There's strong rumours linking Titus Bramble to Sunderland, which is really worrying. Lots of people see Bramble as a buffoon and a walking mistake, but for us he's been outstanding over the last few years. If he went I'd be absolutely gutted and it would leave Wigan in big trouble despite having the likes of Gohouri, Caldwell and Alcaraz who can cover the centre back position. Also Wigan are closing in on the signing of Hamilton midfielder James McArthur in a £750,000 deal.

Liverpool have signed Danny Wilson from Rangers and Sold Albert Riera to Olympiakos.

Benayoun is absolutely awfull. He was worse than Luis Garcia for us. A good goal every 10 games but on the whole his overall play was truely awfull. Really surprised Chelsea took him off our hands.

Liverpools outs

Benayoun - 5m
Insua - 5m
Riera - 5m

Liverpool ins

Danny Wilson - 2m
Jonjo Shelvey - 1.7m
Milan Jovanovic - Free
Joe Cole - Free

Bramble is a confidence player. When he's on his game he's fantastic. Easily one of the best central defenders we've had at Ipswich. On the other hand, if he makes a mistake his head sometimes drops and he struggles.

£5m for Riera??!! That's daylight robbery! £5m for Insua is a pretty damn good bit of business too!

Agreed. Purslow is doing a great jon getting rid of the dead wood.

I actually rate Insua and expect him to go onto become a top player.

The rumours are that Figueroa will fill the left-back slot at Liverpool, leaving Wigan up sh*t creek.

If that's true it could leave the scousers up there with them.

Moving to Liverpool would ruin him. He's a good player for Wigan but isn't the kind of player that a team challenging for the champions needs. Liverpool would have been off keeping Insua.

He had some decent games, but I think lacks the pace to become a top class full back.

He won't be top class, obviously, but he'd have been a reliable squad player. He was much better than Warnock was at that age, and Warnock's gone on to be pretty good. Insua was one of the best full backs of his age class, he also counted as a homegrown player. Shame, he was a solid squad player, just needed somebody to play ahead of him as he was far too inexperienced to be playing as regularly as he did.

Rumours of David Ngog going too, but apparently we want £6m so I doubt it would happen...

He's crap. They can have him.

I see Hodgson has got the job of clearing out all king Rafa's woeful signings. Think Liverpool could go well next year with a more astute manager in the transfer market now in charge.

Joe Cole signing for Liverpool is similar to Owen signing for United last season. As there is no fee involved, it doesn't represent that big a risk for either club. If Cole can stay fit and get some games, he'll be a useful signing for Liverpool.

Finding a decent replacement would be the problem. Players don't seem to see Wigan as a desireable destination for some reason.

Hoffman, Lima and Finch would say otherwise

I got an old dustbin I ain't using. We could try that?

The World Cup is too big. www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 ... -world-cup

The World Cup is too big. www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/20 ... -world-cup

[i"I thought about the semi-final of the Champions League in 2005 when I ran onto the field and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.
I was thinking about playing in that atmosphere every week and that swung it for me."

"I could have stayed at Chelsea because the fans loved me and I won things, but I wanted to challenge myself and when I knew Liverpool were interested it was a no-brainer because they are the biggest club in the country."[/i
-Joe Cole

Don't think Wigan Athletic, West Brom, Birmingham or Bolton visiting Anfield are going to give you the same kind of atmosphere, but I could be wrong.

Did all the fans love him? LGJM and SS didn't seem to be too enamoured.

The biggest club in the country? Really Joe?

Obsessed

TBH even Joe's biggest supporters would admit that he's not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, but thinking that the normal match at Anfield compares with that semi final is stupidity in the extreme.



While me and SS are in the correct majority in assessing Joe Cole as being past his best, there is still a significant number of CFC fans who did love Cole and wanted him to stay.

IMO he was loved a great deal more by the supporters than he deserved to be.



As I said, he's a bit dim. LFC are the most successful club in the country, but they clearly aren't the biggest.

But most of what he said was, IMO, standard football interview where you ingratiate yourself to your new supporters by saying how great they are. I don't think there'll be any scousers who didn't like the things he said, and those supporters are the most important to him right now.

Only at Anfield. I'm sure the tie at DW will be electric



Latics not my brother's favourite team at the moment as they let him down in an 8 game accumulator against Oldham t'other neet.

He's Hodgson's "big signing". Its unlikely that he's going to start on the bench as Owen did. He'll be in the starting 11, the team will be re-shaped to accommodate him and his style of play, at least to some extent. How he performs will have quite a big impact on Liverpool's start to the season. Owen was a low risk signing, Cole isn't.

Fantastic start to Hodgson's reign. I'm liking the Wilson signing. Anybody who watches SPL will tell you he's a cracking signing. I'm excited about the new season, we realistically have five big clubs and a MASSIVE one challenging for the title and a top four finish. I like our signing of Hernandez as he looked pretty decent in the world cup.