Speffy Stats

It seemed about time to update our outdated stats section – read on for the stand-out statistical quirks in the Premier League, on a club by club basis. Note – thanks Football 365…

United we Fall

It’s patently obvious Man Utd are not the side they were. No-one can lose Tevez and Ronaldo and be as effective – especially if you replace them with Valencia (3 goals and 3 assists last season) and Owen (perennially injured, super-sub). We maintain they will struggle this season – a slip out of the top four has even been mooted. Their performance against Sunderland is one of the worst from them in living memory. So – are United a club in crisis?

Football365 – The Weekend Winners and Losers

Time is tight this busy Monday but having a ‘weekend preview’ as the top story is just irritating. So instead we’ve used Football 365′s ever excellent ‘winners and losers’ feature. Cheers…

Weekend Preview

Chelsea look to continue their formidable start to the 2009/10 Premier League season as they travel to Wigan Athletic, while bottom-of-the-table Portsmouth host Everton on a weekend of nine top-flight fixtures.

Stats of the Season (so far)

There have only been 46 Premier League games so far this season but already there are some notable – or perhaps anomolous – statistics. Courtesy of Football365, here are the most salient in a top flight club-by-club format…

Chelsea Banned from Signing Players

Chelsea have been banned from signing any new players for two years after a FIFA investigation. Full story here.

Chelsea have been banned from signing any new players until 2011, after Fifa accused them of illegally inducing a French youth-team player to join the club in 2007.

Fifa’s dispute resolution chamber today released a statement fining Gaël Kakuta €780,000 following a complaint from FC Lens and finding Chelsea “jointly and severely liable”.

“A restriction of four months on his eligibility to play in official matches is imposed on the player Gaël Kakuta while the club FC Chelsea is banned from registering any new players, either nationally or internationally, for the two next entire and consecutive registration periods following the notification of the present decision,” the DRC statement said. “Furthermore, the club, FC Chelsea, has to pay to RC Lens training compensation in the amount of €130,000.”

The 18-year-old was voted the scholar of the year by Chelsea’s academy staff in 2008, ending the season as top scorer after playing out wide or as an attacking midfielder.

But his season was cut short last year by injury, with a broken ankle and hamstring problems restricting him to just five appearances.

He had just been named in Chelsea’s Champions League squad.

How did your Club do?

What would we do without the Guardian? To save reviewing all the transfers of all the clubs, and where they’ve been left short – or bloated – we’ll just repeat everything that David Pleat allegedly wrote in the Guardian Sport Blog. We’ve even stolen the picture. It’s good though…

Champions League Draw

Group A: Bayern Munich, Juventus, Bordeaux, Maccabi Haifa
Group B: MANCHESTER UNITED, CSKA Moscow, Besiktas, Wolfsburg
Group C: AC Milan, Real Madrid, Marseille, FC Zurich
Group D: CHELSEA, FC Porto, Atletico Madrid, APOEL
Group E: LIVERPOOL, Lyon, Fiorentina, Debrecen
Group F: FC Barcelona, Inter Milan, Dinamo Kiev, FC Rubin Kazan
Group G: Sevilla, RANGERS, Stuttgart, Unirea
Group H: ARSENAL, AZ Alkmaar, Olympiakos, Standard

Diamond Geezer

In the wake of Liverpool’s surprise home defeat to Villa, Chelsea have been installed at 6/4 favourites for the Premier League. If they do it, they will do it with Ancelloti’s ‘diamond’ formation – Andrew Walker examines it…

Is it Arsenal’s Year?

We’ve already half stuck our neck out and predicted Arsenal will be there or thereabouts this season. After their opening day performance – and indeed that of their rivals – its tempting to go balls out on them. Of course it’s far too early to draw conclusions, but 6/1 won’t be around much longer…