It's called the Owen Hargreaves syndrome.

Have a look at our forum (if you can bear it) We started that rumour with the sole intention of getting it on the BBC transfer ticker

   Nice one!

Well Postman Pat will be off - to be replaced by probably either 'Arry or Woy. I can hardly contain my excitement.

I see Ol' Baconface is quickly back into the stride of trying to intimidate referees

He's signed a possible Massimo Taibi clone and now apparently wants any opposition player to be banned from getting within five yards of his new keeper or something, so as not to put him off the difficult job of catching a football-sized ball.

Come on, Davies - you know what to do.  With a bit of luck, we can ruin this De Gea bloke over the coming weeks

Yes, I peed myself laughing at Ferguson's latest comments. He really is becoming a cartoon character.

Bolton 0, Manchester United 5.

What is the point of this stupid league?

Money greed and ego and glory by association with SKY TV, that's what.

Utterly pathetic.

Couldn't agree more mate. People say that the EPL is the best league in the world. It's better than what we can offer up here, but to my mind it's becoming as much of a closed shop as the SPL is in Scotland. As far as high quality league football goes, Serie A in Italy in the early-mid 90's takes some beating.

For those who want to see a game of real quality and one that was a proper contest, I would strongly advise them to get the DVD of this game from what I call the golden era of football, i.e before TV, big bucks and greed stole the game from the fans. Possibly the best individual game of football played during my lifetime.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgRpRTbk1oo

Or football's Rab C Nesbitt.

The Premier League may be becoming more one-sided, but there was some great football on show yesterday. City looked breathtaking at times. Early days, but with attacking flair like that which was on display yesterday, they have a chance of the title.

Liverpool showed just why they're way short of being contenders - and only the fact that both Arsenal and Spurs have gone backwards (so far) gives them a chance of 4th. Against a Stoke side offering next to nothing in attck and content to 'park the bus' after going 1-0 up, Liverpool had little in the way of ideas and skill to break them down. Dalglish quibling over the 3 penalty decisions - I think none were strong cases for pens, although Liverpool's first shout was the most likely IMO (defender rushing to close down attacker with his arms out wide and the ball hits their hand when the attacker knocks ball forward)

Likely to be helped in no small part by news that Cleverley is out for four weeks with a foot injury. Which means of course a good run out for that donkey Carrick.

Could be interesting to watch

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-100/episode-1

Rumours that the program will announce unannounced positive drug tests.

http://twitter.com/#!/OliverKayTimes

Not sure how reliable that guy is although he is a big correspondent for the times i think. Sometimes promises got dropped due to legal reasons. We'll see what it comes up with.

Edit: Daily Mail suggests that it involves recreational drugs rather than performance enhancing drugs and they were out of competition tests. As recreational drugs do not need to be tested for out of competition, it makes me wonder why they do it? Guess that makes it unannounced tests rather than a cover-up.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036409/Channel-4s-Dispatches-drug-shame-players.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

From what I saw of Chelsea on Saturday you can count them out, they are not a patch on the two Manchester clubs at the moment.

We (Sunderland) are poor and the whole Gyan affair has not helped but Chelsea struggled to break us down and we had weathered the storm when our defenders decided to go walkabout and give Terry 2 bites of the same cherry.

Indeed. And now, a player who couldn't hit a cow's arse with a banjo, is reportedly being less than complimentary about his fellow team mates.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/14886771.stm

I think you'll find that it is more to do with a very poor (or mischievous) translation....

"Slow play" is rather different to "slow players"

QPR looked pretty good in flashes last night and with a couple more weeks together I think they might have enough to stay up. I like Warnock and it would be nice to see him get a couple of years in the top flight after all the problems Sheffield United had when they were there.

Aw bless. Just been on RAWK and read some of the hysterically funny comments from certain posters about what a disgrace it was that Spurs put out such a weakened side against PAOK last night - all of this ahead of this weekend's game with the bindippers.

They should view 'Arry's stance as complimentary. Unfortunately, some of the dimwits on there don't see it like that.

It's actually a shame neither side can put out a full strength team at present, but that's part and parcel of the game.

If they could I've no doubt who would win, despite what many of the posters over there would say..

Merc, what's going to be your back 4 on Sunday?

Probably:

Walker King Kaboul BAE

Possibly

Walker Corluka King BAE OR Corluka King Kaboul BAE

It all depends how defensive minded 'Arry decides to be. Corluka makes Carragher look like Usain Bolt, so he may play it safe by putting him in the back four somewhere.

Heard you had some defensive injuries and wondered whether to change my score prediction in the comp.

Probably leave it as it is, cos that Stoke game showed up Liverpool's long-standing frailties. We're distinctly average and Kenny isn't the Messiah.

Dawson is out for two months, Gallas may be back next week (after the Liverpool game) not having played this season while King is ......er .....King i.e. crocked most of the time but ready to be wheeled out on occasion.

A shame that King has been crocked over the years. Had it not been the case the odious Terry/Ferdinand (take your pick) wouldn't have received a third of the caps they've received. Most objective observers would argue that a fully fit King is better than either of those two.

Give that man 10 out of 10 for being perceptive. What a tit.

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,,11670_7183801,00.html

From what I've heard, it sounds as though Liverpool took a rather sore one at White Hart Lane this afternoon.

Wrt Kenny Dalglish, I don't think anyone, even Kenny himself, can argue that English football today is a completely different kettle of fish now to what it was in the mid-late 80's and the start of the 90's during his original spell in charge at Anfield. At that time, Liverpool had been the dominant team in England for the best part of two decades and, by comparison, Man Utd had gone well over 20 years without winning the title and were nowhere in terms of challenging Liverpool for the title. I think that in many ways, the summer of 1990 marked what would prove to be the start of a turning point in English football. Liverpool won their last title and less than a year later, King Kenny had left to be replaced by Graeme Souness who had abandoned his duties at Rangers with four games left of the 90-91 season (which I was rather angry about as Rangers were in the middle of a very close title challenge with Aberdeen at the time!). Meanwhile, Man Utd's FA Cup replay win over Crystal Palace in May 1990 not only saved Fergie from the sack, but it sparked a major renaissance in their fortunes. The coming of the Premier League and the huge money that has come with it has made it virtually unregonisable now from what it was 20-25 years ago.

I don't like to rub it in, but actually it could have been 3 or 4-0 to Spurs by half time. Liverpool goal attempts after 60 mins - a big fat zero. A truly shocking performance, despite the sendings off.

P.S. Now we're realising how crap the Chavs are and how good United are. At least an understrength Spurs gave United a game for 60 mins - Chelsea are three down by half time.