Lord Nibbler

I'm in as Fiorentina Turner

If we have two "divisions" of around 10 teams each, we can run an FA Cup type knockout tournament, too.

Getafe's new kit is genius:

I'm still not convinced about your commitment. Anyone who wants to join has to amputate one finger and post a picture as proof. Thumbs are acceptable.

Prove it.

I always have a team, so I'm happy to join. If_You_Wanna_Be_The_Man has a team too, i'm sure he'd be happy to join.

There are 10 people confirmed (including you) and 7 people who said they'd be interested initially. The Cool One would make 18, which is too many teams. We miss 4 weeks of fixtures because we can't start until the transfer window is done, and then we have to take into account weeks in which some teams don't play. If we had too many teams then I guess we could always have two separate games with 10 or so teams each.

It's an incentive to buy players like Mascherano or Essien who won't score many goals, but will get clean sheets. Actually that's a mistake. The home advantage bonus only comes into effect if the home side is ahead by 4 points but level on goals. So if the score was 34-30 (3-3) then the home team would get an extra point and win 35-30 (4-3). It's a small thing, and it doesn't happen much, so we can always scrap it.

So... is everyone still up for this? Obviously we can't start picking teams until the transfer window is closed, but I can start to draw up a player list and stuff.

Are you basing this purely on a few performances last season? Because we managed to beat the big teams (including Barcelona) in the season before last, with a midfield of Scholes and Carrick. I'd like to see us bring in a defensive midfielder, but I think people are overreacting somewhat. As for putting faith in the youth, we don't have an abundance of midfield prospects. Gibson isn't up to snuff, and Possebon been sent out on loan.

Obertan spent last season out on loan to get some playing time. He's only 20, but I hope we're not paying too much.

Yeah, Firefly is the obvious answer. Criminal. Arrested Development too, but that did get three seasons. Same goes for Veronica Mars. And add to those Grosse Pointe, which was clearly ahead of its time, and The Middleman. Not surprising that the latter got canceled, but it was a shame. At least they both got 2 seasons, unlike Wonderfalls which was my favourite of the three. Didn't even get to air a full season. I agree with The Sarah Connor Chronicles too, although it had its flaws.

Let's get Henrik Larsson back.

172 appearances for Barcelona 163 appearances for Real Madrid 105 appearances for Inter Luis Figo has a pretty impressive CV.

Ibrahimovic? No thanks. I wouldn't want Cahill, either. He's 29, and I think he's probably at his level.

As far as the frequency of transfers, it varies a lot. Last summer Tottenham sold twelve players, Everton only sold one. Stoke bought twelve players, Manchester United only bought one. It really depends on how well the team did the season before, how much money they have, the age and happiness of players, whether there's a change of manager... etc. etc. And of course, they don't just move between Premier League clubs. Clubs buy players from foreign clubs, sell players to foreign clubs, bring in players from lower leagues, loan players in and out...

Even more so if he picks up a Premier League winner's medal.

I usually check there. I check wikipedia 'List of Italian/Spanish/etc... summer transfers 09' about once a week aswell to whats going on everywhere else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Foot...ers_summer_2009

I think it's more along the lines of "This is how you bank today", or "this is today's banking". Something like that. Still kinda silly.

Has to be Fulham, really. Everyone likes Roy Hodgson.

Hmm, interesting. He never really impressed me until I saw him play at the Confederations Cup. He certainly is a real goal-getter and might actually work at Man U. I think he'll choose Milan over Man Utd though Not really. He scored 24 goals in La Liga in the 07/08 season, but that's more than he's managed in the other three seasons he's played in Spain combined. He only got 8 league goals last season and he also struggled for goals at Porto. He looked good at the Confederations Cup, but I think that's probably because of the team around him (Kaka in particular) and the quality of opposition; the USA, Egypt and a weak Italian side. If this is true, Ribery is a douchebag. He wants to be the centre of attention like Ronaldo and Kaka. That might be true, but he has said in the past that he wanted to move to Spain rather than England.

He played more minutes than any other striker in the Newcastle squad. Bolded for emphasis. Of the eight games Newcastle played in April and May, he was only dropped for one. He started as many games as Martins, and more than any other Newcastle forward. That's not "second choice". I'd like to know how many of them were 90 mins and 5 minute sub apperances. I know he didn't play more than half an hour in both Aston Villa games for a fact, for example. Like I said, played more minutes than any of his strike partners. Also played more than Torres, Drogba, Adebayor or Carew. He will demand high wages, he's not going to take a big drop and anything more than £35,000 is too much. £40,000 was the figure I read. Yeah, because United one of the most profitable clubs on the planet, who just recieved £80,000,000 for 1 player need to sign players on free transfers to strenghten their squad. But there's no point in spending a big chunk of that £80m on a striker if he's going to be third choice. We saw how well that worked out with Tevez. Benzema is a good enough player that we could have changed our system to accommodate him, and who would have been a long-term acquisition. Since he's off the market and there aren't any other world class attacking prospects available (unless Aguero is available) we're betting off reinforcing elsewhere. Another winger, a goalscoring midfielder, etc. I'd rather sign Owen on a free than spend £15m on someone like Nilmar or Luis Fabiano who, if we don't get any major injuries to Rooney or Berbatov, will only feature sporadically. There is no down side. At worst, he spends 12 months on the treatment table and we're out a couple of million quid. That's nothing. At best, he scores a few goals off the bench or when one of the first choice strikers is out.

He played more minutes than any other striker in the Newcastle squad. 27 league games last season. Pure speculation. There's no way United are going to be paying him extravagant wages. For free? I don't remember people bitching this much when we brought in 36-year-old Henrik Larsson. In fact, some people were calling Fergie a genius. He played his part, and Owen would do the same thing. Sames goes for Fowler's return to Liverpool. He'll have a medical, and if the medical staff are confident that he's not going to break his leg as soon as he kicks a ball, I hope we sign him.

So the bookies think we're going for Michael Owen. Now, as a third choice striker I honestly don't think it would be a bad signing. No transfer fee, reasonable wages (£40,000 according to one paper), Prem experience, and I'm sure he'd rather be third choice at United than first choice at Stoke. And if the brochure is to be believed, his injury problems seem to be behind him. The timing, however, is fucking awful. We sell Cristiano Ronaldo, miss out on Benzema, and sign Michael Owen. Not exactly a statement of intent.

Some United fans are completely overreacting. We've missed out on one player, because he wanted to play for another club. It happens all the time. I doubt anybody would be this pessimistic if Benzema had just decided to stay at Lyon. The fact that he's gone to Madrid is irrelevant, as are the other deals Madrid have made this summer. I'm sure we have other targets, we'd be stupid not to.