retired_hollieo

Very good Chris, though I think you have just given ne the impetus I needed to prove you wrong. :thup:

sange

15th? 15th? *******15th?........
cheers, you must have more faith in me than I do

retired_utyorc

Lucky I didn't do the predictions dave

retired_luluz05

Season 5 – The Fulham Redemption

Season 5 game highlights

Fulham 1-3 West Bromwich
Well done to Chris for giving Mo a slaughtering at home. West Bromwich are not in the top 5 of the EPL for no reason and don’t let Chris fool you into thinking that West Bromwich are a low aiming team with no stars. While Mo lacks the Chris’s worldwide player knowledge to attain the hidden gems in the world, Chris has acquired a top set of players with will be challenging for the EPL title and European champions league cup next season.

Fulham 1- 1 Middlesborough
This game with Bens Middlesborough sums up Fulham’s season to a tee. Fulham had a penalty in the first half to which Mo rejoiced……until Fulham missed the penalty! Then …..Fulham had another penalty in the first half….Hurrah…..a different Fulham player stepped up this time to take the penalty.....excellent!.....the penalty is saved!! How the hell did that happen?…..OK, calm yourself down…we are still in this game….0-0 still. Then on 40 minutes we have a player red-carded and we are down to 10. At half time, Mo is left open mouthed as to what has just happened. To add to Fulham’s misery borough scored in the second half. Fortunately just before the death, Fulham managed to find an equaliser and the game end square at 1-1.

Portsmouth 5 – Fulham 0
Portsmouth scored there first 3 goals with some lovely mesmerising football and their first 3 shots on target! Goat was having a bad run in the EPL previous to this, but certainly put away his worries in the past. Portsmouth had 10 shots on target and it certainly would not have surprised me if we finished 10-0 down on the night! After this defeat, Mo had thought to himself that this will be the last game that he will be in charge of Fulham. A P45 will be awaiting him when the coach returns to Craven Cottage. Fortunately for Mo, the board warned Mo about the resounding defeat to Portsmouth and gave Mo a vote of confidence. At the end of the day when Mo left Craven cottage in his Toyota Carina E (That's the 1.8 GS...it comes with standard plastic hub caps , the Fulham supporters were still chanting for Mo to leave Fulham.

Mo on the last day of the season managed to hold onto the 13th position in the EPL when Fulham drew away to former Danny’s Brum. A heavy defeat to Ben’s Middlesborough by Rick’s Spurs allowed Fulham to leapfrog Middlesborough on goal difference.

Season 6 Targets:
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI><STRIKE>Hamper Niall’s progress any which way I can!</STRIKE> Everton are having trouble themselves without Mo interfering, but am sure Niall will bounce back from his very disappointing 7th position. At least Niall with be playing in Europe next season via the intertoto cup route, if only Mo could say the same for Fulham!
<LI>Have a good run in the domestic cups.
<LI>Sell most of the previous season’s regulars and manage his new set of bosmans!
<LI>Get Fulham to finish above 12th in the EPL. Fulham should have finished 12th this season, as this is the first year that Fulham failed to progress from their previous league position.
<LI>Put Fulham in a better financial state than they currently are. At the end of this season Fulham were around 9million in the red. The Fulham board injected £4 million to stop the club going into administration and Fulhams 13th positon in the EPL assured that over £4 million was paid for their position in the league. Fulham were always within the wage structure set by the board, but unfortunately as Fulham have a small ground, they cannot sell as many tickets as the rest of the EPL! Finances will always be tight until the ground is expanded…..Has anybody seen the cost of property prices in London? It will be a costly project!
<LI>Sign quality strikers. Even with Mo’s coaching ability, Mo has been unable to turn average strikers in good strikers. It looks like that you can’t make an average striker better in the current climate of football management. The only way to get better strikers is to sign better strikers!
<LI>Stay in the job as long as possible! Mo as always been edgy at Fulham during this season, Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. With the Fulham board and supporters just about satisfied with the league position. Mo will remain at the helm for another season.
</UL>

retired_espeon

8th August 2009
West Brom 2
Cipriani 25 Padoin 36
Middlesboro 0

Looking to get off to a good start, my team decided to put in yet another sub-par performance as Cipriani and Padoin both scored to give the victory to Chris's West Brom team. I'll be looking for bring in some top quality signings so we can start playing the way that I know that the team is capable of.

