Our thoughts to go Arsenal’s Eduardo da Silva, a talented young footballer who will miss the rest of the season (and maybe the rest of the year, what with rehabilitation and getting match-fit) and especially Euro 2008. Good luck with your recovery mate, get well soon. Also, props to Wenger for retracting his comments on Matt Taylor.

On to today’s round up of takeovers, turncoats, floatation devices and the maladjusted in our society. Yes, floatation devices.

1. More Coverage Of Player-Support Services, Please

Stan Collymore says that the PFA are not doing enough to help footballers – Gordon Taylor blames Stan’s short memory as he claims to have looked after Stan regularly.

Really, that’s news now Here’s a guy whose most famous moment in recent memory was being killed by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct 2. That’s it, that’s what he’s done recently. Not to be crude, but giving him airtime is ridiculous.

What IS true is the amount of psychological and physical stress that the modern footballer goes through, and it would be good to give more airtime to player-support services instead of quoting this back-and-forth tripe.

And no, I don’t mean this sort of support…

2. Arsenal v Usmanov

Long story short – Usmanov needs 51% shares to take control. He has 24.2, Stan Kroenke has 12% and there are 18% on the open market.

I don’t see why Usmanov cannot get the 51% required come summer time. I’ve said this before – if the Arsenal board feel so strongly against him, they should find a way to buy up 50% themselves and thus directly prevent any type of takeover. Otherwise, Arsenal will be bought out sooner or later.

3. David James: No One Cares About The League Cup

I’ve always read Jamo’s column with interest – he’s not always right but he always has something interesting to say and he’s a fairly eloquent and intelligent bloke. His thoughts on how (and why) the League Cup is unimportant are more poignant given that he’s a footballer himself.

Perhaps we should get the Premier League teams out of the League Cup and leave it to the Football League