Testing...testing....

Congrats Nick. We appreciate your hard work as well as Tony, JD and everyone else's.

KTBFFH

Frank Lampard must stay!He is too good to be sold!

Looks good Nick...will register in a while! Despite growing up with the anti-German sentiment in general (football, the 6 a.m. appearance of German towels reserving sunloungers on hols among the obvious ones :)) I find myself strangely sympathetic to them in the Euros and I can only assume it's the Ballack factor. At least, I hope it's that....God forbid I'm becoming a "European"!!

There was an interesting interview with Ballack in the Observer last weekend - basically, he pretty much picked the formation against Portugal himself. Think he's going to make a fantastic manager one day - definitely worth us considering for the future (if Kenyon and Buck ever think about the future, that is).

Boo sell outs :P

Site looks fine, plus getting the server paid for etc is always good.

I always wondered if having some forums would be good for this place, rather than everyone discussing things below news posts. Eg post a new forum thread with the news each time you post.

Cmon Russia :x

Yay, i'm now officially part of the new blog. Had to change my name from habs to haberdashers.

The new blog looks good but like everyone else the lack of comment numbers and the time of each post leads to greater thinking, which is not good for those looking to relax into a world of chelsea, without having to engage brain. Still haven't fully explored oleole but it seems like a new world compared to chelseablog.com.

As for tonight's game, i'd love Ballack to get to the final and hopefully receive a winners medal, because his career so far seems to make him one of the most talented losers, ever. However, i have a strange feeling that Turkey could do it. They may only have 13 fit players and their star man tonight will be Kazim Kazim, but their luck and crazy tactics seem destined to take them to the final, where they'll be beaten by Russia. I'll go for a 2-2 and then pens.

On a side issue, have you seen our lovely new away kit:

LINK

We look very smart in all black, but does that mean our flourescent yellow has been scrapped or is it now our 3rd choice kit? And in the main picture we have Lamps, JT, Ballack and Cech. Does that mean that we'll be basing our side around them next season and that SuperFrank will stay?

Still very little transfer talk. It appears Kenyon's been distracted by having to turn up to court and defend himself against claims that he's called Roman a fanticist, not living in the real world, after Paul Smith was 'only' offered a £175,000 salary and started complaining. So, just another day in the life of the craziest run club in the world!

Just clicked on one of those green arrow things. Don't know what i've just done, so sorry if i've ruined something to do with Benjami.

Just found this picture to brighten Fergie's mood:

LINK

It's nice to see that Rooney's keeping in shape by smoking a packet of fags. I didn't know that was part of a modern footballer's fitness regime!

Habs(I can still call you Habs right?)

I hope we keep the yellow shirts, I wanted to be a traffic director;)

Thanks for all the kind words. The current niggly problems will get fixed. I know for a fact that comment numbering will return because I can enable it in the CMS, but the formatting is all wrong in my browser so I'll wait for that to be fixed. Hopefully properly linked URLs will return too.

As for Euro 2008, I guess it all depends on which teams reach the final. I will be supporting the Germans tonight because I think they deserve it more than Turkey. While what the Turks have achieved is remarkable - they've only been ahead for a total of about two minutes in all their matches - I haven't enjoyed watching them play. And I haven't forgiven them for knocking Croatia out of the tournament.

I'm getting behind the Russians to win against Spain - sorry Blue Bayou! They've been a breath of fresh air and hopefully they can get some revenge for the 4-1 drubbing they suffered at the feet of Spain in the group stages.

If both Russia and Germany get to the final, it's Russia for me.

@PeteW

Agree. Ballack's definitely got what it takes to be a top class manager.

Now I'm Dezmond instead of Desmond. I like it, it's edgy. And to second Haberdashers thought, what are the arrow thingies?

Mike12



Yeah i'm still habs and i for one enjoyed the bright yellow kit. It brightened up any dark awayday at the likes of Wigan and Blackburn.