15th August 2009
Middlesboro 1
Harbuzi 78
Portsmouth 2
Pazzini 33 Kalou 90

With not holding out much hope before the match after Goat promised revenge after the 3-0 victory over his team last season, the result wasn't that bad considering the attacking options that Goat has at his disposal at Portsmouth. Pazzini finished off a well-worked move involving Wright-Phillips but Harbuzi then took on half
of Goat's team ending up with him putting the ball past Weise for the equaliser. With a draw looking likely, late Pompey substitute Kalou rose above Deco at the near post to head the ball past Hannson, giving Goat all three points. This game showed why they won the title last season and why they are such a formidable team.

19th August 2009
Newcastle 1
Aimar 32
Middlesboro 0

A north-east derby against the french man Mark's Newcastle team didn't go without incident with the Magpie's Faty being sent-off for two bookable offences early in the game and then my keeper Lewis giving a penalty away after pulling down Stankovic in the box. Aimar put away the penalty to secure all three points as my team struggled to find a way back into the match.

22nd August 2009
Middlesboro 4
Harbuzi 20 Matusovic 39 Beattie 78 Hundeboll 88
Blackburn 0

This was my first match up against Leo's Blackburn team and was expecting a tough battle for the points. But
for once, my team pulled out a top performance with Harbuzi, Matusovic, Beattie and Hundeboll all finding the net in a comprehensive victory. Now if we can just play like this every week, we'd be challenging some of the top teams in the premiership.

After extensive searching, I've finally added several players to the squad which was severely lacking numbers.

Deco - AMC
After being released from Barcelona in the summer, I decided he'd fit in well at Middlesbrough and will be pushing Harbuzi for a starting place in the team hopefully.

Serkan - DMRC
After initially having a work permit turned down, I persisted and a work permit was granted the second time. Bought for 5.25m from Fenerbache, it's money well spent as he's a top defensive midfielder that i'm sure will fit in extremely well at the club.

Leo - D/DMR
A 6m signing from Marseille and at only 23yrs old, Leo will be a permanent fixture at right back in the first team for many years to come. Being a brazilian, he'll add plenty of flair to the right side of the team.

retired_sankanyo

Nilsen Delivers Once Again!

After a disappointing season finishing 10th I came back stronger than ever in one of the most devastating title wins in history.
We started off inconsistently with disappointing performances in the first 4 games. Then came the run of all runs winning 18 in 20 games which basically secured the league in January. We were never in real trouble always being 10-15 points ahead of second place, that was until about the last 10 games were we picked up 8 injuries to the first team! :eek: The rest of the players that were left were unfit on 60-70% fitness so I knew it would be hard to win a lot of games which proved to be true as we only won 2 in 10. Thanks to our earlier form in the league we still won the title by 7 points on 83. If only we didn’t get all the injuries in the last few months we would of broke into the 100 point target.

In the FA cup we went out disappointingly to our rivals Southampton in the 4th round after Niemi had a stormer to give them a very lucky win.

We went out in the semis of the league cup as we played the second leg with only 9 men after Chelsea injured 5 of our players! :eek: To make things worse we held on and was going through on away goals until Wiese gave them a goal with the last kick of the game.

Stats in EPL

Final League Position - 1st

Goals - 89

Conceded - 32

Top Goalscorer - Pazzini 17

Most Assists - Rothen & Kalou 13

Best Average Rating - Rothen 8.0

Fans Player Of The Year Award - Pazzini


So onto the new season

The summer is always a feeding ground for clubs with money and this year once again I have secured the financial state of Portsmouth so I can spend as much as I need to.

Transfers In

Valdez 14.25m
A class act at Bayern Munich who will replace Kerzhakov as back up to villa and Pazzini

Fabrico7.5m
A fantastic player who will rotate with Mascherano, Clark and Boogaart

Blondel5m
Class Versatile attacker, hoping to mold him into the next Donovan

Jarstein 800k
Norwegian u21 (even though he is 24 ) keeper to replace Guatelli as back up to Wiese



Some fringe players had to go

Rothen 10m
A class act but I’m afraid he is 31 so I decided to cash in while I still could

Kerzhakov 13m
A good player but he wasn’t happy with being back up (bit hard to play you when your injured for 4 months you idiot)

There’s also been a bid from Inter for Kalou that I have accepted which will bring in another 25m along with Adriano (no not the one you think but a class centre back who will tighten up the defence). However this deal isn’t guaranteed as Adriano is a greedy git and wants 90k which he doesn’t deserve so we will have to wait and see if he agrees to the 50k I offered him.

