GO ON SON!! GO ON!!

Just a quick thought. Of the managers with teams staring at the Premiership as Essex girls stare at Essex boys (on their knees, staring upwards with a tear in their eye. Sorry.) there is a common theme.

The lack of real tactical nous. Stuart Pearce screams at his team like they've just slapped his gran, Alan Pardew puts David Brent to shame with his motivational interviews, Neil Warnock is only ever a few dodgy penalty decisions away from killing someone, Aidy Boothroyd is aiming to break Mick McCarthy's record of saying 'my boys gave their all', and Glen Roeder is, well, a bit thick.

Point is, being a manager is more than just enthusiasm, passion, belief, motivation, and all those other words that might as well be on an Audi advert. Its a lot to do with tactics. Look at what Arsene Wenger did last season with a bunch of inexperienced youngsters. Look at what Alex Ferguson did in the mid-90s with the same. Didn't scream and shout and say 'we're really up for it' every five seconds.

Kevin Keegan, however, did. And failed. Despite the fact that he'd love it if Newcastle had won the league, just love it, they didn't. Kevin Keegan showed us all that without sound tactics, you won't get very far.

Boothroyd and Warnock are excused, as their teams contain a lot of chaff, but Roeder, Pardew and Pearce aren't. A manager's job isn't just to pick the team and send them out, its to dictate what they do once they are there. I'm afraid it looks as if they have been rumbled.

I'm off to shout at a chair to make it more comfortable.

And the best player in the world is...

...Tim Cahill! Well, it could be, since he was shortlisted for the prestigeous Ballon D'Or alongside Willy Sagnol, Florent Malouda, Vicente Medez (plays for PSV apparently), and others.

Stupid really. But got me thinking, so i had a little peak at some previous awards shortlists. The FIFA World Player of the Year is a good one, as it is voted for by international managers and captains. I had a little rummage and wasn't dissappointed. In order of ascending stupidity:

- In the 2005 voting, the Equitorial Guinea captain voted Jay Jay Okocha as the 3rd best player in the world

- In 2004 the manager of Palestine voted Milan Baros as the 3rd best player in the world.

- In 2003 the manager of Chinese Tapei voted Dado Prso as the 2nd best player in the world; his vote for 3rd went to some bloke called Takamtsu Daiki.

- In 2003 the manager of the Bahamas voted for Brad Friedel as the 3rd best player in the world

- In 2003 the the nominations by the Ghana coach went as follows: 1) Zinedine Zidane 2) Paul Freier 3) Ronaldo. Fuck knows who Paul Freir is but he must be pretty handy to be better than Ronaldo.

- In 2001 the Ukraine coach voted for 1970 World Cup hero Carlos Alberto in third.

- In 1997 the Costa Rica Coach voted for Paolo Wanchope in 1st, 2nd and 3rd.

I'm genuinely thinking of sending my Championship Manager CV to all of the above international FAs. They will clearly employ anyone.

Disclaimer

Within 14 seconds of my last blog I was contacted by some really nice men. Totally unrelated to our conversation I have the following statement to make.

Arsene Wenger is in no way a peadophile. Nope, definitely not. In any way. In fact he hates kids. Bloody hates them.

Oh, and if you were wondering, Belgian Club Beveren are in no way a money laundering outfit for Arsenal FC.

What's that? Ok fine. I would also like to add that every time i visit Dubai I only use Emirates Airlines. The check-in process is just so convenient, and the seats are dreamy.

(can I have my nephews back now? cheers)

Club Vs. Country

Just thought I'd add my voice to the club vs. country debate. By the way have you noticed how every bit of news relating to this issue starts with "_____ has added their voice to the club vs. country debate..." Surely if you ever say anything you're 'adding your voice' to something? Is a news reporter 'adding his voice' to broadcast journalism? Are the Sugababes 'adding their voice' to popular music? /discuss.

