Talk about a week being a long time in politics, what about a day!

I'll go into the mess left in Washington courtesy of Johnny McCrappyShit later, but right now there's something far more important happening on the other side of the cold pond.

A couple of days ago a mediation panel announced it's findings after hearing details of a long standing dispute between West Ham Utd and Sheff Utd. I can't go into all the details cuz it'll use up all the server's memory, but below I've given an abbreviated version, the squabble stems from West Ham breaking league rules when signing Carlos Tevez (pic below) from Argentina....

Tevez was only at West Ham for a short period towards the end of the 2006/2007 season, but had an almost immediate impact on the team's results. Until Tevez' arrival, West Ham had been rooted in the bottom three of the table, and were facing certain relegation. But, led by Tevez the club completed a miraculous turnaround, winning something like 8 of their last 10 matches, including beating Man Utd at Old Trafford on the last day of the season to ensure their survival, with Sheffield Utd being relegated in their place. In that match only one goal was scored, and who else but, Carlos Tevez scored it. West Ham had survived by a single point.

Shortly after the end of the season, and with the entire football world watching and wanting to sign the previously unknown Argentinian, the predatorial Man Utd determined to get their man quickly set about cutting throats, bludgeoning heads, and crossing palms.

Within a fairly short period of time Man Utd had beaten off all other interested clubs, and despite West Ham's reluctance to sell Tevez managed to lure their player away with promises of gold and glory. Finally, an announcement of Man Utd's successful signing was made, and that's when the claims and counter claims about the player’s 'ownership' began to surface.

As it turned out West Ham had an agreement with the player's 'owners' that he would not be sold without their consent. Someone else owned his contract. This practice of third party ownership of player's contracts is widely practiced internationally, but illegal in the English leagues. Big problems lay ahead.

I won't go into the court mess that was the actual agreement, but of course Man Utd got their player and were happy, and West Ham were still in the Prem and were happy. But, with relegation from the premiership estimated at costing a club at least $120 Million/season in lost income, Sheff Utd who had been relegated in West Ham's place were not at all happy, and they went to court.

Sheff Utd initially tried (unsuccessfully) to get themselves reinstated to the Prem on the basis that West Ham had broken the rules, and the player they broke the rules for was key to their survival. The court cases came and went as Sheff Utd continued their fight, and to cut a very long story short(er), ultimately the new seasons began and Sheff Utd began plying their trade in the Championship. Still, having been so badly wronged Sheff Utd were determined to get some form of justice. Finally, after a year or so of court wrangling both clubs agreed to go to mediation with both agreeing not to appeal the outcome, Sheff Utd won and are about to be awarded a very large sum of money, but it doesn't stop there.

After hearing about the club's good news, the players, all of whom had to suffer 60% pay decreases, and long term damage to their careers felt that they had been wronged too, and on advice from lawyers ten of them are now going to sue West Ham for damages such as loss of earnings etc....just brilliant!

But, it get's even better, I had this thought to add to West Ham's nightmare.....

On the basis that the Sheff Utd have a legitimate claim, and their players have been advised that they do too, what's to stop players from other effected teams claiming damages as well?

Players whose teams were relegated after losing points to a team that shouldn't have been in the league in the first place.

Seems to me there's nothing to stop Reading players claiming as well. If West Ham hadn't broken the rules they would've been relegated, and if West Ham had been relegated then Reading wouldn't have lost points to them the following season, Reading were relegated by a single goal, one point would've kept us up. So West Ham's rule breaking can be blamed for our subsequent relegation.

That's another fine mess you've gotten me into Stanley.

If you're not into football (soccer) this will be of absolutely no interest to you....

Ok so the transfer window is shut and I'm feeling alright about it....

So we signed a few unknown players, as is the way at Reading. Two of the players are strikers, which initially scared the crap out me because I assumed they were (p)replacements for either Doyle or Lita, fortunately we lost neither, now for the first time in as long as I can remember we enter a season with a five striker pool to pick from.

The two new front men are Noel Hunt (from Dundee 600K) and David Mooney (from Cork City 250K), both have prolific scoring records. Noel is Steve Hunt's brother, which initially led me to think that Steve was happy with us and settling in for the long term, that is until I read that he was displeased with Reading for not accepting a non-existent offer from Everton -- the press had falsely reported Everton as making a 3.5M offer for him, more on that in a bit, but first....

Our final new signing; Chris Armstrong a left back replacement for Shorey, and to act as a little competition for our quality home grown kid Golbourne. Armstrong came from Sheffield United for 500K (rising to 800K if we return to prem this season), he has plenty of Prem and Championship experience, and should be an easy slot in, he debuted in our 4-2 victory at home to Crystal Palace last weekend.