Another bid as came in for Villa for 25m but I am undecided whether to sell or not.

Community shield
Portsmouth 1-1 Chelsea

With the teams looking like this

Portsmouth
GK Weise
DL Evra
DC Bouma
DC Hubschman
DR Baltisch
DMC Boogaart
DMC Mascherano
ML Carvalho
MR SWP
AMC Peralta
SC Pazzini

Subs
Villa
Korzym
Kalou
Jarastein
Clark
Andreasen

VS

Chelsea
Gk Ellegaard
DL Bridge
DC Terry
DC Gallas
DR Bonera
DMC De Rossi
MC Ballack
MC Rosicky
AMC Cani
SC Cassano
SC Ammendola

Subs
Postiga
Carrick
Drogba
Nilmar
Nesta
Sanctis
Cigarini



My plan was to defend well and then hit Chelsea with the DCA Deadly Counter Attack. This was going to plan as it was 0-0 with Chelsea having no shots when all of a sudden from a throw in Peralta scored a screamer from 35 yards much like Gerrards goal last month to give Pompey a 1-0 lead.

Up to the 50th minute and Chelsea still didn’t have a shot, infact they didn’t even get near our box. That was until the ref stepped in and sent Carvalho off for his second booking even though he only fouled twice all game and neither were that bad . So down to 10 men and still Chelsea didn’t have a shot until the 66th minute when Postiga went through and scored there first shot of the game. Still with 10 men we attacked the Chelsea goal making it an exciting finish with end to end football all the way to penalties. :thup:

This was my first Penalty shootout and with us missing 4 out of 6 penalties the season before I was not very confident at all

Villa SCORED
Ballack Scored
Andreasen SCORED
DE Rossi scored
Balitsch SCORED
Nesta scored
Hubachman SCORED
Nilmar scored
Kalou SCORED
Postiga (Chelsea’s goal scorer) MISSED!!!

Premiership 2009/10

Portsmouth 4-0 Spurs
This opening day fixture looked a tough one on paper however it was a stroll in the park as Rick’s ego along with his title challenge was given a massive blow with a fine performance from the champions (that sounds great by the way doesn’t it Niall) :p

Pazzini set the tone for the game when he headed in a brilliant cross from Peralta on the 10th minute. 10 minutes later the machine was at it again as he lobbed the keeper from 25 yards to make it 2-0 in the first 20 minutes. The game took a turn for the worse when Villa had to come off with an injury and for some odd reason the ref wouldn’t let me bring on a sub at all so we had to play the rest of the game with 10 men! :o :cool:


Middlesbrough 1-2 Portsmouth
Pazzini started were he left off against Spurs scoring in the 30th minute to give us a deserved lead going into half time. We dominated all the way through the game but one piece of ‘magic’ (more like my defenders just standing there watching) from Harbuzi levelled the game up at 1-1 in the 77th minute. We continued to hammer the Boro goal, then just when I was cursing my luck Kalou rose like a salmon to head the ball home in injury time. Kalou ran up to Ben just like he did to Murphy last season and gave him the famous celebration “I don’t think so” just to rub it into his face.


Portsmouth 4-0 Charlton
What can you say about the goal scoring machine Pazzini? Another hat trick in this game which takes his tally up to 8 goals in 3 games. Carvalho scored the goal of the night though after a mesmerizing passing move ended with a sweet half volley.


Southampton 1-4 Portsmouth
With 3 defenders out before the game we had to play a make shift back line which included Mascherano as the right back and Balitsch playing as a centre back. Wright-Phillips gave us the 1-0 lead in the 34th minute thanks to a marvellous pass from balitsch. The lead only lasted 6 minutes though when the Saints equalised with there first shot on target thanks to a wonderful strike by Guiza.

Valdez then came on at half time for the injured Carvlaho so I had to shift the team about again moving SWP to right back, Mascherano in his normal role as the holding midfielder and Valdez on the right wing. These changes changed the game completely as it took a pretty even match into a one way killing spree as Blondel took his chance to impress me with his first appearance scoring an absolute screamer right after half time to make it 2-1.

