Castiel

It'd be typical of us to go from Torres to Balotelli. I'll be convinced we have a striker curse.

Oh god no...

f**king internationals. Every single time.

And those God damn Mongolians!

It's heavily implied. Unless one of them offered him an absurd amount of money which we'd be unwilling to match, I don't think he'd pick them over us considering he's consistently been flirting with us for years. The fact that his family lives in Cobham adds to that as well.

Prem clubs would if there was a glut of talented English players to choose from. Look at Shaw, he's going to fetch a sum pretty soon and every top club will be in for him. We're extremely fortunate that he wants to come here. It isn't the fault of the clubs that English players are sh*t, that is a much deeper issue with this country and how the system is set up.

Yep if Barca want him we have all the leverage. They needed defenders before Puyol called it a day.

Torres doesn't have a long enough name to lead the line for Dortmund anyway.

City is one of the clubs UEFA is investigating further. The numbers may add up, but they presumably want to take a look at some of their dodgy sponsorship deals. Nobody is really sure about how they stand until the investigation is over.

True, but he was quite adamant about it. "Bayern will never have me, money isn't everything" or something along those lines. If the rest of Dortmund is pillaged he might go abroad.

If we do sell him we can squeeze Barca for more than that. I'd be sorry to see him go but I don't think he's going to work under Mourinho, Barca would be better suited to his style in all honesty.

Reus already rejected their advances.

We already know who has passed and who is under further investigation. Chelsea has passed, but PSG were one of the clubs under investigation which is why that might be relevant.

It'll be kinda hard to respect their league domination at this rate. Hopefully it's to replace Kroos though!

And this is true of every single civilization on earth, it's just a matter of degree. Show me a civilization from any period in any part of the world and I'll show you some examples of prejudice, ranging from job discrimination to genocide. Those Indians the British oppressed, go and read what they did to thousands of Sikhs in the Hindu kush before the British ever arrived. So enough with the moral pontificating. Enough with the sly insinuation that we should be feeling some sort of collective guilt for what people were doing hundreds of years ago. It's incredibly tiresome, in fact it's prejudicial. Maybe we should get in on this party and start a guilt trip on the Italians for the Roman conquest of Britain. I want reparations. Those f**king Norwegians and their Viking raids in all.

Marx would have been so proud.

We also have Wallace on loan to Inter who was very impressive in preseason. No idea how he's been getting on in Italy though.

Yeah you're right they have no choice but to try. Either UEFA pussies out on the sanctions or it goes to court. Who blinks first?

Then again the mancs don't make it difficult to f**king despise them... A Premier League season where Manchester United aren't a part of the title race or in fact any race is always going to lessen how interesting and exciting the season has been (for any fan). It'd be like having a World Cup without Brazil or a Champions League campaign without Madrid.

As a private organisation they can be that draconian about it and no court will care, they'd simply say you're free to start your own club. I'm not an expert on how this would play out by any means, but I think it'd take some creative arguments to challenge it. They weren't quite that draconian in reality, the member clubs agreed to this (including us) and most of the old G14 before City and PSG became as powerful as they have. As Gunnor said, it was an attempt to slam the door shut and prevent anyone else from rising to the top in the manner we did, of course all those already at the top wanted the rules in place.

Urgh if it helped us get Cavani we'd be silly to refuse, especially since we have Dave...

Hopefully United gets something but I can't see it. Much more important to have another of the chasing pack knocked back a bit, and I hate Liverpool more anyway! Imagine having to go to Anfield if they're within 3 points of us, not to mention that game is right in the middle of the CL semi-final if we get that far.

It's a private company, they reserve the right to do so. They can do whatever they want provided it doesn't conflict with standing legislation, like refusing membership on the basis of race. UEFA doesn't seem to be breaking any laws, the only possibility is anti-trust (competition) law but I think that'd be an extremely difficult argument to make.

The issue with that argument is that nobody is forced to be a member of UEFA. It's sort of like joining a country club and suing them because you don't like the dress code. Nothing is stopping clubs from forming a different organisation to compete with UEFA, which they've threatened before.

These are the possible sanctions outlined in the rules: Reprimand/Warning, fines, points deduction, withholding of revenue from UEFA competition, prohibition to register new players for UEFA competitions, restrictions on how many players a club can register, disqualification and exclusion from future competitions. It all depends on how big UEFA's balls are.