David James obviously didn't check the league tables before signing to Man City as he admits to BBC Sport, "I didn't realise what position City were in. I was surprised to be honest". With City 3 points above the relegation zone and an away game against Arsenal on Sunday things could become a lot more complicated for them, especially as they allegedly have debts of more than £50 million and would probably prefer to avoid the predicament that Leeds are currently in (more of whom later).

Anyway, we've got better things to talk about then David James being relegated two seasons in a row. Well perhaps not. Stevie Carr finally looks to be making a move to Newcastle, as Bobby Robson finally has a bit of cash to spend after having sold Nobby Solano and Carl Cort.

Leeds believe that they've got the £5 million required to avoid administration, mainly due to the players agreeing to take their wage deferral. Hopefully this will be the last we'll hear of this situation until the of the season.

Meanwhile in Germany, the Bundesliga restarts tonight with the Dortmund-Schalke derby. It's a crucial game for both teams, as they're struggling to stay within reach of a European place, let alone a Champions League spot. It's a particular worry for Dortmund, as in recent years they've spent up to their eyeballs and are very much in danger of what may be soon called "doing a Leeds". The rest of the league kicks off tomorrow with Bayern missing the missing link that is Oli Kahn and Werder, Stuttgart (now with Zivkovic) and Leverkusen looking to continue their form from last autumn.

"Do we know when it is? I'll go spare if I'm stuck at the in-laws over Christmas with no excuse to go to the pub on Boxing Day!". That's the view of Joe Public on hearing that Premier League chairmen have voted in principle to introduce a winter break starting next season. Luckily for Ben A of the Beeb Sport forum, it looks as though the break will take the form of a 13-day break in January.
And for the first time in the history of English football, everybody seems to be agreeing with it; the players, PFA boss Gordon Taylor, Premier League chief Richard Scudamore, Sven, even Arsene and Alex. The world has clearly gone mad.
On the whole it seems like a very reasonable idea, especially as it'll only be at the cost of one weekend's football. Whether it will turn out to be an experiment that's gone wrong like 'The Premiership' on ITV remains to be seen, but for once it seems that an footballing proposal has been thought through properly (unlike Sepp's 16-team leagues idea).

Meanwhile at the Valley, Scotty Parker has thrown out enough toys from his pram for Charlton to agree to let him move to Chelsea, who are signing that cheque for 12 million as we speak. It seems they want him as replacement for Veron who will be out for 3 months after surgery on his back, but worryingly Shopaholic Claudio has said that he's looking for another 8 players to boost his team. It makes you wonder who else he has in mind? Rosicky? Vieri? The mind boggles. Anyway, one down, seven to go...

And now for the less-exciting news; Dave Jones has signed Paul Jones for the third team as the keeper moves to Wolves.

The Leeds players have apparently seen the error of their ways and will be meeting to discuss a wage deferral. This means that they'll at least probably have a team to play for next season. In Division 1 that is.

And Ruud is set for a new deal. Yawn.

Just when you thought that the most exciting news that would come from this month's transfer window was "Moyes wants to pinch United's Butt", along comes the news from Arsenal that Arsene has dipped into the piggy bank and gone on a massive bender, only to wake up and find that he's spent most of his hard-earned cash on Sevilla starlet Jose Antonio Reyes. The Guardian says that the Frenchman has forked out £16.6m, while the Beeb says nothing, apart from the fact that the Gooner's 21 million quid bid for him was turned down last summer, whereas Marca claim that it's 26 million quid. Finally, the Daily Sport says that the Spaniard is moving to London for a packet of wine-gums and a can of Coke.*
In any case it's broken the Gooner's transfer record and may well have a big impact on what happens in the second half of the Premiership season. One can only presume that Sevilla, who are hovering just above the relegation table have changed their minds and decided that £16.6/21/24/26 (delete as appropriate) million quid might come in handy for buying a few other players in order to keep them up.

Oh and Blackburn failed in their Radzinski bid. Not nearly as exciting eh?

*We made that up.

It so it would seem having read the various match reports of this weekend's FA Cup 4th round games. First Jimmy was accused of being a bit free and easy with his elbow against Mark Hotte during Chelsea's win against Scarborough on Saturday. An then new Spurs acquisition Michael Brown mentioned that Claudio Reyna had used his elbow in yesterday's draw between Man Citeh and Tottenham. What's the world coming to eh?