By the way, do you
know what those green/red arrows mean on the side of the comments?

@Dezmond - [Edit: Chris explained the functionality a great deal better below.] I will probably disable this in future posts. Currently, disabling it messes up comment formatting.




If Fifty's still around - signing up for an OleOle profile seems to enable you to edit your comments. I see an 'Edit' link on my new comments when logged in.

Regarding the arrows, I've seen a similar function at BlueChampions, Urban Dictionary etc. The arrows are there for you to 'rate' a comment's worth - the green up arrow means that you agree with a comment, or that even if you don't you believe it is particularly well-written and worthy of someone else taking a look at it. The red is usually reserved for spam or personal arguments that contribute nothing to the debate. If you're indifferent towards the comment, just don't touch the arrows.

I get the impression that here, positive numbers in the rating are good and negative numbers are bad.

Habs

No idea! When I click on them they just grey out.

@ Mike12: That's to stop you spamming a comment with positive/negative feedback. You can only vote once on each comment, and you can't vote on your own comments.

Chris

Ah. Thanks.

So any Chelsea news from the journos? I think they want to link us to Ronaldo next............................................................................. God no!!!

By the way, you can just call me mike

Fingers crossed for Ze German tonight...

Thanks Chris

Alright then I am on board (registered) as well.

Re Euro 2008 I am like you Nick backing Ze Germans tonight and Russia tomorrow
and The Ruskies for the trophy (sorry Bally!!) Although I don't have any issue with the Turks knocking out the Croats!!!

Still a bit concerned we signed the wrong manager from the Euros (Guus), but excited nonetheless with the prospects of our Phootball with Big Phil!! :-)

Guess we'd all agree to back both Germany and Russia to win their semis but I'm really torn for the final. I want to see Ze German get a winner's medal at last - but thought Russia were
spectacular against Holland and won me over that night after I'd started out wanting Holland to win.

Perhaps I have to hope for a German win - if only to stop several more millions going
on Arshavin's selling price.

You're right Nick – registering gets you an [incredibly small ] edit box to work with – though it does weird things to formatting……

@blueboydave - I'm just emailing OleOle now with all the minor things that need fixing with the comments. Editing a comment also messes up its formatting, which is annoying! ;-)

It'll all get fixed in the coming days.

Thanks for being patient. :-)

So has anyone noticed that the goalkeeping color isn't much different than the away kit color? I like the whole "Legion of Doom" look, and the Lev Yashin keeper kit, but isn't someone going to complain?

I'm registered now too (not that anyone knew who I was before)

I'm starting to feel pressured into registering as everyone has started doing it.

I'd better go up to the loft and see if I can find an old photo of me looking young and handsome for my profile...


yes yes I know it will be a fruitless search

Sorry, Mike - just being specific!

@ CB_Groy: I thought that the away kits for outfielders and keepers were too similar as well, unless the lighting on the pictures is just deceiving our eyes. I'm curious as to how that one's going to work out.

Greetings everyone.
Things gone very quiet on the transfer front.
Ronaldinho wants to go to AC Milan and Arahavin has his heart set on Barca,besides that no new news.

Just signed up.
Name change from Lynn to Evillynn
Hope the new look site will bring us luck for next season.

Im a part of the new blog now

@ Chris

Na, it's okay! No worries

No wonder Kenyon hasn't signed anyone,he's been appearing at an employment tribunal.I hope there are other people working hard while he's busy elsewhere.
Can't wait until Mr.Scolari,he doesn't like being called Big Phil,starts work,the silence regarding new players is drivin' me nuts.

Allo? Allo? Anybody there?... Just testing...

My account has disappeared

@ Evillynn

I can click on your profile, but it's a male. I didn't know you're a man!

Shouldn't be so evil!

I'm back
Sorry Simon to disappoint you,blame my parents.

@ Evillynn

You broke my heart! I thought you were a busty blonde female!

