James

And is that something you heard in the last few months, or when he signed. The history of Owen's wage is as followed: 2005: Michael Owen was signed. Reported wage is £80,000. 2006: Owen has injury problems. Wage estimations fluctuate between £80,000 and £100,000 in the media. Hearsay from doom mongerers quote wage of £100,000. 2007: Intensive speculation about Owen's future. Everyone accepts £100k figure. 2008: Owen in contract negotiations. Reported wage becomes £120k.

He is not on £120k per week. He probably is already on about £80k if you believe what was said when he was signed.

Papers seem to be running the £40k pay cut story again. What puzzles me is that when he joined, Owen was described as being on £80,000 a week, the papers put it up to £100k shortly afterwards, and today he sits on £120k unready to go back to the £80,000 he was supposedly on (according to the broadsheets) when he signed.

You got me wondering what the table would look like in terms of goals per minutes played.... Pos standard Pos/Player Goals Minutes Minutes per goal 1 1 Cristiano Ronaldo 31 2746 89 2 2 Fernando Torres 24 2533 106 3 2 Emmanuel Adebayor 24 2928 122 4 11 Jermain Defoe 12 1605 134 5 5 Aiyegbeni Yakubu 15 2303 154 6 4 Roque Santa Cruz 19 3187 168 7 5 Dimitar Berbatov 15 2689 179 8 5 Robbie Keane 15 2714 181 9 11 Wayne Rooney 12 2181 182 10 9 Carlos Tevez 14 2677 191 11 5 Mwaruwari Benjani 15 2897 193 12 17 Frank Lampard 10 1954 195 13 10 John Carew 13 2546 196 14 14 Michael Owen 11 2175 198 15 17 Dean Ashton 10 2001 200 16 Obafemi Martins 9 2051 228 17 14 Nicolas Anelka 11 2575 234 18 11 Steven Gerrard 12 2840 237 19 17 Dave Kitson 10 2522 252 20 14 Gabriel Agbonlahor 11 3278 298 And Owen is still 14th. Only really shines a light on Defoe. Benjani drops too. Is 14th supposed to be good? Well if teams are meant to have at least two proven goalscorers these days, for a team finishing 12th, Owen is about ten players higher than he should be based on the team he plays for....

WTF?!

The second bit is right, but the first bit I can't agree with. Geremi as a footballer has been incredibly average all season, despite his statistics. I'd love to see our midfield in a race like. I'd bet they take 20 seconds to do 100m. As I see it: Ability to burst forward: Both poor Tackling: Butt better Defensive positioning: Geremi better Interceptions: Geremi better Offensive positioning: Butt better Shooting: Butt better Physical ability: Butt slightly better. Set pieces: Geremi best in squad in some areas of the pitch, other areas both poor. Passing accuracy: Butt better Range of passing: Geremi better Usefulness of passes: Geremi better As overall players they are of similar ability albeit with different strengths. My main gripe with Butt is his passes is really the same gripe I have with Smith's passing, so maybe it is possible that playing for Manchester United has destroyed that area of both players game. At Manyoo, it didn't matter if Butt passed the ball to good foot, bad foot, into space, forwards, backwards, sideways, fast or slow as the likes of Giggs, Ronaldo, Scholes etc are gifted players who could make the most of whatever, Butt just needed to hit the target, and the recipient would do all the hard work. Hence today, Butt's passes are considered 'accurate.' However, at Newcastle, a lot of his passes are just target practice. He gets the ball to the player, but it goes away from the player's run, or onto their bad foot, or going to fast to easily control. Hence we lose possession, and though it doesn't look like he's lost the ball he has lost it by putting his team mate under pressure. Compare this to Geremi. A larger percentage of his passes are received in ways their team mates want to receive it. Even his criticised sideways passes often allow a team mate to run forward onto the ball in space, hence forward momentum isn't lost.

Butt has his uses, but I think Geremi is the better all round player of the two. Also, when others talk about Owen not working half as well in a 442 as in a 433, I think they should be pointing their finger at Butt for this before they turn on our Number Ten.

James Beye Ferdinand Vidic Evra Ronaldo Lampard Essien Young Gerrard Torres Subs: Cech, Carvalho, Anderson, Santa Cruz, Tevez

Don't know how true this is, but I heard that Smith threw his shirt into the crowd, and the crowd threw it back at him.

If Keegan was going, he'd be gone already. Nothing to worry about.

Not really arsed for them, such a nothing club they might as well not exist. Loads more 'nothing' clubs than Fulham. Chelsea were always the Third Club in West London until Abramovich.

Kitson as backup (Deja Vu?)

Incredibly. Richest fans in the country. Reputation of being London's glamour team since the 1950's when they had Haynes, Hill and Robson.

How dare a posh West Londoner who plays a posh West Londoner in every single film he makes support a posh club from West London!

The season has ended five minutes ago, and we still haven't signed anyone. What is going on?

Boro need one more to beat our second highest ever PL win.

Time for Ramage methinks.

How dare they let Yakubu take penalties. If Harper had saved it it wouldn't have been a goal and it would have been a disgrace toall Everton fans.

Yes!

Was coming. Don't know how Lowes sees Lescott as 'the most unlikely scorer'

How the fuck are we still in this?

At the moment, Reading or Birmingham could score as many as they want. A 90th minute winner for Fulham, and it will all be for nothing...

I wasn't being serious Skirgy.

Does winning a penalty mean that we can win the Fair Play League?

1-1 Owen Penalty. Whoop!