stlouismag

A fair point. Plus, I like Caulkin. Doesn't excuse agents and club execs though!

My job pays the bills - if I have work commitments, I don't go on vacation regardless of what my wife and kids might think. If my livelihood was based on 10% of someone's contract, putting together a winning (or at least not-to-be-relegated) squad, or even breaking transfer stories to sell papers/generate web hits, I'd be on the clock 24/7 during the window. Maybe I'm just greedy or conscientious.

Gotta say, I'm utterly mystified at football journos, and even more so at agents and club execs, who take vacation during the transfer window! It's not like it's a fucking secret when it is.

Now, that's just too plain sensible. Take that "logic" and "reason" crap to the "Not Worthy of a Thread" thread, please.

St. Louis checking in. 3 main footie bars here - Barrister's in Clayton (1st ring suburb just west of the City proper), The Scottish Arms in the Central West End, and The Amsterdam Tavern near Tower Grove Park. All open early for matches, are mainly populated with ManU, Arsenal and Chelsea folks, with a nice smattering of other team's supporters as well. Generally, it's a pretty knowledgeable bunch. We have one of those faux Irish chain places now (a Tigrin) that I hear shows games, but I need a better beer (or whisky!) selection than they offer to get my ass out of bed that early.

Still amazed and will always be grateful for pulling that disaster of a relegated team together and winning the Championship. Quibbles with team selection and substitutions this year, but wtf do I know? It was so refreshing to have a manager who conducted himself with class and dignity. He deserved much better than this from the Club.

Not touching him until he comes through without injury against Werder on Wednesday. If I transfer now he's bang on to get a serious knock.

I need to stop thinking about it - went with Drogba captain against Birmingham despite how shite he's been instead of Tevez against Fulham. 4 pts from my captain instead of 32. Ugh. Mid-table mediocrity here I am!

Anyone else notice that collectively we're 1318th out of 209,269 leagues? That's top 0.63%! My team's something like top 25th percentile, and I'm in 66th place in our league.

No worries - I'll just make Tevez my fantasy football captain this week. That should guarantee a significant injury to him, or at least a shit performance.

This remains the best source for injury news that I've found: http://www.physioroom.com/news/english_premier_league/epl_injury_table.php They update several times a week, usually get it right and I love not having to sift through shite and speculation on other teams' fora (my shite-sifting time is spent on here, thanks).

The question is would I take it right now, and there are simply too many variables (injuries - which will happen, it's only a matter of who and how bad, Ben Arfa turning out to be a truly disruptive twat who destroys our chemistry, the January transfer window, etc.) that could go very poorly for us to not take 17th in a heartbeat at this point.

I'm still in shock. Not on TV or internet over here, and was running around like mad getting breakfast for the kids, etc. It seemed every time I refreshed we'd scored again. Half expected to learn it was a 3-1 loss when I got back from running some errands, and the thread nothing more than a massive NO joke on those overseas or otherwise not at the match. Not that I don't trust you fuckers.

Picking my team made me realize how little I paid attention to the Premier League last season. Definitely picked a fair few who seem to be out of favor now. These first few weeks will definitely require some adjustments. My team is 17th with a bullet!

Everyone's got their limit.

Had another good run, only for the announcer to say "And there is the side of Ben Arfa that the Marseille fans saw much too little of last season . . . ."

Came on at about the 60 minute mark. Had a nice penetrating run straight away.

"Bookmakers have installed Portsmouth as third-favourites for relegation behind Scunthorpe and Barnsley." Financial turmoil, no goalkeeper, and only 11 of their massive squad of 14 players expected to be with the team for the opening match and they're third favorites for relegation? Just how shit are Barnsley and Scunthorpe?

Deflected in off his back? Only plausible explanation.

Whoever ate all the pies.

Damn. His head is simply immense. That is all.

For U.S.-based fans, both the Forest match and ours are online at espn360.com for free. Video quality isn't great, but it's free and it's video! Forest is 12:15 Eastern time, ours is the usual 2:45 Eastern.

Looks like a new one is £90-100. Which tells me how boring the match is at the moment.

Been offline for a while and missed this. Modest contribution sent. Sorry it's not more. Thanks!