Monday
The two poorest transfer bids of the summer are made on the same day, with Manchester United supposedly offering £28m for Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini whilst Arsenal showed they mean business by offering a total just in double figures for Yohan Kebab. Arsenal seem to be the most incompetent team at trying to conduct transfers since the days of the Transfers Acquisition Panel at Forest.
The best thing about Monday is undoubtedly Monday Night Football. If Gary Neville on his own was great, adding Jamie Carragher has made it even better. Understanding Carragher isn't that hard despite his really thick scouse accent and already he was enjoying some good banter with Neville where the Mancunian joked about him being a burglar. Even better, the pair then teamed up to rip into Arsenal.
After that it was the Carragher show with Jamie really kicking off, his voice getting higher and higher as his anger rose at the state of defending on show from Newcastle. Even Joey Barton took the piss, tweeting: 'Can someone take the helium of Carragher for the after match stuff. Dogs all over England standing to attention every time he speaks...'
The match itself was about as enjoyable for Newcastle fans as a Kevin Pietersen press conference is for the written press. It could have been 6-0 very easily and Steven Taylor got himself sent off for nothing. As Carragher noted, if you're going to get sent off at least do it putting a tackle in.
Tuesday
It is a sad day knowing that the final Test of the summer will soon be here and then gone, leaving behind a raft of fairly meaningless limited overs matches. Credit to Australia for announcing their squad a day early, not that it would worry England who they put in their batting line-up. Mitchell Starc makes his third appearance (with none in consecutive matches) and James Faulkner comes in, a Shane Warne favourite alongside his hero Nathan Coulter-Nile.
There was some cricket on show today: The England Lions spanked Bangladesh A by 202 runs thanks to another century for Gary Ballance and 143* from 68 balls for Luke Wright who then took two wickets from his one over. Remarkably, Michael Carberry achieved the same feat with the ball. This being a man with 16 first-class wickets in his entire career. Funnily enough he will be on a hat-trick next time he bowls, whenever that may be.
On TV there was a cracker between Lancashire and Hampshire at Old Trafford which the home side won by five runs. And at the same time the first-leg of the final round of Champions League qualifiers was underway.
Now I offer no sympathy for going on about Real Sociedad (SocieLAD). Last season, La Real lost six times in their first 10 matches then only twice more after November 4. This included a 4-3 loss and 3-3 draw with Real Madrid and a 3-2 win over Barcelona as well as nine goals over two games against Valencia. So far their sexy football has continued. They scored two lovely dinked goals against Getafe at the weekend (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wbx4EEk2alw) and followed that up with two spectacular strikes at Lyon to all but seal their place in the group stage. As Andy Gray would say, 'Take a bow son.'
http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/scissors-kick-golazo-antoine-griezmann-real-sociedad-v-lyon-gif/
http://www.101greatgoals.com/gvideos/real-sociedad-score-another-wonder-goal-haris-seferovic-v-lyon-gif/
Quick mention of Wigan 2-2 Doncaster. Leon Barnett scored a late equaliser for the Latics and ripped his shirt in celebration before casually jogging straight over to the dugout to get a new one. Also, good banter from Paul Dickov mocking former team-mate Grant Holt's size after an altercation on the dug-out.
Wednesday
A nice lively start to the day with comments coming from Aussie coach Darren Lehmann calling Stuart Broad a cheat and telling Australian supporters to send him home crying this winter. In mitigation, Boof is a man who likes a drink or two.
On the pitch things heated up with Jimmy Anderson sledging Shane Watson. Now, if an umpires call LBW decision had gone his way then it would have looked ok, but seeing as he made his third ever Test hundred it did not look so clever in the end, although Jimmy had him dropped in the slips soon after making three figures. Clearly he knew it was his day when he was given out LBW only to see it overturned on review.
Watson also left his mark on Simon Kerrigan who was taken apart and then started suffering from the yips. It's fair to say that Monty Panesar will now be booking his flight to Australia.
One thing I would say is it's easy to be critical of England for bringing both debutants in but I don't think it was the wrong decision. Kerrigan has taken 47 first-class wickets at 20.23 this season and Chris Woakes can point to averages of 42.77 with bat and 21.5 with ball. These are no mugs and if England were not taking this Test seriously then they would have rested Anderson.
In the Shampions League as Shteve McClaren would call it, Arsenal won 3-0 at Fenerbahce which will quieten the haters until they lose their next match which probably won't be too long. Elsewhere, Chelsea saw the match officials handing them the match against Aston Villa.
