The Week That Was

Welcome to the latest TWTW, in a week where the two main (indeed only) trophies of the summer were lifted. Congratulations to Brazil on their Confederations Cup triumph. Last week’s TWTW said we were looking forward to a glowing report on Stuart Pearce’s triumphant U21 side… we’ll just gloss over that and get right on with it, shall we?

As ever in the summer, transfers are dominating the back pages, with big money moves, and the odd freebie, causing a stir in Fleet Street. In the quickest of run-downs possible: Premier League new boys Wolves have been splashing the cash on record signing Kevin Doyle (at £6.5m we reckon that’s about 2 Ade Akinbiyis); Man United have spent some of their Ronaldo windfall on Antonio Valencia, scorer of only 3 goals last season, while Valencia’s former club Wigan have signed possibly the oldest looking 24 year old in world football, in the shape of Hendry Thomas. Real Madrid continue to go crash-bang-wallop crazy, and are close to tying up a £30m+ deal for Karim Benzema, meaning Man United have turned to perma-crock Michael Owen to boost their attacking options. Perhaps they were won over by that 32 page brochure sent out by his marketing agents?

Behind the scenes, Matt Le Tissier’s proposed take-over of Southampton has hit an irrepairable snag, and the future is looking incredibly bleak for the Saints, who are desperate for a cash-injection or they face going out of business.

Justice Minister Jack Straw has refused to pardon Liverpool fan Michael Shields, despite a groundswell of opinion behind the Liverpool fan’s cause. He will stay in prison to serve out his sentence.

The BBC have announced their first live domestic fixtures, and surprise surprise Newcastle United feature prominently. Their opening day fixture against West Brom will be shown, as will their trip to Ipswich. Speaking of fixtures, the Blue Square Premier, North and South dates were released today, with newly relegated Luton Town kicking off their campaign against promoted AFC Wimbledon.

Lastly, and somewhat bizarrely, news came out this week that former Spurs and Romania International Gheorge Popescu had been outed as a police informant under the communist regime of Nicolae Ceausescu, despite rubbishing initial reports of his involvement as ‘a big lie’. We do wonder why he bothered to deny this initially, but then it just makes for a better story.

That’s all from us this week – have a great weekend.