Genoa have signed Rafinha from Schalke 04. Another good signing for them.

At least we got one sorted.

And this weeks Champions League

FC Red Bull Salzburg 3-0 AC Omonia Nicosia
FC Red Bull Salzburg advances 4-1 on aggregate

MK Žilina 3-1 PFK Litex Lovech
MK Žilina advances 4-2 on aggregate

KAA Gent 1-3 FC Dynamo Kyiv
FC Dynamo Kyiv advances 6-1 on aggregate

FK Zenit St Petersburg 1-0 FC Unirea Urziceni
FK Zenit St Petersburg advances 1-0 on aggregate

KKS Lech Poznan 0-1 AC Sparta Praha
AC Sparta Praha advances 2-0 on aggregate

RSC Anderlecht 3-0 The New Saints FC
RSC Anderlecht advances 6-1 on aggregate

Hapoel Tel Aviv FC 3-1 FK Aktobe Lento
Hapoel Tel Aviv FC advances 3-2 on aggregate

FC København 3-2 BATE Borisov
FC København advances 3-2 on aggregate

FC Sheriff Tiraspol 1-1 NK Dinamo Zagreb (After Extra Time)
Aggregate 2-2. FC Sheriff Tiraspol advances 6-5 after penalty competition

FC Basel 3-1 Debreceni VSC
FC Basel advances 5-1 on aggregate

Fenerbahce SK 0-1 BSC Young Boys Bern
BSC Young Boys Bern advances 3-2 on aggregate

Rosenborg 3-0 AIK
Rosenborg advances 4-0 on aggregate

HJK 1-2 FK Partizan Beograd
FK Partizan Beograd advances 5-1 on aggregate

PAOK FC 3-3 AFC Ajax
4-4 on aggregate, AFC Ajax advances on away goals

Celtic FC 2-1 Sporting Braga
Sporting Braga advances 4-2 on aggregate

Draw for next stage is on Friday

T'is all a bit mad at the moment. Rumours saying CIC are backing the Huang bid/proposal, with some saying they have £300bn to spend overseas.

I dunno what to make of it all, really, but the pieces on CIC seem 'encouraging'.

Fingers crossed we're not another Citeh.

They wern't though. Well non that I heard anyway, all of the ones I know where buzzing and going a little OTT when Cole signed. Not really mentioned Aurelio.

So this Portsmouth thing then? How does that happen?

I'm all for sport but HMRC are right, footballing debt should be no different to other industries. In essence the ruling today means that football clubs do not have to pay any more than 20% of their debts, which must be interesting news for the owners of clubs like Manchester United.

It's supporting the gravy train that English football has become. Everyone is on the make, directors, staff, players and no one is paying for it. The clubs make enormous losses and the courts just roll over when they go belly up, freeing them to carry on spending.

Portsmouth should be made to pay every penny back before they are allowed to kick another football. They should have to sell their ground and all their players if necessary as well. Hearing their representatives on the radio just saying it's 'great news' that will enable them to look to build a squad to get back into the Premier League just grated on me.

The worst thing though, football debts (Players and other clubs) are paid before HMRC. How the fecking hell is that allowed to continue?

The Liverpool fans I know were skeptical about Cole, being mixed on his injury record and high wages.

If you look around the forums, when we signed Cole, many were happy as well as skeptical, but I never really seen too much OTT stuff, whilst the forums seem to be delighted that Aurelio is back over the likes of Young and Konchesky.

I would say the reaction Cole got is a little similar to the one Fellaini got at Everton, some were delighted, others were unsure, especially with regards to the amount of money invested into him.

See the silly season is in true swing.

Rumour has it once-touted-next-big-thing Hatem Ben Arfa wants Mille to let him join Newcastle over AC Milan, Hoffenheim etc, and also Yannick Djalo is on his way from Sporting!

Neither of them are available on free transfers, or a bid consisting of SportsDirect's unsold Newcastle merchandise from last season, so can't see either of them happening at all!

I can see good things happening between Gerrard and Cole.

Other than that, this match is garbage. Why didn't Rabies or what ever their name is just give up. Have they had a shot on goal yet?

Why are liverpool entering this tournament so early anyway? dont they have a good UEFA coefficient anymore?

I don't know why you think the Ben Arfa rumour is so silly. I've been following the story closely and from what I can gather, he does prefer to come to us. We've definitely made at least one bid for him so it's not out of the question for us to sign him.

