AAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!!!

Whoa sweet child of mine. West Ham to sign Javier Mascherano and Carlos Tevez. Fuck me. Its currently 1.55pm and i'm in a bit of a tizzy. First some basics:

Carlos Tevez is owned by MSI, a sports investment company run by Iranian Kia Jorbachian. MSI took control of Corinthians last year, and as a present brought Tevez along as part of the deal. Around the same time, MSI tried to buy West Ham, but having been quoted an overinflated price pulled out of the deal.

Rumours have abounded for some time that the money behind MSI is coming from a certain Russian you might have heard of...Roman Abramovich. When Corinthians brokered a deal for Brazilian Carlos Alberto last year, Kia Jorbachian and agent Pinhas Zahavi split the rights for a future deal. Zahavi aslo brokered the deal purchasing Chelsea for Abramovic. In any case Zahavi, Abramovic and Jorbachian are all mates. ***side point; Corinthians just sorted out Adidas and Samsung as sponsers...remind you of anyone?*** see this

Here are the possibilities:

1) Having touted the pair around for a few weeks- an MSI delegation has been in the country for a while- they coldn't convince Manure Arse or Chelsea to cough up the cash, so have opted to send them on loan in the Premiership to wave them infront of prospective buyers' eyes for another year.

2) Kia Jorbachian is set to launch another takeover bid for West Ham, and has given us Mascherano and Tevez as a sweetener. A very sweet one indeed.

3) Chelsea have agreed a deal in principle to buy the pair, but did not want to cough up £40m straight up for two players who could prove to be flops outside of of South America. So, they have been sent on loan to West Ham for them to cut their teeth. NB the Abramovich link.

4) This is a horrible hoax by Spurs fans still pissed off that we stopped them from getting into the Champions League last year.

I'll blog again at the end of the day. Assuming i'm still in control of my bodily functions.

PS
For the record, Steed Malbranque and Pascal Chimbonda are a pair of troublemaking twats, Spurs are welcome to them.

Ashley Gunned Down

Sorry been a bit rubbish recently. Luckily, however, Jonny has once again come to the rescue with some good stuff...over to you mr blatt... (cheers)

"Now before I get into my rant, may I just state that like all Gooners, I absolutely loved Ashley Cole. 'Local boy done good' is not a story you get very often these days in the Prem, especially at Arsenal. But it was more than that. At the age of 25, Ashley is arguably the best left back in Europe (and seeing how insular we are as a footballing continent, probably the best in the world).

None of this of course is news to you. And in fact, the Chelsea tapping-up affair was so well publicised that you know about that too. What may be unclear is that, after being fined £70,000 for his role in the matter, Ashley (influenced heavily by his agent) decided to take Arsenal to the European Court of Arbitration, claiming that not being allowed to talk to Mourinho was against his human rights.

Over this matter, he fell out, acrimoniously I might add, with the Arsenal board, and particularly with David Dein. This mainly happened about a year ago, and Cole, ironically spent the largest chunk of last season on the sidelines. M. Wenger did however pick Cole in his starting line-up for the Champs League Final, the biggest game of his career, to the detriment of Mathieu Flamini who had played the entire campaign and been part of the tightest defence in the history of the Champs Lge. Testament to Cole's ability? Yes. Wenger showing remakable faith in a player who had flirted with his no.1 competitor? Also yes.

Skip to this summer, and suddenly the saga has turned into what can only described as a demonstrative footballing power struggle. Cole is merely a pawn in this, because lets be honest, no-one wants him at Arsenal. Chelsea not only want to get a quality player (which Cole undoubtedly is), but they want to get one over on their London rivals. So they are only offering under Cole's true value. (If Essien, Drogba, Shauny Wright etc all cost 21-25m, then how is Ashley worth £16.5m, their max offer?)... Arsenal are playing hardball, and so are Chelsea. Wenger makes a cheeky £5m bid for Gallas, just to show he's not fucking about. Chelsea then say 'you can have him for Cole, no cash'... Essentially this hideously tedious saga, is boring everyone and the sooner Ash is out the better.

The straw that broke the camel's back for me was Cole's statement last week saying he was available for selection... well thanks very fucking much, £55k a week and he has the cheek to make himself available! Unreal!I'm not gonna get started on the whole autobiography thing, because I think they're ruining football and increasing player power to a detrimental amount.Anyway, sod off Ash... You don't deserve to wear red and white again! You deserve Chelsea."

Chelsea's Children

For the last couple of hours I have been bored. So, naturally, I found myself browsing through the Danish Under-19 squad. I noticed something interesting. I browsed a little more. Sitting comfortably?

Over the last two years, Chelsea have signed 18 players under the age of 18 on freebies or with nominal tribunal fees. Ken Bates recently kicked up a fuss about the pinching of Tom Taiwo and Michael Woods from Leeds. Other English clubs have suffered the same fate. Ryan Bertrand has signed from Gillingham, Scott Sinclair (who is a shit hot striker) from Bristol Rovers, Harry Worley from Stockport and James Russell from Arsenal (chelseafc.com apply the schadenfreude…Russell is described as having “sensibly switched to Chelsea”). For good measure they also picked up Sam Hurrell, who won that rubbish Football Idol programme.

Danish youngsters Per Weihrauch and Morten Nielson (the genesis of my search) signed from Ajax and KB respectively, and were joined recently by Scandinavian mate Tomi Saarelma from FC Lahti in Finland. Keen to offset their Scandinavian gang with an Iberian one, Chelsea picked up Fabio Ferreira and Ricardo Fernandes from Sporting Lisbon, Ricardo Semedo from Guimares and Sergio Tejera from Espanyol.

