The 9Limited, an online game developer and operator in China, said Anelka would promote “Firefall”, in which players fire sophisticated weapons to survive on a post-apocalyptic Earth.

The US-listed company said it had also tied up with Anelka’s new team, Shanghai Shenhua, to promote the online game in an endorsement deal valued at 32 million yuan ($5.1 million).

The major shareholder of Shenhua, Zhu Jun, is also chairperson and chief executive officer of The9, the company said in a statement released on Sunday.

Under the deal, Shenhua players will wear jerseys with the game’s logo at all their matches.

“A big portion of Firefall gamers are also soccer fans, most of whom are male, passionate about sports, and actively followers of entertainment stories of sport stars,” the company’s vice-president of marketing, Chris Shen, said in the statement.

Anelka, who most recently played for English Premiership club Chelsea, joined the Shanghai team earlier this month. Shenhua has declined to release financial details of his contract.

A spokesperson for Shenhua said that the club would hold training sessions in Spain after the Chinese Lunar New Year in late January, and Anelka would join the other players in Europe.

Shanghai Shenhua, 11th in China’s Super League last season, is the latest stop on Anelka’s career, which has also seen spells at Paris Saint-Germain, Liverpool, Manchester City, Bolton Wanderers and Turkey’s Fenerbache.

Source: sport24.co.za

The branding was unveiled as the team took on Manchester United at St James’ Park.

Sir Richard Branson’s banking venture completed its £747m purchase of Newcastle- based Northern Rock from the Government on Sunday.

Last night, Virgin Money confirmed a deal to sponsor Newcastle until the 2014-15 season.

Virgin Money chief executive Jayne-Anne Gadhia said: “Now that Virgin Money and Northern Rock are united as one business, it gives us great pleasure to continue the shirt sponsorship of Newcastle.

“The Northern Rock sponsorship started in 2003 and it is an important link to the North-East, which we are pleased to continue.

“Combined with our sponsorship of the London Marathon and the Edinburgh Festival ‘Fringe on the High Street’, the shirt sponsorship of Newcastle United Football Club embeds our involvement in the communities we serve.”

Newcastle’s managing director, Derek Llambias, said: “We’re delighted to secure this new deal with Virgin Money.”

With the Northern Rock name still on the firm’s website and the intention to phase it out gradually, Virgin originally indicated that there were no imminent plans to change the sponsorship on players’ shirts after eight years.

Ms Gadhia said on Tuesday afternoon: “It will still be Northern Rock on the shirt as usual.”

However it is understood that developments later that evening led to a change of heart. Virgin Money has moved its headquarters to Northern Rock’s Gosforth base, where about 2,000 staff are employed.

With the change coming mid-season and the fact some fans will have received replica strips for Christmas, Virgin Money last night said the first 10,000 supporters with 2011-12 season shirts who take them to Newcastle United’s club shop will receive a free update to the Virgin Money shirt.

Ms Gadhia said: “Availability of this new branding will be posted on the club website, but is expected at the end of the week.”

Ben McKeown, 34, of Darlington, who was at last night’s game, said: “I will go for anything as long as it isn’t Sports Direct. I secretly bought a Newcastle shirt for Christmas for my two-yearold daughter, Orla. Her mother is a Sunderland fan, she doesn’t know she has got the shirt anyway and she would not let me change the name on it if she did.”

Michael Webber, 49, also from Darlington, said: “I am little bit too old to have the word Virgin across my chest, but it is money we need and I think it is a good marketing move to offer the 10,000 shirts.

Source: thenorthernecho.co.uk

The football club, currently at the top of the Premier League, is utilizing the cards’ RFID (radio frequency identification) technology to make the cards more personal to each individual fan.

Manchester City supporters will soon be able to use their smartphones to access exclusive augmented reality content based around players from the team. When they are in the vicinity of another fan with a membership card they could soon be able to swap the content – like stickers – with friends.

Richard Ayers, Manchester City’s head of digital, says: “[This] takes [being a fan] out of the TV and the home and the stadium and puts it in the pub and makes it very personal.”

Manchester City launched its digital membership scheme this season. Beyond augmented reality content; the tiered scheme also allows fans to collect points to go towards purchases at the City of Manchester Stadium and the club’s website.

The football club has launched a series of digital initiatives in recent months as it looks to take advantage of the team’s current good run of form and engage with more fans to boost online revenue.

