What on earth is going on with the transfer of Carlos Tevez to Manchester United? Surely he should have been given a sqaud number and been photographed on the pitch with Alex Ferguson by now? What is going on with West Ham, do they own him or not? If they do, they should agree a fee for his transfer and go through with it, if they don’t they should simply let the transfer go through and watch on in envy as Kia Joorabchian counts his many millions…

But they can’t because they don’t own him really, but they seem to have persuaded the Premierleague that they do own him, despite the fact that they don’t own him. Its all very complicated to me. I don’t understand how a player can play for a team for a whole season when they don’t own the player. I think the whole issue has highlighted some serious problems in the way players registrations are handled. Hopefully, after Tevez has been transferred to Manchester United, the authorities that control football will take a good look at this situation and see if there is a way that player transfers can be completely transparent, and that any future transfers can go through without any of the complications that this transfer has encountered.

I’ve been reading about the Asia tour on the Manutd website. It sounds like the squad are working well together, and the new signings are playing well.

Queiroz says that the work the squad are doing in the heat and humidity is good for them, it will help them when they come back to playing back in England - I don’t see how, surely playing in heat and humidity will help their bodies get used to playing in heat and humidity, something we don’t really have a lot of over in England right now. Perhaps if they were training in tropical downpours and on pitches submerged to the tops of the goalposts in floodwater would they be preparing for the return back to England…

How much of these tours over to Asia is all about “getting the players fit” I wonder? I suspect its more about “getting the coffers fit”, and ensuring that lots of Ronaldo and Rooney shirts are sold in Japan and Korea. Not that I’m bothered, I’m a capitalist, so can’t complain when an organisation wants to cash in on their assets.

I read that Paul Scholes is now injured thanks to the Asia tour, that’s a shame as we could really use him in the first few weeks of the season to ensure we get a good start on Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal (should they turn up). It means we will have to rely on an untried midfield partnership of Hargreaves and Carrick, not something I am too worried about, however as we know they are both quality players. My only concern is that Carrick effectively did Hargreaves job last season, so could he be a bit rusty when forced to play the creative midfield role, a la Scholes? We will have to wait and see how August pans out…

I heard on the radio yesterday that Fernando Torres has agreed a £20,000,000 move to Liverpool. What is going on? Liverpool don’t usually splash that kind of cash, they certainly don’t usually sign players of his calibre. With Torres at Liverpool, will they start scoring for fun? Will they finally be able to mount a real challenge for the Premiership? Liverpool as a team have been getting better since Rafa arrived. They won the Champions League in 2005 in Rafa’s debut season as manager. He’s finished 5th, 4th and 3rd in the Premiership since he arrived, even the most sceptical of Liverpool supporters must concede that he has improved since he’s been in charge. But can he take the them to the next level?

I firmly believe that lies in the hands of Man Utd and Chelsea. Let’s face it, Arsenal are a team that are building for the future, they’ve just lost Henry, next season will be another season of flux. They’ve got too many young players and not enough experience. I believe, if Wenger stays on after next season, then Arsenal will again become a force in the Premiership. So it really is down to Ferguson and Mourinho. If they can keep the momentum going then Liverpool will find it very hard to catch, even with Fernando Torres, who will no doubt bring Liverpool that illustrious 20+ goals in a season, something they’ve been missing for a while.

But is the Chelsea team a bit too long in the tooth? Take a look at the main players in the team:

• Terry, 27 - no, he’s got years of good football ahead of him.
• Lampard - 29, a few more good years left.
• Makalele - 34, needs replacing.
• Ballack - 30, a few more good years, but look his commitment (or lack of).
• Shevchenko - 30, a couple more years, but his pace will wane.
• Drogba - 29, he’ll be a useful asset for a few more years yet
• Carvalho - 29 - years of useful service left

So when you look at the ages of the Chelsea team, they really need to be bringing in some younger players. When you compare with Man United, its fairly easy to see which team is looking forward, with all the younger players in the United team, and the experienced players that have been bought in, like Hargreaves and Carrick who still have plenty of miles left on the clock being only 26 years old.

I don’t think Liverpool will win the Premiership next season, but I think they will make it closer. Wouldn’t it be good to have a three horse race, rather than a two horse race like last season?

Its been a story ever since the season finished in May, but it keeps on making an appearance in the papers. Even Paddy Crerand, of MUTV fame and former player of course suggests that Gaby will move this summer. As Crerand points out, Heinze won’t be happy sitting on the bench, now that Evra has become the first choice left back.

I don’t see it that way. I see that when Man United are playing a game they expect to win comfortably, they utilise the pace and attacking flair of Evra down the left, usually linking up with Giggs. I would see this as being a good use of a left back who’s arguably not the best at defending. When United are playing a game that they don’t assume they will win comfortably, and perhaps, expect to do more defending than usually, they use Heinze. He’s arguably the best defensive left back in the Premiership, so it would make sense to use him when we need to keep and clean sheet.

