"My client can kick a ball into a skip from quite far away" - English football off-season and transfer speculation thread 2009

I'm sure there's a more exciting place to start than with the news that Steve Bruce is about to take the Sunderland job, but you can only work with what's put in front of you, so here we go. Talk amongst yourselves.

Strong rumours that Tony Adams is about to take over at Barcelona.

http://cache.daylife.com/imageserve/042LfuYgJ92Q3/610x.jpg

thread needed a big image to last all summer long.

Meanwhile, fingers crossed for https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2f0RZSWKaII

(That might be a bad video but Serbian league looks a bit shit btw.)

Props to RTC for the thread title by the way.

jesus, fanmade football highlight reels are the most embarrassing

C'mon, the backing track and credits are good.

BREAKING NEWS - BENITEZ JOINS BIRMINGHAM

and stands about the same chance of winning the league too

cannot get over magilton to qpr

Steve Bruce confirmed as Sunnerlunn gaffer

The Magilton thing... I still have much love for Jim from his time at Saints, but his major achievement at Ipswich was keeping things steady, which, when you've had the amount of investment they had last season, doesn't really suggest he's going to push QPR forward to the extent that their board would want. It's not to say that Jim hasn't got a future in management or anything like that, but this really seems like quite a bad match.

Several Ipswich fans I know reckon Magilton was the worst manager in the league last season, for the amount of money spent. Hysterical perhaps, but I doubt he'd be anything of an improvement at QPR.

so many better matches for keane have come up since ipswich job

still want him for sheffield united

feel like he and chris morgan would get on

Transfers - June 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/8076956.stm

so far

3 June

Christian Benitez [Santos Laguna - Birmingham City] Undisclosed
Jamie Clarke [Rotherham - Lincoln] Free

2 June

Gareth Barry [Aston Villa - Manchester City] £12m
Nathan Dyer [Southampton - Swansea] £400,000
Lee Fowler [Forest Green - Kettering] Free
*Paul Heckingbottom [Bradford - Mansfield] Free
David Lucas [Leeds - Swindon] Free
Carl Tremarco [Wrexham - Macclesfield]

1 June

*Mark Allott [Oldham - Tranmere]
Lee Steele [Northwich Victoria - Oxford City] Free

Panathinaikos Want Real Madrid Winger Royston Drenthe – Report
http://bit.ly/CjgGH

how much would Real Madrid want for Drenthe? will any Premier League clubs come in for him?

2 years ago Drenthe was the outstanding player of the euro under 21 tournament

NO-ONE OUTMANOEUVRES OXFORD CITY

Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has pleaded with the club to bring Newcastle striker Michael Owen back to Anfield. (Daily Express)

lol

lol @ fowler going back to pool that one time

Drenthe? He should go for about £7m. That said, he's in a long list of potentially great players you'd want yr team to buy in the Real Madrid fire sale: Original Diarra, van Nistelrooy, Saviola, Metzelder, Guti, van der Vaart, maybe worth taking a gamble on de la Red as well...

i really feel for Saviola. Great player languishing on benches. At Barcelona they would hardly play him and then whenever he got a game or came off the bench he played well or scored a goal. Now getting even less playing time at Madrid seemingly.

Spurs have usually signed 17 players by now, what's going on?

re: Drenthe? He should go for about £7m.

I will order one Royston Drenthe for Pompey then

fantasy transfer targets, ha some of these valuations are on the bonkers low side, in most cases double them

Newcastle United's £31m Championship-Winning Lineup | Bleacher Report
http://bit.ly/2mQ8D

The players suggested are: Kyle Naughton Sheffield United £1.75m RB, Daniel Fox Coventry £1.5m LB, Leandro Grimi SP Lisbon £1.5m LB, Mark Beevers Wednesday £1m CB, David Wheater Boro £4m CB, Andrew Surman Soton £1.5m MF, Miles Addiston Derby £1.5m MF, Andrew Driver Hearts £1.25m LW, Fabian Delph Leeds £5m MF, Jordi Gomez Espanyol £2m MF, Steven Hunt Reading £2.5m LW, Sean Scammell £1m Palalce CF, Kevin Doyle Reading £3m CF, Jermaine Beckford Leeds £2m CF, Simon Cox Swindon £2m CF ...

And to think I thought relegation would be the reality check Newcastle fans needed...

Haha yeah Boro are really likely to let David Wheater go for £4m.

how are Newcastle's finances?

apparently Shearer wants 20 million to rebuild the squad in the championship AFTER the big time charlies are off loaded

iirc Ashley paid off most of their debt but then gave them an interest free loan of like 50m+ (that should get sorted in any takeover I guess). Biggest problem is that every player currently at the club is a giant waste still on Premiership wages.

Jermaine Beckford would only cost £2m??

i think the Shearer strategy is to off-load up to 10 big time charlies, bring in about 8 players that can compete in the top 2 of the championship - a massive turnaround of players.

Mind you in the summer of 2002 redknapp did something similar at Pompey, virtually built a new team that gelled and achieved promotion as champions.

But that ought to be much harder at Newcastle where the wages are so big and the players so poor. Weren't they bleating mid-season about Owen being out-of-contract now? Stroke of luck there.

Chelsea making heroically insane bid to hijack Kaka deal. Go Roman you crazy guy who looks like the inflatable pilot from Airplane.

Eboue don't break my heart

Kaka's too saintlike for this. I want him at Queen's Park or St Pauli instead

http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2007/12/18/kaka_narrowweb__300x420,0.jpg

"But seriously, my career will not be complete until I have gubbed Dumbarton home and away"

*Everything* about Eboue is unclear.

Meanwhile, Owly is providing the Шутки...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvsHvUNJoJ

why the lolz at owen back to Liverpool? for the tiny amount they'd have to pay for him I think he could be a good signing. they need another striker and what better place for him to rediscover some form?

definitely worth a punt imo

I wouldn't want to bother with Owen even on a Pay-to-Play at this point in time, he's either not bothered or born to break hearts. Might make sense at a club the size of Liverpool where you wouldn't care too much even if he couldn't make the first team.

How is he not bothered? He's had one bad run of form for Newcastle after years of scoring regularly whenever he's fit. And they're woeful also, with a good team behind him who knows how he could do? Plus who says he can't be in way better shape at a bigger side too? He'd be a good person to have on the bench in games that are looking like 0-0s, for any of the top four.

I feel like his decision to go to Newcastle in the first place was lazy and purely money-motivated. As I say, he might make sense at a top 4 club, but I wouldn't want him in the squad at a lower team. Whether regular injuries are always wholly down to bad luck or whether some players just stop being that into staying fit is debatable I think.

How much say did he have about going to Newcastle though? The way I remember it, Real were considering selling him back to Liverpool cut-price, before Newcastle blew that out the water by meeting the buy-out clause in full

i think Owen wanted out of Real really. they'd won fuck all in his time there but his record was pretty good considering.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/may/22/michael-owen-harry-pearson

And it is certainly true that in recent years he has never been quite able to keep a note of polite peevishness out of his voice. So that most of the time he sounds like a junior executive complaining to the receptionist at his conference hotel that the provision of UHT milk cartons with the in-room tea and coffee making facilities is wholly inadequate.

^^ troof bruv

Christian Benitez [Santos Laguna - Birmingham City] Undisclosed

Birmingham got promoted, right? This could be a good pick up for them, he has played very well with Santos.

