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Random rumour of the day goes to The Daily Mail for linking Obertan with a move to Newcastle - why not Sunderland we ask ourselves?  One of our players not linked to Sunderland?  Strange...

Staying with Newcastle it seems Alan Pardew has been discussing Twitter with Sir Alex; according to The Daily Mail:

'I spoke to Sir Alex Ferguson about this subject and (Manchester United’s) policy is that nobody at their club can comment about the football club. I think that’s probably where we should be because it is in breach of contract if you are criticising the owner, the player or anyone at the club.

'Sir Alex knows that in our world, this happens. There was no sympathy whatsoever. He laughed, actually. He’s quite enjoying it. But he shared with me quite ferociously, this Twitter issue for football clubs, particularly managers.'

Yes, apparently, Sir Alex even shares "ferociously," quite how one does that I really don't know.

The Daily Star hit the randomizer button and come up with a two week deadline for Sneijder sign, or else...

Good news on the home front as The Telegraph report that Darren Fletcher trained fully yesterday for the first time "since March."  Encouraging sign.

Some words from Rooney on the Community Shield and the new season do the rounds.  From The Daily Mail:

'You couldn't get better motivation to start the season with a bang,' the England striker told Four Four Two magazine.'I hadn't even thought about it until I turned on the TV and someone was talking about potentially the best Community Shield ever.

'Playing City is the best way to start.'

And from The Mirror, the ultimate in casual ambition:

“When you talk about goals for the season at Manchester United, it is pretty simple," said the England star.“We want to win the league. And the ­Champions League. And both the cups. When you’re at a club like Man United, you pretty much know what the goals are. Honestly, it’s pretty simple.

“Obviously, ­sometimes you fall short of that, but at Man United you’ve got to keep striving for it, and we all know that.”

Steven Howard in The Sun whines on about the good ol' days when men were men and the community shield/charity shield meant something:

it was a rare chance to have a day out at Wembley with your club.Now, of course, with the stadium staging semi-finals some sides visit Wembley three times in five months.On top of that, the Premier League and FA Cup have been diminished by the global might of the Champions League.

No one takes much notice of the Community Shield result, either. More often than not, it's the chance for a manager to have his first real look at his new signings.

Crammed full of idiocy.  First off, the FA Cup winners play in the game, they're bound to have played at wembley fairly recently - why whine about that?  Second, why the random moan about the Champions League overshadowing the domestic competitions?  Filling in a word count?  Thirdly, it's a friendly and always has been, who's ever that bothered about it?  It's a nice, easy way to get back into the new season, a sort of stretching of the limbs, for spectators as much as players.  And finally, first chance for manager to see his new signings?  No it isn't .  There's been friendlies.  Unless he means competitively, when he's just ruined the preceding paragraphs by claiming now that it does mean something.  Come back when you've found consistency.  We'll consider this a a warm-up, let's not have such awful writing when the season kicks off for real...

Finally, The Guardian has a quiz on our treble winning season of 98-99.  Try it.  I won't reveal my score - it was a long time ago and my memory is useless...