Robin,

There comes a point in every footballer’s career where they’re faced with handling the business side of the sport. This aspect of the sport is something that’s played out behind closed doors (or, lately, in the confines of the manager’s residence) and every single word from key stakeholder’s quotes gets distorted, misrepresented and, most of the time, blown out of proportion. As someone who watches from outside of the main activity, I certainly don’t envy the players who have to step away from what they love doing in order to make sure their wishes, desires and ambitions in the sport are fulfilled through a mutual commitment in the form of a contract with the club that best provides these needs and wants. After all, you’ve trained yourself the majority of your life to make sure your talent lies on the pitch, not off the pitch.

Continue reading this post »

(Chelsea players running down tunnel, past many authorized personnel smiling and high-fiving, and into the locker room)

Ashley Cole: WE DID IT!

(fires gun repeatedly in the air)

Frank Lampard: That was so awesome! Do I smell sausage and pies?

(showers and changes in two minutes, annihilates the buffet line)

Didier Drogba: NEIGH! SNORT! NEIGH! NEIGH!

John Terry: [insert racist comment]!

Continue reading this post »

"Pat, Boro here. Wildly gesticulate to no one in particular."

Continue reading this post »

It's that time of the year when we're told by everyone who has access to reach millions of suckers fans that Arsenal will be spending like drunks on the transfer market. In preparation for you, the supporters, I am compiling fast facts on the soon-to-be-Gunners targets.

First up, FC Koln striker Lukas Podolski!

Continue reading this post »

How I View Arsenal

Arsenal, by definition and formality, is a club which it started out as such before became a lucrative business, much like how the sport of football evolved from amateurs to professionals, whose sole interest is to its fans, players and shareholders. It is my opinion that the club aims to achieve success on the pitch while maintaining financial stability and profitability in order to achieve long-term goals and ambitions, and Arsenal has a long history of doing everything possible to achieve financial excellence, starting with club’s move from their ancestral home of Woolwich to Highbury. As caretakers to the future of the club, the club should run by the Board as efficiently as possible and with an eye towards profit and self-sustainability, much like any responsible and successful business. Arsenal is unique both in England, Europe and the rest of the world in that they have managed to succeed on the pitch while turning profits almost every year, which has enabled the club to extend their reach worldwide without over-leveraging themselves with individual debts and benefactor loans that carry limited options for repayment (see: Liverpool under Tom Hicks and George Gillett; Manchester United under the Glazer family; Chelsea under Roman Abramovich; Manchester City under Sheikh Mansour). It is because of this why the Board, along with many who see the club in this light, has rebuked and publicly stated its opposition to the money of Alisher Usmanov, that the Russian’s view on how Arsenal should be operated stand in complete contrast to the club’s ethos and principals.

Continue reading this post »

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/05/illinois.andrews.arrest/index.html

"Investigators found in hotel records that Barrett had requested and received a room adjacent to Andrews' and used his home address to register for it."

Um, what?

How is this possible?  I had no idea you could call up a hotel room and request to have a room next to a celebrity.  I am not insinuating that this is anyone but the old pervert's fault, but if I'm ESPN and I have a fine piece of ass whom the entire straight male population of this country wants to inpregnate working and traveling for my company, I think I make sure that the rooms right next to her room isn't occupied by strangers with bad intentions.  I assume she probably has entire hotel floors to herself now that she's gone through all of this, but next time, ESPN, be a little bit more proactive.

http://bcsguru.blogspot.com/

A couple interesting observations from this blog:

2. If the Harris Poll was to be free of preseason biases, how would you explain the fact that Oregon is ranked No. 23 and Cal at No. 21? The Ducks just destroyed the Bears by 39 points. The two teams have identical records at 3-1. And Oregon played a considerably tougher schedule than the Bears did, with games against three ranked opponents. If the Harris voters indeed voted on the basis of pure performance, there is no way that Cal should be ranked ahead of Oregon. ... The same goes for Penn State being two spots ahead of Iowa.

3. The credibility of the Harris Poll is again highly questionable, with voters putting teams like Iowa State, Kansas State, Washington and Texas Tech in the top 25.