This week's Shit Shot Mungo sees the financial crisis at Heart of Clackmannanshire deepen still further, as the £30 fine imposed by the authorities for playing a match when their entire squad knowingly had swine flu proves to be the final nail in their coffin. The club is forced to put all of its players on part-time wages, but one man (who has been earning £190,000 per week for as long as anyone can remember) may be able to save the day.

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It's time for those Gooners to give again Arsenal's highly commendable 'Be a Gooner. Be a Giver' campaign is about to kick-in. Just like last season, Arsenal's squad will donate a day's wages to their charity, which is the Great Ormond Street Hospital this year. But to drum up extra support the club sent Cesc Fabregas, Bacary [. Click to continue reading...

Raddy Majewski will hopefully become a permanent fixture at Forest, although there are implications that he could be holding out for a bit more money (who said that Polish workers are content with low wages?) In the meantime, Craig Broon has suggested that Wee Billy Davies could be the next manager of the Scotchland national team; [. Click to continue reading...

Okay, I know, 3 posts in one day is a bit excessive. But one was part of a planned thing, the other was new injury news, and there are several things here that I thought you find interesting.

First, and most importantly, Kieran Gibbs did not break his foot, only suffered brusing, and is expected to be back and ready for action against Chelsea on the 29th.

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There are some interesting comments from Garry Cook that have been picked up in or two areas of the press the past day concerning the future transfer strategy:

"That is absolutely (a model to aspire to) because, financially, it's a better model than one where you get into negotiating a market price that has no pre-determining factors other than supply and demand.

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This is what an allergy to water would look like, I presume. This is how years of therapy start. (Water Cooler Offside) The mathematics of a statistic. (Uli Hesse) The truthiness behind Lampard's plane injury. (Studs Up) Samuel Eto'o dishes out some expensive watches for his Cameroonian teammates. (The Spoiler) FIFA wages war against Iraq. Click to continue reading...

A nice piece from Whittall today on the digital media transition, with an intelligent critique of the Clay Shirky article I linked to a while ago:

And this where Shirkly's article bugs me: while he's right in seeing present circumstances for what they are, he ends the article the way many of these articles tend to, with the realization that the medium for journalists has to be replaced and "who knows what will replace it, only time and innovation will tell!

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That's when Robin van Persie says he will be back, and just in case it's my chimney he selects then there will be a great big cushion in the grate to make sure he gets a soft landing!

I will miss our Robin, big time! For so many season's he has had a niggle here or there, but finally this year it seemed as if the boy wonder was going to send us all a bit crazy.

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According to Andy Walker at the Birmingham Mail, Birmingham boss Alex McLeish would like to hold onto goalie Colin Doyle, despite his interest to leave. McLeish said,

"He (Doyle) is our third-choice goalkeeper, he's cover ... We need to have three good goalkeepers, Doyley's had a fair bit of experience without being given the total amount of experience of the other two.

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Darius Vassell is considering a return to England after he was evicted from his Turkish hotel because his club Ankaragucu failed to pay the bill.

The 29-year-old has voiced concerns over the club's financial problems following a recent change in ownership. Players' wages have frequently been paid late, training has been cancelled and now he has been thrown out of his hotel.

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The members of Manchester City not busy with international duty finally met the man who pays their massive wages for the first time yesterday in Abu Dhabi, ahead of today's friendly against the United Arab Emirates (which City lost 1-0). The awkwardness of the occasion is evident especially the shot at 10 second into the video where it appears they just finished talking about the weather and now have absolutely nothing left to say to each other.

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Andrea Dossena appears to be edging closer to a move to Napoli after his agent suggested that Liverpool should sell in January.
The Italy defender was close to a switch to Stadio San Paolo in the summer, but the deal broke down amidst suggestions that personal terms could not be agreed. Click to continue reading...

I really feel for the 'supporters' who are in the Anti-Rafa Brigade. Yeah, really, if you believe cows can fly. The go on and on about wanting Rafa to be sacked while ignoring glaring FACTS. And what happens to them after each game?

When we lose, these supporters will be happy because they feel that their argument is justified, BUT they will be unhappy because we have lost.

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UPDATE: According to the Birmingham Mail, Birmingham boss Alex McLeish has ruled out the possibility of going after Dynamo Kiev striker Andriy Shevchenko. McLeish said,

"Shevchenko is not on my radar. Sammy has not told me he has made inquiries.

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strong>In the latest salvo of the Ashley counter offensive, Newcastle United's managing Director, Derek Llambias, has been revealing the depth of Mike Ashley's financial black hole in an interview for Radio Newcastle. He moaned about the financial meltdown involved when a monster £70 million wages club that is supposed to be geared up for European [. Click to continue reading...

Liverpool flop Andrea Dossena is set to end his Liverpool nightmare by securing a January loan switch to Napoli.
Dossena, 28, is one of under-fire Reds boss Rafa Benitez's worst signings and has failed to convince the Spaniard he deserves a first-team berth.
The Italian cost £7 million when he joined from Udinese in the summer of 2008. Click to continue reading...

"We lived the dream"

Is what former Leeds United chairman Peter Ridsdale now rather infamously stated as his Elland Road empire crumbled around him. We've all heard the stories of the expensive pet fish in the office and Seth Johnson's ridiculous wages but the long and short of it was that Leeds borrowed too much money and built up too high a wage bill, with no guarantee of funds to service the debt let alone pay it off.