@SIMONT

Many apologies,but if it's any consolation my Mrs is a busty blonde,so you were nearly right.

Congratulations to Ze German! What a game of football?! Just when everyone thought the Germans would be too hot to handle for the Turks, they raised to the occasion and very nearly silenced the pundits and critics. Tough luck on them but what comes about goes around. Hope Ballack can finally be a "grand slam" winner.

well let's see how it goes in new home :-)

This blog looks great!

@Jang - Yep, good to see Ballack get his chance in the final. Germany were rubbish tonight though; on that performance they will struggle against Spain or Russia. But they do have a habit of
bouncing back and making us look silly!

Actually felt sorry for the Turks - their second string played so well and made the German back four look dodgier than it usually does, even Lahm was
given a torrid time. Took his goal well though.

Good to see you here, Blue_Mikel.

Thanks, Lance. We're getting there, still a few bugs to squash but we're getting there.

Edit:
Comment editing being one bug that needs stamping on. ;-)

Apparently ballack also was instrumental in suggesting changes to the german midfield to klinsman in their world cup campaign. Makings of a future chelsea manager?? Ja.

43- I would absolutely take Ballack as a manager. He seems to be a great leader, and to have an excellent tactical nous, even as a part of the game. I'd be fine with Felipao for a few years, Ballack moving into an assistant position after he retires after the 2010 World Cup, only to become the gaffer...

On the transfer front, I feel no news is good news. It seems the front office has learned that "Chelsea is linked with X player" only leads to losing initiative and larger transfer fees. We should see something interesting very soon. I wouldn't be surprised to have the unveiling later that day after the Big Phil show on the 1st, or perhaps the next day.

new thing looks good to me. it's been ages since i joined anything on the internet ;)

been away for a while - job priorities so i didn't have the time to comment on big phil's
appointment(not bad) and croatia loosing to turkey (pretty bad). what upset me, appart from loosing to a lesser team, is the fact that some of young croatia's players, whom i'd love to see in
chelsea, had to go home to early.
if we were just so lucky to sign the 20 years old ivan rakitic...

Just checking in to see it all works. But have to comment on Ballack-Low relationship (there post-match hugging and whispering into each other's ears suggests it is close). Ballack changed the system to cope with Croatia according to his own interview. The 5-man midfield they started with last night was the continuation of his tactics that Low went along with. It is designed to get Ballack into forward positions behind the striker, losing the inept Gomez as second striker in the process. This is clearly where he likes to play and where he has had his most successful seasons in the Bundesliga. Obviously Chelsea haven't played this system other than in a few games where Joey Cole has been used there to sometimes good effect. Although it is kind of how Lampard gets his goals, though he comes into that position from a deeper midfield role where he prefers to be more involved. If we are signing Deco, who is a specialist in this position, Ballack will again find himself challenged to play deeper and do more defending - though, in fairness, he does work hard for Germany. Ballack has said the two years in the Prem has made him a better player. He is certainly growing as a leader for his national team and has proved his qualities for us during Lampard's absence. he wants to end his career with us. He is happy with his wages (who wouldn't be), he is not hassling for more of anything, his agents don't make trouble. I'm glad we have him. In fact, I'm delighted we have him. He seems to be a stable influence, along with JT, around which the rest of the team can function. Unfortunately Lampard's people are not so happy. It gives Chelsea's top brass more confidence to face down the threats and hints at Lamp's leaving. I don't want to see that. But it is good to think that even if it happens it won't be a disaster, and may even liberate some of the other players in terms of occupying potential scoring positions.

In a slow week there are some good contenders for Silly Season Story of the Month:

1) Pig with Snout in Trough (1) - this Nonentity-called-Smith we apparently employed as seat-warmer till Kenyon's "gardening leave" was over at ManUre who was stupid enough to believe Kenyon's alleged verbal promises of mega-bonuses for the use of his cheeks.