It collaborates with Electronic Arts, maker of the FIFA series of football console games to produce a series of club-specific content and became YouTube’s first Premier League partner earlier this year.

Source: marketingweek.co.uk

The structure, located in the stadium’s City Square event space, houses Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 machines playing EA’s FIFA 12 game.

Fans are able to compete online, head-to-head and in organised tournaments on matchdays. A second EA-branded installation is sited inside the Etihad’s family area.

The partnership also sees two staff at EA’s FIFA headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, dedicated to producing game-related content around Manchester City, which forms part of the club’s three-year mission to increase engagement with fans around the world using digital channels.

A virtual kit launch and screenshot images prepared ahead of the signing of striker Samir Nasri were created earlier in the season.

Manchester City head of partnerships Luis Vicente says the tie-up with the FIFA games also helps the club reach new markets. “They touch demographics that, for us, are very important – the younger demographics. Also, in some countries there are more fans for the virtual game than there are for the real game.”

For EA, the pop-up initiative, created by Circle Agency, is aimed at boosting its authenticity with football fans.

It also provides a platform throughout the year for the developer to promote downloadable content as it becomes available for purchase, and a planned add-on title for the FIFA 12 game.

Nick Harford, head of football at EA Sports, says: “Historically there has been a big push around the build-up to the launch, the launch and the build-up to Christmas. All the activity would have been focused on those key areas. What EA is looking at now are ways we can be more embedded in the world of football and relevant season-long.”

Source: Marketingweek.co.uk

Double qualification was the result the city’s business community was hoping for – as Champions League football means a major economic windfall for the city.

For modern football clubs, the Champions League is a gold mine, and as Paul Simpson, managing director of Visit Manchester, explained there is a marked spin-off for the city from success on the field.

Tourism already generates £5.4bn for Greater Manchester annually, supporting the equivalent of 75,000 full-time jobs – and European football success is a major factor, according to Mr. Simpson.

“Football is very much a part of Manchester’s DNA. From a tourism point of view, I can’t stress enough the benefits that UEFA Champions League fixtures bring to Manchester,” he said.

“They attract thousands of extra visitors to the city and provide a much valued boost to the city’s hotels, restaurants and bars.

“It also helps to raise our profile with international visitors that might not have been to Manchester before.”

Visit Manchester data says that the average overseas football fan will spend £776 in the city.

Even non-competitive fixtures have a financial benefit – 98% of the city’s hotel beds were taken on the day of former Manchester United player Paul Scholes’ testimonial earlier this year.

The last time United did not progress beyond the group stages of the competition was in 2005-6, causing heartbreak for fans and hoteliers alike.

Stephen Miller, chair of the Manchester Hoteliers Association, said at that time there was a marked drop in hotel bookings.

Although as chief economist at Manchester Chamber of Commerce Dr Brian Sloan points out, this time round both clubs are still in the Europa League.

And European football is still generating money for the city in other ways.

Manchester is currently the host city of the Soccerex European Forum, Europe’s leading football business event, which took place in 2009, 2010, 2011 and is scheduled to host the forum again next year.

According to Visit Manchester, each event generates between £1.5m to £2.5m for the city economy.

Source: bbc.co.uk

Manchester City has reported an annual loss of

But the operating loss does not include the club’s huge sponsorship deal with Etihad Airlines, worth a reported £35m a year, or revenues from this season’s Champions League campaign.

Uefa’s Financial Fair Play rules, which come into full effect in 2013-14, say clubs must break even over three years.

However the latest figures fall outside the accounting window for that.

The previous biggest Premier League loss was £141m reported by Chelsea in 2005 – when they went on to win the league.

The scale of City’s losses reflect the investments made by owner Sheikh Mansour of Abu Dhabi, who has spent more than £460m on players since taking over the club in 2008.

Since then, City have been transformed into the current Premier League leaders.

Brian Marwood, chief football operations officer at the club, told the BBC: “We know that we still have an awful lot of work to do but I think it’s exactly where we said we would be in terms of the initial investment.

“Over a period of time we are fully aware we have to be compliant and there’s a lot of work going on to make sure that’s achieved.”

He added that the club was working with Uefa all the time and was “comfortable” with the governing body’s new rules.

‘No repeat’

It is the second year in a row that City has made big losses. In 2009-10, it reported an operating loss of £126m.