If he's a talented player I don't see what use Birmingham would have for him.

klata otm btw, he didnt want go to newcastle one bit but he was buggered either way by that point.

agree that returning to liverpool might be quite good for both parties but i doubt rafa would have any of it unless $tevie were to scweam and scweam and maybe reaffirm his love for the club with another fat payrise demand. (tbf stevie was misquoted on that owen thing anyway.)

tiny amount they'd have to pay for him my arse, though.

isn't he out of contract? he can't cost that much

It's kind of unfortunate that the one club he can't move to is Newcastle, they'd be the perfect destination for him right now. I don't have a clue where he might end up I could see him being a vanity purchase for some Turkish or Ukrainian outfit.

yeah but can liv really afford however much he'll ask for? can't quite see his pride going for the pay as you play somehow. if you flog the deadwood i suppose then maybe.

surely the antithesis of a "game intelligence" benitez player though. really the best thing for mickey would be a leisurely spell at milan.

No I don't think he'd go for Pay as you Play but unless your club was minted you'd be crazy to take a punt on giving him a full contract I think.

hey anyone else see this newcastle supporters club statement btw

"The end of the Ashley era means lessons learned and opportunities for the future. We believe one of Mr Ashley's fundamental errors was to fail to listen to the fans and we believe that the fans are now a fundamental part of a positive solution to the current issue of direction of the club.

The fans are an important 'constant' and they will make this club attractive to potential buyers.

http://www.gifmania.co.uk/tv-series/lost/lost.gif

That should've been a gif of a revolving crate of Newkie Brown.

That would be amazing.

This should be sent to any prospective NUFC player to persuade them to sign for the club:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dU0-fmKI0lU

Post your favourite unintentionally homoerotic sports videos here

I want someone to rescue Alan Smith and turn him back into the surly bastard he was at Leeds

He could go to Leeds.

Another try to post that Arshavin video that didn't appear above:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvsHvUNJoJ8

Hurrah!

He can do no wrong

sonned by a russian kid after a blackberry beef

and now utd have apparently agree a fee for Tevez

<a href="http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article6427314.ece";>Liverpool might be on Distin 09/10?</a>

doh http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/football/premier_league/article6427314.ece

they're really trying to make our lives easier

clearly the most important info in that link is that ROD FANNI IS FINALLY COMING TO ENGLAND HURRAH

The Star thinks Aston Villa want to buy Alexander Hleb, who was quite good at Arsenal for six months and now has a job running on to the pitch and celebrating in a tracksuit whenever Barcelona win a trophy.

lols

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2009/6/4/1244110957961/Cristiano-Ronaldo-during--001.jpg

Needs more Arshavin.

the mind shrinks away from considering where you'd put arshavin springing out of in that pic.

yeah, considering that 'd be positively inconsiderate.

And the merry-go-round keeps spinning, with Bren Rodgers sacking off Watford after seven months to take the Reading job. Roberto Martinez is going to be Wigan manager by sunrise according to everyone, albeit that Bob's been suspiciously quiet himself on the matter.

Liverpool debt:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8084182.stm

Looks like the hero of this thread might be getting a fresh start at next season's Premiership comedy club.

I like that O'Neill offered £10 million for Bentley this time last year when that was an insult, and now he's just doing it again now that it's far too much

£10m?

£real10M?

swap deal for milner is where dis ting is at

Chelsea have also bid £20m for the privilege of Ashley Young being allowed to sit on their bench, apparently.

Also potentially Carew to Man City, just to finish brutally stripping Villa of having any mildly exciting outfield players at all

Maybe Bolton will put in an offer for Steve Sidwell just to add insult to injury.

Rijkaard goes to Galatasary instead of getting a proper job

Encore de merry-go-round - Micky Adams takes charge at Port Vale, Ronnie Moore gets dumped by Tranmere.

see when i saw 'Adams takes Port Vale job' i did assume Tony

Robbie Williams put in a good word, but to no avail.

"He likes a drink!"

I like that O'Neill offered £10 million for Bentley this time last year when that was an insult, and now he's just doing it again now that it's far too much

― EMPIRE STATE HYMEN (MPx4A), Friday, June 5, 2009 6:30 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Is it possibly true that Spurs have only actually paid Blackburn around 8m due to the number of appearances Bentley made?

I didn't even know that was possible with that deal

people do seem to just automatically include all the add-ons straight away and the highest possible price becomes canon

still never quite accepted that James Milner actually cost twelve million british pounds

i'd imagine with bentley that there's quite a bit owed in installments, which presumably we'd still have to pay, along with sell on clauses etc, but there's likely to be a certain amount related to appearances, him ever doing something fucking right, etc which we will save on.

etc

The problem with Bentley is that his attitude is just wrong and Redknapp doesn't seem to value him enough to bollock him into shape a la Mark Hughes. Martin O'Neill might do a better job.

Darren Gibson's half-hearted punt against Hull City apparently enough to get him linked to another season of ineffectually running around the middle of the pitch at Wolves.

Lawrenson: Liverpool won't win the Premier League 2009/10-

is there any reason gareth barry won't be able to buy out his own contract for 2m this summer, or am i missing something?

― U2 raped goat (darraghmac), Thursday, 21 May 2009 20:42 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

G14 (or whatever it's called now) made a pact not to touch any player that does it. He may try and bait O'Neill saying he could do it though.

― I wanna be your toy boy (a hoy hoy), Thursday, 21 May 2009 20:46 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

The pact was as much to protect them as anything. Sure, they could get cut price players but when that first big name player does it, it's going to leave everyone vulnerable to losing their best players. Everyone's running scared as it is; notice Ronaldo, Messi, Cesc etc. being offered a new contract every 6 months.

― I wanna be your toy boy (a hoy hoy), Thursday, 21 May 2009 20:48 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

manchester city are not in the G14

― Noodle Vadge (country matters), Thursday, 21 May 2009 20:50 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Yes but Gareth Barry is not going to go to Man City. Even if he did, it's not like they can't just put in a cheeky £20m bid or whatever instead of hoping he buys himself out.

― I wanna be your toy boy (a hoy hoy), Thursday, 21 May 2009 21:01 (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

ilx: calls it every time

Boris Shearer off to WBA, if you believe the News of the World

everday via RSS, i receive BBC's Football Gossip roundup

today
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/gossip_and_transfers/8087603.stm

including:

1127 BST: Arsenal have secured a 13m euro (£11.4m) deal for Ajax captain Thomas Vermaelen, according to reports in his native Belgium.

Tottenham are leading the race to sign former Manchester United striker Ruud van Nistelrooy - with his current club Real Madrid ready to let the 32-year-old Dutch striker go for just £1.25m.

United boss Alex Ferguson is planning to boost his defensive options by signing Sheffield United's £7m-rated right-back Kyle Naughton. (Sunday Mirror)

Portsmouth defender Glen Johnson will move back to Chelsea this week in a deal worth £16m. (Various)

Newcastle striker Michael Owen is wanted by Aston Villa, but the 29-year-old will have to take a £70,000-a-week pay cut to seal the move.

A source close to Shearer said: "The delay is damaging. It has been frustrating for Alan. He will not commit career suicide."

^could have come from any time in the last three years, before he committed career suicide.

The chairman of the bank helping to flog NUFC was on 5 Live this morning claiming they had at least 3 seriously interested parties. Refused to confirm or deny Freddie Lol Shepherd was one of them. Appeared to categorically deny that Shearer had asked for 2.5 mil per year to stay on at Newcastle. Kinda felt like he was hinting that any prospective buyer might prefer a manager with more than 2 months experience.

breaking news:

http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11667_5367941,00.html
Sky Sports News understands Hull City have agreed a £6million fee for Manchester United youngster Fraizer Campbell.

