Pay the Price

Today I am mainly imagining what the headlines would have been had a Manchester United player got a 4 game ban (or 6 if we must include the 2 suspended games) for acting like Drogba did. Think they'd be along the lines of this, "Man United player escapes with 4 game ban." With Chelsea though we get this, from The BBC as well: "Drogba given lengthy European ban."According to The Guardian "Chelsea reel from toughness of bans..." And comes up with this paragraph:

The bans effectively rule Drogba out of two-thirds of next season's group stage in the Champions League and Bosingwa – who had attracted the interest of Bayern Munich – out of three of the six games. The Ivorian had anticipated a three-game ban, with a further two matches deferred, after re-entering the playing surface at the end of the game to berate Ovrebo before screaming repeatedly "It's a fucking disgrace" at a television crew broadcasting live. His protests continued in the tunnel.

Putting as "two-thirds of the group stage", might make it sound long, but it's the group stage, the easy stage, the stage before everything hots up. And then, "he anticipated a 3 game ban," and he got an extra game. It's hardly that much longer than expected then is it? Jesus. And having a brief google, I came upon this (emphasis on brief, the link is to a mobile version of story, I'm already running late today, so can't find time to find proper links...):

Both Drogba and Chelsea are now expected to be charged by UEFA, with the Sunday People reporting that the striker may receive a hefty six-month ban.

The British tabloid claims that UEFA are treating the incident very seriously and have warned Drogba to expect a sizeable punishment.

So there you go, from the doomsday reports from when it happened, to shock at the punishment when they're handed down...
Transfer stories keep on coming, and keep getting sillier. Today Van Persie is linked with us...

Sir Alex Ferguson is aware the £20million-rated striker is yet to commit to a new contract at The Emirates.

And the United chief's interest has intensified after Van Persie admitted prizes mean more to him than money.

Whatever.
The Ribery reports come back based on this quote from Beckenbaur:

who indicated that the Bundesliga club will now listen to offers for the winger.

He said: “We discussed the issue at our last board meeting and we all agreed that, if he really wants to leave, then we will deal with the issue.”

On a day of mixed signals, Bayern later confused the situation further by stating that Beckenbauer was not speaking on behalf of the club’s board of directors.

The Telegraph say that we want a resolution over Tevez. I think we can all agree with that...
The Mail link us with Roma striker Mirko Vucinic:

Montenegro international Vucinic told Italian media last week that he had only heard rumours of United interest via the newspapers but he has since told team mates United are genuine and is hoping the Old Trafford club follow up with a firm offer.

And The Independent have us in for Victor Valdes:

United continued to be linked in Spain with the Barcelona goalkeeper Victor Valdes, whose contract talks have stalled over disagreement about his desire for wage parity with some of the European champions' highest-paid outfield players. Xavi earns £150,000 a week compared with Valdes's £100,000. There are persistent reports from Spain that United have made an offer for Valdes to join them the end of next season and may be willing to meet his demands because he would be available on a Bosman free transfer. His agent, Gines Carvajal, has rejected links between Valdes and other teams, though admitted that the contractual issues are proving complicated.

There are reports on Ronaldo's contract demands - he wants a lot apparently - everyone seems confident the deal will still happen (The Mirror reporting he's started selling his cars)so I won't quote from these reports. Read about them here.
Bobby Charlton has some words on the transfer:

Charlton insisted the transfer was "a good deal and a fair deal" for United. "It is an enormous amount of money and it sometimes [seems] a little vulgar," he said. "Nevertheless that is business, I am afraid. We have responsibilities as a company.
"It's a lot of money. It seems crazy really, but the more the money the players cost, the more the television companies appear to be able to contribute that little bit more, too. It is a little bit of soul searching. You wonder if you made the right decision. We shall never know until the season starts.

General consensus is that the fixture list has been kind to us. Ian Herbert in The Independent starts Liverpool's excuses early:

Liverpool are the ones who may feel conspiracies are at work, with their sixth successive away game on the opening day – this one at Tottenham Hotspur, against whom they concluded their last campaign. The Merseyside derby at Goodison Park follows the fifth Champions League group game on November 28, when Arsenal will also host Chelsea.

The rest of the paragraph really doesn't match the beginning does it? Liverpool have it tough - having to play Spurs on the opening day, and actually Chelsea and Arsenal have it tougher...