But chief operating officer Graham Wallace said the losses “will not be repeated on this scale in the future”.

Turnover hit £153.2m, up from £125.1m in 2009-10.

This was driven by a 49% jump in commercial partnership revenue to £48.5m.

Income from television rights rose by 27.4% to £68.8m, thanks largely to the club’s third-place finish in the Premier League, winning the FA Cup and a run to the last 16 of the Europa League.

Match day ticket sales were up 8.2% to £19.7m.

But wage costs continue to exceed turnover, rising from £133m in 2009-10 to £174m in 2010-11.

Abu Dhabi concerns

Although City’s results next year will be boosted by the 10-year sponsorship deal with UAE’s Etihad, questions have been raised about the £400m agreement.

Etihad is based in Abu Dhabi, which is also the home of Sheikh Mansour, a member of the emirate’s ruling Al-Nahyan family.

Concerns have been raised that the deal has been inflated to help City meet Uefa’s financial fair play rules.

Liverpool managing director Ian Ayre has said: “Are Etihad, City and Sheikh Mansour related parties? If they are, it’s up to Uefa to rule on them.”

Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has also claimed the deal “raises the real question about the credibility of financial fair play”.

Uefa has confirmed it is looking at the deal to see if the club is taking advantage of its links with Abu Dhabi to circumvent its strict new financial rules.

Source: bbc.co.uk

But, this new partnership is different to most others. We are going to provide Yaya Touré with a treasure trove of PUMA products, all of which will be distributed to under-privileged children in West Africa. Yaya is well known for his involvement in projects that give children in his homeland the opportunity to play the beautiful game and given our rich history in Africa, we thought we’d make the perfect team. The first delivery of PUMA Football apparel, boots and equipment will be delivered just in time for the 2012 Orange African Cup of Nations in January.

Speaking of the new partnership Yaya said; “I am very excited about this new partnership with PUMA and the work we will be able to do together to give children in Africa the chance to play football. I have chosen to partner with PUMA because of the strong ties the brand has in Africa, they are the best company to help me provide these projects with football equipment. In under-privileged areas of Africa, football is a way for children to enjoy themselves and be healthy, for some it is also a way to a better life as it was for me. I am very happy to be working with PUMA on this.”

Yaya started out in his homeland, but soon made a name for himself in Europe and has gone on to enjoy a fantastic career representing Barcelona, Manchester City and Monaco amongst others. Touré has also done his fair share of touring around the continent and the midfielder is fondly remembered in the Belgian, Greek and Ukrainian leagues – where he set them alight with his pace, power and technique.

After getting his hands on last season’s FA Cup, we’re sure the African ace won’t have to wait too long for even more silverware.

Source: Puma

Manchester City Football Club

Manchester City Football Club has hailed its digital marketing investment at the Media Guardian Changing Advertising Summit on data and consumer profiling, Marketing Magazine reports.

The club’s head of digital Richard Ayers spoke at the event and described how the brand’s digital following is gaining on other clubs such as Manchester United and Chelsea, and is fast building up its use of loyalty and digital channels.

Mr Ayers described how sporting institutions should cater for not only the fans who attend events live but the wider fanbase who are keen to stay engaged with their team or athlete through digital channels.

Man City currently has nearly 125,000 followers on Twitter and over a million Facebook fans, as well as 70,000 spectators who hold membership cards, he went on to inform.

“Our fundamental strategy is giving them [fans] access to the club, giving them behind-the-scenes footage and getting them closer to that [match day] experience,” the head of digital argued.
He also commented that digital media has the potential to reach a far greater number of overseas fans.

“In the UK, the chances of persuading someone who supports Chelsea to support City are slim. However, overseas is kind of interesting because quite often they support two or three clubs,” Mr Ayers told the audience.

Earlier this month Manchester City Football Club became the first Premier League team to sign up to a content deal with YouTube.

The contract allows the club to create and control videos, while also managing the advertising surrounding its content.

This is largely done through CityTV, the Manchester City TV channel, which is responsible for uploading around 100 videos a month. It covers a range of topics, from players, to behind-the-scene interviews and debates with fans.

Jeff Nathenson, head of sports partnerships for YouTube, told the Drum: “We believe this kind of deal will have a global impact, allowing them to reach news fans in new territories with compelling original content.”