There was some, like yourself I think, that where a bit dubious. Then again, after the way things had been going over the summer it was easy to see why a lot of people got caught up in the hype of Cole.



I haven't seen your opinion on the Young/Konchesky rumours but surely you couldn't have been happy with them, I notice a big divided reaction to the likes of the being mentioned. Insua looks like he'll be staying now too? There was a lot of emails to SSN as the news broke going quite OTT on Cole though, although most of them where from the footballing unknown.



Good comparison, although Fellaini's reaction was mainly 'cos no one had a clue who he was, really unoticed in the games he played over here in the European qualifiers and he took a while to settle. The reaction he got on his return from injury last night however was a huge. Great to have him back and fit for the start of the season.

The co-efficient only comes into play when a draw for a certain round is being seeded, they only got into the comp from a 7th place league finish so have to start in the round that equates to.

Young and Konchesky are poor players IMO, wouldn't want them near the club.

Insua's decent, potentially a solid player once he gains experience and uses it well, he has ability, but lacks real speed, which allows his inexperience to be easily exposed. I want him to stay, as I feel he's solid, but, with Aurelio coming back, I'm unsure if we'll go for another left back, I think we need one due to Fabio's erratic fitness, but funds should determine that. If we do go for a full back, I'd rather we went for somebody with something going for them, Young and Konchesky have little going for them.


Cole had a good game tonight, the team were nobodies and played like nobodies, but it was a decent performance, but still short of fitness IMO.

How many where on at Anfield tonight? Turned over after the rugby and thought I'd caught the mute button.

Dunno, not many, to be expected, really. Nothing match against a nothing team, with probable high ticket prices for what it was.

356 ?

That's what I expected. Speaking to a mate of mine last week, season ticket holder too who was trying to say he would be happy with signing Young. I wasn't buying and I know if I would have asked him at the end of last season would he have wanted him he would have told me where to go. Interesting how opinions change when you're club is linked to players.



I don't really see why you would want either player, neither one are of a good standard. Young gets nowhere near the Villa side and Konchesky is an average player playing in an average team. I can't say I've seen a lot of Insua to pass opinion but there is potential for improvement, Konchesky/Young will not improve.



Only caught last twenty mins after I played 5-a-side but Matt Smith an co certainly pushed his case. A quality player imo, despite what the sceptics say I think, or fear

, he will offer a lot this season.

F*ck off Sam Allardyce, you cheeky c*nt. The country's up the spout and you want tax breaks for the rich.

My heart bleeds for people who earn more in a week than most people earn in 2-3 years having to pay tax

31202 at Liverpool last night. Tickets were £20-22 I think.

Because it makes huge sense.

1, HMRC will eventually get their money, they nearly always do.
2, The clubs need to be able to carry on trading as usual as much as possible if they are to be able to pay HMRC as quickly as possible. They won't be able to do this if they can't pay off their other creditors first, as nobody would be willing to deal with them.
3, HMRC will not go bust, unlike some of the other creditors potentially when they don't get paid.
4, If other said creditors did go bust, that just means less businesses paying taxes to HMRC, which is not beneficial to HMRC either.

[uEuropa league qualifiers[/u
Liverpool v Trabzonspor
Aston Villa v Rapid Vienna
Man City v Timişoara

Dundee Utd v AEK Athens
Celtic v Utrecht
Odense v Motherwell

and the big boys



The New Saints v CSKA Sofia

and in the qualifiers for the competition no-one cares about



BSC Young Boys v Tottenham Hotspur FC

You don't get how this works, do you?

In no other line of business when you enter administration are you allowed to pay 100% of your liabilities to some creditors based on what industry they are in but 10% to others. Why should football be any different?

As a non-preferential creditor HMRC won't "eventually get its money". The administrator will make whatever distribution it can as agreed at the creditors meeting, then that's it. You can whistle for the rest of what you're owed as the company disappears and any subsequent "Portsmouth FC Limited 2010" that takes over running the club does so without any of the historic debt of the old business.

If HMRC are owed £10m, but only get paid £1m as a non-preferential creditor that's £9m gone missing out of the exchequer. The likelihood is that instead of going into the public purse where it was supposed to go that money will instead be sat in the Swiss bank account of some very rich footballers and their agents.

Tell me again why that's ok?

As accurate as ever