It is 15:50 on a Saturday afternoon. I should be relaxing during half time in the 3pm kick offs, looking forward to a second half of action. Instead I just did some washing up, and spent 5 minutes looking at my back garden, wondering if the grass seeds we laid in the week are ever going to grow.
Fucking internationals.
Cannot stand them, just as the Prem was getting into the swing of things - along come Euro qualifiers. England won 4-0, an easy victory capped by three Jermain Defoe goals. Unfortunately for Jermain, he had to see his team-mate Michael Dawson get stretchered off with what looked like a bad knee injury. Shame for Dawson, he was a great signing on Championship Manager a few years back.
The game it self was pretty uninspiring and England eventually brushed aside a mediocre Bulgarian side. Meanwhile, Both Northern and The Republic of Ireland scored 1-0 victories, the former against England's world cup foes Slovenia. However, Wales and Scotland both had disappointing results. Wales were beaten by Montenegro whilst Scotland only drew with Lithuania.
Turning attention back to the league and the transfer window came to a close this week. For a full run down of our opinions on all the transfers listen to the direct football podcast by downloading it from the itunes store for free right now! Or you can listen to it here: http://directfootball.podbean.com
However, we were unable to address Spurs' signing of Rafael Van Der Vaart as it went through as late as Tuesday. For me, he is a good player. However, a good player does not always make a good signing. He may prove to be a steal at 8 million, no doubt. But if anything would worry me as a Spurs fan it was the speed (some might say desperation) with which the Dutchman was bought. I mean, what kind of management is deciding to sign a player two hours before the window closes? There is no planning here, no considering how he will fit in, no thinking about the reality of signing a player just because of his name. Harking back to Champ manager - it was exactly that kind of signing....
However, like I say, he might prove to be great but that is not how i would go throwing money about, just desperately and blindly after a Real Madrid bench warmer.
Other than that there were some good signings.... For me Hleb sticks out at Birmingham. Great player with a lot to prove and he will be hungry to succeed. Newcastle also secured Hatem Ben Arfa on loan and Tiote (Ivory Coast international). Could be a couple of very good signings.
Most impressively for me is Liverpool's signing of Raul Merieles. Looked like a fantastic player at the World Cup and at 27 he is coming into his best years. A step up from Aquilani no doubt.
And thanks to the international lull there is not a lot else to discuss today/this week (I've been so lazy/busy).
We can look at the updated standings in Kingy vs Lawro vs Buttsy vs Haddow though...By the way the fucking football focus show nicked my idea! The shits!
The standings were -
Buttsy and Lawro 4
Kingy 3
Haddow 1
It is 3 points for a perfect score, 1 for the correct result and zilch for anything else. Add them up, winner gets 3 points, second gets 2, third and fourth get 1. Anyone who finishes more than 6 points behind the winner that week gets 0 for the week.
This week Kingy (myself) scored 6, Buttsy came home with 6 too whilst Lawro continued a strong start with a lovely 10. Haddow didn't participate, so he is falling behind now.
The standings, after three weeks, are:
Lawro 7
Buttsy 5
Kingy 4
Haddow 1
Hotting up eh?
No predictions this week because of the internationals but we will be back with more on Tuesdays podcast!
Cheers!
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