Whilst Newcastle were triumping in Lillestrom in the Intertoontoon (poor show by our Norwegian friends I thought), Villarreal were biting the dust againstr SK Maribor. For Rovers, that is one less team seeded above us in the UEFA whilst it might mean that it will make a move by Rovers for Valencia a more attractive proposition for all concerned.

I think it has been pretty well substantiated that Spuds had gone on to offer significantly more than £5m. Somehow, I don't think Abramovich/Kenyon were running a Toon Philanthropic Society when it came to flogging off Duffer. Anyway, Michael Owen won't even have his cruciate ligament operation until September as he has to wait for the cartilege operation swelling to go down and fully heal before he can go under the knife again.

Thought he looked promising today- better than I could remember him playing at Wigan and in a physical opening to the "friendly", it was good to see a Champs League defence not really fancying taking him on. Much better control than Shefki- set up MGP's lovely strike nicely. If JR scores more than 7 Prem goals in 33 appearances (including subs), he'll be an improvement on the Kuqimonster.

Pretty encouraging- it was Hamburg's 5th pre-season game and they had all their World Cup players back plus new signing Kompany. Matteo conceded a free kick within a minute of coming on and Hamburg struck the post from the resulting corner. Obviously we are without Neill and Nelsen at the moment but defense will need deepening and strengthening. Jon Douglas seemed to do well after he came on. Rover6 will be delighted to note.

How extremely prescient of you. Micky Gray was replaced by McEveley a minute before Hamburg equalised.

There seemsto be a head of steam building behind reports that Juve's 30 points penalty for next season will be reduced but that AC's penalty will be increased. In a further blow to Italian "big clubs", the FIGC voted to bring in collective bargaining for Serie A clubs for 2007/8 thus ending the ability of individual clubs to negotiate their own deals and favourable coverage. This looks like a £50m+ hit to Juve and counting...

Given a choice between Liverpool, Spuds and Newcastle next season, any sane footballer would chose Newcastle of course. Looks like Fat Freddie is banking 2007/8's TV money early if he is going to spend substantially more after splashing the £10m on Duff.

The Appeals verdict will be delivered on Tuesday. Both Lazio and Fiorentina have stated they are going to the Civil Courts to contest the verdict so they seem to be pretty cerain about the outcome! Meantime, a new Sporting Tribunal is convening in Naples to hear the case of Reggina's use of the "Moggi Method" in seven games over the last two seasons. With still five more named clubs being investigated and one more under suspicion, quite where is all this ending up? Not directly related but Reggio di Calabria has one scary airport to fly into. On my last (and it will be the last given the choice) flight there, I was enormously grateful to the A319's fly-by-wire system. First the captain stalled us so the engines went full power with a big kick in the back treating us to a roaring fly between two hills then we had an aborted landing on the dinky little runway. Sure Reggio is notorious for wind shere and sudden tail winds off the mountains but it turned out the Captain was handed over by Catania to Reggiana... only Reggiana had forgotten to answer. So we were powered down, under carriage down and wing flap extensions forgotten about as the Captain was yelling at Reggiana Control Tower for clearance half way through final approach. Relegation to C2 would seem the least appropriate verdict...

Quite a bit of amateur dramatics in the last few posts. 1) The appreciation in the value of Stamford Bridge over what RA paid for Chelski means he could blow another £195m and still be in the black on the whole deal. There is the Cobham training ground worth a few bob as well which has been paid for out of those losses. In fact, were RA to walk away from Chelsea tomorrow, he'd probably have doubled his money and had a lot of fun doing it. 2) Having achieved what they have on the football field means that CFC are heading to being self-sustaining within the foreseeable future. Their Prem contract will be worth about 50% more next summer. 3) RA has re-cycled all the assets that made his money In Russia so there is nothing for Putin to take off him. He has kept the right side of Putin and far enough out of the way. The current exercise is almost self-invited to make himself more difficult for an increasingly confident Putin to go after. 4) Even if Putin does go for him, RA is well down the list of British passport holders whom Putin would like to see behind bars.

Yes, I thought most of the posts on this thread had a tenuous relationship with the facts as presented in public.

Some nice pictures here: http://www.kipax.com/

Jemal Johnson is not in the party of 27 flying out to Germany this afternoon. Some of the youngsters are though.