I digress. Anyway, Arsene "I didn't see the incident" Wenger was wingeing about the busy international schedule today as Eboue and Ljungberg returned injured from recent internationals. A couple of weeks ago Jose Mourinho accused Raymod Domeneche (France gaffer) of using Makalele as a slave (excellent choice of word Jose, not as if the country is going through an ethnic identity crisis or anything). Benitez reopened the compensation row over Dirk Kuyt's injury whilst playing for Holland. Ferguson hasn't actually said anything this time, but you can tell he was thinking about it.

Anyway. Have you ever heard a player complain about playing for their country? Frank Lampard spends 4/9ths of every interview he gives for England gushing about his international dreams. Theo Walcott was almost pooing himself he was so excited to be playing and scoring for the U21s the other day. They bloody love it playing for their countries they do! How dare you deny Jermaine Jenas the opportunity to tell his kids he plays for England? Its the only thing stopping them from getting beaten up in the playground for having a shit player as their dad.

Moral of the story: Every time Wenger winges Jermaine Jenas' kids are more likely to be beaten up. So Wenger is therefore a peadophile. There, I've said it.

Oh would you just...

...stop wingeing Graham Taylor. Being the prophetic, revolutionary man that he is, our favourite turnip-resembling ex-England gaffer (left) was on Sky Sports News today bemoaning the demise of youth development by the FA. Apparently due to the employment of 15,000 Ozzie stoners to build our national stadium, plans to build an academy in the countryside somewhere have been scrapped. Fair enough. Sounds shit.

But then he had to say it didn't he. He just had to. "Too many foreign players in the Premiership stifling emerging talent blah blah blbl yadda".

Either i'm Bill Murray or we had this conversation last year. And the year before that. And about 10 years ago.

England's strongest XI is currently the finest it has been in decades. In fact, if it wasn't for the FA's other brilliant decision- to appoint a strange swinging Swede to coach out national team; and then give the job to his token northern friend- we would all be hailing this as our 'golden generation'. This being the generation that coincided with the dramatic influx of foreigners into the Premiership. Before the foreigners turned up, Graham Taylor was busy playing Tony Daley on the left wing.

Take Theo Walcott's second goal for the under-21s tonight, in which we beat Germany 3-0 to get to the U21 European Championships:


An Arsenal forward cutting in from the left wing, opening up his body and curving the ball into the right hand corner. You can almost hear Theo shouting 'Va Va Voom' as he wheels away to celebrate. Who do you think tought him to finish like that? (And don't listen to Peter "Clooney" Beardsley saying it was 'self-taught') I'll give you a clue Graham, it wasn't Justin Hoyte.

And for the record Mr Taylor, stick this in your pipe and smoke it. Other than Walcott, Wayne Rooney, Aaron Lennon, Dean Ashton, Micah Richards, Kieran Richardson (ok, i take that one back), Nigel Reo-Coker, Darren Bent, Anton Ferdinand, ...are all 22 or younger. So I'm thinking we'll be alright.

I'm off to bemoan the introduction of nets to goals.

South American Football is Mental (Part II)

In our continuing series of South American footballing hillariousness (see part I here), this little gem popped up this morning. Upset with their teams 2-0 away defeat to Ceara, some fans of second division Brazilian team Coritiba decided to greet the club's players and officials at the airport. By trying to kick the shit out of them.

The players and officials, not wanting to look like girls, retaliated, and thus another chapter of South American football mentalness unwound infront of the gleeful media. And to think we get eggy about Joey Barton getting his bum out.

Shameless

For anyone who cares...I'm starting a weekly page in the Guardian travel section as of this saturday, so be sure to get your copy!!! lol!!! (oh god)

Or just click on the link on the left from time to time you poxy cheapskates.

Trouble in Palermo

All kicking off in Sicily apparently. About an hour ago 'Billaricay Hammer' posted this on KUMB, West Ham's largest forum:

"Just had a phone call from a mate who is out there, who has just told me that in the last 20 minutes it's all kicked off big time in the city centre. Apparently bottles are flying all over the place and a load of are lot have been nicked already. I could hear the old bill sirens in the back ground as I was talking to him."