Source: equimedia.co.uk

Inside was an ornate box lined with black silk and holding a leather soccer ball with the Concha y Toro insignia stenciled next to that of the sender’s: Manchester United. An accompanying book laid out the financial benefits of a partnership with the soccer club. Within 36 hours, United executives were on the phone, outlining an agreement signed in May 2010.

The 19-time English champion introduced the Chilean company as its first global wine partner four months later at United’s Old Trafford stadium. Luxury boxes and lounges in the stadium serve only Concha y Toro’s Casillero del Diablo wines and the company’s ads appear on the digital billboards seen on broadcasts of United home games.

The courting of Concha y Toro epitomizes how United officials have made the club among the most valuable brands in sports, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Oct. 24 issue.

A 2007 survey conducted by London-based TNS Sport found that the team has 333 million supporters around the world.Last season, when United won its fourth English Premier League title in five years and made it to the finals of the European Cup, a cumulative audience of 4.2 billion watched its matches on television — the equivalent of a Super Bowl every week, according to Futures Sport & Entertainment.

Aon, Mister Potato

The club’s visibility has allowed it to assemble a roster of more than 30 global corporate partners ranging from Aon, the Chicago-based insurer that pays 20 million pounds ($31.5 million) a year to put its logo on the team’s jerseys; to Nike Inc. (NKE), which is in the final two years of a 13-year, 303 million pound agreement to produce all team apparel; to Mister Potato, the Malaysian brand that inked a deal in September to become United’s official “savory snack partner.”

“What’s the pitch?” asks Pierre Pang, deputy general manager for sales and marketing at Mamee-Double Decker, which owns Mister Potato. “Three hundred and thirty-three million fans globally, with close to two-thirds coming from Asia. That’s basically along the lines of where our strategy is: The vision of being Asian No. 1 for the potato snack segment.”

Last June, United said it had revenue of 331.4 million pounds for the 2010-11 season, a club record and by far the most among English clubs — though about 95 million pounds less than Spain’s Real Madrid, which is soccer’s biggest moneymaker.

Unlike U.S. sports, where salary caps and revenue-sharing agreements constrain the ability of rich teams to dominate, in soccer cash is still king. Chelsea, Manchester City, and others have catapulted themselves into the European elite thanks to billionaire owners willing to spend any amount to win.

Reform

European soccer’s governing body says beginning in 2014 it will consider banning teams that spend significantly more than they make. That would strengthen the position of clubs with the most revenue — such as Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Barcelona — which could use it to buy the best talent. The governing body’s proposed fix could end up locking in the status quo for years.

The people charged with selling the United brand work out of an office 200 miles south of Manchester in the London district of Mayfair, also known as Hedge Fund Alley. The office has oak-paneled conference rooms and an open-plan work space, where staffers dressed like bankers are bent over computers and working the phones. Rent for the London space costs the club 1 million pounds a year, and similar offices are set to open later this year in Hong Kong.

“Our approach has evolved beyond a traditional sports club’s, to being far more like that of a conventional blue-chip company,” Commercial Director Richard Arnold, 40, said in a conference room named for Alex Ferguson, United’s manager. “To arrive at this position we have spoken to companies with reputations as the world’s leading marketing organizations to see how they approach promotion and sales.”

History

United hasn’t always been successful. George Best and Bobby Charlton helped lead the club to a European championship in 1968, but the team went another two decades without a league title and even suffered relegation to the second division in 1974.

The improved on-field fortunes coincided with the creation of the Premier League in 1992, which made English soccer more global. Matches are broadcast live in 211 territories and income from global television rights now exceeds 1.4 billion pounds. That’s in addition to the 1.78 billion pounds the league earns from its domestic television contract.

Premier League

United has been the biggest beneficiary of the Premier League’s growth, winning the inaugural season title and 11 more over the next 20 years.

“Manchester United’s timing was great,” said Dan Jones, a partner with the accounting firm Deloitte, which has produced an annual review of soccer finance for the past 20 years. “They started to have huge success on the pitch at the time that all the other developments around media and so on gave them a place to take that.”

In 2005, Malcolm Glazer, the American owner of the National Football League’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers, completed a 790 million- pound leveraged buyout of the soccer team. Glazer and his family have spent 40 million pounds on the team’s marketing strategy, including creating a sales force. Before the takeover, two people worked on selling the Manchester United brand.

