Watching Chelsea get stuffed by Sunderland last week I began thinking about body language. Chelsea were four down at half-time, so their body language was pretty clear and simple: help, help, help, get me out of this bloody mess. Poyet was frantically head-clutching. Vialli's lips were so tight they had disappeared. Zola's little head, bless him, was almost on the ground.

In the case of Chelsea, we are mostly observing the body language of small bodies. Strange, isn't it, that they have so many titchy players? Oft when I'm watching them I think: who's been eating my porridge? Sorry, wrong childhood regression. Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the prettiest of them all? No, that's not it either. That's watching Ginola. Who is the smallest of them all? That's it, that's what comes into my mind as I'm watching Chelsea. When I'm really, really bored, I get out my record books and look up the heights of Wise, Ferrer, Zola, Deschamps and Morris, just to see who's the tiniest.

A small body doesn't necessarily mean you give off the language of a small body. Wise never does, nor does Batty of Leeds, nor in ye olden days did Johnny Giles or Billy Bremner. They were big inside, just packed into small outer cases. The problem of a big physique in football is that it does give off the wrong signs. The right signs, if you are Vinnie Jones or Tommy Smith, intending to intimidate the opposition, but it does mean the ref has got your card marked.

If I were a manager, having signed a thug, complete with monster thighs, ten-day beard, piss-holes-in-the-snow eyes and Oscar- winning scowls, I'd send him to charm school. I'd teach him to say "yes sir, no sir" to every referee, "how are you today, can I carry your whistle, how is the good wife, oh, did my elbow really do that, I'm awfully sorry". It's like being caught by a traffic cop. The first thing any sensible guilty person does is get out and apologise profusely, smile and look abject, your majesty, your highness. Yet what does your average thug do? Argue back. You can clearly see them mouthing "fucking hell", then they lumber off, making stupid gestures, pointing to their head, indicating the ref is bonkers, which makes things worse. They lose, because their concentration is broken, and the ref will remember. Such body signs should be worked on in training - to eradicate them.

Other body signs show depression rather than aggression, often very subtly, which only their coaches and managers can detect. They know by the stoop of a shoulder, the cut of the jib, the hunch of the back, whether a player has bottled it or not. Dwight Yorke, for example, slaps his thighs when he's having a poor game or feeling cheesed off.

As for the body language of managers, that can be harder to interpret. I am at present fascinated by Harry Redknapp's facial twitch. Even when nothing much is happening, and he's just standing silently, his face is twitching like a camshaft, whatever that is, or a fly-wheel; anyway his jaw and eyes are darting all over the place. I can't tell if he's wondering whether to have another piece of chewing gum, bring on Joe Cole or if he's having a heart attack. Gazza used to have a similar nervous twitch, though in his case his whole head would jerk wildly from the neck. It's faded with age. As have his talents. Perhaps such twitches are a reassuring sign. Proves they are alive.

I should mock. My wife maintains that my mouth always moves when I read, which I'm not aware of, though I do sometimes have to cope with some awfully long words since these players from Iceland arrived. When walking, I'm constantly humming, so she says. A really tuneless hum, so she says. Then I have acquired a leg twitch, when lolling on my sofa of an evening, stretched out with my drinky-poo. She shouts at me to stop my feet moving. So I do have sympathy with Redknapp. I can at least do my twitching in private.

Clothes are a form of body language. What you choose to wear reveals the person you are, or would like to appear. It happens even in football, despite the uniform strips. Cantona put his collar up, a style copied by Yorke, as a way of saying I am original, I am special, I am an artiste.

Consider the return of gloves in football, now that the bad weather is here. Traditionally players from warmer climates used to wear them, from Africa or the Caribbean, though that did not apply when they were second or third generation, brought up here. Desailly was wearing them in that Sunderland game, and so was Babayaro. And a lot of good it did them. What was strange in the Leeds against Spartak Moscow game, the one in Bulgaria, was seeing players on both sides wearing gloves. You'd have thought Moscow players would be well used to the cold. And Leeds players. If this catches on, some smart sponsor or marketing whizz will be selling advertising space on gloves. Both Moscow and Leeds wore virgin gloves. Prime sites for exploitation, don't you think?

The most worrying sign in that game was Darren Huckerby. He's a talented, quick player, liable to break down the toughest defence with a bit of magic, or run straight into the billboards as he hasn't looked up. There's definitely a problem there, and I think what he wore in that game gave it away. He was wearing a headscarf. Honestly. Check your video. A sort of broad, woollen headscarf over the front of his head, like what my mum, and everyone's mum, used to wear during the war. Presumably he was wearing it to keep his ears warm, the petal. But it was an item of bodily language which I'm sure gives a clue to his real self: Huckerby is a big girl's blouse.

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