philipl

SHOCK REVELATION There is a club bigger than BIG CLUB: "The Birmingham chairman David Gold has defended the sale of the winger Jermaine Pennant to Liverpool and pledged the £7m transfer fee will be used to bring in players. "People have to be realistic," Gold said. "Did they want us to chain him to the fence? It was the chance for Jermaine to join one of the greatest clubs in the world. You can't say no." Taken from The Guardian. What makes this really funny is that Arsenal get 25% of the transfer through a sell-on clause from when they sold Pennant to Brum. So a bit tricky for Gold to give all £7m to the transfer kitty. Interestingly, West Ham get 15% of the Carrick transfer fee through a sell-on clause as well. That's a nice bonus for the WHammers.

"Rovers spending spree continues"!! according to the Guardian.

To be honest, the picture was increasingly pixilating in the second half so it was hard to tell although the commentators certainly mentioned his name quite a lot. I guess it might have been more a decision to give him a 20minute run more than anything else. McEvely had the twin problem of fair hair and being close to the camera which rather highlighted his shortcomings. One thing I noticed was his close control looks poor- he always seemed to be playing the ball with his legs outstretched and I kept waiting for a nippy forward to nick the ball off him. His positioning for goals 3 and 4 was not the best. Hughes is not taking it lightly: Hughes described the result as "alarming", adding that Olympiakos had given his side "a good hiding"... according to the Independent.

The shorts Rovers were wearing were borrowed from the local club as the Ref decided the two kits clashed too much. I rather think that we've seen the last of Matteo and McEveley even though it was a friendly. I guess the hunt for a left back and central defender have been stepped up.

That was really bad. Enormous misjudgement either to play that opposition or to put joke teams out. Jeffers is a million miles from being good enough at this level and the squad players were left looking extremely ordinary. McEvely doesn't look like he knows what he is doing and Matteo was woeful. There was no pride shown in the secind half which mist have really hurt Sparky.

There is only an hour gone- this could be 6 or 7 by the end.

0-2. That was offside! This is a shame- we are facing a very decent side which has put something like their first XI on the pitch with a totally inadequate line up. At least Hughes knows that a lot of his squad are sub-standard for the challenges ahead.

Good save by Friedel from Rivaldo. Olympiacos shot whistles narroiwly wide. Looks like Rovers Reserves v Greek Champions which is what it is,

0-1 Rovers central defence parted and Friedel chipped. Jeffers not looking good.

Classy piece of defending by Zura when 1 on 2. Has any forward pass by Matteo found a Rover yet? Peter close.

Rivaldo playing for them just been Axed. Bright start by Rovers.

Yes fantastic- Bentley running past cows! Changing Rooms a corrigated iron shed behind the baseball hoop. Pitch looks a lot worse than in Austria.

Well, the TV station is coming through clearly. Let's hope they show Rovers!

Quite astonishing considering the cloud under which he left with disciplinary problems and Sullivan moaning about having paid him £40K per week.

Yes I had it already and yes it workds fine now. However, the fact they were scrambling the signal earlier makes me wonder if they'll scramble the signal for the football. The screen was a professionally produced, the signal is scrambled notice.

I was going to post that link in the Prem forecast section. It is proving accurate in what it forecast so far.

Those Hammers are bitter and twisted aren't they? Rovers boring - our games against them finished 1-3, 3-2 and 2-4 last season didn't they? Perhaps WHammers prefer 1-7 as a scoreline? Anyway, I reckon Sparky has some work to do to get Benni right both physically and mentally but presuming the lad is willing to put the work in, he certainly seems to have the attributes to be an extremely effective all-round striker again. He seems to have purple seasons every so often- Rovers have to make sure 2006/7 is the first of several consistently great seasons. PS Hope he enjoyed scoring his brace against the Mancs and fancies more of the same!

Just tried it and got a scrambled signal message.

Uefa are funking it as well. They have postponed a decision on AC Milan meaning they go into the third Qualifying Round Draw. Meantime the two guys appointed to clean up Italian soccer are on the point of resigning whilst Moggi claims he is just on holiday...

It was all about the money. The rest is guff for gullible Geordies.

