WORLD EXCLUSIVE! The tapes from the bugged England dressing room!

The FA are reviewing their security arrangements after it was revealed the dressing room at the team’s Grove hotel training HQ was bugged. Soccermongery’s got EXCLUSIVE access to the tapes. We reveal the astonishing aftermath of the decision to drop John Terry as skipper and replace him with Rio Ferdinand!

Also on Soccermongery: why FIFA's right to resist pressure to use video evidence and why Michael Owen's top level career is over.

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Carlsberg don't sponsor football - but if they did ....

.... oh well, never mind!

The Reds slumped to their ninth Premier League defeat of the season. And that's not counting all the losses in the Cups and Champions League. The Big 4? They're going to have to rebrand it.

Click here: why Mourinho shouldn't return to English football.

Michael Owen's top level of career is over

Michael Owen's cameo in the Carling Cup Final encapsulated his whole career in just 42 minutes. He scored a vital goal on the biggest stage, he took the chance in front of England coach Fabio Capello - and then pulled up with a hamstring injury and was withdrawn before half time.

It rules him out for the rest of the season so extinguishing any flickering hope he might make the squad for the World Cup Finals.

But with another year left on his contract at Old Trafford, Sir Alex Ferguson says Owen will be at United next season. He's praised the former England striker as sharp in training and good around the dressing room.

And Owen's "loved every minute" at United, scoring nine goals in all competitions despite only starting eleven times. Despite a catalogue of injuries the 30-year-old still knows where the goal is.

And true to his reputation for keeping the coolest head in the biggest cauldron, Owen's memorable strike in Fergietime against Manchester City together with his Wembley swansong  proved he's never lost it.

He says he's determined to return to peak physical condition for the start of next season - and he probably will. But that won't stop an old injury resurfacing. For a man who's hit 40 goals in 89 international appearances, his hamstring signals a miserable autumn to his career.

So he'll struggle through another season at United. A bit part player in a successful side. His role will be even further diminished as Fergie will surely raid the transfer market looking to bolster a thin looking frontline led by Rooney, Berbatov and the thoroughly unconvincing Diouf.

Even so, he'll still probably come off the bench to beat United's nearest title rival next season!

Owen's developing interests beyond football - particularly in horseracing. He seems at peace with himself. It's just a shame for the rest of us Owen fans that his physicality doesn't match his undoubted goalscoring talent.

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Wenger's plan has a design fault - Fabregas.

For 188bet's podcasts previewing the Premier League weekend, click here.

"That Arsene Wenger? he's a genius, mate! He doesn't resort to splashing the cash. He patiently cultivates his international teenagers into twentysomething worldbeaters!".

And his plan certainly stacks up. Arsenal are the big four's only financially viable club who are otherwise saddled with unmanageable debt or funded as a billionaire plaything. Arsenal's £250million overdraft is Good Debt. It's attached to the building cost of The Emirates, which incidentally generates the biggest matchday revenue in the world.

Yes, Wenger and his board visualise a few seasons as also-rans behind Chelsea, Manchester United and the European giants but soon, they'll inherit the world!

But there's one major, major, (major) design fault to the Professor's Grand Plan.

The man Wenger wants to build his team around is a Catalan who dreams one day of returning home to his one and only. Of course, I talk of Cesc Fabregas and Barcelona.

How can Wenger plan around a player who WILL leave the Gunners in six months, two years or some other undefined time?

Speaking in the aftermath of Arsenal’s hard-fought 1-nil win over Liverpool, the Alsatian coach responded to media questions on the transfer speculation with his usual wit:

“Nothing plus nothing, is nothing,” he stated after he was informed of the denial issued by the Barcelona hierarchy.

Wenger holds the 23-year-old star in the highest esteem: "Cesc's vision is comparable to Michel Platini's. It's a compliment but Cesc has it all in front of him, but he has a vision.

"He will still develop. I remember Platini was more of a striker and Cesc is more of a midfielder. He is adding that element to his game, but Platini had more of a striker's mentality. He could stay quiet for a game, then think, 'I will score a goal'. Cesc is a guy who likes to be at the heart of things."

But Fabregas, who's issued a fresh denial about leaving Arsenal, has said in the past he'd like to play for Barcelona some day. It would be a way of Camp Nou nullifying the error of losing their youngster as a teenager to Wenger and Arsenal. It's rumoured Arsenal capitalised on the power vacuum at FCB during the last presidential elections.

You can never say that a single player is bigger than the team, but as Wenger's experienced before, losing big players plots the team's progress backwards. How ironic would it be if Fabregas returned to Barcelona as part of an electoral promise - by Joan Laporta!

At Arsenal where the ethic is: if the first-team is successful, then the rest of the club's success stems from there, Wenger needs to adopt a Plan B - and go into the transfer market.


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