I know what your think but don’t worry Pazzini did score to make it 3-1, game over. The ref feeling sorry for the down and out Saints awarded them a penalty for nothing. However Wiese made sure justice was done saving the spot kick from the ex Evertonian Zurawski . Blondel then made it 4-1 as he squeezed the ball home from goal mouth scramble.



We are currently top of the league after 4 games winning all 4, scoring 14 and conceding 2. Chelsea have a game in hand though and have also got a 100% record after the first 3 games so as you would of guessed the major Two teams of the EPL are fighting it out from the get go.

retired_hollieo

Ah, I see this one coming back to bite you in the arse just like most of your previous comments Andy. Have to agreethough that writing "champions" is a pleasurable experience. That's why I used it so frequently myself and why I will be using it again, next season.

retired_hollieo

Everton set their stall out to win the title back

Intertoto Cup FInal

Been an interesting start to the new campaign for Everton with pain in Spain and joy in Merseyside being the dominant factors so far. After qualifying through to the Inter Toto Cup Final, we were drawn against Real Sociedad and this turned out to be a very tough draw indeed as we found out to our cost. Unfortunately for Everton, Sociedad turned out to be an excellent footballing outfit and put us under immense pressure at home where they romped into a two goal lead. With Everton stunned at the simple brilliance of the Spaniards football (considering we had easily beaten Barca, Madrid and Valencia in the last campaign) Murphy went more attacking in an attempt to recover the away goal. This paid off when Gilardino nodded home from close in and all looked good again. However, Sociedad were not to be outdone and came back to score two very late goals courtesy of a Bogelund own goal and a Nihat special. A 4-1 defeat.

In the second leg Everton were hopeful of coming back from three down but fate was to conspire against us totally. In the opening minutes, Sociedad managed to silence Goodison Park when a long range effort from 30 yards put the Spaniards 1-0 up and 5-1 ahead. Although Everton gamely fought back to equalise, the sending off of Gonzalez early in the first half meant we had to take on a competent side with 10 men and we were unable to get the goals required. Therefore, no European football for Everton this year, a fact the manager was not too disappointed about:

The facts are that although it would be nice to be competing in the UEFA Cup this season it is not a competition that I rate enormously. There's a lot of games for very little money and the standard is quite poor overall. We saw last year that Portsmouth were able to steal our title by having no European football to play for as we concentrated on reaching the Champions League semi finals. This exit enables us to concentrate on the league and the expected challenge of Chelsea and Portsmouth for the championship.


FA Barclaycard Premiership

Manchester City 2 - 1 Everton

Well a shock defeat to newly promoted Man City here but on the day City did actually totally deserve their win by dominating the game and stopping us from creating many chances. Unfortunately though, Murphy was burned by the man marking system once again as sudden changes by City saw defenders being pulled out of position and even when Murphy re-set them it still bloody happened - so the lesson is be very careful when you man mark cos it's fecked...

Everton 2 - 1 Aston Villa

Sam Bouchard arrived at Goodison park with the look of a man under severe pressure. When Bouchard was at Spurs he was known as a colourful chap but working with Doug Ellis has obviously got to the man as he turned up at Goodison looking like he was auditioning for Scream IV. A shadow of his former self and looking rather scary I must say. Murphy was confident of turning the match into a horror show for Bouchard given that his new formation had turned out some excellent home performances towards the back end of last season. And Everton soon took the lead as Kim Kallstrom (subject of a £32m pound bid from Atletico Madrid) stepped up and curled a fantastic free kick into the top corner, beating Sorensen all ends up. Knowing however that Bouchard's men had sneaked an undeserved 1-1 draw at Goodison last season, Murphy couldn't relax until the second was scored. And it wasn't too long in coming as Borut Semler raced in to finish with composure. 2-0 to Everton but we had taken our chances whereas Villa were attacking well but not seriously troubling Isaksson. However, Villa's start to the season has been impressive and in the end they were unlucky not to get a point out of the game when Van Nistelrooy got on the end of a corner routine to bring Villa back into the game. With Sam moving to a very adventurous 4-4-2 Villa put us under pressure and in the end Murphy moved to a 4-5-1 in the last 15 minutes to seal the points. In defeat, Sam had nothing else to do but chase some attractive young teenagers in the crowd.

