When they come to write the definitive history of Tottenham Hotspur, Rohan Ricketts is unlikely to merit more than a footnote. Yet White Hart Lane will offer him a sentimental welcome tonight, when he returns with Shamrock Rovers for the sort of match that brushes the Europa League with much-needed stardust.

It helps, of course, that the League of Ireland side, Ricketts’ latest employers in a bizarre, peripatetic career, will offer minimal threat, even to a team of Tottenham tyros. He is unlikely to play more than a cameo role in what should be a straightforward defeat. But his wider significance is in the lesson he offers any young player who thinks he has it made.

Ricketts was that soldier. On his last Spurs appearance at the Lane, he gave a man-of-the match performance in direct opposition to Steven Gerrard. He was on the fringes of the England squad. His decline was swift, and salutary. Wrong choices, in his personal and professional life, took their toll.

Is he a wasted talent, a wayward loser? Or is he a role model, for anyone who believes life is an excellent adventure? Fittingly, for someone who has consistently split opinion, the answer is a bit of both.

Ricketts tried his luck at Wolves, QPR, Barnsley and Coventry, to no avail. He played in Major League Soccer with Toronto, and the German Fourth Division with Wilhelmshaven. He hit rock bottom in Hungary, where he had four coaches in three unpaid months with Premier Division club Diosgyori, and Moldova, where he feared for his safety because of the murky characters associated with the game.

His blogs, while he played for Dacia Chisinau, were compelling. He remains unafraid to break professional convention, and speaks openly about football’s seamier side. Money, he acknowledges, distorts personalities and destroys principles. He’s a journo’s dream, and has been an unavoidable presence in the build-up to tonight’s match.

The limelight won’t last. He speaks of building a media career in Canada, where he feels most at home. You wish him well, and hope Tottenham’s young professionals will not make his mistakes, in trusting the wrong people at the wrong time.

Books have been written about it. Careers have been made, or blighted, by a belief in it. A culture has been established around it. Arsène Wenger, and by definition Arsenal, the club he has built in his own image, isn’t having it.

Wenger simply doesn’t buy into the idea that his captain must be a cross between a cage fighter and a sergeant major in the SAS. Despite the traditions of Tony Adams, the ghost who stalks the executive flats at a redeveloped Highbury, he insists that Arsenal do not need to drown out reason with war cries.

William Gallas was alienated, and summarily discarded, because he wanted to win so much – too much. As Wenger admits: “I don’t believe too much in leadership. I believe more in good passing than a guy who jumps around with the hands in the air and plays the leader.”

This is not the time to ferment revolution. The fanfares will sound on Friday, when the Frenchman celebrates the fifteenth anniversary of his installation as Arsenal manager. Due homage will be paid, and you will find it difficult to walk through the treacle of unrestrained praise. Even the scribblers are clubbing together for a special bottle of red.

But when the party hats are put away, questions will remain. They will not be answered by tonight’s Champions League tie against Olympiakos. Wenger’s view, that leadership involves seizing responsibility rather than seizing an opponent by the throat, needs long-term perspective,

He believes Robin Van Persie can emulate Thierry Henry, in leading by example. The problem is that modern football is a short-term game. Players, fans and directors want it all, and they want it now. Van Persie’s reluctance to enter contract negotiations is ominous, given the example set by Samir Nasri.

This will be seen as heresy by many Arsenal fans, but they need to summon the spirit of their bête noire, Roy Keane. He didn’t mind making enemies. He had a code of conduct he protected with a vicious zeal. He cared for his club, confronted complacency.

He was a warrior king, which is precisely what Arsenal require.

If Marie Antoinette were reincarnated, she would go the whole hog, insist on a sex change and return as Dimitar Berbatov. Forget football’s diet of grot burgers, chips and gravy. The Manchester United maverick demands the starving masses eat cake.

He’s too posh to push, too proud to beg. If he makes the United team for tonight’s Champions League tie against Basle at Old Trafford, then fine. But he’ll come with a familiar health warning: eyeballs-out effort is for poor people.