That'd be a good signing for them I think - Campbell looked very bright on the rare occasions he came on for Spurs. If I was him I'd go to Sunderland or somewhere though.

Despite his popularity over here he's knocked back an offer from Hull once so I don't think his accepting this time is a given at all.

that was before he spent a year as back up to darren bent, moving behind wellbeck and macheda in the process.

paul robinson back to spurs, btw- this can't really be serious, can it?

now huddlestone is apparently off to Villa, along with bentley one presumes. that's almost too much running for one midfield to handle.

huddlestone, breaker of hearts, player of inch-perfect 60-yard balls, gentle giant

i hope he takes gareth barry's england place

latest noise is Hudd + Bentley + Money = Ashley Young and John Carew

this horrifies me

THAT WOULD BE AMAZING.

midfield of reo-coker, hudd, bentley, milner

oh god am i gonna have to do an AV teamsheet

I mean like I gather Hudd is good if you can fit him into a midfield that can "run", and I guess if Bentley got bollocked/coddled the right way it might whittle away the layers of dickhead to reveal the shape of a footballer inside, but taking them in exchange for your 2nd and 4th best players having already lost your best and third best players, gah

Spurs want Reo-Coker, I think, or did recently

laursen was 3rd-best, right

milner IS bentley but with a bit more work ethic, isn't he?

would swap bentley + cash for milner

would not swap hudd for anyone.

I think my Tragically Dismantled Midlands Also-Rans FC Hierarchy went Barry>Young>Laursen>Carew, yeah. The last two are/were the most likable/entertaining to watch by far though.

Bentley strikes a ball consistently better, I think, but Milner is a nice kid and is a more useful overall presence

Bentley strikes a ball consistently better

He Does Not Have An Agent And Enjoys Darts!

I hope Villa make Milner captain tbh

wait, what's the code to repeat a line of text until the site crashes?

James Milner's ball-to-skip ratio would definitely be disappointing

Louis says:
interesting transfer rumours involving spurs and aston villa
Luke says:
they are going to merge into one club?
Luke says:
please say it's true?
Louis says:
hahahahahaha
Louis says:
birmingham hotspur

Is that stupid because Bentley's delivery has been crap at Spurs or something? Milner just fails to beat the first man astoundingly often, is all

midfield of reo-coker, hudd, bentley, milner

i could see this being a pretty great midfield, synergy and bentley's attitude allowing.

bentley has hit the ball about 5 times this season.

3 of them in preseason tho

Seeing as we need a left winger and a big physical striker more than anything it sounds very plausible. Also having Lennon and Young running at your team from either flank would be pretty terrifying.

Milner strikes me as yeah a nice lad who will chase his little heart out for the side and occasionally score after epic full-length-of-pitch gutbusting runs with an accidental handball

Every team needs a Laursen figure and a Carew figure, yeah. Charlton getting rid of El-Karkouri and Lisbie was the start of the slide tbh

*the handball comes after a full-length gutbusting dive in order to successfully complete the run

Carew has been dropping the "I love everyone here, I don't see why there is any reason for me to leave" noises in response to Man City rumours today, which possibly guarantees he will leave

Particularly if the spectacularly disappointing reunion of the Emile and Michael show happens at Villa

i'm not sure that pavlyuchenko didn't have a great debut season, considering 18 months without a break and moving to a foreign country. to sell him now would just seem so typically spurs that i'd lose any hope for next season.

eh, i wouldn't really have a problem with young on the left, i guess.

Am looking for that Youtube video where Carew scores at the near post from a ridiculous angle with the keeper expecting a cross

midfield of reo-coker, hudd, bentley, milner

i could see this being a pretty great midfield, synergy and bentley's attitude allowing.

― U2 raped goat (darraghmac), Monday, 8 June 2009 17:02 (8 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah it practically reeks of England U21's and/or England B Team

Gabby's got to feel like the ugly duckling at the moment

Didier Zokora to Seville looks pretty likely and in other ridiculous Spurs news we are being linked with Ruud Van Nistelrooy.

Heard about Van Nis already, seems like a good buy if he can stay fit.

Kaka's joined Real Madrid. Shame he turned down that dream move to Citeh.

Aye, was watching Brazil at the weekend with Robinho, Elano and Kaka and mind was boggling that I might be basically watching Man City.

Was it just like watching Brazil?

Bit like watching Cowdenbeath, tbh.

The yellow Cowdenbeath. (Murdo?)

yay, someone gets what I'm on about :-)

what in the fuck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoWnkIqZ-7Q

wow. Defibrillation at work there. don't seem likely he play professional football again though, i mean suppose if this stuff starts happening once a season.

Apparently it happens to this guy quite a bit.

Just to add to 'last season's goals you should have seen' list, this:

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/2319272/

is one classy fucking goal.

wouldn't have gone in without the deflection

gourcuff simply cannot be beaten as far as i'm concerned

i never said he could. doesn't mean you can't appreciate other goals.

obviously. but i'm just y'know fending off any and all GOTS claims for that one

Sale of the century: Nigel de Jong to Man City for €20m in January. The little Dutch midfielder had a buy-out clause for €2m in the summer, so City paid an extra €18m for four meagre months.

^^^oh my, is this true? lolz.

can't wait till they buy santa cruz for £25m for him to play 4 games next season.

actually, just this whole Guardian article on the Bundesliga season that was is great. Especially if you aren't a fan of Klinsmann.

The Toni Schumacher Award for taking out opponents: Jens Lehmann. When Hoffenheim midfielder Sejad Salihovic lost his right shoe after a foul just outside the box, the Stuttgart goalkeeper dashed out to pick up the boot and threw it over his shoulder. It landed on top of the goal-net, from where Salihovic had to retrieve it. "I've always respected Lehmann but that was unsporting conduct and should have been a yellow card," said Ralf Rangnick.

^love this guy.

Unvorstelbar! Unvorstelbar!

Best court case: Felix Magath told the referee Helmut Fleischer that his match conduct had been "unter aller Sau" (translates as "beyond the pale", but is actually much more robust than that) in the game against Stuttgart. Magath was sent to the stand for this outburst but appealed against the fine, twice. In the third disciplinary hearing, the judge lowered the fine to €7,500 but confirmed the earlier findings that Magath had been guilty of unsporting behaviour. "If you tell your wife her cooking is beyond the pale, she'd feel insulted, too", said the judge. "But her cooking would improve," countered Magath.

Also here is their La Liga one but it's not as funny; still good though.

The Benny Hinn award for religion really paying off: Goes to Espanyol and their coach Mauricio Pochettino. With 10 weeks left, Espanyol were bottom on 22 points, eight from safety, having won four times all season. It was going to take a miracle for them to survive, so Pochettino asked for one. He hiked 12km to Montserrat, pleaded with the Virgin to save his team and, lo!, she did. Ten games and eight wins later, Espanyol finished 10th.

^^^we need more managers like this in the Premiership. Tony Pulis doing a marathon isn't really the same.

love this photo from the guardian's top photos from last season:

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2009/6/5/1244193945759/Tom-Jenkins-best-pics-Tev-016.jpg

if you can judge frequency and variance of rumours as any type of reliable gauge, it really looks like huddlestone is on his way out.

that sucks.

Jeez, we really broke that sucker.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jun/09/luiz-felipe-scolari-uzbekistan-bunyodkor

wtf

should ilx pool together to make a leveraged takeover of newcastle united?

tax implications

This Bunyodkor must have quite a bit of cash then

they tried to sign Eto'o remember?