They say that lightning never strikes in the same place twice, but then they didn't reckon on Bruno Cheyrou, who has seemingly turned into a goal machine. Anyway, apart from that and Swansea's win, there weren't any major surprises, hence the draw for the fifth round looks like this:
Man Utd v Man City/Tottenham
Tranmere v Swansea
Telford/Millwall v Burnley
Sunderland v Birmingham
Sheff Utd v Coventry/Colchester
Arsenal v Chelsea
Liverpool v Portsmouth
Everton/Fulham v West Ham

Despite the fact that there are only 6 more days left till the transfer window closes, there doesn't appear to be that much in the way of wildly exciting rumours. Everton are determined to annoy Birmingham by asking about Nicky Butt as well. While Winston Bogarde may finally be looking to leave Chelsea (yes folks, he's still there).

And as a token gesture to our lack of Scottish coverage there's the news that everybody's favourite footballing twins, the De Boers, will be reunited at Rangers.

Oh and Leeds are stating that yet another consortium is interested in buying them. We don't believe you guys.

Good ol' Sepp, you've got to give him credit. Merely a week or so after suggesting that women's teams should adopt shorter shorts (note to Sepp, don't let your fantasies stray into your worklife), he's had a go at Puma for introducing Cameroon's new figurehugging kit. The barefaced cheek of it all eh?

The Saha Saga© is officially over. The boy Louis is now a ManU player thanks to a lot of sulking and 12.8 big ones. Of course, as soon as one transfer epic is over, along comes the next one. It's a heart-rendering tale of a player torn between two teams. Yes, it's the true story of Arjen Robben, Man U and Chelsea. I would go into some detail now, but as this is just the beginning of it all, I wouldn't want to overwhelm you.

Instead, have a nice weekend and enjoy the FA Cup football.

Despite his imminent departure for Nigeria's training camp, Jay-Jay found the time last night to pretty much put Bolton through to the the final of the Carling Cup, with a little help from Nolan, Giannakopoulos and Bruno N'Gotty. At 5-2 Villa looked particularly ordinary (so what's new?) and Sam Allardyce must've been pretty chuffed at the likely prospect of being in his first ever cup final.

Meanwhile in last night's other game, Liverpool drew against Wolves, the latter demonstrating that they might just get out of the relegation zone (and fair play to them), while Bruno Cheyrou broke every law of possibility and scored another goal this season. Less surprisingly it was handbags at five paces between Paul Ince and Stevie Gerrard. Bless 'em. If Wolves carry on this way, they could just stay up, especially if Leeds get a points deduction for going into administration. Although sadly, they may well have dented their hopes by signing the rubbish Carl Cort. We shall see...

Spurs get all mysterious as Daniel Levy discusses his plans regarding their new manager. "The potential manager is aware of the targets we are looking at," said Levy. He added: "There have been discussions with him. We know who we want and he is aware of the situation. But there is no guarantee he will be here in the summer, although we are hopeful."
Right. In other words, you're desperately begging to Trappatoni or someone with vague and unfounded promises of footballing superstars coming to the Lane.

And finally, headline of the day goes to BBC Sport for this corker: Blues 'join Butt race'.

Following on from the sleeveless shirt first worn in the 2002 African Nations Cup, Cameroon are now going for a one piece football kit. Strange, but true.

I am naturally referring to the Leeds players' refusal to accept a wage deferral. This is likely to push the club into administration within the next few days, but as Football365 points out, "£83million is not a sum that can easily be negotiated away by administrators". So what would happen then? Well, if no other further buyer is found, then the club will go out of business (the Bradford and Man U fans can stop grinning now), and the players would naturally become ex-employees of a company without a fixed income. So refusing the deferment might not have been the wisest choice. But then again we are talking about footballers here. From Leeds United.

If they do go bankrupt before the summer (more likely now), then all sorts of exciting things will happen to all the English divisions. The mind boggles at all the potential possibilities for relegation, playoff and promotion. And you can bet the FA will fuck up somewhere too. In any case, we're likely to be seeing a number of Leeds players leaving soon, with The Gaurdian adamant that Paul Robinson will be the first to go (to White Hart Lane of all places).

