Its true, when a player is in contract they can choose who to sell him to.  Also after Bosman etc etc a player also has to agree to the club he is being sold to and he always has the option of waiting for his contract to end or buy it out if thats a clause.  However you cant just buy out your contract the club has to agree to it and they may not if they know he will go to City, unless its one of those you can buy out for x amount of money.

It sounds bad that a club can dictate to some extent what club a player goes to but that is the price a player pays for being guaranteed a nice wage for 3-4 years or however long the contract is.  As said above its a long time to be sitting on the bench so he may have to play abroad for a couple of years.  In Joe Coles case once he is a free agent he can go wherever he wants and there is no transfer fee so he can benefit from that too as a club can give a signing bonus in that case.

Oh thats interesting thanks, also dont forget any breaking of a contract can also be challenged in court outside of the football tribunals.  Not something I would expect him to do as I think in both cases they would fall on the side of United compensation wise.

Ouch... Spurs are getting hammered. Some great touches from Inter, its just perfection

On the plus side I dont have to worry about missing most of the second half.  Free to watch the apprentice

I don't think there is a bigger diver in the premier league than Nani... he goes down more than Drogba and Steven "Starfish" Gerrard

Spurs and their utterly clueless manager are finding out why some teams are really far better off  not getting into the CL at all. Liverpool are blessed not to be playing CL football while being relegation strugglers in the PL.

Chelsea, Man U, Arsenal and City are the new PL top four and probably the teams we'll see in the CL next season. Spurs might make the Europa and Liverpool, well, they probably won't have to worry about it since they'll be in the Championship anyway.

Mystic Prom sees the future of footy same time same place next week don't miss it folks.

Drogba doesn't dive anymore, hasn't for a long time. I used to absolutely hate it when he did that. Deliberate dives should be a straight red every time no arguments.

Wasn't that the script we were all supposed to follow last season

We were just saying that the other week. Truly he is the new Ronaldo.

Saturday

Tottenham v Everton
Birmingham v Blackpool
Chelsea v Wolves
Sunderland v  Aston Villa
West Brom v  Fulham
Wigan v Bolton
West Ham v Newcastle

Sunday 

Stoke v Man Utd
Liverpool v Blackburn
Man City v Arsenal

Newcastle 2/1 to win.

Grim news for Portsmouth - from the BBC a short time ago:

Portsmouth say they are likely to fold as they are unable to continue trading after talks with former owner and key creditor Sacha Gaydamak broke down.

The club claim that Gaydamak demanded an upfront cash payment to facilate a possible deal to go through and allow them to exit administration.

"It appears likely that the club will now be closed down and liquidated by the administrators," said Pompey.

Earlier in October the club's latest plan to exit administration was vetoed.

That proposal was blocked by the Football League on the grounds that they wanted clarification on four issues before handing Pompey's golden share back.

The Championship club went into administration in February with debts of around £120m.

The first Premier League club to suffer that ignominy Pompey were then docked nine points and were subsequently relegated.

Gaydamak was Portsmouth's owner between 2006 and 2009 before selling the club to Sulaiman Al Fahim.

"Despite the new owners fulfilling all the requirements of the Football League and the creditors, and agreeing and signing up to the required terms of the purchase of the club, at the 11th hour the goalposts have been moved by Gaydamak," said Pompey in a statement.

Gutted for Pompey... great set of fans aswell




Meanwhile, Up north Rooney is saying that £100k isnt enough...


Also, bit of a fued going on at the moment between Stan Collymore & Rio Ferdinand.

Sad day for Pompey fans, tis a shame.


Ashley Young calls of Aston Villa talks over new contract.. for now

I'm probably a little older than you Mr Pie. It would be rather pleasant if they were followed by Millwall, Leeds, and perm any three from W Lancashire.

What teams are there in W Lancashire??

I base my comment on the concept of the East Lancs road. Thus any team in the Greater Manchester area. Especially Rochdale.

I'm advised by my fragrant Lancastrian wife that I have mixed up m'west and east.  .. and I have. No more sekt for Garage Joe.

Hope that I have more luck with my teams today.

Oi!there's nothing wrong with most Millwall fans! I'm off down there with a couple of kids shortly. We'll have alovelytime (result depending).











In other news brothels in Manchester are celebrating the end of the recession having signed a new 5 year contract with a local businessman

Good luck against Derby!

