He’s a terrific player, anyone would love to have him in their team.

I do like the idea that MattRusty has suggested. Seedings to have a purpose, to segregate the draw and prevent the best players all playing each other by the 4th Round. But yes, I never really understood the purpose of having such a large tournament that lasts two weeks when the chances of an upset are not only slim, but remote if at all.

I honestly cannot see the Oceania confederation lasting too long, especially if New Zealand fail to pick up a point at the World Cup this year.

I think it would be much better if all the Oceanian nations entered the Asian confederation as TheMagnificent11 suggested, but I’m just not sure that the AFC would be willing to support all these lower nations without funding from FIFA.

I would love to see Oceania join Asia, and the A-League Division 2 being an experimental Oceanian league with a couple of Australian clubs, but I suspect this is only a pipe-dream.

When I started reading, I was going to make a smart-arse comment about Better Homes and Gardens, but you managed to professionally incorporate that into your article!

I’m not saying the deal was legal. It was quite clearly illegal, and looking back on it now, perhaps being relegated would have saved us from being in the position we are at the moment. Of course we should have been docked points, but we weren’t, and then we had to cough up mega bucks to Sheffield United for the idiotic ruling that was given. What we did was disgraceful, and possibly no better than what Chelsea did with Gael Kakuta. Thank goodness 3rd party ownership has been sorted out since then.

What 25yrold said was that we should be docked points because of who our owners currently are (A consortium of Icelandic banks) and for paying inflated wages. That is just plain crap.

Fox Sports have a streaming option at the moment (http://www.foxsports.com.au/football/epl/ondemand), that I would hope would be popular, but it’s hard to see how it would cope with the competition of free streaming.

However, in checking that, I noticed this article: http://www.foxsports.com.au/story/0,8659,26344526-29437,00.html

Foxtel will (from next season) screen EVERY Premier League match of the season. (It doesn’t say LIVE in the article, but I’m guessing it would be), so, more great news for (Premier League) Football fans!

The original title of this article was to create a debate about whether illegal streaming was good for the game, but the reviewers changed the title.

The problem I see with internet streaming being the major source of watching matches is the infrastructure behind it. In Australia, to watch a match in high quality, you are probably taking up to 2gb of downloads to watch a full game, with the internet pricing structure like it is here (unlike in the US, where you pay for speed, and no matter what speed you buy, you get unlimited downloads) it will be very hard to work through this internationally.

The occasions that Viewers Choice fails me is in fact on Sunday nights when Foxtel only shows 2 (or 3 if we’re lucky, like last week) and the other matches usually involve big teams, not Saturday nights.

As for being docked points, are you a Sheffield United fan by any chance? That’s the only possibly excuse for your petulant post. How can you say that a team should be docked points for paying inflated wages and transfer fees? At the time, we could afford them, but then the greatest financial meltdown since the Great Depression hit.

No-ones happy with our financial situation. But the fact is, the banks don’t want to sell West Ham for anything short of (approximately) 100 million pounds, and are simply burdening us with more debt.

The best strip of the season is Manchester City’s. It only has the small Emirates logo in the top corner.

I have no opposition to sponsorship on shirts, and they don’t really influence me. I would hate to be associated with anything Liverpool, and would try not to buy any of the products associated with the club. But, I really love my Carlsberg’s.

Well, it is an international break. They either play a friendly or they don’t play at all. Everyone wants to see a game, and it will be gerat to see Brazil thump England.

As for having it in Doha, it may be because of the money, but why is that such a problem? It will give the game an audience that it would not have previously had. More fans will be gained from having the friendly in Doha than would have been lost by not having it in England/Brazil.

I would object to the fact that the referee gave the marginal decision to Chelsea that they got the goal from because he gave Drogba the card. Drogba was on the ground for a long time (looked like he was having a fit) so the referee had plenty of time to make sure his decision was the correct one.

Refereeing was shocking, the timekeeping will only make Man City more mad, especially because it is the same referee not applying similar standards over different games.

The 6+5 rule was declared illegal, but I believe Platini is trying to appeal the decision, because it is not a restraint on the number of foreigners the club can employ, but how many can take the field.

Like your positivity towards West Ham mintox. Wish I could be that positive myself.

But, the reason Diamanti and Hines got tired was because Diamanti was starting only his 2nd game of top flight football I think (1st in England, at least), and the same with Hines.

Bringing on Babel was well thought out by Benitez, and I think Babel can be the new Solskjaer, in terms of a perfect supersub with that lightning pace he has.