Strategy

“The early months of what we did was spent in very high- depth strategy discussions [with] multiple, multiple iterations,” Arnold said. “Even now, two days a month is spent iterating all those strategies.”

By investing in research like the TNS Sport study, United has been able to get a better understanding of the brand’s value and reach, Arnold said. The result is a strategy that sells access to its stadium infrastructure to major sponsors, while offering limited territorial association rights to telecom and credit card companies, allowing them to sell United-branded products and content. Many of the agreements also include revenue sharing between United and its partners.

In the past year commercial sales have increased 27 percent, to more than 100 million pounds, while the value of the team’s corporate partnerships has risen tenfold since 2008.

The club has done it by creating new forms of advertising inventory, beyond the industry standard. The team’s global sponsors, including Turkish Airlines and Thai beer brand Singha, get physical advertising space at Old Trafford and digital ads during broadcasts of United’s home games.

Regional Partners

Since 2008 the club has also signed agreements with regional partners, which are given exclusive rights to promote their companies alongside United within specific geographic areas, though they have little or no visibility in Manchester or on the team’s website.

Arnold said one reason United is able to secure such deals is the time it spends learning about potential partners. “We found there was a CEO of one of the companies we dealt with who didn’t like tea or coffee, he liked Diet Coke,” Arnold said. “When the meeting starts he gets a Diet Coke, not tea or coffee. Everything we do has to express the premium offering that Manchester United is, and you have to be able to do that transcending industry, culture, country.”

The club’s recent agreement with shipping company DHL reflects its commercial power. Arnold’s team sent branded iPads loaded with company-specific presentations to DHL, in an effort to persuade the company to sponsor the jerseys United players wear–during practice.

In August, DHL signed a four-year contract for 40 million pounds, more than what all but four other Premier League teams get from their biggest sponsors.

Sliced Rights

It’s also an example of how the team is able to slice its rights. In 2009, Standard Chartered, the financial services company, competed with Aon in the race to sponsor United’s game- day jerseys. When Standard Chartered lost out, it signed on with Liverpool, but insisted on being the exclusive corporate name on all Liverpool apparel.

“The training kit thing is a very interesting angle because it’s essentially saying the media coverage that Manchester United get when they’re training equates to smaller teams’ coverage when they’re actually playing,” said Andy Korman, a partner at the U.K. law firm Couchmans, which specializes in sports sponsorship. “So more people are interested in seeing Manchester United down on the training ground than they are in seeing most other teams live.”

Competitors

United’s sales operation dwarfs that of any of its rivals. Chelsea, United’s chief Premier League competitor in recent seasons, has “a handful” of sponsorship sales staffers, one club executive told Bloomberg Businessweek. Liverpool, the team that comes closest to United in worldwide appeal, hired its first London-based employee earlier this year and didn’t have a commercial director until 2007.

“Any team should look at them and learn,” said Ivan Gazidis, chief executive officer of Arsenal, whose commercial revenue is about one-third the size of United’s. “But not every club is in the position Manchester United is in. So the solutions for any individual club could be different.”

For all their success at bringing in additional revenue, the Glazers have faced resentment from United fans who say the family is using the team’s income to cover the costs of buying it, rather than investing in talent. United, which had been listed on the London Stock Exchange since 1991, was debt-free before Glazer took it private, and now has net debt of more than 300 million pounds.

Share Sale?

The Glazers have hired Credit Suisse to help float as much as 30 percent of the club for $1 billion. Analysts say the valuation is unrealistic because it would mean the club is worth more than $3 billion, far higher than a Forbes rating of $1.8 billion. Some of the proceeds from the listing would likely be used to pay off a 500 million-pound bond the team issued in Jan. 2010.

Financial details released in that bond prospectus revealed how much the Glazers’ ownership had cost, fueling a protest campaign. Andrew Green, a financial adviser to the Manchester United Supporters Trust, a group opposed to the Glazers, said the team’s commercial revenue is “a drop in the bucket compared to the 495 million pounds of interest, banking, and other costs” during the family’s ownership.

At the height of the backlash last year, fans brandished gold and green scarves, representing the club’s founding colors, and held up signs at home games with messages such as “Love United, Hate Glazer.” The protest colors have been less visible this season after United spent 50 million pounds beefing up its already potent roster.