Granted, the way last season went, United went into far more games expecting to win comfortably than not, which meant that Evra got the nod more than Heinze. However, Heinze still got to play in a lot of games, and don’t forget, the first few months of the season he was still struggling with his knee, you could see he was easing himself back into playing in the first team.

I think it will be a shame if we have to let go of Heinze. He’s been one of my favourite players for the last few seasons. Players like him and Alan Smith, give it their all, what they lack in silky skills and talent they more than make up for in commitment and drive. The team needs players like them, let players like Kieron Richardson leave, but don’t let players like Heinze leave, he’s too good.

Arsenal have agreed to transfer Eduardo Da Silva from Dinamo Zagreb for around £16m. The 24 year old has signed a four year deal at the Emirates stadium, he’ll play alongside Robin Van Persie and Emmanuel Adebayor.

I guess this means that Nicolas Anelka won’t be going to Arsenal now they’ve signed Da Silva, I could be wrong, but I’ve never known Arsenal to be a big spending club. They will have spent all the money they got from selling Henry on this new player so that probably means no more signings this summer. I wonder what they’ll do about Jens Lehmman - I thought he was retiring at the end of the season just over. Maybe not. If he has though, Arsenal will need another goalkeeper, preferably one who is less mad than Lehmman.

I read on the ManUtd website (www.manutd.com) that a new home kit has been released - wasn’t it only last season that we had a new home kit? I thought Man Utd only changed the kit every 2 years, why has a new kit been released when the old one was only a season old? Think of all the new shirts that will fly out of the Mega Store on match day, great for Man Utd the business, but what about the fans? I hadn’t even gotten around to buying last seasons kit yet, was going to buy one for the next home game I went to, now I’ve missed it. 

Its all the parents out there that I feel for really. They’re the ones that will get pressured into shelling out another £40 on a shirt for their children just so that they have the ”latest” strip. If they only had to buy a new strip every 2 years, its not so bad, £20 a year, but every year seems a bit much! Its not like the football clubs don’t make enough money out of fans already. Ticket prices have gone up quite a bit recently, and the new TV deals mean they are getting millions of pounds of extra revenue from this season. I can’t remember the exact figure, but even the team that loses the premiership this season will get £30,000,000! That’s a hell of a lot of money just for coming last!

I read in the papers yesterday that Sven, the new Manchester City FC manager is on the hunt for Nicolas Anelka, he wants to bring him back to Man City and prise him from the grasps of Arsene Wenger who is reportedly trying to sign him for Arsenal. I don’t see why Arsenal would want Anelka again, he’s not as good as Henry in my opinion, and though he will be cheaper than Henry, I believe that if Arsenal want to remain competitive they will have to find a replacement as good as Henry. They need to hit the ground running this coming season otherwise they will find that they get overtaken by Tottenham.

Will Anelka be good for Man City? I don’t know. He’s been good at Bolton, but will he prosper under Sven. Will any team prosper under Sven? England certainly didn’t, he managed to achieve very little with the talent he had at his disposal. I guess he’s a big name and City need a big name manager now that they have been bought out. Personally, I think City would have done alright if they had stuck with Stuart Pearce. Given the players he had at his disposal he did alright. Not fantastic, but alright. He was a new manager and was rather put under a lot of pressure when he really didn’t have the experience. Perhaps he shouldn’t have tried to coach the under 21’s as well as City….Then again, didn’t the under 21’s do well, getting to the semi final, better than the big boys did last summer in Germany!

I can’t believe its still raining! It seems to have rained all of June and now we’re into July and guess what? It’s still bloody raining! I went to the gym this morning, came out into the car park and had anther shower! I heard on the news that Wimbledon are going to have matches starting earlier to try and catch up on matches that have been postponed/called off due to rain. It does make you wonder about all this global warming, they keep banging on about it, but it doesn’t seem to work - it just seems to have made the world a wetter place!

I remember as a kid, summers were endless, they were always really sunny from May onwards, even into October it was still good weather. Nowadays, it seems we have a good weekend in April and that’s it, that’s summer! I went on a stag do last weekend to Goodwood Festival of Speed, it rained pretty much non-stop over the weekend and we all got rather muddy footwear.

It was another wet Glastonbury this year. It seems that its always a wet Glastonbury. I remember going as a teenager and it being really hot, then as soon as I got into sixth form, it seemed that each year it got progressively wetter than the previous.

People up north have died from all the flooding, seems ridiculous that a bit of water can cause so much damage and danger. Surely it should all run into sewers or into rivers or something? I live on a hillside so I feel fairly safe, but for some of my mates down nearer to the cut in Southville, I can see that they must be starting to get quite worried about the rising water levels!