Oh dear, we'll be reading about this tomorrow. Apparently hundreds of West Ham fans turned up in the city without a ticket. God knows what they were thinking, it's not as if they're going to Italy's capital of organised crime or anything.

My bet is that thug Elijah Wood and his Green Street hoodlums are behind this. Just look at him (above). Makes you shudder.

Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets

Who would have thought...?! The two managers who seem to buy a couple of Billy Africas a season- Sam Allardyce and Hary Redknapp- are bent as a circle. So, my reflections on Undercover: Football's Dirty Secrets:

1) Could have gone a lot further- the BBC legal department might as well have co-produced this one. A lot of blanked out names and clubs. One must guess the evidence wasn't as strong for others as it was for Pompey and Bolton.

2) Big Sam seems fucked, surely? Then again, was he just keeping his delinquent son (Craig) close rather than letting him run wild?

3) Will the evidence against Big Sam and Harry stand up?

4) Chelsea seem to have broken the rules on taping up players again...three points anyone?

5) Was the whole programme entrapment?

As you can see, more questions than answers. Wait for the media storm on this one. Turns out the whole transfer system is dodgy, who would have thought? I'm off to slip someone a tenner...

Roeder Catches the Toure Bug?!

Listening to an interview with Glenn Roeder tonight on Sky Sports i couldn't help noticing something frankly quite wonderful. I saw a similar interview on Match of the Day and heard one on 5 Live too. He did the same thing in all three...

Roeder was using the third person!!!!



"Glenn Roeder has never been involved in causing any trouble, I'm not an excitable person - in fact some people have accused me of not being excited enough or emotional....

You'll all decide how much you want to make of all this but I know it was completely unintentional because Glenn Roeder hasn't got a reputation for doing things like that which would incite a crowd."
Glenn Roeder, 2006

Simply marvellous. Haven't heard such prolific third personing since Kolo Toure was inteviewed as an emerging youngster in 2002:

"Kolo came on, and Kolo wants to prove he is a good player and Kolo was very happy to score..."
Kolo Toure, 2002

Long may the use of the third person continue.

The New Maradona

In a bit of a wierd one, Juan Roman Riquelme retired from international football on wednesday, at the tender age of 28. And thus it came to pass that another 'New Maradona' was not. So, I thought it would be a good idea to check up on what is going on with all the other 'New Maradonas', as there have been a few.

Ariel Ortega -now 32
The original and laryest 'New Maradona', who actually played alongside the old one at World Cup 94. Moved to Valencia in 96, but was too much of a small angry man to stay at any club for too long (6 clubs in 10 years). Headbutted Edwin van der Saar in the World Cup 98 quarter (right), got sent off, Argies lost. Cancelled his own contract at Fenerbhace in 2003 and was banned from playing footy for a year and a half. Now back in Argentina.

Marcelo Gallardo -now 30
Formed a pretty mean partnership in midfield with Ludo Guily for a couple of years at Monaco during which they shat on the league and he picked up the French League Footballer of the Year, but then Boumsong's probably got a few of those. Fell out with Didier Deschamps and left the club the season before they somehow ended up in the Champions League final. Now back in Argentina playing with Ortega at River Plate.

Juan Roman Riquelme -now 28
Got fucked over at Barca where they played him on the wings, but eventually found his feet at Villareal and was almost single-handedly reponsible for their jaunt to the Chumps League semis last year- in which he bottled penalty in the last minute. Looked great at the world cup but was substituted in the quarter-finals against Germany which Argentina subsequently lost. Has only an Inter-Toto cup medal to his name outside of South America.


Pablo Aimar -now 27, left
Signed by Valencia in 2001 for £16m, and was a large part of their Primera Liga victories in 2002 and 2004. Has since lost his place in the Argentinia squad, contracted viral meningitis for a few months, and was recently sold to Real Zaragoza, a noticeable step down, for a bargain £6.5m.