Customer Data

Arnold said the club has explored ways to monetize a customer database with detailed information about 11 million fans. It’s expanding its relationships with credit-card companies. Indonesia-based Bank Danamon, Korea’s Shinhan Bank, and Malaysia’s Public Bank already have credit cards bearing the United logo.

The team is also renegotiating its contract with Nike, which currently gives the apparel maker control over the production of all United merchandise, whether its logo appears on it or not.

“Manchester United have grown … and that will reflect the price,” said sponsorship expert Korman, whose firm’s clients include Nike. “The greater the prestige of the brand, the greater their marketing team is able to go to the manufacturers and say, ‘Look, this is what we believe the deal to be worth.’”

Source: bloomberg.com

The study by technology consultants LEWIS Communications examined a range of factors such as the number of Twitter and Facebook followers, level of interaction with fans, ease of online access and app development and attached a score to each.

The research found that despite having the highest number of Facebook fans – 19 million – Manchester United were using the popular social networking site mainly to broadcast messages and doing little to engage with followers. There was also little interaction with the club’s 20,000 Twitter followers.

The Old Trafford side’s Facebook following is nearly three times that of Arsenal in second place on 7.5 million, Liverpool and Chelsea both on seven million each and Manchester City on one million. The Big Five’s combined Facebook audience dwarfs the other 15 clubs in the division which muster just over 1.6 million between them.

United were one of just three teams along with Fulham and Norwich not to have an iPhone app although none of the Premier League clubs have an official Android app.

The table will make welcome reading for Chelsea fans who saw their team well beaten by their Manchester rivals in the title race last season. The Stamford Bridge club post daily Facebook and Twitter updates and they are the only team with a press area on their website along with Wolves. They also have interactive spaces on their website for supporters and are present on YouTube and the photo-sharing site Flickr.

Out of the 20 teams, only Bolton don’t have an official Facebook presence and Aston Villa and West Brom are the only sides with an official LinkedIn page. Swansea is the only club without a Twitter page.

The report found that Manchester United striker Wayne Rooney was the Premier League’s top tweeter with 1,567,967 followers, taking over from team-mate Rio Ferdinand on 1,516,559. Other players with big Twitter audiences include Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero on 1,023,159 and Arsenal’s Jack Wilshire on 893,424.

“Social media has fundamentally reshaped the way people interact with the world around them and this is no more apparent than within the field of sport,” said Alex Clough, digital strategist at LEWIS Communications. “Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter have allowed a new generation of fans to connect with their football idols and teams in ways that they haven’t been able to within the modern game and clubs need to embrace this.

“It’s important that clubs do not just use these social channels to broadcast their messages but also to open up an authentic dialogue with fans to answer queries and complaints as promptly and efficiently as possible.”

A lot has been made in recent times of the relationship between footballers and social networking. In January, Ryan Babel, then of Liverpool, was fined £10,000 by the Football Association after he posted a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Manchester United shirt.

Other players like Joey Barton, Carlton Cole and Danny Gabbidon have also been in trouble with the FA over their use of social networks. Newcastle manager Alan Pardew has called on the Premier League to issue guidelines on acceptable social media use in the wake of the furore over Barton’s tweets about his relationship with the Geordie club before he moved to QPR.

Clough said: ‘It’s critically important for clubs to have a clear strategy for social media and guidelines for players and staff about what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

“With the global appeal of the Premier League, fans from around the world will increasingly look to engage with clubs and players via social networks.

“Those that don’t get a handle on it risk scoring a huge own goal online.”

Premier Social Media League

1 CHELSEA
2 LIVERPOOL
3 ARSENAL
4 MAN CITY
5 SPURS
6 ASTON VILLA
7 EVERTON
8 MAN UNITED
9 NEWCASTLE
10 SUNDERLAND
11 WOLVES
12 STOKE
13 NORWICH
14 WBA
15 FULHAM
16 WIGAN
17 QPR
18 BLACKBURN
19 BOLTON
20 SWANSEA

Twitter Dream Team

Wayne Rooney: 1,647,609
Rio Ferdinand: 1,535,811
Sergio Aguero: 1,047,599
Jack Wilshire: 911,172
Michael Owen: 709,232
Robin Van Persie: 625,915
Nani: 611,247
Joey Barton: 591,184
Samir Nasri: 473,870
Lucas Suarez: 364,833
David De Gea: 296,775
(Stats taken at 12pm on 10/10/11)

Source: lewispr.co.uk