2) Pig with Snout in Trough (2) - Sidwell - fresh from his forgettable 7 Leagues starts + 8 sub appearances [ only memory I have is of him manically clogging ex-colleagues v Reading until he was substituted before getting sent off] - who rather than being grateful for the chance to resurrect his career elsewhere thinks he should get the remaining 2 years of his contract paid up as compensation.

3) Arsenal to Sign Crouch as Adebayor replacement - OK, no contest really (3) wins!

What does Arseblog make of that?

Blue Bayou

Great shout on the name, I reckon 'Phifty' couls be the way forward.

Am I going mad or have the red and green arrows disappeared from this post ?

Fifty - your eyesight is fine - I think Nick said he didn't like the idea and would get them removed.

We know how to diss idiots with more subtlety than that...

"Phifty" sounds like the one to go with.

Oooh, I've always wanted an avatar. Stone me!

At this rate of progression, I'll be on Facebook in time for the 2012 Olympics.

Morning gents,

The OleOle web people fixed things overnight - comment numbering is back and formatted correctly and comment posting seems to be working fine for me.

Page load times aren't as quick as they would like - something to do with the number of comments on posts.

@Fifty - I don't intend to use the comment voting functionality in future posts unless there's a demand for it. The little arrows still exist on all posts previous to this one but have moved position.

@BlueBoyDave - The comment editing box has been increased in size.

@PeteW - And a fine avatar it is too. As for Facebook, you'd have to hold a gun to my head to get me to sign up. And that goes for MySpace too!

I spoke too soon - comment submission is still flakey for me. We'll get it fixed.

Edit: Are comments posting properly for you?

@ 38. Evil Lynn

You're not male, you're not female... According to your profile pic, you're just an empty stadium! :-)

Nick, I still had to reload the page to see my comment appear.

My commenting is working fine

Nick / PeteW,

I too am nonplussed by the whole MyBookFaceSpaceParty thing.

The missus is on Facebook for 'something to do' while she continues to nuture Chelsea's future captain at home.

I've got friends, real ones that I can speak to via the technological wonder of a telephone or via electronic mail.

She makes me feel like a Techno-phobe. At 28.

Forgot to mention that the web developers are also working on linking URLs in comments.

@Fifty - I'm a hardcore geek and still I refuse to sign up for FaceSpace. I have no desire to 'socialise' with people from my past, particularly school. I cannot imagine anything worse. The people I liked at school I'm still close friends with.

@Mike12 - The comment posting issue could be something to do with the load on OleOle's servers, hence why it's working for some and not others. It's a bit annoying but it'll get fixed.

Well I've registered, but every time I try and log in in tells me my information is incorrect, and I know it isn't because when I registered I checked everything was correct on my profile. So I don't know if I've gone missing in Cyberspace? and it's big in Cyberspace no one can hear you scream!

Hmmm I think I've sorted it out but I don't find the page particulary use friendly, probably it's me and I'll take some time to get used to it.

I've registered too.

As a (very) occasional contributer, and an avid reviewer of this blog over a long period of time, I too congratulate Nick et al on their endeavours thus far, and I wish them all the best for their future efforts!

As a lifelong supporter who, for reasons of geography, doesn't get to actually see any matches (although I have missed very few on the telly in the past few years), the insights and opinions expressed on this blog are priceless - its the best way (way better than the official site) for fans like myself to feel connected to the club and its passionate supporters.

Cheers!

p.s. I had to reload to see my post as well - obviously a "bug"!

Nick (are we still allowed to call you Nick? Should it be ChelseaBlog all the time now?),

That is the argument I unsuccessfully have with the Missus. Anyone I count as a friend is someone I'm still in regular contact with, I have their phone numbers or email addresses.

"But you can post photo's on it". So. Bloody. What. I really dont want half the virtual world staring at me outside the Bellagio or getting soaked by Shamu at SeaWorld. If I want people to see our photos, I'll send them.

