Monday, 15th December, 2008. Possibly the most important day of this month, considering that we’ve announced the winners of the 2008 Soccerlens awards today. Other important dates of the year include the annual release of the Gemma Atkinson calendar, Soccerlens’ birthday, April 1st, the last day of the transfer season and …

Well, you get the picture. We’re chuffed about the awards, they’ve been more popular than we thought possible, and we’ve discovered new sites and learned new things (good and bad) that we’ll be using for next year’s awards.

On to the day’s links, proudly brought to you by Sapphira O’Shannon (proof that the Conference is no barrier to beauty) and Saba Wesser (proof that Ethiopians can do something other than running):

With all the stick Sepp Blatter gets, you’d think he’d go after a few of these journalists with a bigger stick. After all he has no qualms against waving his stick at the various football federations when it suits him. Andrew Jennings has some insight into why Sepp just can sue us.

A very good interview with Roberto Matteo, Paul Ince’s successor at MK Dons. Amy Lawrence is great. So is Roberto Matteo apparently. And so was Paul Ince until he moved to Blackburn. And speaking of Paul Ince and Blackburn, isn’t the man getting a bit paranoidI offer proof.

Ian King over at Two Hundred Percent offers an excellent alternative to the boredom that is Champions League (and heck, even UEFA Cup) group stages. One of the better proposals on ‘helping football’ that have been written in some time, and far more important than pissing on the Premier League because they can handle more debt than the FA (I’m looking at you Triesman).

The Spoiler bring to you the best XI January signings. If Miguel Veloso makes it to Arsenal this January as reported, that’s another one to add to this list.

Barclays’ Global Fan Survey Report (a mouthful that undersells the idiocy of this survey) tells us that fans ‘like the Premier League’, ‘don’t like Ronaldo’, ‘want to see Messi in the Premier League’ and ‘love football’.You spent MONEY on this You morons.

Atletico Madrid are set to move homes after they signed an agreement to develop a 73k seater stadium at La Peineta, currently at 20k and central to Madrid’s bid to host the 2016 Olympics. Vicente Calderon will be redeveloped and AM will have to pay roughly 200m Euros for the new stadium, which they will probably move into by the 2012/2013 season.

How is this good news for Geordie fans Now for all I know this is a great guy with excellent business sense and what not, but that’s what we all thought of Ashley and his plan to ‘bring back Keegan’, rememberIf you’re getting in for the long haul, great, if you’re getting in for the publicity and celebrity culture and fandom then please, move to the US