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£17m for a striker who's had one or two good seasons in the Premierleague? No thanks. I seriously cannot believe THIERRY FUCKING HENRY is leaving for £16m and Bent will be signed by some dumb club for £17m. He's really one-dimentional and needs a partner to create things for him (or for the whole team to go through him ie. play 4-5-1). That's why it's understandable Spurs are going for him (Berbatov to be the creator), but I'd be seriously annoyed if we went for him. We'd have two or three pretty much selfish strikers.

This should be expanded to clubs outside the Premiership. Consider clubs like Forest or Leeds and you'll see that they meet criterion numbers 1, 4 and 5 pretty well. This way you can include all the 'sleeping giants' that exist in English football. Would be quite interesting to see where teams like Wolves, Sunderland etc. stack up against the rest.

Does anyone remember when Spurs offered us Kanoute in exchange for Shola and basically most of us told them to 'fuck off'?

Jesus, Arsenal are fucked. Wow. End of an era there if Wenger really leaves. What an era as well.

You won't be whooshed mate. I'm quite certain that Anelka has a clause in his contract as well.

Regarding the crazy buy-out clauses (like £50m+), that only happens in La Liga because it's the law. Every contract signed in La Liga has to have a buy-out clause and that's why some players have ridiculous clauses like £89m etc. etc.

[Parky-ism] Martins out for £13m and Anelka in for £8m [/Parky-ism] Honestly though, that wouldn't be bad. And Anelka does have that clause in his contract.

No idea about Reina mate, but I'm pretty sure Gerrard's contract could have been bought out for £5.5m after the end of next season, so I'm pretty sure that's why they had to resign him asap. It is certainly a good thing watching them implode in a way. If Rafa leaves, it'll set back the club by 2 or 3 years since a few of the players aren't good enough but it's only Rafa who's making it work somehow. Good times

His love for football will be a factor considering he doesn't own any more shares in Arsenal (sold to the Stan bloke, innit?) and isn't exactly loved by the Arsenal board.

They had to sign those players because of the new FIFA ruling that meant they could 'cancel' their contract if it has two years left or something like that. Totally understandable why they would want to sort that out now, especially since they probably promised the players something like 'we'll sign him and him, and yea him too'. Imagine what would happen if they tried the other way around and not gotten the big signings? Gerrard, Carragher etc. surely would have second thoughts of whether to re-sign or not. Anyhow, saying that, I'm still hoping that they'll be relegated next season

FWIW, Michael Owen is clearly our 'best' player. But, he's not our 'most valuable' (value to team, not in terms of £) because he's hardly played in the past 2 seasons. Do you see my point about a criterion?

Some of the comments to 'justify' the choices are quite funny Terry is 'most influential' - so what? Does that make him the 'best'? Firstly there should be a criterion set up so that we can argue based on that criterion, and so we can avoid people just throwing random names and justifying it with 'deserves England captaincy' - what the hell does England have to do with being a 'best' player at a club?

Jon you drunkard

Arena filled with sports fans at a postseason game in Cleveland, OHIO. OHIO.

What are the odds that someone in that arena actually knew him and knew who he was?

I wouldn't mind if we had to raise some extra money by 'renaming' it. It'll still be known as St James' Park to most people I would imagine. It's not like with Arsenal where they were building a new stadium therefore there wasn't a name that had yet stuck to the stadium.

'Jenas by name, genius by nature'... 'it sat up beautifully and said 'hit me', and my goodness did this boy hit it' The goal and the commentary was fantastic.

They will be if Henry goes to Barcelona and they don't get a decent replacement. There isn't really a 'decent' replacement for Henry though. Unless they get someone like Eto'o in return plus some extra cash to buy another striker, they're going to suffer if Henry leaves. Saying that, they did just come 4th with him not being a main contributor in the least so you know they'll be strong next season, as usual.

Stevie needs to go in there tbh.

If we can get Ben Haim signed soon, and with the Viduka deal agreed 'in principle', it'll have been a massive few days for us.

I think Giggs is the best British player of the last 20 years. Well ahead of Gerrard for me. Always thought of Giggs as more of a 'supporting cast'. Maybe it's just because of the position he plays in? When I think of the old Manyoo teams I think about Schmeichel, Cantona and Keane. The first name that comes up isn't 'Giggs' and that for me is usually a defining quality that the 'greats' possess. Saying that, there's no doubting he has been quality, was special when he broke onto the scene and his longevity makes him a really really good player, but still not a footballing 'great' for me.

Good news. Bye Scotty!

EMO and FAB for me. They'll be awesome up front. Viduka to hold up the ball and bring the midfield into play and Owen to poach in the box. Looking forward to it already!

Yes. Agreed. But with Gerrard he's actually won things and proven that he can carry his team on his back. Some people I talk to still think it's lucky that his thunder-strike against Olympiakos went in because if that didn't go it, there'd be no Istanbul, coming back from 3-0 etc. but that's just a fucking pathetically irrelevant hypothetical situation. The fact is it did happen, he did carry his team on his back and will be remembered as such. Even if he only wins a couple more small trophies before he hangs it up, I reckon he'll be remembered as a great. Edit - He needs the league and that'll do it for me.

Don't think Giggs is a footballing great myself. He was never the 'it' player at his club, the driving force that won them trophies and was the man who carried the whole team on his back. Gerrard, on the other hand, well, we'll see at the end of his career whether he's done enough to be considered a true 'great'. He's on track atm though.