
There is a hint of baseball to Citeh’s new shirt, with its rather fetching white pinstripes. Reebok are out and French brand Le Coq Sportif (currently enjoying a Lazarus-style revival) are in. Last season’s white sleeves are also ditched, and on reflection it is probably a good call. Click here to buy it from Kitbag.

In a long line of singing footballers (maybe we should do a Singing Footballers XI?) Carlos Tevez is the latest (to me at least) hitman to pick up the mic. He’s the front man in a band called Piola Vago, who play cumbia villera, a form of Argentinian shantytown/urban music. Piola Vago managed to hit the charts in Argentina with their song Lose Your Control which saw Carlitos crooning about whipping a girl and begging her for sex (c/o The Sun).

Newcastle gaffer Sam Allardyce has revealed that Kieron Dyer’s move to West Ham collapsed after the Hammers refused to pay…

It seems Carlos Tevez’s protracted move to Manchester United might finally be completed today. The prospect of a court case has sobered up all parties and a deal appears to have been struck. Tevez is expected to move to Old Trafford on a two-year loan deal with West Ham receiving £2 million in compensation. The Argentine will pick up more than double that this season alone with a salary of £4.5 million. Manchester United then have the option of completing a £30 million permanent deal.

New West Ham signing Craig Bellamy gets into the first of an inevitable many arguments with match officials this season. Bellamy and referee Trevor Kettle reach boiling point in last night’s friendly between the Hammers and MK Dons. (Photo by David Rogers/Getty Images)

Thanks to Pies reader Doug Myers, who has taken advantage of our new Facebook group to suggest this outstanding Shit Lookalike. Carlos Tevez – despite being a dead ringer for Red Hot Chilli Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis – is also the spitting image of Blanca from the video game Street Fighter. That is uncanny!
Oh, and if anyone has a clue whether this should be in the West Ham or Man United category, let us know!

As the Sun might say, what a pair of egg-headed Swedes! Interesting that Ljungberg was snapped with the chairman at his unveiling, rather than the manager – is this a signing that Alan Curbishley didn’t sanction or want, perhaps? (Ie. one of those Abramovich/Shevchenko things).

Well I didn’t see this one coming… I thought Freddie was supposed to go to Fiorentina, but the Hammers have reportedly secured his services and will announce him as a West Ham player at a press conference later today.

In the messy wake of the Tevcherano affair, many non-West Ham fans would love to see the cheeky cockneys go down this season. The chances of that happening are slim, I’d say, but at least God is doing his best and striking down their new players before they’ve even had a chance to pull on a claret-and-blue shirt.

Mystic Pies strikes again. The minute we start joking around about seeing Kieron Dyer move to West Ham for a reunion of the St James’s Park Amateur Boxing Club, and Alan Curbishley makes it be known that he is interested in completing the whole set of ex-Newcastle bad boys. Curbs is desperate for a replacement for unspeakably stupid £6 million winger Julien Faubert who is out for six months with a ruptured achilles tendon.

One average Prem club sells average Prem striker to another Prem club. Hmm, it’s not the sort of news to make my day. I can’t imagine that Villa fans are even that excited about the prospect of Harewood – who, let’s face it, is not that good – arriving at Villa Park. He always seems to put in a lot of effort, and does occasionally find the net, but so what?

France boss Paul O’Grady has blasted new West Ham signing Julien Faubert over his move to Upton Park. The £6 million winger joined from Bordeaux earlier this month after a move to Rangers fell through. His international manager says it was an ‘unspeakably stupid’ move. The France manager said: “I can’t understand Faubert’s decision to join West Ham. I struggle to understand why he has done it. It is a great pity when you are on the brink of the French national team.”

There are bound to be a few more twists to this year’s transfer season, especially if someone remembers where they put Carlos Tevez’s ownership papers, but new TV money and the arrival of more glory hunting billionaires means there’s been plenty of action.
Here’s what we think are the ten best deals done so far:

Last week we took a look back at the greatest ever foreign players to grace the Premiership, but you can be sure that for every Bergkamp there’s a Boogers who’s just as remembered…but for all the wrong reasons.