Bloody hell I sound grumpy. Have we signed any more over-the-hill, past-it, has-beens to stupid money contracts for 5 years ??

Clive, I'll get the missus to check SpaceBook to see if you've turned up there. Don't worry, we'll get you back, honest.

Pete - I too have popped my avatar cherry (just hope it works now...)

Facebook and all that jazz - for the kids, innit? Us elderly folk prefer books to have words and informed comment in them, not a load of teenagers arranging Skins parties and Pete Doherty lookalike contests.

I am feeling rather Germanic today. Come on ze Deutschers!

The old goat formerly known as Jonathan Dyer.

Nick - thanks to you and the OleOle geeks for so swiftly making things start to look more like our old home.







I resolutely avoid all Facebook/Myspace-type thingies
and only

registered here to get rid of the constant re-entry/reading test when I post and for the edit function.







For those unsure you can give virtually no
info whatsoever when registering

and then ignore all other aspects apart from this blog if you want - though if you add your favourite club/players it

will pull into your home
page items you might want to look at.









I'm still getting the posting hiatus though - but the edit function is much more sensible looking... though it still
put all these silly spaces in your comment......

BlueBoyDave,

Thanks for ths insight.

So all I need to do is create an OleOle account. But wait, I can add photos and videos. I can join groups, send people messages and 'poke' them. I can tell you my real name, where I live, what I watch and listen to, what I eat, what websites I visit, my credit card number and pin and other interesting stuff about me.

It's bloody FaceBook with a mask on !!!!!!

JD (well, not JD anymore I suppose. Everyone is becoming someone else. It's like a gender re-alignment surgeons dream) - any thoughts on a continued appearance in the Observer next season ??

Another contender for Silly Season Story of the Month:

4) Grant Offered Georgia Job - Former Chelsea boss Avram Grant has been offered the job as coach of the Georgia national team, the country’s football association has confirmed…

Hopefully Roman can get a win tonight from his Russian side. I'll be supporting them in the final (if they get there) just because Roman deserves to win at least 1 European title.

Bad news, in that Barca have approached Arshavin. We need Roman to start tapping him up whilst offering him some ridiculous wages, in order to tempt him away from the Nou Camp. If Barca do get Arshavin, we'll be left with Deco and where will that leave Hleb? Wenger's already bought 2 of his replacements in Ramsey and Nasri so does that mean Hleb will end up at Inter or Bayern.

I've also just seen that Avram's been offered the Georgia job. I think he's finally found his level. Spot the anomoly here:

Israel manager - Unemployed - Portsmouth director of football - CHELSEA MANAGER - Georgia manager.

I appreciate the rescue attempt Fifty, but don't look for too long otherwise you could miss the start of the season. As far as seeing a picture of you standing outside the Bellagio, surely that has to better than seeing you inside the Bellagio with all those glass flowers on the ceiling, I preferred the Venetian myself ;)

Fifty

I understand all your concerns and share them. However to be asked to prove I'm human as part of the registering process was priceless.

Nothing like a bit of metaphsical enquiry to liven up the day.

Scolari's made his frist official signing and what a good one it is too:

LINK

That means we should be able to see the old Petr Cech after Lollichon was shown the door!

LINK

Hire this guy and watch Ashley Cole score..well..score goals too!

Testing ... testing ...

Good gracious, there's a character limit on my posts?? Surely this is illegal discrimination against the concision-challenged?

Having poked around the oleole site, I'm even more impressed that you (Nick) have managed to retain the character and style and look of the blog.

Wonder where Average will end up after the Georgia gig goes belly-up? Madagascar? Bhutan?

@Fifty (65)

Hopefully the Observer thing continues - I'll be at more games next season too. Stands to reason that they will refresh the pool of content writers every now and again, so
we'll see.

Re Grant's potential new role; I am reminded of the Charlie Daniels' Band "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", for some reason.