Thursday
Some interesting transfer news to end the day with Arsenal apparently on the verge of signing another free agent in Mathieu Flamini and Chelsea apparently pulling the robbery on Spurs to sign Will I An. At the same time, Spurs and Swansea both smashed in five in the Europa League and Gareth Southgate was made England under-21 manager so expect cheesy pizza adverts and bids for expensive Brazilian flops (ok that's impossible but I wanted to mention Afonso Alves somehow).
The cricket saw plenty of rain and lots more runs for Australia. Kerrigan's Jonathan Woodgate-esque debut was made complete by watching Jonathan Trott take a wicket. Let us hope for a big England dig in tomorrow.
Friday
Fair to say England did enjoy a lovely dig in. Very little to say except that Ian Bell's cover drive was worth the wait and the fan mocking David Warner with beer in hand was priceless.
Saturday
Massively Kimstevened by the rain at The Oval, meaning the focus was on the Premier League. Arsenal completed a good week by winning at Fulham, delaying the next calls of Wenger out until probably the North London derby in eight days time.
The funniest story came from Millwall where the kit man forgot... the kit. Not that Millwall resemble much of a football team anyway.
The most predictable story came from the Euro hockey where England's women lost to Germany at penalties.
A quick mention of James Faulkner's remark that the English crowd deserved their money back both for today's washout and yesterday's slow batting performance. It's Test cricket son, anything above two runs an over is far too quick.
Sunday
I'm not saying anything about the cricket, still too pissed off. However, it was good to see Shane Warne getting all hot and sweaty over Faulkner and Coulter-Nile again. Goes alongside his suggestion to bat Glenn Maxwell at number three during the India Test series earlier this year.
Now I like Shane, he's always good value, but some of the stuff he comes out I find hard to take seriously. Looking through his Daily Telegraph articles you see: after the First Test Australia were going into the Second Test in a better position than England and would win 2-1. And after the Third Test he accused England of being arrogant and said if they didn't become more humble then the score would be 2-2. If you listen to Warne you would think Australia were favourites to win the series Down Under in three month's time.
Elsewhere, Forest came away with a creditable draw at Watford after a lovely Andy Reid finish. Disturbingly, I went out and on return discovered that Cardiff had beaten Manchester City. What happened?!
I think Vincent Tan, the Cardiff owner, needs some fashion advice as well with the Cardiff top put over a shirt and tucked into his trousers. Good work from Craig BelLAMY as well pouring water over referee Lee Probert who clearly has a sense of humour. Not sure he would have tried it with Howard Webb though.
At the golf, Adam Scott triumphed at the Barclays. Disappointingly, Tiger Woods was one shot away from getting in a play-off with Scott and his old caddie Steve Williams.
Meanwhile...
Story of the Week: Barry Fry delivering his own grand-daughter which pips Big Ron joining the CBB house
http://metro.co.uk/2013/08/20/posh-boss-barry-fry-helps-deliver-own-grand-daughter-3931522/
Shock news that Robert Lewandowski wants to join his side's biggest rival, gets offered more money and decides to sign a new contract with Dortmund. Comes out of the Wayne Rooney school of negotiation
Credit to Burnley who have launched the 'i-pie' app which allows fans to order food from their seat and collect it at half-time with it all ready and no cash needed to be handed over. Fair to say Andy 'the pie-man' Smith will be making an appearance soon
For those keeping an eye on the US Open the next fortnight, it will be interesting to see how two men at the opposite ends of the spectrum, Dan Evans and Roger Federer, fare. Let us enjoy this last major of the summer
Quote of the Week: Rahul Dravid from ESPNCricinfo talking about the relationship between Test cricket and Twenty20
"Test cricket, an older, larger entity is the trunk of a tree and the shorter game - be it T20 or ODIs - is its branches, its off-shoots," he said. "Now to be fair, it is the branches that carry the fruit, earn the benefits of the larger garden in which they stand and so catch the eye. The trunk though is the old, massive, larger thing which took a very long time to reach height and bulk. But it is actually a life source: chip away at the trunk or cut it down and the branches will fall off, the fruit will dry up."
Sport this week:
Manchester United v. Chelsea tonight and a Super Sunday double header of Liverpool v. Manchester United and the North London derby. The Super Cup between Bayern and Chelsea. Two great Spanish matches between Sociedad and Atletico Madrid and Valencia against Barcelona. The Deutsche Bank Championship. England v. Australia in two Twenty20 matches. And a little tournament called the US Open. Enjoy.
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