All that needs to happen is one injury, and Manchester United will be up against it. Look at what happened to Arsenal last season without Fabregas for the majority of the season. Last year for Man Utd, when Ronaldo got injured, Rooney was able to pop up with goals, along with Tevez. We have seen how many chances Berbatov has had this season already, and only managed to put away one goal.

As for the best centre-back partnership in the world, were you not the slightest bit worried when Bellamy burnt Ferdinand for pace in the 89th minute? Or when he left the ball for Foster in the first half?

There is no doubt that SAF is great at getting the best out of his players, and that the side is great at grinding out results, but it doesn’t change the fact that in my eyes, Manchester United are a far weaker side this season.

Man Utd are weaker, Liverpool are weaker, Arsenal and Chelsea are about the same (but Chelsea will be weaker during the African Cup of Nations, a crucial time for the title to be decided), and Manchester City (and dare I say Tottenham) will be much much stronger.

Definitely Robert. Found the link through a facebook advert.

With our midfield of (post injuries) Kovac, Noble, Parker (who didn’t have a great game), Hines and Diamanti, it shouldn’t make too much of a difference on how we play when compared to the Liverpool midfield of Gerrard, Mascherano, Kuyt, Benayoun (and Lucas) there is a great gulf in class.

On a more recent note, Darran Fletcher is the poor man’s Dirk Kuyt. So Average, with half the technical ability.

This article sounded a lot better in my head, and in my haste to write it, the effects of a loss of sleep through football watching and working a lot combined for a pretty poorly written article.

Exactly what Colin said. The fact that there were 2 enforced substitutes should worry Liverpool fans the most. Off the top of my head I can’t think of a team that would field a younger team (unless they have already won the title)

As for Man U dropping out of the top 4, their squad is no-where near title winning, when compared to the likes of Chelsea and Arsenal, but alas, if we go into fergie-time at every match at old trafford, it will happen

I find it quite ironic that I wrote this before the Manchester Derby

-I could mention how vulnerable Javier Mascherano is to being sent off, and how both him and Skrtl should both have been sent to have early showers, but this is the Premier League, and unfortunately the “big clubs” get such decisions in their favour time and again.

-It happens too often, and it is the smaller clubs who pay the penalty, as we have seen for many seasons with the likes of Paul Scholes, Wayne Rooney, and John Terry getting away with studs up tackles, dissent, and having suspensions rescinded. I could mention this, but then I might upset some people.

And then look what happens. The referee decides to follow the letter of the law for time added on when it is in Manchester United’s favor, but when they are leading 1-0 and make substitutions, no time gets added on.

People have said kicking Chelsea out of the Champions League is an appropriate punishment. I’m not entirely sure what kind of jurisdiction FIFA has, but you think that they would have to consult UEFA on the matter, in order for such a punishment to be enforced.

The banning of Juventus from the Champions League was alright, as the draw and preliminary qualifying rounds had not occurred, but if Chelsea were to be banned this season from the Champions League, how do you decide who takes their place? Would it be a side from England who has already qualified for the Europa League? One of the qualifiers who got knocked out? Even then, how do you decide which team gets the second chance.

You can’t say FIFA are forcing transfer prices up, because Chelsea will buy players, because they would have done that anyway. The only difference now is Chelsea won’t be in the market for (one or) two transfer windows. In theory, that should lower the transfer prices in the next two transfer windows, but it won’t, and the sudden emergence of Chelsea as a spending club is nothing different to Florentino Perez or Sheik Mansour taking over Real Madrid and Manchester City respectively.

I also think that talking of FIFA artificially increasing transfer prices with respect to Chelsea is a huge contradiction, when you look at the likes of their spending in the past. Andrei Shevchenko is a prime example of Chelsea inflating the transfer market by paying way over the top for a player.

I ended up talking a bit too much about West Ham, so didn’t want it to run too long.

1. A key example of the owners putting the fans first is putting the highlights to the league games available on the mcfc.co.uk website for anyone in any country to view. Pretty much every other club website requires some sort of subscription for ClubTV or interviews.

2. Not really sure how to reply to that

3. Man City offered a contract to Daniel Sturridge, which he rejected and joined Chelsea because of the higher wages. Given who Man City have bought/brought (interchangable there) in, it may actually be a positive move in terms of actual game time for him.

4. I would have suggested that Lerner was the best owner, until I saw the display from the Villa fans against Wigan, booing their players off after one half of football. Villa fans have been promised to break in for so long, but their squad as been thin, and juggling multiple competitions with their thin list last season was probably a bridge too far for them.

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It was my first article, but I’m glad you enjoyed it