My vote for PFA Player of the Year would have to go to Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard. In a season where few players have stood out individually, Stevie most certainly has. All the other candidates from Manchester United are great players in their own right but haven’t performed to the same high standard that the Liverpool man has over the course of the season.

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This weekend both FA Cup semi-finals will be held at Wembley and I don’t like it. As a player I had it myself back in 1994 with Chelsea when we faced Luton at Wembley and even then it was wrong as Wembley was built for finals, a grand stage and not for semis.

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The PFA Awards nominees have been named with Manchester United players dominating the main award with five of their team named out of the six possible. The problem with these awards is that the player’s votes are cast in January which is hardly a reflection of a season’s work. In a perfect world the votes would be cast at the end of the season when you can judge who did exactly what but unfortunately that’s not the case.

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The four Premier League clubs all successfully progressed into the Champions League quarter-finals this week with some more impressive than others. Liverpool produced arguably the result of the round of 16 by winning home and away against Spanish Champions Real Madrid. This includes a 4-0 home thrashing on Tuesday which inflicted Real’s biggest loss in the Champions League era. Rafa Benitez’s side have an excellent record in the competition and after remaining unbeaten against the big English sides domestically they are serious contenders.

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Arsenal’s Danish international striker could never be accused of lacking confidence but his recent comments in the Daily Mirror could be seen as deluded for a player with a relatively poor record in the first team. The Dane had this to say, “I’m very sorry to see Adebayor injured as we need him fit and to be playing in the league.”

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Three clubs from the capital brought in big name last minute signings as the January transfer window closed with Robbie Keane’s return to Spurs arguably the most surprising of the lot. However, Arsenal finally spent big on former Tottenham target and Russian talisman Andrei Arshavin whilst Chelsea brought in Portuguese flying winger Ricardo Quaresma from Inter Milan on loan.

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Once again a number of exciting new additions were made by Premier League clubs in the summer. The five London clubs in the top flight brought in a number of exciting big names. We at The New Football Pools want to know who you would judge as the best summer signing made by a Premier League club from the capital.

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So after all the recent speculation concerning Roy Keane’s future at Sunderland it has emerged that he’s left the club. After a poor run of form that has seen the Black Cats slip into the relegation zone the Irishman has left in the wake of a 4-1 home thrashing at the hands of Bolton. The search will now begin to find a manager to take the reins at the Stadium of Light with former Newcastle manager Sam Allardyce strong favourite for the job.

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John Terry once again stepped up to lead England to a superb victory over Germany in Berlin with what was essentially a second string side. Despite much of the usual first team squad pulling out through injury, the Chelsea captain played the entire match culminating in his late winner.

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This week the New Football Pools pundit Tony Cascarino claimed Tottenham should pull out all the stops to sign Newcastle’s 32-year-old goalkeeper Shay Given to replace error-prone Heurelho Gomes in the Spurs goal. The former Republic of Ireland striker had this to say on the goalkeeping dilemma facing Harry Redknapp at White Hart Lane, “Spurs brought in Gomes to replace Paul Robinson after he made numerous mistakes last season but seemingly nothing has changed. I know that Harry Redknapp has been strongly linked with Newcastle’s Shay Given and for me, he would be perfect for Tottenham”.

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