Official 2012/13 Premier League thread

[Jimmy]

Oh God, maybe you'll have to start Welbeck or Hernandez! The horror!

[Lineker]

Southampton footballer Guly Do Prado has admitted drink-driving.

The 30-year-old Brazilian was arrested in the early hours of 27 August after his Porsche was seen being driven erratically on Southampton High Street.

The Premier League striker, whose full name is Guilherme Do Prado Raymundo, was fined £2,600 at the city's magistrates' court.

He received a 12 month driving ban, reduced to nine if he takes a driver safety course.

The court heard police had followed the Brazilian's £70,000 black Porsche Panamer following reports of a possible drink-driver.

He was stopped and failed a breath test and was found to have 57 microgrammes of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath. The legal limit is 35 microgrammes.

In mitigation, Philip Somarakis said Do Prado was "respectful and compliant".

"He is very sorry to be appearing before the court and bringing unwanted attention on him and his club," he added.

A spokesman for Southampton FC declined to comment on the case and said the matter had already been dealt with internally.

[stokeriño]

Probably Daily Mail bullshit, but these days little that surrounds this issue suprises me.

Anton (and Rio) Ferdinand to snub handshakes with...Ashley Cole

"I can't believe that, as my friend, you defended the character of another one of your friends when under oath in a court of law. THAT'S IT, YOU'RE NO LONGER INVITED TO MY SWEET 16TH BIRTHDAY PARTY."

[brenchill]

I think the pre-match handshakes should be binned all together. Far too often over the last few seasons players have avoided them just to make a pathetic stand.

[brenchill]

Three Lions was hilarious on the PlayStation

Was that the one with the Ocean Colour Scene song at the start that was near impossible to score?

[Colly]

I think the pre-match handshakes should be binned all together. Far too often over the last few seasons players have avoided them just to make a pathetic stand.

No way, you'd be scrapping them just to keep some pretence of sportsmanship by avoiding the odd incident. Keep them and find out how many other people hate John Terry...

Much as he's generally regarded as a bit of a twat, Ashley Cole is one of the few players to come out of this (I'd say probably Anton too since very little of it actually involved him and he's not made any ludicrous statements) with any credit by not rising to Rios stupid slur.

[Cheeky Hughes]

Les is the only good Ferdinand.

[Gazz]

They should all just man up and shake each others hands and stop acting like 5 year olds.

[Starvinho]

Sir Alex confirms RVP and Kagawa will be fit to face Wigan tomorrow. Darren Fletcher will also be in the match squad. Also Phil Jones is out for 8-10 weeks and Chris Smalling will start training by the end of the month.

[Baddar]

Good news, that.

I'll lose my shit if we take Galatasaray lightly on Wednesday though.

[Starvinho]

There'll probably be a bit of squad rotation against Galatasaray, but I think Fergie will make sure the lads are up for it. After last years very poor showing in Europe we should be looking to bounce back this year, I wanna remain unbeaten in the group this time round.

[Thrilla]

Glad I didn't take Kagawa out of the fantasy team now.

[Colly]

Ditto Van Persie.

[stokeriño]

They should all just man up and shake each others hands and stop acting like 5 year olds.

This. Now my understanding may be off, but as far as I know the point of the pre-match handshake is a token gesture to indicate that the players are agreeing to a clean and fair game of football in line with the rules of the sport - that they will put personal grudges or vindictiveness aside for the duration of that time spent on the pitch.

And if you can't do that, maybe you shouldn't be playing at all.

[brenchill]

Isn't it only a recent thing that they have shook hands before the game? By recent I mean last 10 years. I remember them always doing it in the Champions League but in the PL...

[Pesci]

Glad I didn't take Kagawa out of the fantasy team now.

Ditto Van Persie.

I concur with both.

Oh, and do away with the handshake. It's redundant because cards are a better deterrent than fanciful notions of jolly good fair play, wot wot. And because the disproportionate amount of coverage that somebody refusing a handshake gets annoys me.

Edited September 14, 2012 by Pesci

[brenchill]

There were never any issues when there weren't compulsory handshakes. So let's just go back to that.

[stokeriño]

Doing away with the handshakes entirely would of course be the most sensible and realistic option, but to insist that they take place and then not punish players for, effectively, undermining the spirit/image of the game (or whatever it is they call it when they get angry over bad press coverage) just makes everyone look like arses. But apparently that is the FA's key objective these days, so whatever.

[Colly]

But to get rid of them is a statement that our players can't be trusted to act like an adult even for a ten second spell before kickoff. I'd rather keep them and allow the fans an easy way to spot the cunt before the game even starts, it doesn't make the game look bad, just the player in question.

[stokeriño]

Unless the guy being blanked is John Terry, because everybody's made up their mind about him already. Then the guy blanking him is the righteous hero or some such bullshit.