Very much looking forward to tonight's game
(which probably means it'll be a huge anti-climax); some great players on display. Quite fancy the Russians, purely on the basis that Spain have to bottle it at some point which is a bit flimsy
really.

Liking the use of avatars people, keep it up - handsome bunch, we are...

The old goat formerly known as Jonathan Dyer.

I know i'm a bit late on this but i haven't been on the blog for a couple of days and look what's happened while i've been missing!

Well done NICK, great job. The blog looks gawjus!!!
You've even managed to resurrect CLIVE!!! :))

I'm a bit worried as some have said, about the occasional knobhead coming out of the woodwork but other than that, this is really exciting!!


Regarding the game tonight, i have a feeling that Spain will win but i'd love to see Russia go through.
The prospect of a Germany/Russia Final has me foaming at the mouth...almost!!

You've even managed to resurrect CLIVE!!! :))





Ahh... Have you missed me Lolli? nice to know someone has, I could have died and not even have got a blog eulogy.

PS
Nice pic Lolli you will certainly become the bloggers favourite :)

@ CLIVE

Of course i missed you!!! I was going to ask where you were last week but thought it was perhaps a bit nosey of me..welcome back anyways!! x

p.s thanks for the compliment, very sweet of you..:)

Maybe I was a little hasty about Arseshavin - Steve Sidwell is starting to look preferable. Let Barcelona have first option.

Perhaps we just witnessed the reason why Arshavin went unnoticed by the scouts for so long... I'd still take him though. Barca might drop their interest now. ;-)

You'd have to say that Spain are favourites on tonight's performance - Germany will need to up their game somewhat.

Thanks, Lolli. I apologise on behalf of OleOle for the slowness - my guess is they're struggling under weight of traffic due to the Euro semi-final.

@ 79. NICK

No apologies, please..it's understandable that comments are going to be slow to post but i'm sure we will all cope!! Loving all the new facilities you've set up. Well done you!!!

Knew Spain would win tonight..i think they'll have more of a fight on their hands with the Germans however. There's no way Herr Ballack and co. will put in another lacklustre performance like they did last night..at least i hope not!!!

I foresee a Spain win but HOPE for a German win..

Hmmmmmm, I go away for a few days working and you change sites to try and lose me, eh?? well, I have found my way here and it all looks good to me.

Good to see a Chelsea blog on here at last! Hopefully more chelsea fans around now:), i was getting annoyed at all these arse and yids everywhere!

I was BTBJ by the way

Looks like barca might knock a few million of arshavin's price the way spain's barca players bossed him. You might even say the arse has fallen out of it ...

This was nice: The Guardian on the incredible German running man ...

"When it comes to distance travelled Germany's captain has been top of the list in every match he's played. He covered over 33 kilometres in the group stage and another 12 against Portugal - the equivalent of going from one goal-line to the other every 45 seconds. What makes this so amazing is that Ballack - in obeisance to Cloughie's dictum - never appears to run anywhere, ever.

In fact he rarely breaks into anything that even resembles a walk. Most of the time he is either standing still, or sauntering around in an apparently aimless manner, like an Edwardian boulevardier taking the evening air in the vague hope of bumping into that pretty young thing he met at yesterday's tea dance. Ballack gives the impression of playing with a striped blazer tossed nonchalantly over his shoulder and a silver-topped cane in his hand. How he is putting in more yardage than Torsten Frings, football's answer to a border collie, is a mystery. Even when Frings isn't in the side. (Paradoxically against Turkey Ballack appeared to run about a lot more than usual, but actually covered less acreage).

It would be easy to conclude from this that, since Ballack is a star and all stars are said to know when the cameras are on them, the midfielder simply waits until the lens is trained elsewhere and then embarks on a mad series of what Joe Royle used to describe as "little doggies". Either that or he's on castors. Or - and this might explain how he finds so much space in the penalty area all the time - he is the proud owner of Siegfried's cloak of obscurity and is invisible to us for most of the match.''