We can’t say we haven’t been warned. A rare interview on United’s summer tour contained the following gem: “There is a saying in Bulgaria that great quality doesn’t require much effort. You’re not going to see me puffing around the pitch.”

Like most observers, I expected his United career to end in a deserted Wembley dressing room in May, when Berbatov broke down in tears at being denied even a place on the bench in the Champions League final against Barcelona.

He admitted to feeling “ashamed”. Even Sir Alex Ferguson felt a line had been crossed.

Berbatov is a proud person, despite the lounge-lizard facade. Like many products of the post-communist Eastern Bloc, he has learned to disguise his weaknesses and distrust.

You’d no more find him on the D-list celebrity circuit than you’d come across him in a pair of overalls, picking carrots for the minimum wage. He’s happy in his own skin and confident in his ability. It’s easy to forget he was United’s leading scorer last season.

You only had to see the queue for his autograph, during England’s recent win in Sofia, to understand his impact at home. It had the feel of that scene in the Godfather, where supplicants queue outside Don Corleone’s office.

His contract expires next summer, so it makes financial sense to coax him towards the exit at Old Trafford. His style doesn’t suit the youthful urgency of Sir Alex’s new model army.

But modern squads are about balance, depth. One of my favourite sequences of the season so far was Berbatov’s brief cameo at centre half, in the Carling Cup tie at Leeds.

He dares to be different. In this monochrome world, that’s no bad thing. Instead of pointing out what he doesn’t do, perhaps we should concentrate on what he can do, in a flash of instinctive genius.

With apologies to Rupert Brooke, the Great War poet, there is one corner of a foreign field that will forever be Germany. It is situated in Carrow Road, where Norwich City’s survival, as a Premier League club, is likely to be decided.

The German influence is not immediately apparent. Delia Smith, the Norwich owner, is not noted for her bratwurst. Bovril, rather than Pilsner beer, is the preferred tipple.

But Norwich manager Paul Lambert understands the meaning of Vorsprung durch Technik – progress through technology – literally, as well as metaphorically.

He is, by common consent, Norwich’s principal asset. A young, inquisitive manager who dares to be different. He has invested in unheralded talent from the lower divisions, and trusts in his ability to develop players on the training field. That’s where his German influences kick in.

Lambert won the Champions League with Borussia Dortmund, as a player, in 1997 and, when he was Scotland captain, Berti Vogts encouraged him to take the unprecedented step, for a Brit, of taking his UEFA Pro Licence course in Germany.

He was in his final season with Celtic, but Martin O’Neill gave him permission to be away from Parkhead from Sunday to Thursday each week for seven months. A friend provided translated transcripts of the lectures, which were attended by 26 German coaches, and a Greek.

The advantages are obvious, yet widely ignored in the UK. Coaches, schooled in a foreign system, are confronted by different ideas and interpretations. They are presented with a vision of football as a fluid, athletic game, in which possession of the ball is ten-tenths of the law. Old certainties are challenged, on a daily basis.

Lambert studied psychology, orthopaedic medicine, and the full range of sports science. He examined group dynamics, to gain an insight into the natural tensions of the dressing room, and learned the nuances of dealing with the media in a rolling-news world.

He admits to being “terrified” when he was obliged to sit in front of two examiners, but passed with flying colours. He is now qualified to coach anywhere in Europe, and his skills, refined in the pressure-cooker environment of the Premier League, are uniquely transferable.

Today, Norwich v Sunderland, on a TV near you. Tomorrow, the world?

This is the list to go with today’s blog:

Paul Deighton, LOCOG chief executive £699,998* (salary £479,873, bonus £220,125 : given to charity)
David Higgins, Olympic Delivery Authority former chief executive £544,000** (salary £325,000, bonus £179,000, pension £40,000)
Dennis Hone, ODA chief executive £401,000** (salary £274,000, bonus £79,000, pension £48,000)
Sebastian Coe, LOCOG chairman £357,000*
Howard Shiplee, ODA director of construction £320,000** (salary £287,000, pension £33,000)
Jeremy Beeton, Government Olympic Executive director general £265,000 – £270,000***
Neil Wood, LOCOG chief financial officer £260,000*
Alison Nimmo, ODA director of design and regeneration £257,000** (salary £228,000, pension £29,000
Hugh Sumner, ODA director of transport £255,000** (salary £228,000, pension £27,000)
Simon Wright, ODA director of infrastructure and utilities £255,000** (salary £228,000, pension £27,000)
Ralph Luck, ODA director of property £255,000** (salary £203,000, pension £47,000, taxable benefits £5,000)
John Armitt, ODA chairman £250,000
Godric Smith, ODA director of communications £218,000** (salary £195,000, pension £23,000)
The British Olympic Association does not disclose details of individual salaries, but average pay has increased by more than 20% over the past year. Clive Woodward, Director of Elite Performance, is thought to earn £300,000 a year.

* For 2010-11 financial year. Source LOCOG Annual Report & Accounts 2010-11
** For 2010-11 financial year. Source ODA Annual Report & Accounts 2010-11
*** Salary band for financial year 2009-10. Source: DCMS Resource Accounts 2009-10

Here’s Today’s Mirror column :

The lucky ones will stand on a stadium concourse, dodge lukewarm summer rain, and smile.
They will deal with the problems of strangers, dispense common sense with good humour.
Some will run errands, shuffle paper. Others will circulate in the inner circle as an “Olympic Dignitaries’ Assistant”.
Looking after the IOC is a dirty job, best tackled with disinfectant and a pair of Marigolds, but someone has to do it.
The pay rates are challenging – zilch, nothing, nada – but they will be enriched beyond measure.
These 10,000 volunteers, selected from 250,000 applicants, will make the London Games a success.
Their idealism taints those fighting for seats on the gravy train that has pulled into Stratford Station, next to the Olympic Park.
The world would not be a noticeably worse place, if the doors were sealed, and it was shunted into the sidings until further notice.
Study the list on this page. All make a minimum £200,000 from the Games, beyond market rates.
Others earn equally substantial sums, without being obliged to break cover, through company accounts.
You will have heard of Sebastian Coe, a front man who deserves his £357,000. it is difficult to define what Clive Woodward, Director of Elite Performance, has achieved for the £300,000 he is widely reported to receive from the British Olympic Association.
I’m not impugning anyone’s character or professionalism.
It’s not their fault that the foul stench of corruption still lingers over the Olympic movement.
I suspect amateur boxing is not the only sport with a decaying corpse or two, hidden beneath the floorboards.
I’m convinced Coe influenced FIFA’s about turn, in denying the loathsome Issa Hayatou would be running the 2012 football tournament.
But this is about accountability, fairness, and perspective.
These people choose to ignore the fact that, without the £9.3billion supplied by you, me and the milkman, their organisations wouldn’t exist.
They sit at the head of a food chain of management consultants, advertising agencies and blue sky thinkers with candyfloss brains.
The going rate for a supposed expert stating the bleedin’ obvious is £5,000 a day.
For too many of these Olympic opportunists, the Olympic spirit comes in a crystal glass, on a bed of ice, in an antiseptic hospitality suite.
You can spot them a mile off. They wear 2012 pin badges on their lapels, and babble self importantly into their mobiles.
How will they cope, when the networks crash during the Games? You can bet they won’t be subjecting themselves to the lottery of London’s tube system.
Their Games are a shrine to corporate vanity, political expedience, and good old fashioned greed.
Our Games are a missed opportunity, a myth.
The Government is propagating a lie.
These Games will not provide a healthier, wealthier, united nation. They’re a Boden catalogue, for Middle England.
If you are in Macclesfield, it will be as foreign an event as one staged in Milan, Mumbai or Madagascar.
It will be a TV spectacular, an upmarket version of Britain’s Got Talent.
Participation, overseen by Sport England, a chronically complacent quango, is falling. Seventeen sports have less people playing them than they did, four years ago.
A Health Department campaign to encourage regular exercise has been quietly scrapped.
A survey of 2,000 sports clubs revealed that 84% do not expect to receive any benefit from a London Games.
Many established venues face closure, because of Council cutbacks.
Olympic sport is a wasteland, patrolled by ordinary heroes, volunteers with human qualities money can’t buy.
They’re the ones who deserve a medal.