Keen to represent every nation in the Eurovision Song Contest, Chelsea have also added to their squad Jonas Elmer from Grasshoppers Zurich, Miroslav Stoch from Slovakian club Nitra and Connor Clifford from Irish side Crumlin.

Perhaps the most alarming thing is the epithets attached to many of these kids…’wonder kid’, ‘rising star’, ‘prodigy’…etc. Oh, and be sure to watch out for young recruit Lewis Bakes (9) signed from Luton, and the possible arrival of young Australian Panos Armenakas. Aged 7. God help us all.

CARDIFF CITY CAUGHT IN 'SIGN EVERYONE' ROMP!!!

It begins. Whilst things have been a little quiet on the Premiership transfer front, the Championship has been in overdrive. Here’s a brief roundup…

Birmingham City- Having hilariously made £12.2m for Jermaine Pennant and Heskey (£5.5m for Heskey- I mean really…) the Blues have made some decent signings. Sebastian Larsson, Nicklas Bendtner and Fabrice Muamba have come in on loan from Arsenal and will be keen to show they’re more Patrick Vieira than Stephan Malz. Rahdi Jaidi (right) is a beast, and pretty good at football too (I’m surprised Bolton let him go), Stephen Kelly is a young Ireland international and suffered from Spurs’ policy of maintaining a steady squad level of 254, and Cameron Jerome is a proven Championship goalscorer.

Cardiff City- have made a remarkable 12 signings so far, including Kerrea Gilbert on loan from Arsenal (first person to say ‘young English talent forced out of Arsenal by foreign imports’ wins a prize). Willo Flood and Michael Chopra almost mad it in the Prem but didn’t, Stephen McPhail was good on Championship Manager 01-02, and highly rated Malvin Kamara has been drafted in from MK Dons.

Coventry City- Have made, I believe, the two shrewdest signings of the lot. Elliot Ward seems expensive at £1m but was as good if not better that Anton Ferdinand in the season West Ham got promoted, and only lost his place to the unexpectedly impressive Danny Gabbidon. Chris Birchall (left) was the white guy who played for Trinidad and Tobago in the World Cup- good, combative midfielder.

Southampton- Rudi Skacel is the reason Hearts are anywhere near the Champions League, Gregorz Rasiak was a top drawer Championship striker until he joined Spurs’ small army, and Bradley Wright-Phillips is from good stock (and scored a cracker on his debut yersterday).

Elsewhere, Carl Fletcher is an excellent signing for Peter Taylor at Crystal Palace (was in fact my favourite player at West Ham), decent 20-year old Sylvan Ebanks-Blake has move from Man Utd to Plymouth, Sheffield Wednesday have got Bradley Jones on load from Boro, Dean Marney (the bloke who scored two screamers for Spurs against Everton last year then barely played again) has gone to Hull, and Michael Rickets will be an excellent signing for Southend (only joking).

Full Championship ins/outs here.

Benjammar's Balls

If you haven't already done this, you really should. link

Regards,
Benjammar

(Benji does a couple of stepovers, balances the ball on his nose, flosses the gap inbetween his front two teeth and shags Shakira. OoooohAriaaaaa...)

And McBride Headbutts it into the Scorebag!!!!

This is brilliant. Bill Simmons is a famous sports writer in the US for ESPN, who recently decided, on the back of World Cup hysteria, to support an EPL(!) team. To his credit he put a hell of a lot of thought into it, and recently produced a 6,000 word column explaining his decision. Despite the rampant Americanisms (see below) his article is a fascinating look at the Premiership from the perspective of someone who knows nothing about it, producing some truly brilliant moments. Before you read it, here's some excerpts:

- on why not to support Fulham: "one of their celebrity fans is Hugh Grant. And they're owned by Mohamed Al Fayed, the Harrods owner whose son was in the limo with Princess Di. Too many bad vibes"

- on Abramovich: "You couldn't invent a guy like this: Russian oligarch who dumps money into players, hitting the bid on exorbitant transfer fees to stock his squad with so much talent while showing no regard for the bottom line"

- on Arsenal's kit: "Bright red shirts with white sleeves and white shorts. Classic look."

- on Man City's kit: "Baby blue, a shade lighter than the UNC Tar Heels. Probably the sweetest jerseys in the EPL. I can't emphasize this strongly enough -- these things are SPECTACULAR."

- reasons to support Man City: "One of their goal scorers is named Paul Dickov (pronounced "dick-off")"

- Reasons to support Newcastle: "They're named after a beer I actually like."

- Liverpool as a vacation destination?: "Only if you've been kidnapped"

- Tottenham's nickname: "The Spurs. This is important: You either call then "Tottenham Hotspur" or you call them "the Spurs," but no other option is acceptable."

-Why to support Spurs: "If London was the Corleone family, Manchester United was Sonny and Arsenal was Michael, then the Spurs would be Fredo with a little more street smarts … and They have a Kafka-reading, gigantic Dutchman of a coach named Martin Jol who (A) has brothers named "Cock" and "Dick" (I'm not making this up), and (B) apparently talks just like Goldmember (in the third Austin Powers movie). Now there's someone who needs to be in my life."

And who did he pick? You'll just have to read it to find out. Despite all the funny stuff this really is a good read. Over to you in the studio, Bob...