Have they got enough money to get into the Champions League?

they probably do but they're not allowed in UEFA tournaments. but surely the asian champions league is just as prestigious

ft. clubs famous throughout the world as it does...

they probably do but they're not allowed in UEFA tournaments

Oh I'm sure if they have enough money it will happen eventually

Oh I'm sure if they have enough money it will happen eventually

Yes I think they announced last year that they planned to enter UEFA, somehow.

somehow

Bribery and corruption?

to not allow a club from asia to enter UEFA champions league would be just like slavery

somehow

Bribery and corruption?

― Then in walked Barbara Castle with the Lady Eleanor (Tom D.), Tuesday, 9 June 2009 17:44 (3 hours ago)

Presumably the same way fellow Central Asian country Kazakhstan managed it.

How did that happen, exactly? Turkey too, even.

Israel was part of Oceania for a while too (though possibly for a different reason)

^I think that was mainly down to places like Iran refusing to play them.

Yeah, Israel is understandable enough. Turkey, you could make a case for since part of it (a tiny part, granted) is in Europe, but Kazakhstan??

Why is uzbekistan in Asia and Kazakhstan in Europe?

Something to do with touching both Russia and the Caspian Sea maybe?

^^ "touching Russia" - yeah, that's the concept, probbly :)

why aren't north korea in eurovision?

higher standards

Kazakhstan only joined UEFA recently.

*Wikipedia time*

In 2002, but it doesn't say why.

xxxpost

Mascherano either settled or unsettled

RIP Setanta. Heaven needed a Jose Mourinho puppet.

James Richardson's TV career suffers yet another blow. :-(

Hahahaha fuck buying 2 football subscriptions

It's a shame because I thought Setanta's football schedule looked pretty good value for next season and was considering actually subscribing.

I probably wouldn't have actually subscribed though. Truly they are the voting LibDem of pay TV.

I think the EU insistence on creating "competition" simply put another financial pressure on pubs in particular. No competition created, just another monopoly in the market.

Am I the only ILXor who actually subscribes to Setanta then? (I suscribed because pubs are more expensive than £12.99 a month to me)

cmonnnnnnnn espn3

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45898000/jpg/_45898095_tuncay226.jpg

bit of a hawk-nosed facemeld, here

i have setanta, their coverage was ok, certainly not itv dire. only watched it every couple of weeks though.

I watch quite a lot of SPL football, the odd EPL game, one or two boxing matches, and depress myself by watching old games on Celtic TV from where Celtic weren't knuckle-bitingly boring and had a team full of decent players. Coverage way better than ITV, and their SPL coverage was pretty comprehensive (though Scott Booth is the worst match summariser ever).

Yeah I guess it's different in terms of SPL coverage, I think Setanta pissed me off most by running Premier League games at the same time as Sky's Championship coverage so I couldn't generally watch them in the pub. But the notion that competition was increased was blatantly wrong and I do think that a lot of pubs that are struggling already felt pressured to get a Setanta subscription alongside the existing Sky one.

Ronaldo has finally gone to Real Madrid according to the Gaurdian - £80 million.

good riddance

BBC covering that now - £80m!

Makes it even easier to hate Real Madrid

otm

oh fank god

Great business for United - that'll presumably secure Tevez with about £60m to spare

Will be very interesting to see how Ferguson will spend all this cash

still naively wondering when the ball is gonna drop w/r/t Real's financial situation

that'll presumably secure Tevez with about £60m to spare pay back to some lol bankers

still naively wondering when the ball is gonna drop w/r/t Real's financial situation

And Man Utd and Chelsea, etc

Officially a Galactictosser.

so, will this show up on my fifa09 ?

I'll miss him when he's gone. There's no one else in the Prem who's quite as punchable.

Hooray! Although really, he's not worth more than Kaka surely?

Enjoying the apparently quick, less painful nature of these transfers after last summer.

So... Ferguson officially prefers viruses to Ronaldo.

Fair enough, he is less likeable than herpes after all

benzema ftw. have a feeling rooney and berbatov are suddenly gonna look much better for united from next season

not really sure what would be the added value of benzema when you already have rooney and tevez in your squad.

The added value is that some other team doesn't have him. It's the Celtic/Rangers approach to Scottish football.

still naively wondering when the ball is gonna drop w/r/t Real's financial situation

And Man Utd and Chelsea, etc

yeah this irritates me too. (wasted energy i know)

not really sure what would be the added value of benzema when you already have rooney and tevez in your squad.

(i) You can get rid of Tevez
(ii) Benzema would score some goals.

I've seen much more of Benzema than Tevez and they seem to have pretty similar games. Benz is a bit overrated at this stage - never performing that well in the big games or in the national team.

that'll presumably secure Tevez with about £60m to spare pay back to some lol bankers

Saying on the radio that the entire sum will be available to Fergie for transfers.

Starting to think that the Telegraph should be investigating football's finances rather than MPs'.

Exclusive: Gary Megson's moat of Horlicks

fat sam's pie cottage

King of Spain in cash for wingers.

It's been a while since we've had a 'rip it up and start again' story about Tottenham, so well done to The Sun for providing another this morning.

The paper claims 'Arry Redknapp will get rid of no less than 14 players this summer, including David Bentley, Roman Pavlyuchenko, Darren Bent, Jermaine Jenas, Tom Huddlestone, Jamie O'Hara, Chris Gunter and Pascal Chimbonda (breath), Gareth Bale, Didier Zokora, Giovani Dos Santos, Ricardo Rocha (who's been released already), Kevin-Prince Boateng and Gilberto.

The usual names are in the frame to replace them, including Ruud van Nistelrooy and Roque Santa Cruz, while The Daily Mail claims Spurs are scrapping with Sunderland and Stoke for Richard Dunne.

that should keep things going on an otherwise slow day.

given that redknapp writes for the sun, that list is the equivalent of a 'far sale' advert in the local classifieds

There's no way Redknapp would let Jenas, Huddlestone, O'Hara and Zokora all go in one summer, that would be insanity.

Hasn't Richard Dunne been crap for the last season? I mean, considerably worse than the four centrebacks we already have?

Kevin-Prince Boateng is still at Spurs?

old trafford's gonna have a really awesome duck pond next season

xpost - Didn't Real supposedly pay off Zidane's transfer in a year through shirt sales and added advertising alone? Although the last galacticos weren't assembled a week at a time; people are gonna give up buying Kaka shirts now as they will Ronaldo shirts next week when Villa signs. Have to say though, other than Ronaldo, they seem to be going for thoroughly decent personalities: Kaka, Villa, Ribery - it makes them hard to hate and seems less likely (assuming they sell off crap like Guti and Drenthe) for LOL dressing room chaos.

now that they've removed the diving pool

xpost

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01419/duckhouse_1419964c.jpg

Paul Scholes's new pad, yesterday.

(Also I guess Ronaldo on costs more because he's current WPOTY/World Champion/Scores a bit more I guess/Less injured.)

hopefully ronaldo will very soon become really fat and get caught with trannies

actually has the latter happened already? i can't remember

You're thinking of Wayne Rooney.

Kaka leaving Italy seems to be having quite a knock on effect: http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2009/jun/10/andrea-pirlo-kaka-maicon-ibrahimovic-pato-milan and although it's not mentioned, supposedly Buffon and Chiellini are thinking about leaving Juve too.

la liga becoming quite interesting this season, with Ronaldo, Kaka, and presumably Ibra in el clasico

There's no way Redknapp would let Jenas, Huddlestone, O'Hara and Zokora all go in one summer, that would be insanity.

agreed, and if Huddlestone and O'Hara will accept squad roles they should definitely be kept.

