Recently by Andy Proudfoot

NOW that's what I call a takeover.

No sooner had the Abu Dhabi United Group (nothing sinister in that name is there?) stuffed their dirhams into 'Frank' Shinawatra's pockets, than they're mounting outrageous transfer bids for the likes of Robinho, Dimitar Berbatov and David Villa, sending Mark Hughes on a bizarre Supermarket Sweep, trying to spend £100m in 12 hours from the golf course.

Though the latter two were always likely to be doomed attempts, the capture of the young Brazilian was indeed a major coup. Having declared only 24 hours earlier that his heart was in Chelsea, it's clear that his bank account is now firmly in Manchester.

ONE of the frequent maxims trotted out by fan and pundit alike is that, in order to win a championship, you have to win while playing badly.

However, no-one seems to have told Liverpool that this does not apply to every match.

Two wins from two games, against sides that deserved at least a point for their efforts, seems to have convinced many optimistic observers that the Premier League is ours for the taking.

WHEN Alfred, Lord Tennyson, wrote that 'In spring, a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love', he clearly wasn't living in Liverpool.

For it's only as autumn approaches that a Kopite's loins begin to stir, as he contemplates the advent of another football season, bringing with it the prospect of a heavenly coupling of the Premier League title and the Anfield trophy room.

Of course, for the last 18 years harsh reality has seen us cuckolded by those East Lancs Lotharios and the capital's Casanovas; so is there any reason to be hopeful that we may at last clutch that fickle mistress to our collective bosom?

THERE'S no doubting this year's 'must have' for the Big Four.

As the Premier League's commercial giants search for new ways in which they can differentiate their product, widen the gap between themselves and the chasing pack, and stoke the media fires that maintain their brand positioning, there appears to be one essential means to maintain spectator interest and keep the back pages buzzing: The Transfer Saga.

The future residence of Barry, Ronaldo, Lampard and Adebayor has generated endless column inches of coverage in the last month or more, as the players, their agents, managers, officials and PR spokesmen seem incapable of maintaining a dignified silence and insist on playing out their negotiations in the full glare of public scrutiny

SO, it's farewell to 'the 6ft 7in Peter Crouch' as he came to be known by all the popular press and TV commentators.

Our erstwhile centre-forward, doomed forever to be known by various epithets which deride his unusual physique, leaves with some reluctance on both sides but for the best of reasons - he wants to play football rather than sit bent double under the Perspex roofs of dug-outs the length and breadth of the land.

Many eyebrows were raised when Rafa splashed out £7million for Crouch in the summer of 2005; indeed mine were so high that I needed a fishing net to bring them down again