Sunday round-up + hopping Hopper

Morning all,

not a great deal going on bar some rather speculative transfer stuff. This morning the Mirror links us, again, with Newcastle's Steven Taylor. Apparently we're in a battle with Everton, Aston Villa and Chelsea. Yeah right. With all due respect to Taylor he's a shit cunt. Oh, we're going to sign him now, aren't we? Anyway, the article says we need him to up our quota of 'English players to meet UEFA's new quota'. 

I assume they mean we need 'home grown' players to satisfy the new Premier League requirements so if they can get that wrong then you have to hope the rest of the article is similarly bollocks. As far as I'm aware we have no problems with the new rules and don't need to sign players with that in mind.

Also in the Mirror, we're fighting Aston Villa again, this time for the signature of Wigan hot-shot Hugo Rodallega. I remember him scoring one spectacular goal last season and under normal circumstances you'd think the idea of signing a striker from Wigan a bit on the ridiculous side. However, when you look at the contributions made last season by Eduardo and Vela you have to think that guys like Rodallega and Kevin Doyle would be an improvement. Which is a bit sad, really.

Having signed Chamakh on a free it's funny how the only players we're being linked with are 'lower team' strikers. There's no suggestion we might be in for a Dzeko or someone like that. Anyway, I'll be hoping Rodallega's name pops up on the risible 'transfer linked' section of the official website. 7amkickoff makes a good point that by listing these players on our official site we can more or less rule out any real interest in him. And I hope he's right. 

I still think the idea that we're using our official website to further the fiction of the newspapers and the planted stories of agents who are trying to move their players from other clubs is shameful. I know many people have complained through official channels, sadly it still exists.

The back cover of today's Daily Star says we've signed Joe Cole on a free. Can't find the actual story on the website though. I think this one could actually happen.

In the News of the World a story saying we're after a young midfielder from Crewe called Nick Powell. I call him 'Cesc 2'.

Bad World Cup news for Holland as Robin van Persie has ouchified his ankle again. Sounds like a fairly routine sprain, I wouldn't be too worried about it yet.

As well as the Cesc stuff which litters the Spanish press this morning there's a bit about Andrei Arshavin who has, apparently, let it be known to more than one of the Barcelona presidential candidates that he would be open to a move to Spain this summer. Rumours abound that Arshavin is most unhappy with his financial situation at the club and at 29 he's only got one more big money move left. It'll be interesting to see how this one pans out over the summer.

As for Cesc El Mundo reckon the thing could drag on till August 30th (not 31st for for some reason) while Sport say it's just a matter of days until the two clubs reach an agreement. With Barcelona claiming they won't pay an 'exorbitant fee' for Cesc things are rather an at impasse.

Beyond that, not much more going on. It was a bit sad to see Dennis Hopper passed away yesterday as he provided me with one of the most bizarre moments of my life.

It is mid-90s Dublin, Saturday night out with Mrs Blogs and chums in a trendy club called The Pod, house music, everyone dancing in the same direction. You know the score. Anyway, always striving to be different I shuffle around and start dancing the opposite way and right behind me is a beautiful young woman and right behind her is her beau for the evening ... Dennis fuckin' Hopper.

He is in the midst of young, sweaty clubbers giving it loads, wearing a cravat and clearly as .... erm ... chemically enhanced as most of the people there. Watching Dennis Hopper at 2am doing Big Box - Small Box to this kind of thing really was quite surreal. He could move too.

RIP Dennis and have yourselves a good Sunday.