Hasn't Richard Dunne been crap for the last season? I mean, considerably worse than the four centrebacks we already have?

yes. yes he has. apart from internationally.

is £80m enough for messi?

messi + a pond?

Throw in a trouser press and it's a deal

80 million isn't enough for messi.

i mean, that only buys you 1 ronaldo

Messi has a £120m release clause and I'd be surprised if they accepted anything less. Plus, ya know, he'd wouldn't accept anyway.

oh well, David Bentley and Roman Pavlyuchenko it is then.

plus extra Darren Bent, Jermaine Jenas, Tom Huddlestone, Jamie O'Hara, Chris Gunter and Pascal Chimbonda (breath), Gareth Bale, Didier Zokora, Giovani Dos Santos, Ricardo Rocha (who's been released already), Kevin-Prince Boateng and Gilberto and a pond.

wk- hudd, pavlyuchenko, o'hara, gunter, bale, dos santos

Think we should sell Chimbo just to buy him back again in a few months. And then not play him again.

levy doesn't read ILX, as far as i'm aware, so fishing for employment is pointless

http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/45903000/jpg/_45903107_cris_466.jpg

hahaha

WTF, has an anti-fascist thrown an egg at him or somehting?

hahaha

― Suedey 2, Thursday, 11 June 2009 12:49 (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

Ronaldo, on his way to the Bernabeu, this morning.

but missed his flight from heathrow as he was stuck on the bus with the tube not running

USA defender Oguchi Onyewu in a return to the days of Fulhamerica?

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/soccer/06/11/oguchi.onyewu/index.html

The Craven Cottage!

hahaha that's Sports Illustrated for you

Maybe they're going to let him live in that house beside the corner flag?

With the £80m from Ronaldo, can United buy Newcastle?

Am I the only ILXor who actually subscribes to Setanta then? (I suscribed because pubs are more expensive than £12.99 a month to me)

I did for a season and a half. I tried to cancel my subscription last summer (as I only had it for the football, and really only for United's matches at that) with a view to renewing it at the start of the season. I did this with Sky as well with absolutely no hassle. Setanta, on the other hand, were a pack of cunts. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say it took about ten months to eventually cancel the subcription (and even then they got the date wrong, so I had to go wandering the streets of Walthamstow frantically searching for a pub to watch the United 5 Spurs 2 game). I wish them nothing but malice.

that'll presumably secure Tevez

I'm honestly not convinced that would be a good idea.

Man City bid 18 Million for Glen Johnson and willing to offer 120K week salary
http://bit.ly/rDf8B

if there's a 12m release clause why in hell are they offering 18m?

Only reason you'd pay over a release clause is to pay in installments, I believe. Which still makes no sense, as I'm sure City are drowning in easy cash.

Ronaldo's humility

"This is very flattering for me," Ronaldo said last night. "The fact that two of the world's greatest teams want to trade exploit me is not something that happens every day."

Radio5 announced that Ronaldo went out celebrating with Paris Hilton last night.

Sure that wasn't celebrating in Paris Hilton?

Well, possibly.

I almost feel sorry for Liverpool, I genuinely thought they were on the verge of of potentially winning the title, and now it seems more like they can't even buy any players. They need at least two or three world class players, right? They would appear to be in more danger of losing players than gaining any, as far as I can see. Is it as bad as it seems? Stage is now clearly set for Arsenal to make a surprise title winning challenge then! (Will repeat every season so if ever they do win the title I can copy and paste it a million times and be amazed by my own prescience)

Still eagerly awaiting the first football computer game that has Rooney automatically alternate between bearded/non-bearded/hairline recede a little more from game to game and has Cisse unveil a new hairstyle for every match. These are the important things.

I'm a patient man but if Wolves would actually sign somebody it'd do my nerves a lot of good now kthx

tempted to get on some jagman style overexcitement at how good that username is

Doesn't quite work in a soft Southern accent but otherwise yes.

According to L'Equipe Spurs president Daniel Levy will be in Madrid monday to talk about buying Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.

Some good cast-offs at Real Madrid. Whither Robben?

What's Fergie's thinking with Wigan's Valencia? He just looks like a Spurs player to me.

I almost feel sorry for Liverpool, I genuinely thought they were on the verge of of potentially winning the title, and now it seems more like they can't even buy any players. They need at least two or three world class players, right? They would appear to be in more danger of losing players than gaining any, as far as I can see. Is it as bad as it seems? Stage is now clearly set for Arsenal to make a surprise title winning challenge then! (Will repeat every season so if ever they do win the title I can copy and paste it a million times and be amazed by my own prescience)

yeah it's a whole 2/3 weeks into close season and they've bought nobody, I'm in an absolute panic what with Arsenal/Chelsea/Man U having bought all around them so far.

Seriously we are completely fucked with that team that finished 4 points off the top of the league.

Actual answer: I'd take one good attacking signing, we just need one player who can score about 10-15 goals and create some too. Apparently Rafa has 20m to spend anyway, plus whatever sales.

I almost feel sorry for Liverpool, I genuinely thought they were on the verge of potentially winning the title

what? jesus no. on either count.

xpost!

what does amuse/annoy me about Liverpool is prob the same as every other Liverpool fan: how did they make such an absolutely spectactular fuck up of selling the club? I mean you see City/Portsmouth getting bought by billionaires. It's pathetic.

portsmouth/city were cheaper and easier to gain a powerful influence over straight away, maybe? no resistance from the fans due to history/pride.

I was a bit surprised at the lack of resistance, given all the campaigning to try to prevent the Glazer takeover at Old Trafford I thought there would have been something similar at Liverpool. If anything it was the opposite - they practically rolled out the red carpets.

Perhaps Liverpool fans realised that there isn't any point in 'campaigning' about something you have absolutely no influence over.

they are just that desperate to get rid of gillette/hicks, surely?

(to Pete): But there's a difference between giving in because you don't feel you can change the situation and giving someone a warm welcome.

(to Darragh): Yes, they are *now*, but their takeover was greeted with joy.

As things stand I'd actually plump for Liverpool to win the Premiership next season. Ronaldo is a massive loss in terms of sheer points on the board and it remains to be seen how Fergie will compensate for that, especially if they lose Tevez as well. A lot depends on the form of Rooney and Berbatov, and also new signings bedding in.

Also looking at the media over the last couple of days you'd be forgiven for thinking there was a seamless transition from the Beckham era to the Ronaldo era and in terms of player turnover there was, but Man United still went four years without winning the Premiership in the middle.

As for Chelsea, they're still awesome but they're getting on a bit and we have no idea how Ancelotti will do in English football. With a couple of big defensive signings and a full season with Walcott, Eduardo and Arshavin, Arsenal could be very scary as well.

at the time it wasn't clear what was happening, nobody reported as a leveraged buyout. they were v clever in moving so late as nobody had time to analyse them/protest either.

still not end of the world, the only prob is nobody's going to buy the club till it's on its knees now.

Come on, the United situation was completely different - richest most profitable club in the world, very successful in the modern era, about to be taken heavily into debt by somebody with zero interest in the game. Who needs that?

Liverpool, by contrast, desperately needed investment if they were going to compete with United and Chelsea. That's just realistic.

It's like asking why United fans didn't kick up a fuss when Michael Knighton nearly bought the club. They thought he was the messiah who was going to end two decades of Liverpool hegemony, when actually he was a fantasist and a twat.

x-post

I don't think anybody will win the league next season. They're all shit.

As things stand I'd actually plump for Liverpool to win the Premiership next season.

