PRL

A lot of the time with Carroll on his own up front it's quite difficult though, as Carroll drops deep and plays it out wide to Routledge. If Carroll's not in the box it's often only Nolan with 3 defenders, so you can understand a bit of reticence

Don't mind if his crossing isn't the best. Relieves pressure with his pace, wins set pieces (2 goals from corners today) and runs himself into the ground. Happy with him in team

Not really bothered about the club's wealth. Fact is he is estimated to be worth 700m, I'm willing to bet it's considerably more (rich list people aren't very good at correctly putting a value on assets and tracking down all assets belonging to those on it). He has an asset in Newcastle United worth a lot more (possibly upward of £70-80m more) in the league we are currently in and for an overall investment of circa 25m (two signings with wages over 3.5 / 4 year contracts) payable over those 4 seasons with the possibility of recouping this money and a damn sight more if he were to sell either the individual players or the club as a whole. The value represented with this deal will be pretty difficult to replicate elsewhere. Yes, there is obvious risk, as there is with every transfer (as mentioned with Nolan et al above), but in my eyes at least, the risk of relegation without relatively modest investment is far more significant.

He'll be turning 70 next year. If Mourinho fancies doing a decent stint at Real (not always an option, but if anyone can i'd say it's him) then Ferguson can't just keep going. 70 is fucking old!

Manchester United. Reasons: Go 1 ahead of Liverpool, Fergie steps down as he's 'knocked them off their fucking perch', Mourinho still in midst of Real project so Mancs appoint someone not up to task, fall out of top 4 the following season, debt spirals as new recession kicks in and no one is there to bail them out. Mancs fall into obscurity. At least, that's the dream. Short term pain for long term gain.

From the FT: China's CIC denies interest in Liverpool FC A spokesperson for China Investment Corp, the country’s main sovereign wealth fund, told the Financial Times they had never heard of a plan to buy Liverpool FC or of Kenneth Huang, the man widely reported to be fronting a Chinese bid to buy the English Premier League club. The shares you are talking about were Morgan Stanley and supposedly sold by CIC.

Back in the French squad http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_6295642,00.html

Without being ott, that was an awful day, a real low point for me as a Newcastle fan. To see Sir Bobby pass away after the season we had left me pretty empty. If I take one thing from the psv game, it will be the few shards of hope we have a year on

Reid has stood out to me as well, looks like he could play at a decent level. i've watched him a bit for FC Midtjylland and imo he is one of those players who are playing above their level in a major tournament.... there are quite a few better players around in the danish superleague... Also known as 'doing a Breen'

Fits with this: http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_6217851,00.html Although Lampard has just been defending Terry. So according to that a clear the air meeting did take place but Terry decided or was instructed to not speak out. All in all a strange affair which will do nothing to ease England's on the pitch worries if you ask me.. Yep, if he really did bottle it then that is far more a sin than the press conference itself. Surely he wouldn't have though? Very interested as to which England players are so in the pocket of the national press to be leaking so much of what's going on in such meetings. Or maybe the press are making it up to make the story have more legs?

Fits with this: http://www.football365.com/story/0,17033,8652_6217851,00.html Although Lampard has just been defending Terry.

John Terry is a fucking cock and one of my least favourite football players, which takes a lot as there is a big list. However, I really don't see anything wrong with what he said yesterday. It was Capello (through Baldini) who asked him to do the press conference and it's not like he didn't know what he was going to get. Terry just said what a lot of people were thinking, if they didn't want someone to do that then they should have thought about it and acted accordingly. It was nice to hear one player out there being honest and admitting they need something changed. It was also good to hear Joe Cole mentioned by him - at least some of the players seem to realise that he should be featuring. The problems with the England team lay firmly at Capello's door in my view. If it takes a pretty non-event press conference to fire the players and management up a bit then so be it - I'd rather we went out in a blaze of rage than saw a repeat of Friday night.

he said 'sod'. Twice. Didn't think it was really apologising territory. He joked that a few of the England players might be following anelka home after the meeting tonight. Spoke very highly of Joe cole, said only he and Rooney had the ability to provide the spark.

I think 3 of the final 6 are pretty winnable games, as far as any game can be described as 'winnable'

He congratulated Ozil on his goal...

Was Martin Keown actually after some sympathy for the hours he's working?! Fucking hell... Poor lamb.

At this point I stopped reading. Other worldly? Yep, if you believe in hell.

Ah, good. Was about to go all Simon Taylor on their asses The monkey noises were all in your head, you filthy racist. they were actually coming from the room next door, going to have to explain to the missus it's just not acceptable in this day and age

Ah, good. Was about to go all Simon Taylor on their asses

Am I mishearing, or are the millwall fans making monkey noises at the black Swindon player when he gets the ball?

Clarification and context of something that just didn't happen? That'll be interesting to read.

Yep, I've worked for some pretty large organisations but without doubt, in my short time at Sky, they were by far the best run firm I've come across. Working for them was an absolute pleasure and as long as they keep up quality of football coverage and movie selection I'm happy to pay what I pay at the minute. There are far bigger cost injustices than that of Sky (see: pints of beer, packs of cigarettes, petrol). As an aside, when at Sky I met the person with what some on here may consider the best job in the world. He sat all day, watching 3 screens of porn, to ensure that no regulations were breached. We were told it looked fun but it got monotonous after a while. When we queried how long he'd been doing it, we were told give or take he had been there 8 years in the same job.

It's not in there at all But you shouldn't believe what Ernst and Young say like, they're part of the great deception together with Ashley and all that..... Maybe Ashley has had them store up $50bn off balance sheet... Cracking accounting jokes. My life is over.

On the plus side, might be some spares for Ipswich after all

I'm not quite sure I understand this line. Whilst I obviously get the difference between a loan and straight purchase I don't think there is any perceived huge difference in abilities at the stage at which we purchased Duff and Butt particularly. If anything, at the time we got Duff and Butt I would have had higher hopes for them than I would for Santa Cruz or Petrov.