We have now official bought Michael Carrick. It was pretty much official on Friday/Saturday but he had a medical today. It was thought we paid around £13m for him which sounded slightly high since we sold Ruud for about £10m. It has now been announced we actually paid £18.5m for him!!

I think hes a really good player and an excellent buy but thats a lot of money. However if he is successful it will be a bargain compared to the £28m we paid for Veron. He is going to give United more options with his passing ability. I am not too sure about his tackling skills though so it will be interesting to see how he plays. Its likely that he will play alongside Scholes (unless we buy someone else).

Its been reported that he will be No. 16 – Roy Keane’s old number. This should give him lots of confidence. There is also the possibility of a couple more signings over the next few days. Senna from Villareal and also the rumours of us being Torres will not go away!!

Also in other United news, Rooney and Ronaldo would have met up for the first time (in a professional situation) since the world cup for training today. Apparently they didnt actually meet on the training pitch and only behind close doors because Rooney was only in training in the morning and Ronaldo trained later on. As usual the press is making a massive story out of it – they have more than likely made up already.

Its been a tiring few days. It started on Friday when I had a meeting in Rugby. The meeting was at 930am and it meant I had to get up at 530am Thankfully the meeting went well so it was all worth it. Didnt get back home till around 630pm.

Saturday met up with friends for food, drinks and karaoke. It was a BBC (British Born Chinese) meet with a load of people coming up from down South. It was a great night. Many people met up in the afternoon and toured around Manchester including the Urbis. We met up in the Paramount bar for drinks. We then went to Tai Wu. Afterwards we went to Spirit Bar – unfortunately by then it started raining but it wasnt too bad. I had never been there before and there was a nice balcony area on the top floor with a nice view.

We then headed to the karaoke place (near Chinatown). Amongst the group we went up to sing about 5 times. I had an excellent time – the only problem was the wait. We had to wait almost an hour at one point. I sang a few songs – most as a group. We sang Maroon 5 (This Love), Backstreet Boys (I want it that way) and California Dreamin (which I didnt really know). When I say sing it was more like shout!

I was also persuaded to sing a song a sang Hero by Enrique Iglasias. When it was my turn some guy went up and said he had also picked the song – I guess its possible but the guy was clearly drunk and also tried to sing some other peoples songs. We was singing the songs and trying to be funny – but wasnt really. Anyone he sang on one mic and I sang on the other. I was starting to lose my voice towards the end of the night. After the karaoke we went to Kwok Man for some food. Its better than a kebab!

On Sunday I met up with some of my cousins in Liverpool. We played rounders, tennis and football. Luckily the weather was nice and we ended up playing games for more than 3 and a half hours. How time flies! I had dinner at my aunty and uncles. Some lovely food as usual.

Here are some photos: “YellowFlower” | “Ook”

Ruud has been sold to Real Madrid for around £10m. I think we should have got more for him but it seems Real knew Ruud wanted to go and could get away with a lower bid. We should have got at least £15m. Although he has not had the best year with form his record is amazing making him one of the all time great strikers for United. He scored 150 goals in 219 games.

He has said he has left not because of the fans or the club but because of the manager – this is another player who has fallen out with Fergie for whatever reason. He is now added to the ever growing list of the likes of Keane, Stam and Beckham.

We have finally bought a player – we will be finalising the deal to buy Carrick next week. I dont think its been made official how much we are paying for him but its rumoured to be around £15m. Although I think he is a really good player its slightly more that I would have liked to pay – I think hes worth more like £12m.

I hope we get at least 1 more player to replace Ruud – he guaranteed 20 goals a season. From what I have read it seems like he is thinking of moving Alan Smith back on front. Although Smith is a good player he wont guarantee 20 goals (plus he wont be fully fit for the start of the season – dont think he will be anyway). Unfortunately Torres is not coming – I think he said in a press conference he was staying in Span. However if we got him we could have been ripped off paying far too much. (In the newspapers today we apparently may still get him for £27m).

Another player has now had a go at Sven – this time Lampard and criticising him for not taking Defoe.

Ruud turned up to training today but apparently he still wants to leave and Bayern still want him. I hope whatever happens is sorted soon. We need to start buying some players – we really need a couple central midfielders and if Ruud goes we need a striker.

I have heard all sorts of rumours – one that we may get both Defoe and Carrick from Spurs, another is we still could be getting Torres. I hoped we would have signed someone by now so they could have trained with us for a least a month before the season starts.

Newcastle seem to have got a bargain getting Duff for only £5m – it was originally thought to be £10m.

Mick McCarthy has been appointed as the new manager of Wolves. I think hes a crap manager. He did well to get Sunderland to the premiership but once there they were really bad. The lowest points score ever beating their own record. At least this means he wont be co-commentating for the BBC now. We just need to get Mark Lawro a job as manager of some team so we dont have to hear his rubbish jokes.

