By Chris Wright
Tis All Hallows’ Eve and our fevered minds turn naturally to thoughts of the mysterious and the macabre as we being you our Top XI Premier League creeps, freaks and ne’er-do-wells.
Of course, it’s all just a bit of Halloween fun conjured up by our fearful imaginings and not to be taken seriously by anybody’s legal representaives, but here’s Pies’ top tier Halloween XI – starting with our ghoulish goalie and going from there…
Brad Friedel, Tottenham: Quite possibly had his remains reanimated by a demented German vivisectionist.
Martin Skrtel, Liverpool: As we’ve mentioned before on Pies, Skrtel has the “beserk Siberian Gulag escapee ” look down to a ‘T’.
Phil Jones, Man Utd: Routinely struggles to quell the raging Hellbeast that lives inside his face.
Michael Essien, Chelsea: The cold, malevolent eyes of a shark/praying mantis hybrid. Rumour has it that Essien relaxes at night by putting on his headphones and falling asleep to a cassette tape of the sound of human ankle bones breaking on loop.
David Vaughan, Sunderland: Somewhere a clock tower is missing its hunchback.
Yossi Benayoun, ex-Chelsea: Looks both painfully vegan and well-acquainted with the taste of human flesh, all at the same time.
Mesut Ozil, Arsenal: Blinks sideways and sheds his skin fortnightly.
Luis Suarez, Liverpool: If you had to design a latex, prosthetic mask for a horror movie character raised by rats in the sewers of Montevideo…
Dimitar Berbatov, Fulham: This man definitely looks like he’s got a disassembled rifle and a pair of leather gloves stashed away in a secret compartment in his car boot.
Marouane Chamakh, Crystal Palace: Quite clearly the leader of a subterranean sect of fur-coated giraffe-people who’s very life-force begins to drain upon contact with daylight.
Wayne Rooney, Man Utd: Football’s sole representative from the lobotomite community.
Any more footballing nasties we’ve missed? Who’d make your Halloween XI?