Scott Sinclair returns to Stamford Bridge tomorrow. Like his Swansea manager Brendan Rodgers, he left Chelsea on good terms, so he is guaranteed a generous welcome. Don’t be surprised, though, if the applause is laced with guilt, and a wistful sense of loss.

Fans love home-grown players, youngsters who embody their club’s ethos. They represent continuity and that essential commodity, hope for the future. Unfortunately, Chelsea’s youth academy is where dreams go to die.

Architecturally, it’s a fantastic addition to the Cobham training ground, an £11million status symbol, but it is proving poorer value for money than even Fernando Torres. Sinclair is just one of the lost boys, sacrificed to the folly of Frank Arnesen, Chelsea’s former sporting director.

The Dane got through £62million, assembling a multi-national group of starlets. The FA Youth Cup was won in 2010, but only Josh McEachran threatens John Terry’s position as the last youth-team graduate to become a Chelsea regular. Even he will find the Carling Cup is his best outlet.

Arnesen has moved on, in a similar role, to Hamburg, where he sacked manager Michael Oenning on Tuesday. He has taken no less than five Chelsea rejects – Michael Mancienne, Jacopo Sala, Jeffrey Bruma, Gokhan Tore and Slobodan Rajkovic – with him.

Meanwhile, Miroslav Stoch is rebuilding his career with Fenerbahce. Franco Borini, who ironically excelled on loan as Swansea were promoted to the Premier League via the play offs, has been loaned to Roma, with a view to a £7million transfer, after being signed by Parma.

Sergio Tejera, prematurely hailed as the new Cesc Fabregas, has been quietly moved on to Real Mallorca. Gael Kakuta and Patrick van Aanholt have been loaned to Bolton and Wigan respectively. Aliu Kaby Djalo, a £5million signing from Boavista, has spent four years refining raw talent and might be sent out on loan after Christmas.

Sinclair, recruited from Bristol Rovers, was loaned to six clubs over three years, before he bowed to the inevitable, and signed a three-year contract at Swansea in the summer. The alternative – a career consisting of cameo appearances as a late substitute – did not appeal.

No surprise there, then. I guess that’s why they call it the Blues.

It’s quiz time. No cheating, no conferring. Which team has conceded the least Premier League goals so far this season? Prepare to be amazed people – it is Newcastle United.

Tim Krul, Newcastle’s newly installed number-one goalkeeper, has been beaten just twice, in five games. Fabricio Coloccini, prematurely lampooned as a comedy defender, has morphed into a Geordie version of Carles Puyol. Some mistake surely, as a sainted former editor of mine on the Daily Telegraph once said.

Newcastle were supposed to be paying the price for Mike Ashley’s boot sale. High-maintenance, high-income players were escorted from the premises. None have been missed.

Andy Carroll is Liverpool’s £35million enigma. Joey Barton is a pathetic caricature of a new man, whose big move turned out to be a free transfer to QPR. José Enrique is bedding in at Anfield, while Kevin Nolan has traded West Ham’s money for a drop in status.

Alan Pardew had more chance of winning the Euro rollover than persuading his portly owner to balance the transfer budget. Ashley is more concerned with turning St James’ Park into a giant billboard for his tat palaces. That’s where Graham Carr, father of Alan, the shrill so-called comedian, came in.

Newcastle’s chief scout established his reputation by unearthing Cheik Tiote, last season’s bargain buy at £3.5million, at FC Twente. Carr has flown under the radar again, to extract Yohan Cabaye from French champions Lille. His combination of energy, creativity and flair in front of goal is worth a lot more than the £4.8million Newcastle paid for him.

The Gallic influence is growing. Alan Shearer may not have a clue about Hatem Ben Arfa, but he’s being eased back after an injury-plagued first season. He may conform to French stereotypes – he’s theatrical, emotional, extravagant – but the boy can play.

All Newcastle need is for Steven Taylor to justify the judges who once assumed he would graduate from captain of England’s Under 21 team to Fabio Capello’s senior squad. His career, which stalled due to his loyalty to the Toon after relegation, has been revived.