Anyway, this won't be the last post on that subject, so we move on swiftly to confirm that Brian McBride has moved to Fulham, Rosicky may be interested in Barcelona (but then, who isn't?) and Chelsea have had yet another bid for Scott Parker rejected.

With Saha gone, Fulham look to his replacement, where initial reports suggest a 7 million offer for Robbie Keane. Well, at least that's what The Sun is reporting, so we're more likely to believe that they are bidding for Brian McBride, despite Blackburn apparently already having agreed a deal for him. Confused? We are.

And while one team go into the black, Leeds continue their experiment in how not to run a football club. Apparently they are also annoyed that they had not "received any satisfactory evidence from Sheikh al-Khalifa that funds exist to fulfil any proposal currently under discussion between him and the company." Face it chaps, he just didn't want to waste his money on you.

The Beeb confirms what I told we told you about Tomas Rosicky and Chelsea yesterday here.

Another Chelsea target, Petr Cech, is almost certainly going to join them at the end of the season. While Sebastian Frey says that the "Everything Must Go!" Winter Sale at Parma means that he will be joining Arsenal. Who, incidently, are supposedly also bidding for Feyenoord's winger Robin van Persie.

Reports from Germany hint that VfB Stuttgart's Penfold-like manager, Felix Magath, may well be stepping into Ottmar Hitzfeld's shoes soon, which would certainly allow the later to really drive those "managing an English club" rumours into a frenzy.

Meanwhile in Italy, things are getting exciting at Inter. Moretti, the chairman has stepped down and Chelsea-target (or so everyone keeps telling us) Vieri caps a great week by getting injured. At the same time, The Guardian has rumours that they are looking to snap up Adriano from Parma, possibly with the help of Stephane Dalmat, which takes us neatly back to Spurs, who may lose the on-loan Frenchman unless they find 6 million gold ones.

Finally, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. The Saha Saga© is finally over. The Boy Louis is off to Man U for 10 million. Apparently the deal was done and dusted last Tuesday, so why they denied it on Wednesday is beyond me. Judging by Saturday's performance, another forward is exactly what Man U need.

Chelsea, too, slipped up against Birmingham and lost the opportunity to make up some of the ground on the front two, and may well be spending some of their cash to get hold of Dortmund's Tomas Rosicky.

Naturally, Arsene is well chuffed about his weekend and with the Gooner's two points clear, and says he can now concentrate on the Carling Cup. Which is something none of us believes Arsene.

Elsewhere, pretty much every Liverpool fan on the net is asking why Hula-Hoop insists on playing Traore and Biscan, when Riise and Finnan are on the bench. Why indeed Gerard? But that shouldn't detract from Spurs win. They started brighter and despite a lax period in the second half, always looked as if they'd win it. That's all for now, but more transfer gossip will be posted when we hear it.

Until I can tempt Max back into posting with the help of a Liverpool season ticket, Round And White is looking for another columnist or two. Regular or irregular posts. Biased or unbiased. If you fancy a go, then just drop me an email. Ta muchly.

When the great AC Milan look to bid for an English forward, who is the first name that leaps to mind? Owen? Rooney? Shearer? There are a few possibilities, but Emile Heskey isn't the first name that leaps to mind. So, I'm guessing that Liverpool fans will be fairly pleased at the news that Milan are showing tentative interest in him. That's right, Ged, you might actually get some money for him.

Saha Saga© - Part 2375
Just when you thought that this story might finally be dying down, a Mr C Ranieri of West London comes along and does something that will no doubt seriously piss Alex Ferguson off. Chelsea too are strongly rumoured to be interested in Louis and may well grab him at he last minute.

The only other exciting piece of news (we're struggling at the moment) is that Ronaldo might be heading back to Inter. Most of the stories in the newspapers imply that this may well have an affect on Chelsea's "interest" in Vieri, but in my eyes this also implies that if Ronaldo does head back to Italy, then Real are bound to be looking for a replacement forward and a big name at that. My first guess would be Mikey Owen, so unbelievable as it might seem, it might be worth holding onto Heskey eh Gerard?

Yep, managerial genius Kev has swapped Safe Hands for David James, as the former announced his retirement due to injury. Kev is looking to David to help him out of the "worst spell" of his managerial career. No pressure there then.