I'd agree, if the season started tomorrow with the current squads, but things will probably look very different by August.

Yes, could be many changes in the pipeline obviously.

Haha, I'm not saying Liverpool aren't a good team or that they won't sign anyone - I know it's early! - just that everything I've read of them lately emphasises how dire the financial situation appears to be there. I do think they need a couple of good signings to kick on to a new, actually winning league sort of level. I meant sad in the sense that if they're crippled financially and can't actually capitalise on the good progress of last season it would be a pity in terms of the league if nothing else. And if 20m is all there is, is Robbie Keane all 20m gets you? If they play like they did the end of this season all the way through they'll be fine, but I don't see that happening for a whole season.

two way race between chelsea and united, trying to take into account likely transfer activity

Hoping for anything that isnt that ^

Does anybody want to predict a league placing for Man City at this stage?

5th

or 15th

I feel like the whole kind of "Man City are a crazy team! They could break the top four or it could all implode tomorrow!!!" thing will sort of gradually fall by the wayside this summer as they ruthlessly hoover up a bunch of really good players, but I can never quite get over the idea that they'll be there in September with Eto'o and Tevez up front, bottom of the league with one point

two way race between chelsea and united, trying to take into account likely transfer activity

Surely Wenger will sign at least one shitkicking defensive midfielder and a couple of defenders? And an Arsenal that can actually defend and win the ball is a title-winning prospect.

You have more faith than me!

It's not faith, it's natural pessimism.

Surely Wenger will sign at least one shitkicking defensive midfielder and a couple of defenders?

we've been saying thsi (with the allowance that flamini turned out to be good for one season) since when? 2005?

Yes but now he seems to be convinced that he actually needs to do it!

More pessimism!

I feel quite encouraged.

arsenal with +1 central defender and +1 defensive midfielder are a better team than liverpool, certainly.

Surely Wenger will sign at least one shitkicking defensive midfielder and a couple of defenders?

we've been saying thsi (with the allowance that flamini turned out to be good for one season) since when? 2005?

― U2 raped goat (darraghmac), Friday, 12 June 2009 10:34 (37 minutes ago) Bookmark

It turned out by stats that Denilson had a better season than Flamini all round. Better passing, better tackling, better interceptions. If he was in a stable midfield instead of just the one 1 player who constantly had to play with 20 different people, I think people would have noticed he was actually quite good. Not that I'd complain if we bought Yaya or someone, I'd just like to see the kid with Cesc, Nasri/Rosicky and Arshavin/Theo all season and see how he does.

+4 new CBs. :)

At this rate, sticking my head out and saying Spurs come fifth. And Everton sixth.

+1 striker surely for a title winning prospect

Sure that wasn't celebrating in Paris Hilton?
― Pasta of Muppets (Noodle Vague), Friday, 12 June 2009 07:02 (3 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

depends how well he does amirite?

It turned out by stats that Denilson had a better season than Flamini all round

better than flamini in milan, or better than flamini's last season at arsenal?

spurs will finish 8th, optimistically.

The summer of 2004 was the highest-spending transfer window, helped by Roman Abramovich's willingness to give José Mourinho £87million to spend on players, but with Chelsea, United and City chasing similar players, a new benchmark is likely to be set despite the global recession.

For all the 'oh noes, they lost the greatest player in the world' mumurings, I'm sure the fact that they made £7m shy of a two-time title winning side is not too disheartening when added to a, um, three-time title winning side.

(to darragh) Better than Flamini at his last season here.

(to ken) umm... eduardo?

then stats r liers

i would tease ur stats int he playground for being retarded

If Spurs can keep up the form of the second half of last season then yeah I'm going for 5th. That's assuming Redknapp can avoid our near-habitual start-of-season collapse, which is a big assumption.

Of course stats are ridiculous. I prefer Flamini to Denilson. But I'm just saying I'd (and I'm possibly the only Arsenal fan) who like to see him given a whole season in a stable midfield like Flam was.

1121 BST: Ezequiel Lavezzi's agent insists Serie A club Napoli have received an offer from Liverpool for the Argentine striker. (Press Association)

Anyone know anything about this fella other than "alright on pro evo"?

New Maradona apparently.

He's not THAT good on Pro Evo. Plays SS, decent at assists, not much more to him than that. Sorta Dirk Kuyt-esque

Thus "alright", yah?

legend in FM09 however

I think I lost quite heavily while playing as Argentina, hence I am not willing to pass much of a positive judgement

Playing 3 DMs may have sounded cool in theory, but in practice it didn't really work out

playing 3 DM's sounds like we need a diagram

I've been playing this sort of sword-balancing-on-a-table formation on FIFA, the guy who's the point got 41 goals in league 2 but nobody else broke double figures

the sword is on fire

charltonathleticbadge.jpg

I did play as them initially, but Todorov and Gray were so massively prolific it was ruining the immersion, so I decided to for something a bit more plausible and win the Champions League with Shrewsbury

My favourite footballers are always deep-lying playmaker game-reading types who sit back and string passes together like silk...hence why I worship Tom Huddlestone and would like to see him transferred to a top Italian club where he will be loved as he deserves to be

...however you can have too much of a good thing, especially when your beautiful football rarely reaches the final third of he pitch

"Todorov and Gray were so massively prolific" = grounds for actual mourning

"we must succeed in our aim to bring top European competition to Gay Meadow"

"daniel levy has welcomed you to the club and is sure that he has made the right choice in appointing you as manager"

the most veiled of threats, even if i can't put my finger on it

Ronaldo, currently on holiday in Los Angeles, also confirmed that a doctor from Madrid had examined the groin injury that has been troubling him. "Every one wants to see and test your product or future product," he explained.

sword-balancing-on-a-table formation

intrigued but puzzled. can you do a quick diagram with x's?

i've got 4 4 1 1 in my head, for some reason

obviously, if it's a big two hander that gives the cm's a bit more room for movement, as opposed to the katana formation that leaves them very narrow.

looking fwd to loujag's patented scimitar formation finally finding rooney's perfect position

I'm pretty out of my depth here tbh, my attempts to sketch it made me think it was maybe more of a lopsided upside down hammer

chelsea won the league with an upside down hammer

Something like this no?:

+
+
+ + +
+
+ + + +
+

Oh shit that didnt work

i call it "jesus on the cross, with a banjo"

i wasn't kidding when i said we needed LJ on this formation shit

....+....
....+....
...+++...
....+....
..+++++..

?

Djeez Louise, that's not how it should turn out.

need keith on this ASAP of formation generation engine is killing ILX

actually it's really more like a partially collapsed swastika falling off some kind of scaffold

     x
   x   x
  x  x   x
 x  x  x   x
     x 

amirite

^isn't that just the Christmas tree

X
X
X X
X X
XXXX
X

41311

sorry yeah i got carried away i just really like the xmas tree formation!

    +
    +
   +++
    +
  +++++

to be fair, sword on a table was a pretty good description of that

i had a great formation back in 2002 or so.

       x  
x x x x x x x x x
b 
        o   

b = beckham
o = owen

um one too many defenders

basically that, yeah, but with only ten outfield players (xp)

X
XXXX

yeah that worked

hint, use [ code ] tag

sweeper
3 x central defenders
holding midfield
3 x central midfielders
attacking midfielder
Dele Adebola

OLISADEBE

10 randoms

(CM4 league winning team right there)

You guys must be playing higher division teams than me, 08 gives me nothing but heartbreak if I play a lone front man in League 2.

