As a Rovers fan, I knew that this was a long time coming, as rumors of a takeover had started as early as August, but now the deal has officially been announced. Indian company Venkys are the new owners of Blackburn Rovers, and are promising to bring the club forward into a new era.

So is this good or bad news? It is exciting times for sure, but only time will tell how good they will be for the club. They most certainly do not have the resources to compete with the top Premiership owners, and have only promised 5 million in transfers for January – which is still 5 million more than Rovers would normally expect. Their major selling point is that they are the first Indian company to have a Premiership club, which would hopefully generate a lot if interest in India, and help the club spread its popularity around Asia. Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester City and United have all used this tactic, and it has indeed brought them some good fortune. The Indian market in particular is growing fast, and if Rovers manage to capture the interest of the public, big positive changes can indeed be on their way.

There has been some debate amongst the fans over the ethics of this company, however. They are involved in the poultry business, which has often been the #1 target of animal-rights groups. There are many things that can be said about this issue, but again, only time will tell who is right and who is wrong.

The good thing is that they are a family-run business who are said to be extremely respectful of the ethics previous club owner and hero Jack Walker championed, and will honor his memory. This is what everyone involved at the club wants to hear, but it us up to Venkys to be true to their word.

For comparison, the “physical, dirty football sides” like Blackburn and Stoke are 13th and 14th, which is closer to mid-table that the bottom. In fact, both sides have only 2 red cards between them.

So what does it say about the labels these teams receive from the media? Bias and tinted glasses is the only real answer. As this table shows, regardless of what style of play you want to peg teams like Stoke and Blackburn at, they play their game mostly cleanly. Certainly a lot cleaner than the “beautiful” Arsenal, who actually have one of the highest red-card counts for the past number of years.

Then again, maybe it doesn’t pay to be better disciplined. Both WBA and Arsenal are higher in the league table (the one that matters) than the “dirty” teams, while the cleanest team, Fulham, is near the relegation zone. Chelsea are supremely balanced in the disciplinary league at 10th, which is probably the best place to be.

Arguably Manchester City’s most important player, Carlos Tevez, is said to be visting a psychiatrist to help him battle homesickness. This is nothing new, as Tevez has repeatedly expressed how much he misses his home in Argentina, but there have been different reports regarding how bad his condition is. Some went as far as to suggest he’s ready to quit the club and football in general in the summer, which would indeed be quite shocking.

I do not believe it will go that far, though, the fact that he is seeking help and going to a professional is proof that he’s trying to overcome his condition. He visited this doctor while he was receiving treatment for his knee back home, which has kept him out of action for three weeks. As he is such a vital aspect of City’s game, they will hope he can put both his psychical and emotional problems behind. At 26 years of age, it would be an incredibly sad thing if such a talent can’t continue on with his game. (as long as you don’t ask United fans of course)

It serves as a reminder that footballers are not confined to a world of constant training and playing, where they can think of little else. In a much more severe case, it’d be good to remember the former German international and Hannover keeper Robert Enke who took his own life last year after failing to overcome his depression.

Sometimes you have to wonder weather some players are just cursed by the footballing Gods, and that’s that. Owen Hargreaves had been missing from the Manchester United line-up since September, after battling a long-term knee injury, and today in their match vs. Wolves he finally returned. His comeback had been in the news for a while, and fans had been anticipating to see the former English star in action, but niggling injuries always delayed his return. Today he finally started a game for United…but limped out after 6 minutes with a hamstring injury.

The good news for him is that it is not a knee injury again, so if things go well he should be healed in a few weeks, but this has to be a huge blow for him. It’s not just the physical preparation that’s at stake here, mentally this has to be even worse. To wait 2 years for a return, and to have it end so suddenly and unexpectedly can bring down even the toughest of individuals. The difference between a good footballer player and someone who can kick a ball moderately well is often the mental determination, and Hargreaves will have to dig deep again in other regain his momentum.

One can only wish him well, but by now it would be a hue achievement to see him last 90 minutes in a first team-match, let alone see him regain his form and challenge for a place in the national side again.

It goes back to the old debate – when is enough enough? Like him or not, Redknapp has every right to be angry, and calling a goal that came thanks to a handball sounds like the proper reason to use such a word. He did not personally insult the referee or anything of the sort. The FA don’t really apply practical logic to these punishments, but all this bickering back and forth won’t change much. Punishing managers for their honest comments has never stopped others from giving their opinion, and it doesn’t contribute to anything helpful for the referees. A novice manager may watch his words, but the old ones like Ferguson and Redknapp won’t be stopped so easily.

All this isn’t helped by Platini’s constant comments warning against modern technology in football either.

