The (fantasy) Premier League season is less than three weeks away, and with Peter Crouch officially sealing his move from Portsmouth to Tottenham, Pompey have a striker position up for grabs.
The primary contenders are Kanu (too old), John Utaka (too streaky and probably on his way out), and David Nugent - who scored a hat trick today in pre-season.

Actim Player Rankings 2008-2009 -

Of course, he probably won't win the Golden Boot this year - but here's an interesting analysis from betting site Chicken Dinner - that has Arsenal's Adebayor the "last man standing" for the 2009-2010 Premier League scoring title.
My money is on one of Torres or Anelka - with Rooney as a dark horse, but at 28 to 1, Adebayor does offer tons of upside for desperate gamblers.

1: IBRACADABRA


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5: IBRACADABRA

6: BENAYOUN(C)

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15: IBRACADABRA
I'm too excited not to post this just one more time.

Chelsea and Inter Milan kick-off in just six hours as Mourinho faces his old club for the first time.
I'll be at the Rose Bowl in Los Angeles scouting out Chelsea's new formation and tactics under Carlo Ancelotti for fantasy footie purposes and hoping to take in the world class Zlatan Ibrahimovic before his transfer to Barcelona.

What, me Worry?
The best team in England is just getting weaker by the day this summer. Surely, every football fan expects title holders Manchester United to remain as firm favorites when the Premier League returns this month, but I'm a bit worried.
News today emerged that Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic will miss the start of the season with a calf injury.

Insert your own caption here
Let's get right to our favorite column of the week - the Premier League preview.
I. Manchester United @ Chelsea: The biggest match of the Premier League thus far this season sees Didier Drogba and Wayne Rooney go head-to-head in Sunday's meeting at the top of the table.

From our buddies at In the Stands, this one is for all you lip readers out there. If this reaction by SAF is any indication, it looks like Nani probably won't be in the running to fill C-Ron's departed scoring boots this season.
[ via In the Stands ]

Sir Alex Ferguson insists Antonio Valencia can be as good as Cristiano Ronaldo. Lofty expectations, perhaps. But Valencia did score on his debut today in a 2-1 friendly win for United.
Anderson also scored his first goal for the club - it only took him 42 more games than Valencia - with a beautiful left footed curling free kick, embedded above.

Mars Attacks Alien
Vincent Kompany
Manchester City defensive midfielder Vincent Kompany is set to miss the start of the upcoming Premier League season due to foot surgery.
Despite losing the 6 foot 5 in Kompany - who made 34 appearances for City last season, scoring one goal - The Citizens' management and ownership team is not too fazed - as they are sticking to their well-publicized plans of pursuing a non-traditional 1-1-8 formation this season.

6 foot 6 inch EPL legend Nwanko Kanu is celebrating his 33rd birthday today by signing a new one year deal to stay at Portsmouth.
Pompey, clearly a club in transition - have lost both strikers Jermain Defoe and Peter Crouch to Tottenham in the past year.
Will Kanu (5.5M in the Fantasy Premier League game) step up and fill the void?

Handsy's brain on a Friday night
International breaks and Friday nights, there is nothing that will make a fantasy Premier League manager twitch faster...
Idle hands are the devil's playground, if I am anywhere near my computer after having an adult beverage or two there is nothing more tempting than adjusting my fantasy roster.

Get on that Kevin Doyle train
This week's Funny Feeling Friday selection is Wolves' Kevin Doyle (5.4M) who has scored 3 goals in his last 4 games, but is only 3% owned in the Fantasy Premier League. He is - what we may call - an "against the grain" selection...
Doyle comes cheap, but will continue to go ignored by thousands of fantasy managers as Wolves take on Aston Villa at home this weekend.

He looked terrible against Wigan but brilliant against Liverpool.
Go figure.
Is he back to his best?
In a World Cup year you could do much worse than taking a punt on Aston Villa's Ashley Young.
With a price of just 8.3M (down from 8.5M at the start of the season) and favorable fixtures coming up over the next month, this surely would not be a case of "chasing last week's points.

I named my fish Frank, but he has performed like a piece of sushi
About a week before the start of the Premier League season I purchased a betta fish. It was blue. I named it Frank. It will surely die within a year, but for now it lives in a bowl and is enjoying its first Los Angeles summer.
The fish's namesake, Frank Lampard, on the other hand, is not enjoying his London summer so much thus far - from a fantasy football perspective.

What language is this? The language of beautiful football
Despite his groin problem, Fernando Torres may feel a bit snubbed after Chelsea manager Carlo Ancelotti and midfielder Frank Lampard both claimed yesterday that Didier Drogba is the best striker in the world.

"He picked me again." "Should have picked me though." "Idiot."
So here it is, I'm putting myself out on the line. More vulnerable than ever. Almost 12 weeks down, 26 to go. While we still have 70% of the Premier League season remaining, I'm in the midst of my worst "Captaining" stretch in 5 years, and I'm wondering if anyone else is experiencing a similar misfortune or has in the past?

Liam Lawrence is our first Funny Feeling Friday for the 2009-2010 Premier League season: basically an underrated, out of form, or unpopular (in fantasy terms) player who I have a feeling may produce on the weekend or in the short term.
Lawrence (5.5M) fits the bill for Stoke's week 1 match against Burnley.

Midget Maestro, What a Player
The holiday season is upon us. Walking up and down Abbot Kinney two nights ago in Venice Beach, the Christmas Carolers were already out - entertaining locals and tourists alike with their festive renditions.
And you know what that means - the busy Christmas fixture list is around the corner, and then - a bunch of injuries due to exhaustion, overuse of muscles, and cold weather.

Israelis advance in Europe, Scots do not...
A bit of what's bouncing around Butt's Brain in the past few days:

• How a soccer game survived a hijacking attempt. Big respect to most Celtic supporters for their actions during last week's Europa League match with (John Pantsil's former club) Hapoel Tel Aviv [Jerusalem Post]

• Avram Grant plans to raid Chelsea's bench for two players in January.

"Thank you NCNB for picking me twice!" - M. Petrov
Our Funny Feeling Friday selection this week is Manchester City's winger Martin Petrov. Petrov (I think) is our first ever repeat Funny Feeling Friday recipient.
Petrov is fit and Robinho is not. The Brazilian is still out for 3 more weeks with a right ankle problem.

Some thoughts on today's action on a lazy Saturday morning. It's half time across the country...

• In the early game, Portsmouth won 2-0 at home to Burnley. Avram Grant got his first win and it came courtesy of a game-changing substitution in the 60th minute. Pompey looked 2nd best throughout the first half, but Grant introduced the classy and composed Kanu in the second half - and that made the difference.

Neither Chelsea nor Manchester United nor Liverpool won this weekend. The three giants from the 2008-2009 season managed just one point, though all three had home matches. Just one point from nine at home. Last weekend, we saw a ton of penalty misses. This past weekend, we saw the vulnerability of the Top 4 (and contenders).