Official 2012/13 Premier League thread

[Lineker]

Tottenham's Andros Townsend suspended for four months for betting related offences. Ban backdated to May 23 with three months suspended. So...

• The FA has handed Townsend a four-month ban from all football and betting activities.

• The first month of the ban has already been backdated to May 24th, as Townsend swiftly withdrew from the England U21 squad upon the allegations coming to light.
• The next three months of the ban have been suspended until July 2016. This means that he won’t actually serve a three-month ban unless he breaches the rules again before the suspended sentence is up.
• So, most importantly for Tottenham, Townsend will not miss any competitive Tottenham games for the foreseeable future.

[Nerf]

Oh, FA.

[MJB]

Just when you thought it couldn't get any more ridiculous.

[brenchill]

[Ant]

The FA are an embarrassment.

COBRA should be the footballing authority.

[DavidMarrio]

[Lineker]

BBC Sport's Ben Smith reports Tottenham are set to appoint former England assistant manager, Franco Baldini as their new technical director after the Italian left his post at Roma on Wednesday.

Once appointed, Baldini will take charge of the scouting set-up and transfer policy at White Hart Lane with manager Andre Villas-Boas understood to be keen to work in a continental management structure.

This could work, but after Comolli, I can't help but be wary.

[Plubby]

Wait, wut?<br /><br />Bale, Modric, Berba, Benny, Corluka, Pav, Gomes...all of these have been first teamers for some time. I'm not saying he struck transfer gold every single time, but he's undoubtedly hit it on at least three occasions.

[Jimmy]

I don't know much about it, but didn't he make a lot of signings Jol didn't want/didn't okay?

[Lineker]

Fairly certain that he was responsible for Gilberto.

Nothing can excuse that.

[Lineker]

Liverpool are set to submit a planning application for the proposed £150m redevelopment of Anfield before the start of next season, reports the Liverpool Echo.

[Nerf]

We have to force evict some people first.

[Chris2K]

Here's a BBC list of those confirmed to have been released from last year's Premier League clubs, a lot of recognisable names but this also includes players who have retired.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22817793

It's a great way of remembering players that you had forgotten played for your club/played football altogether.

[Gazz]

I'd take Di Santo on a free in a heartbeat.

[Colly]

To play for your five a side team?

[Gazz]

To give us an attacking substitution option that isn't 'Bring on Shola'.

[Colly]

I'd rather bring on Steve Harper.

[brenchill]

He's gone. Did you miss the weird Steve Harper wankfest on the last day of the season?

[TCO]

The guy has been at the club for 20 years, sat on the bench for most of it and didn't complain.The fans chanted his name on the 37th minute, his shirt number and he was visibly in tears. It was brilliant.

Wasn't exactly weird and that's longer than Mellberg and Petrov combined, who got their respective wankfests. Harper is a hero!

[Colly]

As I said at the time I thought the 37th minute thing was daft, the applause he got at full time was superb though.