FA Crapness

The FA have banned Shaun Newton for 7 months after testing positive for cocaine. How can he get off relatively lightly – Rio Ferninand got 8 months for missing a test. He was never found guilty of taking any drugs!! Just shows they were trying to make an example of him because he was a high profile player.

Manchester United legend Teddy Sheringham’s song has signed a 2 year deal with Crystal Palace. He apparently plays like his father. I will be brilliant if they end up playing against each other. You never know next season in the League Cup or FA Cup Palace could play West Ham.

The weather today was official the hottest July day ever. It was almost 37C. I knew it was going to be a hot day when driving to work at about 830 it was already 23C. When I left work it was about 33C according to the temperature gauge in my car. It was actually hotter yesterday when the temperature said 35C. That was in the relative shade so in the sun it would have been well over 40C.

Its so hot the tarmac on the roads are melting (or more precisely the asphalt). I was driving to my parents yesterday and part of the motorway appeared almost as if tracks were forming. It was only in the inside lane so it was all the heavy lorries weighing it down. There are now gritters on the road spraying grit onto the roads to create a non-stick surface.

It seems here in the UK we never seem to cope – its the same sort of thing in the winter when we get a little bit of snow – the country grinds to a halt!

Completely unrelated is the new version of PowerDVD Deluxe 7. It has a feature called See it Again. It is aimed for laptop users and it monitors amount of battery life life and speeds up the playback of movie so it finishes before battery runs out. can speed up to 25% – apparently its quite watchable unless watching something with subtitles. May have to download the demo give it a go to see what its like!

Avril Lavigne has married her boyfriend Deryck Whibley (from the band Sum 41). There has been news about this all over the US TV networks. There is some photos online and also some videos online on YouTube.

Click here for an official photo. Click here for a photo from canada.com

Related links:

Canada.com
YouTube – Entertainment Tonight
Collection of vids on YouTube
Photos of guests etc 1 | 2
Photos from wedding (Canada.com)

I had a great but tiring weekend. I went to see Superman on Friday. On Saturday I went to an engagement BBQ. Had a really good time – saw friends I had not seen for awhile, lots of lovely food and rather randomly played some chinese hacky sacky game in the dark. I didnt really take any photos but I may link to someone elses photos. Congratulations to the happy couple and all the best for the future. You make a great couple! Didn’t get home until quite late and was knackered.

As usual played football on Sunday. We were actually playing a match and no training. Unfortunately we lost again (4-3). We should have won really and once again a couple mistakes cost us goals. I played in central midfield for part of the match and right wing for other part of the match. It was rolling subs and I was on the pitch for around 40 mins. When I was playing in central midfield I tried to play an attacking sort of midfielder. I went up front to support the striker and also tried to track back to help the defence. I managed to score a goal!!! A goal poachers goal just getting at the end of a cross.

Other football stuff – United are playing in South Africa at the moment in a series of friendlies. They played Orlando Pirates and won 4-0. There were 2 goals from Ole Solskjaer, one from Richardson and an own goal. It was fantastic for Ole to score. It will just be amazing when he scores at Old Trafford. Ole could be the answer to United attacking ‘problems’. It looks like we are going to lost Ruud and its not certain whether we will sign another striker e.g. Torres. However if we get all players back and fit we have Rooney, Saha, Ole, Smith and Rossi. Ronaldo can also play upfront as he did for Portugal (thats if he stays which I hope he does – it looks like he will stay and Fergie isnt going to let him go).

The transfer market could get very interesting now with the news of the Italian teams being relagated. There are loads of rumours going around and United have been linked with loads including Gattuso and Viera.

In other football stuff it seems that Terry Venables will help out Steve McLaren in the England setup. I think this will be good – when Venables was last manager we did well in Euro 96 playing attacking football.

I watched Superman Return last Friday and was hoping for a great film after reading some reviews. I had not heard any bad reviews and heard it was brilliant.

Maybe I was expecting too much but it wasnt ‘brilliant’. It wasn’t as good as Batman Begins but was it was still pretty good. Brandon Routh was an excellent choice for Superman – his mannerisms were very much like Christopher Reeves when he played Superman. At some points he really did look like him. Kate Bosworth did alright too. I was hoping the Lex Luthor character would be much more darker and evil. Instead it was abit more of light hearted almost comical role. The special effects were amazing and visually it looked great. I think the director Bryan Singer was trying to give the feel of the Superman movies from the 80s but just update it. This was evident from the opening credits which had a retro high tech look.

Check out some of the photos from the UK Premiere – Kate Bosworth looks amazing.