The Kraken

I was more referring to you basing your entire appraisal of Boruc on around 30 minutes of football, and dsimissing anything outside of that. 1-5; brilliant stuff.

This is an ironic post. Isn't it? I really hope it is.

Well we're now absolutely desperate for Astori to sign. With Hooiveld in we're down.

Cr*p commentating all round, started by Fonte gifting them the ball on the edge of the area.

Well there we go. Rubbish goal to concede.

Boruc.......

Because the club realised we wouldn't otherwise wear it (they'll only wear it if the all-white doesn't clash). So they designated it as our home FA Cup kit.

Lovely take and finish.

From a Serie A analyst on Twitter: @jackrathborn: Southampton in for Cagliari's Davide Astori, some smart scouts at that club, big upgrade on what they have #Saints @jackrathborn: @KristianSFCoake he's excellent, former Milan youth product, and should've returned to them last summer. Would walk into their XI now. @jackrathborn: I've watched every minute he's played since start of last season. Quality centre back, has ability on the ball, very classy.

http://m.tuttojuve.com/?action=read&idnotizia=123573 Astori greets Italy and goes to Southampton 04/01/2013 23:00 by Mirko Time article read 207 times Davide Astori will be a new player of Southampton. The 26 year old defender of Cagliari, which in recent weeks had been approached to Naples, leaving the Serie A and the Premier chooses a surprise as the next football adventure. In reporting the news is the drafting of Sportmediaset, which emphasizes that the agreement between the England team and Cagliari has been reached on the basis of 10 million. With the shirt of Southampton, Astori rediscover an old acquaintance of Italian football, the former Bologna Gaston Ramirez who went to St. last summer. [Astori saluta l'Italia e va al Southampton 04.01.2013 23:00 di Mirko Fusi articolo letto 207 volte Davide Astori sarà un nuovo giocatore del Southampton. Il 26enne difensore del Cagliari, che nelle scorse settimane era stato accostato al Napoli, abbandona la Serie A e sceglie a sorpresa la Premier come prossima avventura calcistica. A riportare la notizia è la redazione di Sportmediaset, che sottolinea come l'accordo tra la squadra inglese e il Cagliari sia stato raggiunto sulla base di 10 milioni. Con la maglia del Southampton, Astori ritroverà una vecchia conoscenza del calcio italiano, l'ex Bologna Gaston Ramirez che passò ai Saint la scorsa estate. ]

I've found some I agree with this chump on. If Boruc plays I think he could give away away 6 points worth by the end of January. Terrible bet.

This is great stuff. So they've hounded out whipping boy Luke Rodgers. They've hounded out whipping boy Izale McLeod. It seems the last whipping boy, Agent Howard, has been hounded out and is pretending to be injured until he can secure his future elsewhere. So I wonder who the latest whipping boy is? Off to POL to find out.....

Post #1 of this thread summed it up pretty well, I thought. Not too much grey area there. Carry on though.

Has he sent you any weird PMs yet. That'll be a sure sign. The mentalist.

It'll be about this bad: So quite bad.

I don't think Charlie has an answer (or any idea for that matter) so probably best to move on.

Actually there's not much in it at all. England have 10 (Leeds, Man United, Blackburn, Newcastle, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, Everton, Tottenham, Man City). Germany have 12 (Stuttgart, Werder Bremen, Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, Bayer leverkusen, Kaiserslautern, Hertha Berlin, Hamburg, Munich 1860, Schalke, Wolfsberg, Borussia Monchengladbach). English clubs have enjoyed 4 clubs qualifying in the mid to late 2000s; that said Germany also had a number of years in the late 90s and early 2000s when they had 4 clubs qualify and English clubs had 3. So, all in all, its relatively even.

When the only two arguing one side are Alpine and Dalek, you know its time to quickly jump on board the other side.

Of course they will. There will be ways around FFP for the richer clubs; they'll just have to, in Platini's words "get more creative". Its a nonsense to suggest that any of the top clubs will be excluded, and probably most of them will not even be affected by it to any huge degree. Creative accounting has gone on for years in European football clubs, as high as Real Madrid who a few years back hid an actual multi-million loss as a profit by writing off all transfer fees paid out (though in fairness they were audited a year or two down the line and pulled up on it). So much money at stake will mean more expensive and creative accountants, and it will certainly mean more lobbying of UEFA by the top clubs (hence why I mentioned Platini's son being recently appointed to the directors' table at PSG). We're certainly not going to see some power shift in European football where clubs like Chelsea and Man City are left out in the cold, that's just naive in the extreme.

At QPR it's both. Some of the tales I've heard about the previous regime would make even Harry blush.

Barcelona 77M annual losses and over 400M in debt. http://www.barcelonareporter.com/index.php?/news/comments/fc_barcelona_news_barca_posts_77_million_euros_financial_losses/ 3 of England's current "big 4" clubs (including the current CL holders) all made significant losses last year and are saddled with huge debt. In Italy, Inter are destroyed financially. Juventus are perhaps Italy's richest club and they made 40M losses over 6 months in 2011. Milan lost 70 million. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12599543http://www.rossoneriblog.com/2011/04/21/milan-report-losses-of-e69-million-in-revenue/ http://www.rossoneriblog.com/2011/04/21/milan-report-losses-of-e69-million-in-revenue/ But yeah, your plan of just excluding them all will probably work. No-one else in Europe gives a sh*te about those clubs.

Well right now UEFA are against it. And so are the power-brokers. http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2012/dec/05/uefa-europa-league-boost-not-scrap "Importantly the major European clubs, from whom any lobbying for change is taken seriously at Uefa, immediately rejected the reports last week. Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, chairman of Bayern Munich and of the European Club Association, left no room for doubt in his response. "We are not in favour of the abolition of the Europa League and totally against the expansion of the Champions League," Rummenigge said, on behalf of the 207 ECA member clubs which compete in the Uefa competitions."

If various clubs such as Man City, Chelsea, PSG, Real Madrid etc were to be denied access to the Champions league then yes, they'd very much give a sh*te. Particularly those TV broadcasters who currently spend hundreds of millions of euros and line UEFA's pockets through extortionate deals. It simply won't get to that; not a chance.

It isn't true. I posted earlier that UEFA re-clarified their position on this in that they have no plans of terminating the UEFA cup, but they do want to look at ways of making it stronger and more relevant in isolation of the Champions league.

Always thought Chamakh had something about him; just not at a top 6 club. If he's fit he might actually do a decent job for them.