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According to Andy Walker at the Birmingham Mail, Birmingham are thought to be interested in Dynamo Kiev striker Andriy Shevchenko, but he is not a top priority. One of the biggest reasons is because of his large wages.

Other targets mentioned are West Bromwich midfielder Graham Dorrans and QPR's Wayne Routledge.

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According to James Riach at Sky Sports News, Hull City chairman Adam Pearson is looking to lower the wages of the club. Currently the club's highest paid players are Jimmy Bullard, Geovanni, Daniel Cousin, and George Boateng.

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The rise of La Liga and its increasing appeal to foreign players can be attributed to more than just Real Madrid spending money like a teenage girl with a trust fund. Everyone agrees that the "Beckham Law", which allows footballers to pay almost half the taxes that normal people do, has been a big draw, especially as the tax rate has risen in the UK.

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We reported last night how Sol Campbell seemed to making overtures to Newcastle United. Sol Campbell wants to join Newcastle hard lines We had mentioned that it all depended on whether Sol would accept £750K/year as his wages, because it would be daft of Newcastle to pay big wages we have a big enough [. Click to continue reading...

It's all gone pear shaped north of the border. And I mean, totally. Toronto FC is melting down. Montreal and Vancouver have been kicked out of USL. Bloggers are furiously trying to find the USL teams a home and curb stomp TFC management.
Richard Whittall has coped with the crisis by succumbing to complete, barking madness:

This might put me on the business end of a very detailed flaming post, but why doesn't MLS consider a radical move: a wholesale ideological change in direction away from purchasing "ready-made" talent, either overseas or within the league, and toward investment in superb managerial and coaching staff?

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Liverpool have been linked with a £16.5 million move for Valencia winger Juan Mata in January, as ongoing concerns over the finances of the Spanish club may result in them being forced to sell the player.
Although the club's two main stars – the two Davids, Silva and Villa – have remained at Valencia, despite serious interest from many of Europe's biggest clubs, their sporting director Fernando Gomez hinted that lesser players may be sold to ease the financial burden. Click to continue reading...

Spanish football club Valencia have recently admitted that they still have some serious financial problems. Valencia's star player David Villa has sacked his agent Luis Tamargo, after he failed to secure him a move away from the club.
Man United, Chelsea, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Liverpool have all been linked with a move for the player. Click to continue reading...

Russian star highlights a potentially big problem.

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Arsenal midfielder Andriy Arshavin says he expects a large number of Premier League stars to abandon England in the near future, as the tax band is almost twice as big as in Spain.

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The Guardian has an interesting piece on a forgotten tale involving United players, 100 years ago. Here's an extract:

The first meeting of the Association Football Players Union in 1907 was chaired by United player Billy Meredith – the "Welsh Wizard", who was one of the first footballing superstars.

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Ever heard the one about the club who loaned their best defender, who also happened to be their ex-Chairman's son-in-law, to their ex-manager's club only to see him score against the employers who were still paying 90% of his wages? No? Well it happened this weekend as Marcel Seip edged a Charlie Adam free kick past Romain Larrieu, his Plymouth Argyle teammate of over three seasons. Click to continue reading...

I can see us beating them 0-2 tomorrow, plain and simple.
Let's face it, with the mess that they were (still are) in, Paul Hart had no choice but to bring in Championship players. Championship players normally end up in the Championship.
O'Hara, who's been solid for them this season, won't be in the side, whilst King (who Patrick Barclay of the Times called the best centre-half in Britain) should be back. Click to continue reading...

Gary Neville and Ryan Giggs have both surprisingly spoken out about the controversial issue of football players earning every penny of their astronomically large salaries.

When the starting salary for a nurse is £20k a year, a teacher is £21k a year and a police officer is £22k a year, it's hard to argue that John Terry deserves £160k a week!

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There will be no money for Chris Hughton in the January transfer window, if Mike Ashley is still the owner. Andy O'Brien - loan signing fell through we couldn't afford his wages That's the news this morning and it's looking like Newcastle United this season will need to continue to us t he loan market as [. Click to continue reading...

It looks like Inter Milan's Brazilian defender Maicon is a wanted man. Barcelona were linked with a move for the player and it looked like in the summer that the player was close to a move to the Nou Camp.
Today both Man United and Man City have been linked with a move for the 28-year-old. Click to continue reading...

Borussia Moenchengladbach are lining up a cheeky bid to take Liverpool defender Daniel Agger on loan.
The Bundesliga side's sporting director Max Eberl confirmed he had sent scouts to watch Denmark beat Sweden 1-0 on Saturday, but refused to confirm they were looking at the centre half. Click to continue reading...

Harry Redknapp instils his values even in players he loans out Enterprising Portsmouth midfielder Jamie O'Hara has had fewer worries than most of his team-mates in recent days. The loanee's pay packet is still the responsibility of Tottenham, so O'Hara was unaffected by the delay in Pompey's wages being paid. Click to continue reading...

There are lots of funny aspects to being a Premier League footballer. Like how teammates play practical jokes in the dressing room, or how topless models throw themselves at you, or, I don't know, how your club sometimes can't pay your wages because they're on the brink of a financial meltdown.

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Liverpool co-owner George Gillett recently told fan group Spirit of Shankly that Rafa Benitez is the man to blame for the club's underwhelming start to the season. While throwing his manager under the bus may not sound like the classiest thing for an owner to do, it really does make a lot more sense in the context of the full discussion.

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