Everton 3 - 0 Arsenal

The twice consecutive European Champions aren't the same threat in the league now that most of us have worked out how to play for quite some time. Despite this, they are capable of pulling off the odd shock with their quality players but on this occasion they weren't at the races. A Gilardino double and a first goal for the club from Wilhelmsen sealed the points for Everton.

Injury Shocker for Everton

Devasting news hit the club today as influential skilful striker Robert Vittek breaks his leg and is out for 7 months.

Murphy forced into the transfer market, signs Mexican striker Peralta on a free and Manu Del Moran from Spurs for £6m. Also incoming is influential full back Revielliere at £7m who goes straight into the first team.


QPR 1 - 3 Everton

Everton's resurgence continues with a comfortable victory over the London outfit. The match is notable for a debut goal for Peralta to seal the points.


Everton 2 - 0 Portsmouth

Oh dear Andy....what happened to the champions? Easily beaten at Goodison Park is what.

And so it was time for the match that is undoubtedly the biggest grudge match in the Premiership. Nothing quite stirs up the emotions like a Murphy vs Nilsen battle and this one was a massive match due to recent hostilities being renewed in the press. It also featured the ex-champions vs the defending champions with both clubs amongst the favourites for the title again this season. As Nilsen arrived at pitch side on Goodison Park, the boos and jeers rang out to a crescendo - surpassing any level of distaste that even a meeting against Liverpool can muster. Nilsen had made himself a target for Everton fury after recent pronouncements to the press that Everton could not be counted as title challengers and that Murphy had taken the club backwards despite a champions league semi final place. The man was asking to be taken down a peg or two and Murphy was just the man to make sure it was administered.

The game kicked off and within three minutes Portsmouth were up to their old dirty tricks as "star" striker Pazzini elbowed Boumsong in the head earning a yellow card when surely a red was called for. It was however, the last meaningful contribution from Nilsen's Italian forward as he barely gets a kick in the game and was later substitituted when retribution for his earlier foul saw him pick up a deserved knock. Get in there lads!!

Everton had set their stall out carefully in a 4-5-1 with Murphy aware that Portsmouth had beaten us at Goodison last season mainly due to an excellent opening 10 minutes where two goals gave him an early advantage. After a few tactical changes before the match, this didn't ever look like occurring again as Gilardino burst through on 9 minutes only to shoot narrowly over from distance and Pompey were struggling to get into their attacking stride. The first half though was a largely an even affair with Pompey restricted to a couple of long efforts from Mascherano and Carvalho, one saved by Isaksson and one hitting the side net. Everton were largely in control but Pompey's second string keeper was having an impressive game and our best chance was a Kallstrom effort from just outside the box which went narrowly wide.

Into the second half and the game swings in Everton's favour as we begin to dominate proceedings and Pompey are put on the back foot. Then Everton suffered a double blow, injuries to the impressive Renato and wing man Wilhelmsen forcing Murphy into making changes. On came Tomas Sivok and Luis Gonzalez. And on 63 minutes the crowd rose to their feet as from a corner, Gonzalez met the ball with a great header and the net rippled. 1-0!!!!!! But NO!! Nilsen had got to the ref before the game and the goal was disallowed. Will lucky Nilsen's fortune never end? Everton continued to attack, changing the focus as Nilsen struggled to contain European Player of the Year Martin Petrov down our left flank. Then poor management by Nilsen saw him make his substitutes early as his players struggle to cope with the managers instructions and then on 70 Baltish was injured leaving Pompey down to 10 men.

With Everton already controlling the game it was bad news for Pompey. But all off a sudden it was Gonzalez causing the problems as we entered the final ten minutes with Murphy, instrumental on the bench urging his team forward. Now was the time to go for the jugular. With running from the wings, full backs and central midfield, Pompey were holding on but on 83 the inevitable happened as Tomas Sivok, a Murphy stalwart from 2004, leapt like a salmon to meet a Petrov corner - thundering the header in off the post....Goodison erupts, the ref says goal and the contrast of a manager who is loyal to his players against the revolving door of Pompey is starkly highlighted. Tremendous. But it's not over, just three minutes later Sivok darts in again from another corner and buries the second. Where was the defence, where was the defence? Having scored three goals from corners in the game this looks to be a severe weak point for Pompey and could be exploited by the better sides as we did

.2-0 game over and Everton are victorious....Afterwards Murphy stated:

Well I think we have given Pompey a lesson here in that you never write off a quality side. In all honesty the better side has won this game and now Fratton knows that if this title ends up a two horse race, it is going to be between Everton and Chelsea. I honestly think retaining the title will be beyond Pompey this season and their form in 2009 isn't impressive overall despite a good start to this season. We'll be going for the league and today we let the rest of the Premiership know it.



