Six days til proper football is back

As you might have guessed from the title of today's post, I can't wait for the Premiership to restart and all of this international friendlies/qualifiers against gash teams business to be over. I watched England on Saturday and we were convincing, but certainly not spectacular against one of the worst sides I've ever seen in world football. To be fair you can only beat what's put in front of you, but a 5-0 win was the least we should have expected. It was yet another game where you could have been forgiven for thinking Fat Frank wasn't playing.

I also watched the Brazil v Argentina unfriendly at the Grove on Sunday, and boy was I impressed with the Brazilian lads. They were without Ronaldinho, Adriano, Chubby, Emerson and the newly retired Cafu and Bobby Carlos and looked much better for it. When I saw the two lineups I thought that Argentina's looked the stronger, but for all their posession they never looked threatening and Brazil fully deserved their 3-0 victory, which was capped off with a splendid solo effort from Kaka when he nicked the ball of Messi's toe and then ran the length of the field before calmly slotting the ball past Abbondanzieri.

In proper football news, more has come out about the decidedly dodgy dealings down at Upton Park. Apparently Tevez and Mascherano were pimped around the big clubs, with no one prepared to pay the asking price, before Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and even Portsmouth turned down the same loan deal that West Ham accepted.

The details of this loan deal include no money changing hands, MSI retaining the rights to decide when and where both players will move next summer, West Ham receiving no money at all when they do move on, West Ham only paying half their wages, and contractual agreements stating that both Tevez and Mascherano must play every Premiership game that they are declared fit for. No wonder everyone else told MSI to shove it up their arse.

Arsene has been speaking out about the vast majority of international football being shite. He's spot on.

The Beast played a small role in yesterday's friendly, and speaking afterwards said he's looking forward to playing for Arsenal and working with Wenger, and would like to sign a four year deal at the end of his loan deal. What a top chap. I'm still intrigued as to what type of role Wenger has in mind for Baptista and wonder if he'll be rotated with Cesc, Gilberto or both. I still don't seem him playing up front. I do like him in the Arsenel jersey though. It just looks right some how, like he was always meant to wear it.

Thierry has gone ahead and made me look like a proper chump following my worries that he would feel a bit miffed about our summer transfer activity by saying that he's pretty chuffed with the players that we've brought in. In the piece he calls Gallas the best centre half in the world (a little over the top but he's up there, and there's certainly no better in the Premiership) and thinks that the Beast can have a big impact on our season. So that's nice. Wonder how long it'll be before Baptista misplaces a pass and Thierry refuses to speak to him for the rest of the game.

Roll on Saturday.