(Best formation to talent pay-off I've had has been a 4-3-1-2 at Lincoln with Super Lee Frecklington playing just behind the 2 forwards, but you try that shit with a lone striker and don't score for a month.)

         Ivarov
  Valeny  Jaric  Stremer
      Dodo    Iouga
Espimas            Ximelez
         Minanda
      Ordaz   Castolo

quite interesting article. David James on injuries and physiotherapy; why Darren Anderton shouldn't have been such a lol sicknote etc.

Anderton's problem was more pies than injuries.

Agents offer Michael Owen to clubs with help of 34-page brochure

Hope this also includes heartfelt poem by little Michael

Owen is out of contract on 30 June and available as a free agent. The Wasserman brochure, reported in the Sunday Mirror, reveals the player would prefer to stay in the Premier League. It says that, in choosing his next move, Owen "is about to make the biggest decision of his football career", and explains that the 29-year-old is "good looking" and "charismatic".

Dear Michael,

This shit isn't helping.

Yeah, Ribery made the best viral of the year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMPwBTl8gGE

<3 that guy

lol what was that amusing incident he was involved in earlier this season?

/last season

Nothing can beat Fernando Torres in the viral stakes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y60RGIvgh2s

<3 Nando and creepy heads.

weird shoulder thing at the start

Ha, OK, that Franck Ribery thing is a good contender for best-football-thing-on-the-internets

(currently a tie between cristiano-ronaldo-fanny-dangling-and-falling-over.gif and the justintv carlos cuellar handball dude)

and the justintv carlos cuellar handball dude

^^^whats this?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sZoGJCo3Dc

^ player of the year, now he's a dick!

big rid caird right up yer erse!

Zinedine Zidane has confirmed Real is in talks with Ribery...

jesus that vid reminds me of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHc2pC-ug7c

John Barnes set to become Tranmere manager apparently!

Ribery, Ronaldo, Robben, Kaka, Sneijder, van der Vaart, Guti - why didn't they get Kevin Keegan to manage this team?

http://arsenalaction.wordpress.com/2009/06/13/mamadou-sakho-sounds-like-reverse-racism-to-me/

:D that is grist to my mill, tyvm

Torres for Utd? Never! Surely?

http://goal.com/en/news/11/transfer-zone/2009/06/14/1323728/manchester-united-to-make-shock-move-for-liverpool-star-fernando-

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/campaigns/our_boys/2481387/Taliban-corpse-has-Aston-Villa-club-tattoo.html

I MEAN, I WAS WORRIED WE MIGHT TURN INTO A "FEEDER CLUB" BUT-

Kick Racism Out Of Football: a partial success

Hopefully they'll recruit some Blues fans too since their shooting's lousy.

http://www.101greatgoals.com/2009/06/the-phantom-menace-part-ii-middlesbrough-chase-serbian-wonderkid-rajko-purovic/

thread's protagonist confirms that he has been in talks with Aston Villa for two weeks, and also that he enjoys drinking beer

he'll be a good purchase for the money quoted (7m). think spurs could hold out for more, maybe.

swap deal of jenas, bentley for ashley young probably won't be getting off the ground then.

Wolves sign Milijas woohoo. Turns out he doesn't meet the work permit criteria o_O

I will probably have nightmares about that every day until the window closes, but I'm not quite ready to downgrade O'Neill to "blithering idiot" yet

I'm confused, is he being signed as a Barry replacement? A defensive midfielder he ain't.

I'm assuming a complete overhaul of the Villa midfield is in the offing.

young, reo coker, milner, bentley

bentley has only two positions- on the right or maybe as a supprt striker, so that means moving milner or totally changing the formation.

that's why you need jenas, bent, chimbonda and zokora- for balance. enjoy.

so that means moving milner or totally changing the formation

Or buying someone else.

Barry only ever played DM for England.

Not sure if Bentley is supposed to play as an attacking midfielder in front of Petrov or on one of the wings; Young on the left and Bentley on the right I can kind of see, Milner and Bentley with Young going to Spurs = fuck this shit

Petrov got player of the season at Villa and is probably undroppable by O'Neill; really don't get what's going on with NRC but I think he's a decent player aside from his frequently woeful passing

Meanwhile 50% of the Dutch Euro 2008 squad is now on the market and Liverpool have apparently offered £18.5m for Glen Johnson which strikes me as an inordinately high price to pay for a fullback when you only have one good striker.

gotta laff at Real hoovering up Kaka and Ronaldo in a smug gesture of might, and then sending round a list of 20 players to every team in the world going "shitshitshit please buy these players to pay for those guys"

Please let Johnson go to Liverpool please please please not chelsea please.

Fixture list out tomorrow I heard!

http://www.cherrytreecentre.co.uk/images/shops/cashconverters.jpg

xxp

Not buying into the Glen Johnson hype

Royston Drenthe all sitting there next to a really bad guitar

Wait I thought Portsmouth were zillionaires why would they sell £18.5 million pound rated Glen Johnson?

well I heard that there were possible problems with Al-Fahim's suitability

I for one think this multi-billionaire will have big problems circumventing the premier league's notoriously stringent guidelines on-

I enjoy the fact that Chelsea are trying to resign Glen Johnson for what must be well over double what they paid last time. But he looked very good against Andorra, didnt ee?

Tough opponents

Johnson looks a very good fullback now, attacking at least, and is almost certainly better than the options Liverpool have but I'm not really sure why Chelsea would want him. Unless it's just to put him back on the bench for a laugh.

We bought him for 6, sold him for 4 and are now supposed to be signing him for 18 even though we have five right backs already on the books, three of them as good or better than Johnson. Way to go Chels.

^ this

I thought there was concern that the prospective Pompey owners could be linked to the existing Man City owners? And although the Martian reaction would be funny whenever Pompey deliberately threw away a four-goal lead against Man City, it isn't exactly likely to be good for the game.

It all seems to depend in what capacity Al-Fahim was involved with Man City before they shunted him off to one side for being mental and tapping up every player in football in the press

If he gets in it looks like Pompey might get to be the hilarious managerial merry go round spend and fail mess that everyone thought Man City would be before they turned out to be obnoxiously sensible and supportive of their manager

I can see almost all of the players Real Madrid are hawking going to Italy for some reason, but I'd like to see Huntelaar, Sneijder, van der Vaart and Diarra over here (have had enough of Robben's old, pained face).

If Liverpool are paying that much for Johnson they may as well double it and table a bid for David Villa.

18m for glen johnson look slike a bargain when viewed in the right light (9m for hutton)

Wait, which one is the Scottish Cafu again?

So Ribery and Benz' are next on Real's shopping list. I'd still hate it, but that team would look might fine.

Is Glen Johnson the English Hutton?

Hutton has looked good in the three games he's played for us.

Of the Madrid players up for sale:

Heinze - we know he's good in the Premiership, I can see him coming back, maybe to Liverpool finally?
Saviola - great player who's been repeatedly unlucky at club level, could do with dropping down a level. I'd take him at Spurs.
Van Nistelrooy - could be amazing, will probably be injured constantly
Robben - see also Van Nistelrooy, but I could see United taking a punt on him seeing as they tried to sign him years ago, and he's still pretty young.
Van der Vaart - no idea
Sneijder - I'd take him
Huntelaar - reverse Diego Forlan, flop in La Liga, could be great in the Prem.
Drenthe/Diarra - dunno

I'd like to see Diarra because although I know almost nothing about him I get excited when it seems any decent sort of defensive midfielder is on the market, cos I'm not sure there's a great deal of them, although it seems like he might be a bit of a gamble cos of injuries and whatnot. Who knows who Wenger will sign of course, this guys older than me.