Carling Cup 2nd Round

Derby County 1 - 0 Everton

Well disappointing result after beating a poor Pompey side we went down ourselves in the Carling Cup when Derby had one shot in the first half that went in and wee couldn't get the equaliser. Not too disappointed to lose the game as I have already won this cup and our ambitions are much higher this season.


So after 5 games we sit in joint second on 12 points, with Chelsea's 100% start to the campaign showing the pace will be quick this season.

blgstocks

good report Niall , always interesting to read about grudge matches

retired_utyorc

Chelsea gunning for the TITLE


Yes with the start of the season upon us Mr. Abramovic has made it clear the he wants the premiership to return to Stamford Bridge and he is willing to back his new manager with the cash to do the business. Of course winning the title this year could be the hardest yet with more human managers than ever before plus the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool and Birmingham all having the teams capable to beat anyone on there day. Add to this the likes of Everton who without European football this year at Goodison Park will be a major force in the league and WBA who under Chris Morris will be harder to beat with some of the best player ever seen down at the Hawthorns this will be a hard task. On the plus side Manchester United shouldn’t be a problem anymore now there signed Rick Boult II as there manager and Portsmouth manager Andy will not doubt sell most of his best players and bosman signing to weaken his team like he did a couple of seasons ago, we all know what happened to Portsmouth last time they were in the champions league and Andy couldn’t rotate his players right and they finished a disappointing 10th.

In order to take back the title there had to be some major signing to help bring down the average age of the team and bring back some much needed class to last season double winners.



Transfers In…



Paul Robinson from Tottenham for free
A goal keeper coming into his prime and will give me options when one of my other goal keepers is having run of form.

Helder Postiga from Porto for free
Another old spurs boy who being playing for Porto for the last few season. I feel this lad has improved enough to make an impact on the premiership this time around and has plenty of goals in him.

Nilmar from Lyon for free
Class forward who will get goals from all over the pitch and with Drogba and Mutu both hitting 30 years old he could easy take the place.

Alessio Ammendolea from Birmingham for 28 million
My record signing while I was at Birmingham City and in the short space we worked together I knew this lad had something special to offer. Maybe will not get much of a chance this season to prove himself but he’s only young and will no doubt become a world class star.

Daniele De Rossi from Roma for 20 million
I must admit I didn’t know much about Daniele until after my UEFA Cup semi final against Roma in which both games he played a big part in. The second leg really brought my interest level up when he ran the show from midfield and scored two great goals in the process. With Cigarini being my only other dmc this was an important buy for Chelsea and I was over the moon when he agreed to join.

Geoginio Boateng
One for the future who can play either in attack or midfield and will give me more options with all the games Chelsea will play this season.

Of course with all these players coming in there had to be some sales as Chelsea aren’t as rich as they once were.


Transfer Out…

John Barker to Deportivo for 375k
A reserve team player who didn’t look up to much so when the offer came in I agreed to let this player move to Spain.

Paulo Ferreira to Parma for 4.6 million
A class right back but with Bonera and Gallas able to play right back and Paulo almost 31 I cashed in before he lost his value.

Eidur Gudjohnsen to Milan for 4.1 million
Gudjohnsen has given the club good service over the years but with all my new forwards arriving he would no longer make the team so I let him go for a cut price deal to Milan.

Christian Wihelmsson to Everton for 5.5 million
Think I may have made a mistake letting Wihelmsson go as after the sale of him and J Cole I realized my midfield was looking a bit weak. I should have kept him really just for the last minute goal that knocked Portsmouth out the Carling cup in the semi.

Joe Cole to Deportivo for 10 million
I didn’t want to sell Joe Cole but he took an instant dislike to me when I first took over and tried to loan him to Southampton (thinking about it who would want to go there).
With his contact only having 1 year left on it and his refusing to sign a new deal I cashed in now to save losing him on free in 12 months time.

Also leaving on a bosman is:

Carlton Cole to Wolves
Geremi to Fulham


More to follow soon