Morning all. I had a beer last night, as I think Vijay did, which turned into a second beer, then a third. Basically, what I'm saying is, I had a beer last night and I'm a little sensitive this morning, so I'll keep this brief, not just for me, but for people like Mark, who get confused when it is too long.
First up is the rumour in the Daily Mail that we are after Stephen Warnock from Blackburn and we are willing to pay £6mn for him. If you didn't know, Warnock is a left back and while I fancy O'Neill is keen to get a new one in, I'm not convinced this is the type of player we should be going after, which means he'll be signing this week, a few days after we've sold Shorey and for an inflated fee of £8mn instead.
If Warnock were to sign today, he could fly out to Spain for our match against Mexican side Atlante in the Peace Cup tomorrow. If you didn't know, this match isn't just a formality any more, if we win by two clear goals, we are through to the semi-finals.
It turns out this side from Mexico are fairly decent as they beat Malaga 3-1, which basically kept our hopes of qualifying alive.
It's only pre-season and I expect some of the kids to get another chance so I'm only going to predict a 3-0 win for us. We will then kick on through to the final and win 4-0 against Spanish opposition. Maybe even Ronaldo, if that is possible, I don't know. It's a pre-season friendly tournament, it's not important, just nice.
Martin O'Neill
We are obviously going to improve the team. If we are going to try and improve this season then we need some players in. I will be expecting that to happen. I am hopeful we will have players coming into the football club. We are some numbers down but we are looking to put that right.
I'm not in the habit of letting people go if I didn't think we could do something. I would not be getting overly concerned at the moment. We have a number of things we are working on and I'm hoping they will bear fruit in the not-too-distant future.
See, nothing to be worried about, he is obviously going to improve the team. Hopefully. Now, over to Robbo, to have his daily dig at Damian, because I've set him up for it.