Morning Tim.

Morning Small Talk.

Right then, Small Talk's got a page to fill and you've got something to plug. So let's get this over with.

The company's called ARightResult.com. It's a chance for the paying public – who constantly tell me they know more about football than I do – to go online and be their own pundit. You pay a pound, get your coupon, fill in your score predictions and you get a chance to win £1m. Les Ferdinand and I give our opinion on what we think the scores will be every week and then the public say what they think the scores will be too.

The website says that most people reckon they're better at punditry than the pundits.

Well, everyone's got their opinion. According to the statistics, 70% of people take notice of the ex-professionals who work as pundits and 18% say they know more about football than us. So this is their opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.

Okay, Tim, that's enough plugging.

It only costs a pound.

We said that's enough.

You can do it every week.

Stop it.

You can miss out a week, if you like too. We don't encourage that, of course.

Please.

You can win £1m too.

Were Spurs right to get rid of Dimitar Berbatov? You weren't his biggest fan, were you?

No. But I love him as a footballer. But when everything's not rosy for him, there are problems. He's the sort of player who can get managers the sack. He can throw his toys out of the pram at times and, as a manager, you have to make sure he's 100% committed to your football club. If not, he can be a bad apple and you don't want that around your squad.

As a former Blackburn man, do you reckon Paul Ince is the right man for the job there?

Yeah. I'm glad to see Paul Ince get an opportunity to manage in the Premier League. There's not a great deal of expectation at Blackburn Rovers – a mid-table finish would be great and a Uefa Cup spot would feel like winning the league. That would be a hell of an achievement for Ince.

In your playing days there, Jack Walker reportedly told your manager Kenny Dalglish: "Why do you want to sign Zidane when we have Tim Sherwood?" Were you better than Zidane?

He was a great judge of a player, that Jack Walker. No, come on, you shouldn't even put me and Zidane in the same sentence.

You were a big fan of Roy Hodgson when he was at Blackburn. Why was he so good?

Because no matter what players he was given, he would work tirelessly with them. He'd leave no stone unturned with his squad and, as you can see with what happened at Fulham last season, the players reap the rewards. I honestly believe he was the best coach I ever worked with but not the best manager.

The story is that you got him sacked …

I've actually spoken to Roy about this. He was on live TV once and he was talking to Jimmy Hill. He said that I got him sacked because I had too much influence on the rest of the players. When I was asked about it, I said I didn't want to take all the credit.

Boom boom. You didn't get on very well with Glenn Hoddle, though, did you?

I love what he's doing at the moment with his academy, not that I want to give him a plug.

Yes, best not to stray into that whole plugging minefield again.

As a manager, though, he loved the game and he loved Tottenham but we clashed. I had an opinion and he obviously didn't want to hear it.

According to eBay, a signed picture of you in your Blackburn days is worth £25 but one from your Spurs days is only worth £4.99. Any reason for that?

Maybe it's because people in the south don't want to pay for it. The credit crunch has hit them hard. Anyway, less of this eBay business. There's only one website to go to and that's ARightResult.com.

Small Talk has warned you about that sort of behaviour already, Tim. You're a bit of a publishing magnate on the side and, with Jamie and Louise Redknapp, you run Icon magazine for footballers with more money than sense. How's that coming along?

It's going all right. We enjoy what we do and we're going monthly from October. It's going in the right direction.

Does anyone ever buy the £21,000 watches advertised in there?

[Sarcastically then gradually more and more testily] I've never seen watches that cheap in there. Now, look, you've got the wrong end of the stick. Have you ever seen a copy. No? See, you don't get it then because you're not that privileged.

If the amount of times your byline appears in Icon is to be believed, you conduct a lot of the interviews. As one interviewer to another, how do you reckon this one's going?

[Even more testily] I'm not an expert at that; you're supposed to be the expert on interviewing. I don't do any of the interviews. We've got our own editorial team. You know what I do? Not a lot.

You don't ever have stand-up editorial rows with Louise Redknapp about the fashion pages, then?

No, not at all. I wouldn't like to compete with Louise on the fashion side of things.

That's a shame, Tim. One of Small Talk's colleagues wants to know whether you've ever been to Sherwood Forest and, if so, whether you felt at home when you got there. Is that the sort of journalistic cut and thrust that could get him a job at Icon?

Yes, that's fantastic. Have you got his number? We'll give him a call.

[Small Talk informs delighted colleague of the good news. Colleague begins packing possessions into a box, whooping and flicking Vs at The Man.]

Tell him we don't pay though.

[Colleague begins unpacking possessions and embarks on embarrassing series of apologies to The Man]. If you did actually conduct interviews and you could interview anyone for Icon, who would it be? And you're not allowed to say Nelson Mandela, Pele or Mohammed Ali.

Tiger Woods.

Curses, that was the other one we should have banned.

Michael Phelps would be another good one to interview now. The problem is, we'd put him on the front cover and no-one would know who he was.

Not with his clothes on, anyway. Let's move on to the tough stuff, Tim. What was the last CD you bought?

I don't buy CDs. I download them, or at least my children do. The last album was probably one by Madness.

What was the last book you read?

I don't read books. I read the Daily Express and The Star.

Not the Guardian?

Too much writing in it.

Who would win a fight between a lion and a tiger?

[In a tone of voice that suggests much impatient-to-end-this foot-tapping and watch-checking on his end of the phone line] A tiger. I don't like lions.

What's your poison?

Peroni.

Let's hope that's not another plug. So you're a beer man rather than a wine man?

It depends what mood I'm in, to be honest. I can drink both at the same time.

A dangerous game, Tim. So, cheese or chocolate?

[Increasingly disinterested] Cheese.

Any kind of cheese?

Only cheddar. I don't get involved in the rest of that muck.

A mature cheddar?

No. Mild.

Right. Beyonce or Scarlett Johansson?

I ain't seen Scarlett Johansson.

Really? She's quite famous.

[Almost certainly making desperate, get-this-idiot-off-the-phone gestures to "his people"] Who would you pick? I'll go with your recommendation.

Small Talk reckons you'd like Scarlett Johansson. We can't guarantee the reverse would be true, unfortunately. What would you put into Room 101?

Sky Sports.

Now's not the time to get in another plug for the particular TV network you represent, Tim. Instead, it's time for you to tell us a joke.

No, it'll be too rude. Anyway, I'm rubbish at remembering jokes.

Everyone uses those excuses.

That's because they're a good way of getting out of having to tell a joke.

Fair enough. Shall we put this out of its misery, then?

Ta-ta, Small Talk.