...I'm off to the cinema. Indiana Jones 4. Very excited.

Don't think I'm going to miss anything particularly exciting by being there between the hours of seven and ten thirty tonight.

The Newcastle midfielder, Joey Barton was convicted today in the High Court in Manchester and sentenced to six months in prison for assault. The offence was committed in December. How understanding was it for the court to wait until the end of the football season for the trial. Six months means serving 3. If my maths are correct 3 months from May 20 means he will be released on Aug 20, just at the start of the 2008-09 season. Can we expect this to become a trend, with courts passing sentences to be served at the convicted persons convenience. If I get a three months ban for speeding, can I serve it on 90 Sundays ,when I don't go out in the car much anyway. Can night workers serve their sentences just during the hours of 9 to 5 ?
The worst fact of the Joey Barton case is that his manager, Kevin Keegan, interviewed on TV , was not critical of the player whatsoever.
To crown it all, Barton is back in court next month for assaulting a fellow player whilst at Man City.
Any bets he gets found not guilty on this charge. We don't want poor misundersood Joey to miss the start of the season.
PS Would your employer pay your salary (in Bartons case understood to be £50,000 a week)whilst your were in jail? Or mores to the point , would you have a job when you came out ?

What happening in Manchester earlier in the week makes every real soccer fan hang his head in shame.
What in the world made those thousands of fans travel to the game without tickets ? Many of the morons interviewed on TV said that they wanted to feel the atmosphere. What is the difference in atmosphere between watching on a big screen 2 miles from the ground or 200 miles from the ground. The answer was the opportunity to confront opposition fans and drink at the same time.
Heaven forbid, what will happen in Moscow when Man Utd meet Chelsea, especially when the losing fans meet winning fans after the game.
Moscow, batten down the hatches and please don't judge us all by the behavior of a few.

The end to the football season is nigh and once more the Premiership and the European Cup standings give testimony to one statistic, the size of the owners wallet. Where were Chelsea before the Russian and his roubles arrived. The answer....nowhere. Man Utd have continually been amongst the highest spenders for the last 5 years as their youngsters became oldsters.
All we hear from pundits when asked the question
" What can team X do to improve next season" is spend, spend,spend. Football has got itself into a continual descending spiral. Wages will continue to grow (how ridiculous is £150,000 per week for a stopper centre half) The fact that money is everything is surely proved by the fact that Grant, the Chelsea manager, previously almost a Sunday park manager has taken Chelsea to the Euro Cup Final and to second in the Premiership. To me ,the biggest giveaway that the Russian owner can pay his past-it Russian player (and best mate)£130,000 per week and he only starts a game 4 times in a a season. Money has only increased the number of soccer mercanaries that come to our shores every year. Let us see what kind of a job a Ferguson,Grant, Wenger or Benitiz would make of managing a Wrexham or a Stockport.
Or mores to the point ,what would Chelsea become if the Russian got found out and his money disappeared as fast as it arrived.