I know Ashley would still sell Newcastle United in a heartbeat. But as for killing the club – he’s innocent, OK?

Hold the front page. Leeds United are on television again. The schedulers have fallen for the tired old storyline of tonight’s Carling Cup tie against Manchester United reserves. How utterly, depressingly, predictable.

Now, before the Leeds fans vault the barricades, or declare cyber war, I’d better make one thing clear. I feel for them. They are saddled with a chairman I’d cross the universe to avoid. Ken Bates calls his customers “morons”, which is as much as you need to know about him.

With Leeds on our screens more often than Simon Cowell – Friday’s Championship game against Brighton is also live – their followers are reduced to the role of unpaid extras. Sing up, chaps, the luvvies in the studio need you to provide aural wallpaper, to go with the muck and bullets on the pitch. Who cares whether your team’s matches are re-scheduled on a whim?

Leeds have little option but to make the most of being in a timewarp. It’s their niche in the market. They’re prisoners of their history. I blame Don Revie, to be honest. There’s talk of building a statute to him at Elland Road – some would like to erect one in the London Dungeon.

The revisionists regard him as a prophet without honour, in his own country. Listen to them, and he was ahead of his time, a pioneer of sports science whose spirit lives on, amongst the pragmatists and plutocrats of today’s Premier League.

They have a point, up to a point. Revie’s teams had a thoroughly modern cynicism, and he was one of the first managers to realise that loyalty had its limits, and the Arabs were prepared to pay over the odds for credible football men.

His legacy is the poisonous rivalry with clubs such as Manchester United. That, and memories of Leeds’ FA Cup win at Old Trafford 18 months ago, is what the TV people have bought into. They choose to ignore the limitations within which Simon Grayson is obliged to work. He’s an excellent manager, expected to produce Harrods quality on a Lidl price plan.

The Dirty Leeds myths were exhumed on Saturday when Patrick Kisnorbo became their fourth player to be sent off this season. That 2-1 win over Bristol City was punctuated by chants of “Bates out”.

More of the same tonight, please. It’ll give the TV pundits something to talk about.

It is match day, time to go to work at the Den. Come with me, behind the scenes, when Millwall play West Ham in an incendiary local derby.

The fans
Thread on House of Fun site regarding match against West Ham, entitled: Millwall players – please read: “You know the score – leave nothing in the dressing room.”

Millwall’s scouting report
Seven closely typed pages. West Ham strengths: Outstanding individuals. Direct and aggressive. Make it hard to play through the zones. Expert at contesting and getting around long balls. Put a lot of pressure on referee.

Weaknesses: Reactive. Lack of quality at the back. Lack the guile to open up disciplined opponents. Tend to have flat periods in game.

Mind games
Yellow copies of teamsheets exchanged, an hour before kick off. West Ham include Abdoulaye Faye to counter physical threat of Darius Henderson. Millwall kept his training injury quiet, and select teenager John Marquis in his place.

Team talk
Millwall manager Kenny Jackett – “We recognise in midfield they are strong. To put pressure on their back four, we’ve got to win that battle first. But this is not just about stopping them. Remind yourself: I am a good player, good enough to impose my personality on you, and this game.”

War cries
Final words, before dressing room door opens Jackett: “Keep your morale, support each other, help your mate.” Assistant manager Joe Gallen: “Show the fans how much it means to you.”

Goalkeeper David Forde: “Fire in the heart. Cool in the head.” Full back Alan Dunne: “Let’s see the fear in their eyes, boys.” Captain Paul Robinson: “This is us. How much do they want it?”

Half Time: 0-0
Atmosphere calm. Two players having treatment in physio’s room. Jackett warns: “There’s danger in their counter attacks when we are out of shape. Do we need more from our set pieces? Keep following the gameplan. We are defending well. We don’t switch off, and open ourselves up.”

Full Time: 0-0
Silence, flushed faces, spent bodies. Jackett is calm, measured: “First off, well done. A great effort. They’ll be too much for many teams in this Division. I tell you lads, we are not far away. Now we move on. Remember your responsibility to yourself. Recover well, for Wolves on Tuesday.”