I thought it was rather sweet. After all, Uncle Jack got us the Premiership for all our birthdays one year.

Nice pictures Slater Scott. That looked like an undulating ploughed field surrounded by what must be the worst stadium in the Football League by some distance. Good practise in case we get drawn to go to Gretna in the UEFA Cup! I guess Roberts, Jeffers, Derbyshire is just about an ideal list of scorers for a 3-0 win in the first pre-season game. Hope Roberts is OK.

That was taken from the local Maltese paper. I have seen it reported that a separate Sporting Tribunal altogether will look at Udinese, Siena, Messina, Arezzo and Avellino and that Messina's reinstatement into Serie A (they were relegated last season) is very much in doubt. The Sporting Life article is completely unclear as to whether the two additional clubs are completely new to the scandal. The terms of reference of the Sporting Tribunal which handed down the relegations and points deductions was only seasons 2004/5 and 2005/6. Roberto Mancini of Internationale said publicly when the scandal broke that Juve had been match fixing since 2001. Presumably in the intervening period, his deposition has been taken and could well be in the 300 additional pages of material now being considered.

Update/correction. The appeals procedure starts on 22 July and is expected to conclude after the 29 July deadline for submitting European competition nominations. So assuming Empoli are let into the UEFA, that particular die is cast. All four clubs are appealing their sentences whilst the prosecutor is also appealing on the grounds of excess leniency. He wants AC in Serie B and Juve in Serie C.

Apart from the fact the Mancs have £500m more debt than would be allowed by the new UEFA regulations due to be introduced in 2008/9.

If the players and their agents like money, they will be in the Premiersahip. If they are all Italian lovers and patriotic philanthropists, they will stay in Italy. Juve taking a massive hit on TV rights: http://www.thesoccerforum.net/archives/93 There will be a lot of blame passing between Sky Executives and their lawyers at the moment!

Meanwhilst the view from the Maltese tifosi: http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=231074 If you think the Juve Supporters Club is big, the Manc Supporters Club is enormous. Still I've now found five Rovers supporters on the island- the latest was lying drunk at the Ferries in Sliema wearing the '95 Premiership shirt.

Its great to welcome Stanley back- I can remember them falling out of the League but never being in it. Being a Darrener, it always seemed fair dos that Accy had the same status as the Anchormen. Anyway, I'll just be glad to see the back of this one with no trouble in the ground or the town and no injuries to the players. Pre-season, sub 100% fitness, over-enthusiastic local clogger opposition- the odds on a Rover player being out for months after this one are distressingly high. Probably a poor match and a meaningless result. One of the two Rovers' sides will probably muster a win. Jeffers to be the new saviour or the most useless wearer of the shirt since McKinnon depending on how he handles the five to ten touches of the ball he gets.

The Mancs only have a short shopping list when they pop over to Turin: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/t...utd/5189828.stm A considered view of Juve, Lazio and Fiorentina's chances now: http://www.eurosport.com/football/serie-a/...sto927314.shtml The result of the Appeals is apparently expected tomorrow (Wednesday).

Nice little profile of Moggi: http://www.timesofmalta.com/core/article.php?id=231026

I completely agree- halves are the Rovers brand. Not having a halved away strip massively dilutes the visual impact of the Rovers brand. It is blindingly simply obvious but why are Rovers missing the point? If you look back at past video compilations of Premiership games, very often I haven't got a clue who the opposition were from their away strips. It will be the same with this years allover cherry strip for Rovers. Stick with halves home and away so whenever you see Rovers it is instantaneously recognisable as Rovers.

Galliani getting a one year ban is a massive decision that has been lost in all the other headlines- that's not just a member of staff (presumably you are thinking of the guy who got banned for 3.5 years), Galliani IS AC Milan if you know anything about how that club operated.

1) They don't get the Scudetto 2) They are completely out of Europe in 2006/7 assuming Empoli get sorted which both UEFA and FGIC have said they will. 3) They start with a 2006/7 points deduction which means they almost certainly won't win the Scudetto and based on most recent seasons would make sure they won't qualify for the CL in 2007/8 either. So that's probably a minimum £20m income wiped out over the next two seasons. pointless???