Another quiet weekend with plenty of friendlies but not much in the way of important news. Freddy Sheperd believes that Michael Owen owes Newcastle a great debt, which is a fair comment. The paid a lot of money for him, he's hardly played any games for the Magpies and they have looked after him during his injuries, so I think most people would believe that Owen owes them a fair bit.

Time for another Friday Night Review, if you're not sure what it is, then read last Friday's post! here we go,
1. Lucas Leiva [Gremio - Liverpool] Undisclosed
2. Luke Young [Charlton - Middlesbrough] £2.5m
3. Freddie Ljungberg [Arsenal - West Ham] £3m
Lucas may have signed for Liverpool a while ago but his transfer only came through this week, and what a signing he should prove to be.

Plenty of signings to take notice of today, starting with Martin Petrov's move to Manchester City. The Bulgarian winger moved from Atletico Madrid in a 4.7 million pound deal, and should prove to be an astute signing for Sven. City desperately need midfield strength and width, and he can provide both, as well as having enough experience to ensure a relatively smooth settlement into the Premier League.

Liverpool have released teir plans for a new stadium. It will be a 60,000 all seated stadium with the possibility of extending the capacity to 78,000, it will cost around 300 million pounds and it should be with us in 2010. It looks iffy, and I can't say I was hugely impressed by the design, to me it looks more like a sports complex or leisure centre then a stadium, but architecture is all down to personal taste.

Once again Carlos Tevez dominates the headlines with news that the dispute over his move to Man Utd will be settled in the High Court. This course of action comes after FIFA decided it couldn't make a judgement on the matter, and it seems to be what all the parties want. I'm not sure when a decision will be made on the matter, but let's hope it gets made relatively soon.

After a quiet weekend, things seem to have perked up with news that Freddie Ljungberg has completed a 3 million pound move to West Ham. A very good move for West Ham, he hasn't been the force that he used to be in the past couple of seasons but he has a lot of experience to offer and can still come up with the big goals in the big games. He's lost some pace but he's still got the footballing brain and knows how to time his runs to cause the maximum damage to opposotion defences.

A very quiet Sunday, it seems that everyone is still reading Harry Potter. There are plenty of conflicting reports about Arjen Robben coming out of Chelsea and Real Madrid. Real are pretty sure he's on his way to Spain, but Chelsea seem to know nothing about a potential move. I'm inclined to believe that Real are probably telling the truth, more because they have come out and already stated that Arjen has agreed terms with their club.

Tevez remains in the spotlight with news that FIFA and FA representatives will meet on monday to discuss the possible trasnfer to Man Utd. Good news for all the parties involved as it looks like FIFA are moving relatively swiftly to sort out the deal, so that the Clubs have time to make new plans before the transfer window closes. Sir Alex Ferguson admitted that he hasn't got a plan B at the moment if Tevez fails to come, but I'm sure that he will plan for the worst in the next coming weeks.

In case you don't know the drill, the 'Friday Night Review' is where I look at all the transfers into the Premiership during the past week, and then pick out the top 3 transfers.
Actually a suprisingly quiet week for transfers with Premiership Clubs only officially signing 5 players. Key word is "officially", there are plenty of negotiations going through, but I will stick to the actual transfers made this week.

More bad news for West Ham fans today, as their new signing Julien Faubert is ruled out for 6 months after rupturing his achilles tendon in a friendly on the 17 July. Bloody painful injury, and no-one likes to see this kind of news, but he's a young player and will come back for the second half of the season. It does leave the Hammers looking pretty weak in midfield after losing Reo-Coker and Benayoun, but I hope that Noble plays a bigger role this season, and this injury could be his chance to step up.

And so the inevitable has happened, West Ham, Man Utd, the Premier League and Kia Joorabchian have failed to reach an agreement over the transfer of Carlos Tevez and so FIFA have been called in to settle the dispute. All the parties decided this was the best way to go and so FIFA have set up a 'Dispute Resolution Chamber', which will deal with the issue in the next few weeks.

Yet another twist in the Tevez transfer as West Ham refuse to allow him to have a medical at Man Utd. They, and the Premier League, still state that West Ham hold the registration of the player, and so any deal has to go through them. SInce no deal has been agreed, no medical can take place. What a mess, there's nothing I can say that hasn't been said before, so I just hope that all the parties sit down together and come to some sort of deal, because the person losing the most out of this is Tevez himself, and he deserves better.

Today's news has been led by the Police raids on 3 different football clubs as part of an investigation into corruption. The raids were carried out at Newcastle, Portsmouth and Glasgow Rangers this morning and were not related to the Lord Stevens enquiry. There's not much more that I can say about this, corruption in Football is something that is seen around the world but it should be stamped out wherever possible.

So Brazil are the Champions of the Copa America. They beat Argentina 3-0 in a final that did not quite turn out to be the cracker that I certainly thought it would be. In fairness that was down to Brazil getting their tactics spot on.
The strikers hassled the Argentine defenders, forcing them to pass the ball early to Riquelme, Veron, Mascherano and Cambiasson, these players were then closed quickly and either forced to make a mistake or were fouled just outside shooting range.

So Brazil are the Champions of the Copa America. They beat Argentina 3-0 in a final that did not quite turn out to be the cracker that I certainly thought it would be. In fairness that was down to Brazil getting their tactics spot on.
The strikers hassled the Argentine defenders, forcing them to pass the ball early to Riquelme, Veron, Mascherano and Cambiasson, these players were then closed quickly and either forced to make a mistake or were fouled just outside shooting range.

It's all gone very quiet this weekend with more friendlies today, and the news that Jose and Roman have healed their rift. In case you're wondering, that would be Jose Mourinho and Roman Abramovich of Chelsea. Last season, there was a bust-up between Chairman Roman and Manager Jose over transfer funds, players and formations, which ended up overshadowing their season and having an effect on their Premiership form.

Plenty of friendly games today as the English clubs started off their pre-season schedule with Man City, Arsenal and Liverpool all in action. These games meant that the press could have a word with all 3 managers and some interesting comments were made.
City used the occasion to announce the signing of Switzerland Under-21 captain Gelson Fernandes from FC Sion for an undisclosed fee, thought to be around 3.

Tonight sees the return of the 'Friday Night Review' where I take a look at the past week in the Premiership, and decide the best 3 transfers of the week, and explain why I believe these guys wil have the most impact in the coming season.
Very busy week of transfers with plenty of big name signings, but my top 3 signings this week come from outside the big 4.

What a week so far! Transfers galore, and it shows no sign of slowing up with news that Tevez will be taking a medical on Tuesday in the hope that his transfer to Man Utd will finally go through. I still can't see it happening by tuesday since it seems likely that FIFA are about to get involved.
The Premier League must be kicking themselves, pretty much every football fan knew that the original transfer of Tevez and Mascherano to West Ham was a wee bit dodgy and yet they chose not to examine the transfer too closely.

Plenty of transfer news today starting with the players who have officially moved clubs. Malouda has signed for Chelseas for about 13 million, Bellamy has signed for West Ham in a club record 7.5 million transfer, and Wigan have signed Jason Koumas for 5.3 million. I've talked about each player before but out of the 3, I would have taken Koumas.
Controversial decision some would say, but Koumas is someone I rate very highly, he has the potential to be an attacking midfielder in the same mould as Riquelme or Totti, though maybe not quite as naturally gifted as those two.