Javier Saviola -now 25
Possibly the greatest Championship Manager player of all time, Saviola made the switch to Barca in 2001 but never quite seemed to fit in. Was loaned out to Monaco and Sevilla where last year he won the UEFA Cup. Was a surprise starter in Jose Pekerman's Argentina team during this summers World Cup, vindicating his selection with a goal and a few assists. Has gone back to Barca to prove his worth (unlikely to play much, likely to get paid loads. hmmm).

Andres D'Alessandro -now 24
Got famous in the same youth team as Saviola, and is one of three players who have actually been recognised as the new him by Maradona himself (along with Messi and Saviola). Despite being widely touted, ended up moving to German nobodies Wolfsburg where he was nothing special for a couple of seasons. Even more bizzarely, he turned up at Portsmouth last year to play a few games for Dirt 'Arry, and scored one blinder against Charlton. Now on loan at Zaragoza with fellow ex-new Maradona Aimar. Has never, to my knowledge, even played for the Argentinian national team.

So... as you can see the general trend seems to be that the 'New Maradonas' generally aren't, and are in fact a bit dissappointing. Carlitos Tevez (22)and Lionel Messi (19) be afraid.

The Greatest Sportsman Ever...

...was not Thomas Brolin. In Fact it was this man.

And I'm Spent

Good God. Permanent deals. Mascherano has asked to wear number 6 because of Bobby Moore. About an hour ago we were linked to Cicinho. I can't stop giggling.

Around 6pm Kia Joorbachian gave an illuminating interview on 5 Live Sport. Here's what i can remember (i'll post a link when it goes up on listen again):

- Having attempted to buy the club last year Kia (pictured) stayed in touch with Paul Aldridge (Chief Exec) and Terry Brown, remaining "close friends".

- Kia is no longer trying to buy the club.

- The deal is "complicated" (!). He compared it to the Rooney deal.

- They turned down offers from a host of European clubs.

- He mentioned, a few times, that the deal was intentioned to show that the Premiership is not a foregone conclusion; a one-team league

- Tevez and Mascherano were happy to join West Ham, as they both relished a challenge.

- He categorically denied that any of the money behind MSI was from Abramovic.

- He refused to discuss the intracacies of the deal, but iterated that the deals are permanent.

There was a lot more, but i can't really remember i've been in shock all day. Call me a mug, but the guy sounded pretty sincere. To be honest i couldn't give seven shades of shit. We've got Tevez and Mascherano. TEVEZ AND MASCHERANO!

I'm off. Most humerous story of the day here

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...

Spot the Difference

Chelsea re Bosnich 2003:
"Chelsea Football Club can confirm that notice has been served on goalkeeper Mark Bosnich that his contract is being terminated under the terms of the FA Premier League. We will be saying nothing else on the matter"


Chelsea re Mutu 2004:
"We want to make clear that Chelsea has a zero tolerance policy towards drugs. This applies to both performance enhancing drugs or so-called ‘recreational’ drugs. They have no place at our club or in sport. Chelsea has terminated the contract of Adrian Mutu for gross misconduct."

Alan Pardew re Newton 2006:
"First of all, I would like to express my disappointment and sadness at the situation Shaun Newton finds himself in. He knows that he has let down his family, the Club, and of course, himself.

However, I can say now that, as a football club, we will stand by Shaun throughout this difficult time. West Ham United has always had a reputation as a family club and our belief here is that, when a member of your family is in trouble, you look after them.

Although we will continue to help and support Shaun through this difficult time, we are also acutely aware of our responsibilities as a Club, and he will face internal disciplinary action when all of the information surrounding his situation is clarified. However, I have seen at first hand the emotional and personal hell that Shaun Newton has been through in recent weeks, and our priority must be to help him - not abandon him. I hope his experience serves as a lesson to any sportsperson."