Heinze is rubbish, Robben shouldn't come back to the Prem, he doesn't have the heart for it. I like VDV and Sneijeder.

VdV is really really good, as is Sneijder, I thought Huntelaar would be great in Prem when he was Ajax - he's superb in the air for a start.

Apparently Drenthe's nickname at Madrid is Acci-Drenthe as he's v v prone to fall over the ball while dribbling, and generally cock things up.

Heinze has looked awful at Madrid, if he ends up at Libpool, I'll be unsure. Lots of Libpool fans want Robben, the rest despise him, I think I'm in the latter camp, he's a sneaky, nasty shit.

I heard the problem with the Lol-Pompey takeover was the shadowy presence of Dr Thaksin.

Huntelaar scored 8 in 20 btw, not really a flop. (Half of which came from the bench and while the team was falling apart.) It's only because he's not a galictico big name and they want some money for Villa.

I'd fucking love Diarra at Arsenal. He was essential to those 2 seasons they won the league, and it's not surprising they fell apart when he got knackered this season. Plus, we love a bargain.

Barry played for England as one of three centre backs at the very start of his international career, Matt

which Diarra are we talking about here?

I thought it was the Chels/Arse/Pomp Diarra?

The one from Mali, not the one who's already been at Arsenal.

Hutton has looked good in the three games he's played for us

O_o

Barry played for England as one of three centre backs at the very start of his international career, Matt

Was that actually in reply to my "Barry only played DM for England" thing? I meant that England is the only team Barry has played DM for, not that he hasn't played other positions for England

ohhhh sorry i hereby retire from international football

it must pain you so to have to repeat his name, especially for such a meaningless purpose as clarification

Real would be stupid to sell either of the Diarra's

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01114/fergie1_1114277c.jpg

xxpost

beckham going back to united to fill the number 7 gap

Is Clive Tyldesley under that desk? (xp)

pretty sure Tyldsley is still drowning in salt tears

if anybody picks that up and runs with it there'll be trouble

saltires amirite

that salty night in barcelona

and by 'barcelona' you mean 'the barcelona team, in turn'

http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/chigurh.jpg

i think the penetration was the other way round on that salty night in rome

slowly, clive twirled his pleat-ed skirt and sung of gareth barry, oh sweet gareth barry, now at long last playing for a proper club

Surely "his David-ed skirt"?

who knows what happens in that 'com' box

com on tylds

itv football coverage: urge to slash rising

'com box'

anyway, johnson's off to pool

the johnson pool

that's far form certina i thought?

ford certina

Reds' boss Rafael Benitez is confident he has beaten off interest from Chelsea

ugh

interest- portuguese yth trainee

sorry, just to clarify, david bentley is not in talks with villa, which is what he meant to say earlier.

Weird, I just read that Glenn Johnson's middle name is "MISSING PIECE OF THE JIGSAW".

what's your take on that one? i've had pool fans on email that seem to think so.

Not like Liverpool fans to delude themselves, they're normally so hard-headed, unsentimental and objective

1132 BST: Arsenal right-back Bacary Sagna says he would be open to a move to Real Madrid with the Spanish side weighing up a £20m bid for the Gunners star.

Oh noes, Arsenal to be completely devoid of right backs and Glen Johnson is no longer available!

Are there any good full backs in the world?

none worth < 10m , which is economically strange

where's danny mills gotten to

I'm caught in two minds really. On one hand I think, why spend so much cash on a player when Arbeloa isn't actually that bad is he? That said Johnson is better than him, especially going forward, and with Kuyt as our main right winger I think Johnson could open things up a lot.

I also find it hard to imagine a full back making a radical difference to this Liverpool side, is that naive? They blatantly need a striker or an attacking midfielder. If they've still got the cash to get one of those in, and it seems they do, then fair enough.

kinda with you there- johnson, not a bad thing- johnson for 18m if you're strapped for cash, pointless.

And I have a feeling that Arbeloa is a better defender by miles.

Attacking Full Backs are a total luxury purchase.

I wholeheartedly agree with ronan, Arbeloa has done well, no need to replace when something else up front is required, have been thinking about this, would like Huntelaar.

also Lol at a celtic fan saying:
Not like Liverpool fans to delude themselves, they're normally so hard-headed, unsentimental and objective

Jonathan Wilson in the Guardian keeps banging on about fullbacks being the most important position in football these days (or something), which has some merit but only if you employ lots of caveats.

well duh, united won the league with a team of 7 right backs.

exactly

also Lol at a celtic fan saying:
Not like Liverpool fans to delude themselves, they're normally so hard-headed, unsentimental and objective

Exactly! When a Celtic fan can say that about another team...

But fullbacks are definitely Liverpool's weak point: Evra-Rafael/Clichy-Sagna/Cole-Boswinga all much better pairings (though strangely right back could be United's sore spot as well, xposts not withstanding).

12 goals in the league last year for the attacking right back liverpool already have.

the only way it makes sense is 352/532 as a starting formation next year, aurelio being quite handy on the front foot

Don't really agree with Wilson at all, a full back who can get forward is a nice thing to have only if a) you've got quick, mobile centre halfs, b) the full back in question has got the stamina and sense to not get caught out of position, and c) you've got plenty of attacking options in the centre.

Selling Arbeloa to cash-rich Spaniards to fund Tevez purchase?

This transfer window is like Tetris.

Anyway, attacking full backs was a thing 3 years ago, this year will be all about the defensive forward.

last two seasons were all about the defensive forward, this year will be all about wingers through the centre

ade akinbiyi was so 2004

Here's the Wilson piece.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2009/mar/25/the-question-full-backs-football

xpost

Is that P:20 G:04?

p200, g 4 shurely

I stand corrected.

Andy Keogh's got all the attributes to be a great defensive forward. Can't score, can't defend.

Tevez might actually be the missing piece of the puzzle for Liverpool. I can see him being the perfect foil for Torres in a way I didn't with Robbie Keane.

Not sure about Tevez. Too many United fans seem happy to let him go.

You'd then be looking at a Man United style 4-3-3 with attacking fullbacks and Torres/Kuyt/Tevez upfront. Or alternatively a straight 4-4-2 with either less width or no Alonso.

I am assuming Kuyt won't be dropped even if he has a leg amputated.

Isn't Gerrard pretty much playing as a second forward at the moment? I lose track.

Tevez is Kuyt Mk. 2 though? Oh look at him run about, isn't he working hard!

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2009/06/16/article-0-055C377D000005DC-277_468x627.jpg

Obv. Tevez is better than Kuyt though!

is he?

TBH, whenever I see Tevez I think he looks great, but so many people have doubts I no longer believe my own eyes: see also Fat Frank, until last season.

neither of them are 10m footballers. it's kind of bewildering.

is he?

Ofcourse not. I think Kuyt should score more goals than he does, but come on, Tevez? What exactly did he do all of last season? I can't remember not even a hint of greatness or succes. Tevez is an ordinary 10m player dressed up as a 30m player.

Hard to look great when you're carrying Berbatov on your back.

Tevez has a goals-to-appearances ratio for Man United that is better than one in two, and hardly got any starts. Just saying, like.

he is better at backheels than kuyt

tevez is that dude that makes us all think we could still make it, if we only got cracking in time for preseason.

looking forward to berbatov's player of the season awards 09/10.

if modric doesn't nick it, obv.

Actually, ignore that, it's one in three, I was only counting league appearances.

Fourth place for sure this year, eh lads?

Dirk got 15 goals and 12 assists last season! multiple x-posts