BTW, thank god the euros are nearly over. the time difference here in bangkok is brutal ... 1.45am start for most games. Makes getting through the next day at work rather a bore ... i've got dark

circles on my dark circles

Score one for me !!! 9 / 1 on a Germany v Spain final, a huge win of £18 plus my £2 stake back. And they say it's only the bookies that win ;-)

Spain looked pretty awesome second half, and the catalyst was the nipper from the Airline Stadium. If he doesn't start in the final, then Aragones is a bigger chump than I thought (although he must be a shoe in with Villa missing out through injury).

I think it'll come down to which defence is less-rubbish. Germany have conceded a few goals on the way to the final, but both back 4's look pedestrian at best, save for Lahm and maybe Ramos.

Let's just hope, for footballs sake, it is as good as the majority of games so far. It's almost been great with no England - no worrying about Austria sticing 4 past us, or losing in the knockout stages would we have surprisingly qualified. Had that been the case, I get the feeling a lot of people wouldn't have tuned in to see some great games.

Good luck 'earning' your wages Mr Capello, from what I've seen over the past few weeks, your work is cut out.

I have to admit I've not watched one game of the Euro's a self imposed sabbatical of football over the summer. Besides internationals have never really grabbed my attention at the best of times,although I have kept up to date with matches and players performances on here and other footie sites.

The one thing I will say with the hype surrounding Arshavin, I recall a certain Mr Poborsky grabbing the attention of the footballing world and Manure buying him, It didn't turn out so well if I remember rightly.

The article quoted by #84 BlueinBangkok reminds me that I believe it was Peter Schmeical (sp?) who quickly latched onto the way the stats are compiled and spent the time when the ball was up the other end (quite a lot of the time generally) doing shuttle runs in the box to ensure he was always the top goalie in the stats for distance covered.

Now I'm not a betting man but can you bet on football stats? If so this is wide open to abuse. Bung a player a few quid to do a lot of unneccessary running, pile the money on (particularly if you can get a spread) and away you go....

It would be more difficult to get a player to run less as this would mean he would be in danger of getting it in the ear from the manager. However chasing every ball even when we all know its going out, well thats just commitment.

So while the Italians and Portugese have spent their time engaged in crude match fixing the EPL has gained a reputation for a fast furious hard running game...

Now why would that be....

@73 Limetreebower - jeez, see what you mean about the rest of OleOle - I've just had a browse around some of the blogs and before I lost the will to live it seemed to consist of defunct/dormant ones plus lots of individual obsessives mostly talking to themselves or a few 606-level nutters in ugly looking formats - and does the world really need literally dozens of Arsenal blogs in one place?

The lack of new rumours about us is getting eerie - still I see Not-Big-Phil has flexed his muscles and told all our lazy non-Euro 2008 players to get back to work a week earlier than planned.

And isn't it kind of the next Georgia manager to put the world straight by revealing it's really Yuri Zhirkov we're interested in from Russia - he'd obviously know what Not-Big-Phil wants. ;-)

Clive - I'm flabbergasted - you haven't watched a single match of Euro 2008?! That must have taken some doing. I will have watched 27 of the 31 games by the end of Sunday's final, the four group games I missed were played and broadcast simultaneously.

Anyway, I'm about to leave for Cornwall - I'm escaping the rat race for 10 days. A long drive ahead so I'll be offline until later this evening. I apologise in advance if I miss the signing of Kaka!

(And, again I apologise for the slowness of the blog - everything will be running smoothly eventually.)

Nick - what's this "scheduled maintenance" nonsense that happened when I was in the middle of my last post when OleOle disappeared for at least 15 minutes.

If it's "scheduled" wouldn't it be polite of them to give us some warning??

@BlueBoyDave - It's driving me nuts too - I'm no longer responsible for these things.

I expected a few issues with the blog's functionality and design, but I didn't foresee all this slowness and downtime. But, as some crap band sang in the 90s, things can only get better. I hope!