In a rather direct follow-up to the Rooney story, the reason for the striker’s U-turn on his decision to stay at United most certainly looks to have been the news that United have been given £100 million (yes, British pounds) to spend over the next year. This is the most money Sir Alex has ever been given, and it shows that the club’s protesting supporters may just have to tone it down a bit now.

The Glazer family that owns United have sometimes been compared to Hicks and Gilett that led Liverpool to their current situation, but this news should set things straight I think. 100 million puts United right back in contention with Man City and Chelsea for having the most transfer power, and just in time too, as they’ll have to replace their aging stars in Giggs, Scholes, Neville and Van der Sar too.

It’s rather conflicting news, given the debt that United are in already, which is why some of its supporters have been protesting the Glazers. But unless something is seriously amiss here, promising so much money just on transfers should indicate that they have things under control. Weather they expect Ferguson to spend every last penny is doubtful, but Rooney at least has been promised that a lot of that money will be used.

Now the question is how far behind Chelsea will they be before the January transfer market opens…

The headlines this past week were filled with rumors and statements from Wayne Rooney and Sir Alex Ferguson regarding the England’s striker future at Manchester United, but at the end of the day he signed a new five-year deal and will stay at the club.

Before that he had shocked all of Old Trafford by saying that he is leaving, stating a “lack of reassurance about the future quality of the squad”. That’s right. Rooney wanted to leave because he felt the likes of Evra, Vidic, Giggs, Nani, Berbatov etc. were so far beneath him that he deserved a better club. He did not believe that United were good enough to challenge for trophies in the near future.

It sounds almost absurd to type that out, but apparently that’s how highly Rooney thinks of himself. A player who had one very good season at United after Ronaldo left, and since then has been delivering decent games for his club and country on a depleting basis. It just goes to show you how much power the modern day footballer has that he can say such things and think himself so much better than any club, let alone Manchester United.

To his credit, Rooney has since apologized to his manager, teammates and fans, which is still more than what others would do. Weather that will be enough to put all bad feelings aside is questionable, but the power structure in football needs to change, that much is clear.

Liverpool FC have been saved today (Wendsday) by the High Court of England, who allowed the sale of the club to go through despite the wishes of their (former) owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks. This means they will now get the money to repay the money they owe to the Royal Bank of Scotland, which otherwise would have put them into administration and cost them nine points. It would have been a scenario which would have put them in a very hard position to stay in the Premiership, something almost unthinkable for a club of their stature.

Unthinkable also for their wealthy fans around the world, with the NESV group who own the Boston Red Sox promising to pour in the money and even invest 40 million for new transfers in January. Basically, Liverpool go from an extremely depressing situation they dug themselves into, to having one of the biggest transfer chests in Europe, all with the snap of the fingers.

I am pleased for their fans, but it’s just that at the end, money has won out big time again here. If this was a smaller club that didn’t attract such investors, their relegation would have been sealed by now. But for a club like Liverpool, it seems like they are given chance after chance to get things right just because of who they are. Fair? Well, there are those who will say such a word is irrelevant in the modern game. Your either a big club, or you’re not – that’s all that matters.

After witnessing his teammate and Fulham star player Bobby Zamora break his leg due to a challenge in a game vs. Wolves, captain Danny Murphy has blasted a number of Premiership managers, saying their tactics are leading to players making reckless challenges and injuring so many others. In particular, he attacked the “Blackburns, Stokes and Wolves”, saying all they did was break-down play and litter it with such dangerous acts, and that they are ending people’s careers. This followed Newcastle player Hatem Ben Arfa also breaking his leg in a game vs. Manchester City.

Does Murphy have a point? In a way, but he also has his facts wrong. No one wants to see a serious injury where a player from any team is out for a long period of time, and players do have to make more careful challenges, but to use the old saying – “it’s part of the game”. Fitness training and health monitoring has increased drastically in football in the last couple of decades, and it’s not like players did not get heavy injuries before. Just the opposite in fact. It’s true that the “Blackburns and the Stokes” may not play the free-flowing football of Arsenal, but then they don’t have the funds to find those players. And yes, the desire to win is a good enough excuse to use the tactics that they do – at the end of the day, it’s the 3 points that matter.

This situation is more Murphy looking for someone to blame and letting his anger spill over to other teams than anything else.

This is important to football, because Sky Sports generate a huge amount of revenue for the Premier League, and should they lose this court case, that money may dry up and be redistributed elsewhere. This means less money going into clubs, smaller transfer fees and smaller wages. Some are saying that the Premiership will no longer be able to attract the top names in World football as it has these past couple of decades, and will lose its place as the top league in Europe.

Would this be a good or bad thing? Well, people with different agendas will give you opposite views, but anything to lessen spending and force clubs to focus on developing their own talents again is a good thing in my books. If that means the loss of players who would only go to England for no other reason than an astronomical paycheck, then that’s not really a tragedy.