The Dutch genius who presents UEFA seedings in a digestible format has done it again: http://www.xs4all.nl/~kassiesa/bert/uefa/seeduc2006.html For the first round proper, he is assuming all the seeded teams from the 2nd Qualifying Round get through. Rovers are comfortably in the top seeds whereas Spurs and West Ham will be hoping for 2nd Qualifying Round seeds to fall as they are both unseeded. If Rovers survive into the Group stage, at the moment they would be in the bottom bucket of five for the Group draw but anyone of the 31 clubs seeded above Rovers going out would put Rovers into the 4th bucket- it would need an improbable nine higher seeded clubs to fail for Rovers to make it to the third bucket. In the Group stages, the top three go through- there is a huge advantage for winning a Group (as Bolton and Boro both showed last season) as in the third round you face a third placed team from another Group with home advantage in the second leg. The killer position is second in the Group as you get drawn against a third placing CL Group Stage club home leg first- practically all the CL clubs prevailed in those games last season. If we get through that, there is no more seeding!

There is no scudetto awarded for 2004/5 now. The Italian Press seems unimpressed according to this agency report which I cannot seem to get to link to: Italy press slams softened penalty Afp, Rome The Italian press on Wednesday slammed magistrates in Serie A's match-fixing trial for their dramatic climbdown which saw Lazio and Fiorentina reinstated in the top division and AC Milan allowed into the third preliminary round of the Champions League. The three clubs received softer penalties after successful appeals against their original sentences for influencing the outcome of match results in the 2004/05 season. Juventus, the ringleaders in the scandal, had their relegation to Serie B confirmed but with fewer points deducted for the new season. "A rotten trick," headlined Il Libero newspaper. "The usual fudged Italian compromise. This isn't justice. Once again the magistrates have chosen the 'Italian' solution." La Repubblica were equally damning of the judges' u-turn. "The embarrassing and disheartening appeal verdict saw everything swept under the carpet," it wrote. "Only Juve pay, the rest are pardoned. It's the same old timid handling by the sports tribunal. "Discounts for everybody and an incredible gift for AC Milan. It ended with reduced sentences for all and an unpleasant feeling that football wants to pretend that at the end of the day nothing happened. "It's scandalous to put your head in the sand and make out that it was just an hallucination." Juventus, the club most heavily implicated in the scandal and whose last two league titles (in 2004-05 and 2005-06) were stripped from them, were given a 17-point penalty for the start of next season rather than 30, giving them a chance of a swift return to the top division. Lazio and Fiorentina won back their places in Serie A with penalties of 11 and 19 points respectively, but together with Juventus were prevented from participating in European competitions next season. Most surprising was the leniency shown by the judges towards AC Milan. The club owned by former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi received a potentially lucrative reprieve after they were allowed to take part in next season's Champions League preliminary round. If they win the two-legged tie and qualify for the main draw, they are likely to earn millions of euros in gate receipts and television money and will fancy their chances of going far in a tournament in which they have had great past success. "A little sting," headlined sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport. "Reductions in sentences for everybody. The biggest beneficiary on an exhausting day was AC Milan, given a chance to reach the Champions League." The presidents of Lazio and Fiorentina have said they will take their cases up with the civil courts in attempt to win back their places in European competition. However Wednesday was deadline day set by UEFA, European football's governing body, for the entry lists for their competitions. As it stands, Inter Milan, who are expected to be awarded last season's league title, and Roma will have direct entry into the Champions League group stages, while AC Milan and Chievo will go into the third qualifying round. Palermo, Livorno and Parma will take part in the UEFA Cup.

Any decision on the stripped 2004/5 scudetto? Just watched a Reuters report which suggested that Juve can keep their appeals process going well into 2007. You can see what is coming- a dirty deal whereby Juve et al drop t5heir appeals and all but get forgiven. It is going to be very important that UEFA take a stance about not allowing clubs found guilty of match-fixing to compete in UEFA competitions. Whether they will or not remains to be seen but there is probably enough self-interest elsewhere in Europe to kick the Italians whilst they are down. G14 have been very quiet- are we going to see the G14 insisting on the re-instatement of the match fixers in return for the match fixers not using their exclusion to drive a super-league? Anything is possible in the ultra-murky world of international soccer.

I wonder if either USA or American have had the "pleasure" of meeting Steve Bruce personally?

If you were being paid £70K a week to do so, I am sure you'd say Jacques Delors and Saddam Hussain were great Smithy.