The marketing prospects Japanese players offer are causing people to overlook what a fine player Bolton have signed in Hidetoshi Nakata, believes Justin McCurry

There was a certain inevitability about the cynicism that greeted the arrival of Hidetoshi Nakata at the Reebok Stadium. In persuading the unsettled Japan midfielder to move to Bolton from Fiorentina, Sam Allardyce had, so the received wisdom goes, ensured the club a steady income from replica-shirt sales, television coverage in the Far East and household corporate names on pitch-side sponsorship hoardings. After all, other Japanese players to have signed for Premiership clubs – remember Akinori Nishizawa and Kazuyuki Toda? – have done little to dispel the notion that they are anything more than cash cows in football boots.

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Michael Owen is a very good striker – but does his Spanish experience show that that is no longer enough? Phil Ball assesses what Newcastle have got for their £17m

The mildly interesting aspect of this summer’s Michael Owen yawn-fest has been the contrasting reactions of the English and Spanish media to the issue. In England, despite the prominence of a new hero in Andrew Flintoff, both the quality papers and the tabloids have demonstrated a touching insistence on not forgetting our Michael, stranded out there on the bench, surrounded by unappreciative foreigners. The Spanish in general, and Real Madrid in particular, have hardly raised a line about the matter – but neither would most writers if they had just witnessed the arrival of Robinho and Julio Baptista. However, the Madrileño press itself never once suggested that Owen was suddenly “fifth in the starting order” of strikers – the English phrase of the summer. They know that managers such as Vanderlei Luxemburgo do not think so simplistically. Owen could have had a future at the Bernabéu.

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TNS did Wales proud against Liverpool, but Carmarthen and Rhyl went one better, as Paul Ashley-Jones explains

You wait for ages for a European club success for Wales, then three come round at once. While TNS’s 6-0 aggregate defeat to Liverpool in the Champions League may look like a whitewash, the Welsh club did not disgrace themselves and the result would have been a lot closer had it not been for Steven Gerrard’s late goals. The real plaudits, however, must go to Rhyl and Carmarthen Town for their first preliminary round victories in the UEFA Cup.

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Arsenal fans worried that they hadn’t heard of Champions League rivals Thun shouldn’t be embarrassed. Paul Joyce explains the rise of the tiny Swiss side, with players whose annual salaries are less than many Premiership stars get in a week

Having hosted West Germany’s World Cup final victory over Hungary in 1954, the recently rebuilt Stade de Suisse Wankdorf witnessed its second “Miracle of Bern” on August 23. Nine years after gaining promotion from the semi-professional third division and a mere three years after arriving in the top flight, FC Thun 1898 became only the third Swiss side to reach the Champions League, by completing a 4-0 aggregate victory over Swedish side Malmö.

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Forget about dodgy bounces at Kenilworth Road, plastic is back and, if it can get past a bit of red tape, could be the answer to football’s problems. As Steve Menary explains, they’re even complaining about the quality of the grass in Amsterdam

This was supposed to be the year of the artificial turf revolution, so where is it? Not that awful plastic stuff that left players with terrible burns, but a hi-tech mixture of man-made fibre and real grass has been allowed in the Champions League, UEFA Cup and Intertoto Cup for the first time this season.X

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