Saha Saga© - Part 2374
Yep, just when you think it was all over and Louis was finally on his way, both clubs deny it. While the Guardian announces that Man U expect him to be their third signing of the week, BBC Sport and Football 365 both state that both clubs have denied the deal. Really, this is getting beyond tedious now.

Meanwhile, down on the South Coast Zivkovic has stormed off in a huff because 'Arry has been spending too much time on his mobile phone. Or something like that. And that's it for now.

And no, it's not about Rivaldo (who has since scarped off back home). Instead, its the news from Spiegel that Ronaldo has been fined by Real Madrid for going to London "on business" without their permission. It's with mentioning that this is the second such trip in the last few weeks, but Ronaldo maintains that he's not meeting anyone from Chelsea. The Round And White betting shop is now no longer taking bets.

More European news as Barcelona fork out for a new sunglasses model. Yes, Edgar "Pitbull" Davids has joined the Catalan club.

It's like a revolving door at Old Trafford as Nicky Butt has handed in his transfer request, while at the same time Fergie has signed Dong, the teenage Chinese striker. Nicky is apparently leaving because of the lack of first team football, although we think that he's been blackballed for refusing to take part in Roy Keane's yoga sessions.
And yes, the Saha saga (© Round And White) drags on. Read about it here.

Another Nicholas is getting itchy feet too. Yes, you've guessed it Mr Anelka has admitted, "I want to be at a great club, to turn out with great players in England or elsewhere." A statement that is sure to go down well with City fans.

And finally, Spurs continue to search throughout Europe for contestants to take part in Coach Idol. The winner (lucky or unlucky depending on your point of view) will get a contract at White Hart Lane. The latest addition is Giovanni Trapattoni and Spurs have stated that "We are interested in hearing his point of view." Wait, I think I can hear faint laughter coming from somewhere in Italy...

And so the story continues. A new year starts, and suddenly there's a tonne of news and gossip.

But first the FA Cup, where controversy reigns regarding Kewell's so-called dive against Yeovil Town. I didn't see it, (as Arsene Wenger would say) but it's unlikely to have made much of a difference as Liverpool didn't, as many were predicting, slip up. Elsewhere there weren't any big surprises besides Charlton's loss to Gillingham and Telford's win against Crewe. Chelsea came close to buggering things up, but will probably manage to squeeze past Watford in the replay. The Premiership on Premiership ties threw up a lot of high-scoring games. Leeds were spanked by Arsenal, Newcastle walked over Southampton, Birmingham made sure that Blackburn regretted selling David Dunn.

But enough about that. The FA have finally explained why Rio got 8 months. Which will hopefully prevent Gary Neville et al from banging on about how unfair the whole the situation is. Although the general public won't be seeing it yet. Shame. It'd be a good way to get over that post-Christmas depression.

Elsewhere, Pob...sorry...I mean Alan Smith looks as if he will be making that familar trip down to the FA for a reminder that half-time is not the best time to start laying into opponents.

Spurs continue to speak to every man and his dog in order to find a new manager; the latest contestant according to some people is Ottmar Hitzfeld of Bayern Munich, although Roy Hodgson too is jumping around in the background trying to get some attention. Roberto Mancini is sooo last year it would seem. Hitzfeld isn't the only Bundesliga stalwart who has heard from England, as Tomasz Hajto has admitted considering a move to Everton, "Would you like to play for a team in Liverpool?".

And finally Arjen Robben admits he would like to move to Man U, but not until the summer. So I guess Alex will have to dig a bit deeper into his pockets if he wants him as a late Christmas present.

Full fourth-round draw
Man City or Leicester v Tottenham
Swansea v Preston or Reading
Northampton or Rotherham v Man Utd
Kidderminster or Wolves v West Ham
Arsenal v Middlesbrough
Coventry v Accrington or Colchester
Ipswich v Sunderland
Luton v Tranmere or Bolton
Liverpool v Newcastle
Burnley v Gillingham
Nottingham Forest v Sheffield Utd
Portsmouth v Barnsley or Scunthorpe
Everton v Fulham
Telford v Millwall
Southend or Scarborough v Watford or Chelsea
Birmingham v Wimbledon or Stoke City
(Ties to be played 24 and 25 January)