I was watching the RL this morning and spotted a Millwall flag...


It also said "No one likes us"

I suspect that they don't care.

No, no pundit picked Arsenal to finish in the top 4 last year.  In fact I dont recall many even putting us in the top 6.

I, on the say so of a Grauniad pundit, put several poond on Arsenal to win the title, last year and this.

Well that was a waste of money and there were precious few that did, Hansen even suggested the possibility of relegation which makes Liverpools situation at the moment all the sweeter.  It was all Everton, Liverpool, Man U, Chelsea, City oooh maybe even Birmingham with their new money.  They hardly mentioned Spurs either.

It didn't seem like a waste of cash at the time! Arsenal looked an exciting footballing team, and now that they actually have someone who can dish it out too......
 Hasn't turned out that way as it happens. Who would have thought that City would have teamed up that quickly? One hoped that one of the debt ridden Lancashire teams would collapse, and one hoped that Chelsea would fail big time.
Back to the drawing board.

Yea about this time last year we were looking really good before Van Persie got crocked.  Was more thinking before the season started.  Always our problem at the moment, injuries.

I suspect some arab will come swooping in to rescue the Lancastrians once the inevitable happens.  Really makes a mockery of it when I remember that Brighton was saved by a local pizza restaurant and later by Fatboy slim along with Dick Knight.

Richard Dunne own goal Some things never change

A good days work including Newcastle at 2/1 (bit close mind) and me old mate Monet's Garden at 4/1. I may just win back the cash I apparently wasted on Arsenal.

Well I enjoyed my day, 2 really good goals and Derby looked like they couldn't score in abrothel!

Not a bad result considering we were 10 men down from first few mins. Im confident had we had 11 men on the pitch we would of won. We managed to create two chances in 4 mins from the kick off.

We were screwed right from the sending off and the tactics/changes were dreadful. I don't think its wise to throw in an 18 year old who is still learning the game into the starting line-up, he was lucky during the Chelsea game aswell. Give it another year or two and Boyata will be ready... but for now we need all the experience we can get during these big games.


Think the fans could question one or two changes... Bridge on for Yaya Toure? The game was crying for A.Johnson, there was loads of space down that right hand side today. We should of taken either Barry or Milner off and sent on AJ. Just wasnt clicking. He should prob even be starting.

Hart, Boateng and Silva were top.

Arsenal deserved the win... but 3-0 is a harsh result.


P.S. Fabregas is a tw*t... waving for a yellow card? Was hoping De Jong would snap him in half.

Yeah it was a really good result for Arsenal but I think the sending odd (though deserved) did play a major part.

Nice save from the penalty from Hart though.

Do you know what really pisses me off about Tyler and Gray?

They go absolutely mental, probably blurt a load in their underpants, when a 30 yard pot shot flies into the top corner, but when a goal of real quality happens like Arsenals first goal today, it doesn't get any praise from them what so ever.

I always find it funny that fans, commentators and pundits complain about players doing this. The same fans who complain probably sit in the stands shouting OFF OFF OFF OFF OFF. What's the difference? I do it at footie matches and I don't necessarily blame players for doing it either.

He's a paid professional who should stick to playing football... not trying to cheat and influence a refs decision. He was making the refs job more difficult and when that starts the opposition players end up in the refs face every time a foul is made hoping that they get a card.

unless they introduce an outright law that says you cannot appeal, complain or try to influence the refs decision in any other way then I can't see what the problem is. I know they tried to bring some sort of rule where only the captain is allowed to talk to the ref, but that was just pointless and I don't even know if that rule is actually being enforced?

I just said that when a player starts waving an imaginary card in a refs face, the opposition (Us in this case) start doing it and thats exactly what happened. Fabregas was in the refs face and the next tackle after Barry was up doing the same. Its f*cking pathetic, especially if your supposed to be the captain... keep your team under control, get your team back into position and let the ref deal with it. He shouldnt be having to tell the players to back off.

Well it's never going to happen. When you're in a game and the adrenalin is pumping, it's very difficult to just get up and let the ref deal with it when you're fouled or whatever and hope that he gives the correct decision. Likewise when you think the ref is a clown and he is making clown like decisions, it's very difficult to stand there and let the ref get on with it. I know this from playing football myself,  but I could imagine it's probably a hundred times more intense playing professional football with a crowd surrounding you etc.