OK, back to Steve Hunt and the players that have left. Though I’m ecstatic that he’s still with us as are Doyle, Bikey, Harper et al I was really disappointed reading that rubbish from Hunt. Both Steve Coppell and David Moyes (Everton Manager) denied that any offer had been received/made for the player. Obviously feeling he had to respond to the incorrect press report, Coppell explained that Moyes had called him to inquire but took it no further. Of course transfer deadline-day press had jumped on their conversation and in a bid to sell their papers converted it into a much more interesting story and a solid 3.5M bid.

It was good to see David Moyes respond to the story, knowing that shit like that can unsettle players and leave them with a bad feeling toward their own club. I know many managers that would’ve left that to fester figuring that when the transfer window opens in Jan they’d have their target player desperate to leave and sitting perfectly for a low bid.

Although the story was untrue, there’s no way on earth Reading would’ve sold him for less than 5M. Hunt even has a clause in his contract stating that if a club offers over 5M he has the right to accept if he chooses. So to hear him whining about it whilst on tour with Doyle, Long and the rest of the Ireland squad is really pissing me off.

He's essentially saying that if he'd acted up, created trouble on the training ground, and generally become a sulk, the club would've let him go. He tells the reporter that he is a victim of his own professionalism, well what a wanker! Firstly he’s well paid to be professional, yet his very reaction to this non-news is totally unprofessional. I mean for fuck sake, this is a false story, whoever ran it is probably doing so to stir up a bit of discontent, and palpably it’s worked.

His remarks made really depressing reading, leading us to believe that he would've been quite happy (even prefered) to leave us and his brother, who he had a big influence on us signing, so he could take the easy way back to the prem. Well, now it looks like Mr Hunt will have to work for his Premiership ticket, just like everyone else, he'll need to earn his place in the prem, again.

The most unpalatable aspect about his outburst is that he was one of the senior players who went missing in the second half of last season. In fact he suffered a mysterious drop in form almost immediately after signing a new bumper contract with the club. Enough of our over-rated senior players went missing during that second half of last season that they ensured we'd be playing in the fucking Championship this season, and because of their failings they now want to leave, well fuck 'em.

We were expecting it from Shorey, and although it’s hard for me to defend him, at least (unlike Sidwell) he gave us as much warning as possible, asking for a transfer long before we were anywhere near being relegated. Then there's Kitson, who has served us well, working hard right to the end. He's an outstanding player in his late 20s (28) so he doesn’t have too many seasons left, he also pulled in 5M for us when we let him go to Stoke. I have no hard feelings about Kits.

Then there's Little! Much as I rate him -- we badly missed his invention on the right last season, due to injury. In fact I rate him so highly I believe had he been fit to play a full part last season we would have avoided relegation with ease. As it was he hardly played a game for us, and Oster was/is no Little. So, what happened? we send him for foreign surgery, get just about every expert we can find and pile money into his rehabilitation and pay him for the whole year, and at the end of the season we’re relegated and he refuses to sign another fucking deal with us! He chooses instead to warm the bench at Portsmouth, and left us on a FREE TRANSFER!!, we didn't receive a single penny for supporting him. Finally, there was the other moaner Sonko, we received 2.5 Million for him, and at that price I was glad to see him go. The man had become a liability in defense, and we have a plethora of quality Center Backs, most better than Sonks, so letting him go was a no-brainer, plus it would stop all his training ground moaning, good fucking riddance.

Finally, the first month's results....

Well, we started out well enough taking on ex-double Champions of Europe Nottingham Forest. Forest had been promoted from League 1 th season before so were gunning for us, especially as their players had been watching our players in the Prem last season, and this was their chance to compare themselves. It was always gonna be a tough match at their place but we came out with a decent enough 0-0, we had our chances but keeping a clean sheet is a neat start.

Next we was our first home match in the Championship against Plymouth who had got into the play-offs last season and were no mugs, they were also the only team to beat us at home in the Championship since 2005. We dominated and won easily 2-0, nice and two cleans sheets. Next up Charlton away, a true test of our squad and our resolve, they duffed us up 4-2, our defense (with Sonko) looking amateur. Took very little out of that match except a lingering fear that this was going to be a lot harder than it originally looked. Still, a mid-week cup game for our kids and an opportunity to put things right, which they did in grand style beating a league 2 outfit Luton 5-1, then at home again for the weekend and flipped the Charlton score to win 4-2 against Warnock’s previously fancied Crystal Palace.

So all-in-all I feel alright about things, we’ve kept the squad we need and have a couple of results. We’re gonna find a lot of teams this season having a real go at us, I guess we're like the Man Utd of the Championship this time around. It's our turn to come into most matches as hot favorites, it's a tough position to be in, and makes it all the more important to get off to a solid start. If we show a chink in our armor from the outset clubs will be fancying it against us all season, and make things very difficult. But, if we can get off to a good start, pick up some solid results in those first ten games and maintain it for a bit, it could work in our favor, and teams will come to us fearing defeat, and that's half the story.

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