James

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway. How come people frequently get caught in cycling, athletics, etc. then? And lawyers don't come into it if the governing bodies lay down the rules properly - i.e. you're caught so you're banned for x amount of time. Cycling and athletics use retrospective testing, ie they freeze several samples of blood and urine, and then whenever a new drug is discovered, they test for it in the old samples. Since customs authorities accidentally stumbled across half of Columbia in a team doctor's car in 1998, the UCI have frequently requested that French and Spanish police search cyclists properties under warrant. This is what leads to the most prosecution, while interrogation usually leads to the searching of someone elses premises. It is also worth mentioning people in many sports get caught especially cyclists and track sprinters, but unless you are caught with the drug in your possession, you are unlikely to be prosecuted if you can pay for a good enough lawyer. Aye and in those sports athletes are banned which proves those tests aren't useless and those methods could be introduced into football. Cheers for saving me the bother of pointing out your previous post, i.e. "Drug testing is useless" was bollocks though tongue.gif Only about 25% of cyclists are banned, the rest are suspended by their own teams pending investigation, and are usually back riding 3 months later. Source? Also, cycling is probably an extreme case as it has always been riddled with drugs/corruption. I'd follow the athletics model for drug-testing in football where you have lists of banned substances, random testing and fixed penalties. I'm not sure how you've shown drug-testing is useless though and in football it is a joke. Players/clubs are given advance warning of tests. Designer drugs cannot be recognised by standard drug tests. The drugs have to be discovered first by the authorities, and the only way of doing this is to randomly raid cyclists homes/team headquarters. Therefore drug testing is useless unless this is being done.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway. How come people frequently get caught in cycling, athletics, etc. then? And lawyers don't come into it if the governing bodies lay down the rules properly - i.e. you're caught so you're banned for x amount of time. Cycling and athletics use retrospective testing, ie they freeze several samples of blood and urine, and then whenever a new drug is discovered, they test for it in the old samples. Since customs authorities accidentally stumbled across half of Columbia in a team doctor's car in 1998, the UCI have frequently requested that French and Spanish police search cyclists properties under warrant. This is what leads to the most prosecution, while interrogation usually leads to the searching of someone elses premises. It is also worth mentioning people in many sports get caught especially cyclists and track sprinters, but unless you are caught with the drug in your possession, you are unlikely to be prosecuted if you can pay for a good enough lawyer. Aye and in those sports athletes are banned which proves those tests aren't useless and those methods could be introduced into football. Cheers for saving me the bother of pointing out your previous post, i.e. "Drug testing is useless" was bollocks though tongue.gif Only about 25% of cyclists are banned, the rest are suspended by their own teams pending investigation, and are usually back riding 3 months later.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway. How come people frequently get caught in cycling, athletics, etc. then? And lawyers don't come into it if the governing bodies lay down the rules properly - i.e. you're caught so you're banned for x amount of time. Cycling and athletics use retrospective testing, ie they freeze several samples of blood and urine, and then whenever a new drug is discovered, they test for it in the old samples. Since customs authorities accidentally stumbled across half of Columbia in a team doctor's car in 1998, the UCI have frequently requested that French and Spanish police search cyclists properties under warrant. This is what leads to the most prosecution, while interrogation usually leads to the searching of someone elses premises. It is also worth mentioning people in many sports get caught especially cyclists and track sprinters, but unless you are caught with the drug in your possession, you are unlikely to be prosecuted if you can pay for a good enough lawyer.

Drug testing is useless to be honest. Unless you are stupid enough to take a recreational drug you will get away with it as the drugs are always one step ahead of the testers, while specialisty drugs and lawyers can get you off the hook for most substances anyway.

Also Gemmill, football accounts for the reason a majority of people buy British newspapers. Reduced following of football leads to the reduced circulation in newspapers.

Is in the Spanish and French papers pretty often actually.

A huge dent in income from merchandise, plus the fact that the Spanish police would get sued by some very very very rich people.

FIFA doing nothing about the drug cheats in their sport.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operacion_Puerto 6 months on, and despite evidence (all circumstancial) being provided to FIFA, there has been no investigation or action taken. Why not I would ask if I didn't already know the answer.

Massimo Maccarone is shit. End of story.

Apparently he isn't keen on moving having got his kids settled down here.

Glenn Roeder

Dave Jones Guus Hiddink

Roy Keane seems to be using his contacts at Manchester United, Scotland and Ireland to build up a collection of young British and irish players with good long-term potential. One to watch in my opinion.

I had a really vivid dream last night. I dreamt that we had signed Rosenior and Hoyte, and some unknown 17 year old Swedish attacking midfielder. On their debut, we beat Fulham 4-1 with a goal and MOTM performance by the Swede, and a goal from a Rosenior diving header. The Swede was amazing - one of the best performances I had ever seen. Shame it was just a dream.

£1m + add-ons is his going rate. 16 goals in 18 games is a great feat for an 18 year-old in any proffessional division. We already have Martins, Owen, Dyer, Sibierski and even Ameobi who are all capable of putting in decent performances up front, and although we still need a bit more depth, we shouldn't really be breaking the bank on yet another striker in my opinion. Surely the opportunity of learning from Owen would be much better than getting relegated with Charlton?

Whats gone wrong with Isaksson's spell at Manchester City? He was hailed as one of the best keepers in Europe when he signed, but having been injured before the start of the season, he has been unable to get past Weaver, who although has been in good form and is popular with the Manchester City fans, will never be a great keeper. I seem to remember Isaksson playing when Weaver was injured and him having a very good game, before losing his place once more to Weaver. It puzzles me really.

This Chief Scout seems pretty sensible.

Quick, sack Roeder and appoint Mourinho before anyone else does.

Have to take exception to that comment there. You have to remember that whoever was in the right or wrong, it was the people who were at the front (aka the people who bought their tickets and made sure that they arrived at the stadium trouble-free in time) who were killed and that is tragic. Imagine if someone you knew had been killed like that. You are saying it was the other (drunken) fans' fault? Perhaps what I'm saying is easy to misunderstand. I'm saying that it wasn't the fault of those who died, unlike what the Sun suggested.

Have to take exception to that comment there. You have to remember that whoever was in the right or wrong, it was the people who were at the front (aka the people who bought their tickets and made sure that they arrived at the stadium trouble-free in time) who were killed and that is tragic. Imagine if someone you knew had been killed like that.

Shouldn't be on more than £25,000 as that is the appropriate wage to pay a 21 year old with much to learn. We could however give him a 5% per year wage rise if he commits himself to a lengthly deal.

Southampton need the funds so don't want to cup-tie him, simple as that. Apparently, Southampton aren't being entirely truthful when they are saying that they have rejected other bids, they are just hoping that some silly spending rich club are going to join this imaginary auction and overbid its non-existant rivals.

That kind of contradicts the earlier SkySports article that suggested that we were going to swap Milner for Riggott in order to raise funds to buy Shaun Wright Phillips.

Bale is worth no more than £4 million in my opinion. He has some potential, but requires a lot of work before he is even ready to play in the Premiership. There is still a very good chance that he wont make it. Right now, David Edgar is probably the better defender. Bale possesses great technique when striking the ball from distance, but so does Plymouth's Paul Wotton, and no Premiership club would sign him.