"We've momentum and we can't afford to lose it tbh"- The '13-'14 summer transfer window thread for PL and beyond

Deems made me do this.

Let's go.

aka "Chris Solly is going nowhere"

hey, we're all gonna make it about ourselves, right

I sure hope so!

who are PSV desperately clinging to/sniffing around

If we don't end up with one big proper signing this summer im gonna be sad. There hae been so many Higuain or Jovetic stories that... its gonna be like Darren Bent or someone innit... *sad face*

the flourishing of Jenkinson will be akin to a new signing

cmon I feel we haven't mentioned enough Charlton youth-team right-backs yet itt

Ugh... We're clutching at straws man. It was a disastrous season. Desperately clinging to Strootman (especially), Mertens, Toivonen and Lens, but fear all four will leave. Toivonen especially is likely to go to the PL. I've no idea who we are sniffing up atm, because there's no dough until we sell.

Adam Maher would be my dream signing, but he will likely go to fucking Ajax. If Wenger is paying attention: Maher is an examplary great Arsenal play. Steal him before Ajax does plz

xxxp

Sam, Adam Maher should be your big signing! He was born to play for Arsenal! Please send ✧.wen✧✧✧@arse✧✧✧.c✧.u✧ an email or something.

So where are all the ***star players*** of QPR going?

find it deliciously weird when someone not even tangentially british has a very british name

late-90s switzerland were kinda good for that

tbf tbf Maher is Irish probably (deems?)

Morrocan, but close enough

Well, Dutch, but Morrocan Dutch

wtf british name

no I mean the name

xp

So.... Andy Carroll... Ronan might want to weigh in here. What to do with the old sod?

12m to buy him

spurs and newcastle should get into that, and damn what nakh thinks of it

I can see Carroll being a Europa League legend w/ Spurs tbh - and I'm not trolling

jesus what a takedown

I hope that arsenal buy a player

who is unplayable

they could just keep arshavin tho

or the others

hi suedey

not lazing but clowning

― i dont love everything, i love football (darraghmac), Monday, October 4, 2010 8:11 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

<3

diaby 4 life

what have you done to me wenger

next year is his year, the year of complete diaby

like a new singing

can I get a shirt with a broken leg on the back

no but these will be available soon

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02556/celeb_2556649c.jpg

awesome new dn deems

AA+

a bit fuckin late mind!

You need my helping hand, it's ok

Can ILF resign boxall please?

never really left but flattered to be missed I guess!

of the QPR squad, suppose Arsenal could most use that midfielder rtc loved (Diakité?) but the one I really liked was Alejandro Faurlín. Didn't follow him in Serie A but if he came back from that injury fully, I thought he was a very good passing midfielder. Just as long as the awes Armand Traore doesn't return.

Whats going to go down with wigan's bigger names? Surely not beyond the realms of possibility that they talk a good-ish number into staying for a crack at europe and the hope of going straight back up. Money will obvs be an issue, but I don't think they have many players on bigotry

Bigotry = big money of course, fuck iPhones etc etc

now if only you were talking about liverpool

There'll be a big bunfight over Callum McManaman probably, no idea where will be the first stop on his inevitable route to becoming the new Adam Johnson.

Man city would be a start. Though perhaps moving to citeh won't be such a dead end for wingers now that Mancini has gone and they might actually be in with a chance of
getting played.

Mcmanaman feels like a vaguely Liverpool-ish sort of player, but they've got thing elsewhere that need fixing.

Kone and McCarthy have got to be on their way out of Wigan though. Kone would be fun at everton I reckon, though it won't happen

Liverpool would be quite amusing, as if having gone over a decade without any good young wingers they suddenly start trying to stockpile every single one that becomes available. But he'd probably actually develop in a sensible way under Rodgers, ditto under Laudrup. The worst case scenario would be Newcastle or West Ham or somewhere.

as if newcastle will sign him!

bit early for a mcmanaman bunfight, screams everton though especially if martinez goes there. maybe west ham, or fulham even. rodgers has wing forwards aplenty what with sterling, suso, ibe, sinclair etc and city will have bigger fish to fry with isco and jesus "sigh, sickening eyes" navas

figueroa, beausejour look a bit fulham too. spurs squad filler once but probably no longer

actually i think macca 2 could be quite good at liverpool cos they can still be diffident and he is lol fiesty but if there's only so much to spend it's certainly the least of priorities

Macca 2 an everton youth reject

Fulham are a weird club, like there's a sense that literally any player in the league might turn up there at some point. Figueroa next year, Edin Hazard in nine years time.

lfc need to bite the bullet and flog reina to barca now cos they wont get a better chance

valdes to monaco? should be arsenal really but yeah right

Alright maybe not Giggs or Gerrard or someone but anyone who might conceivably be involved in a transfer.

sticklebrick to replace schwarzer is the long mooted fulham talk iirc

Fulham are the 5000 seater midwest arena gig of pl clubs, if you're good enough to have made it that far then you're good enough for a better gig but somewhere you fucked it up.

I can see Billy Corgan making an impact at Craven Cottage.

they'll be clearing rowboats off putney high street for weeks after the epic sigh darren bent will let out as he arrives at the cottage to sign a 2 year deal

lol mdc was that a "powerful white energy" gag

Mou out?

yeah, it's official

I half-expect him to mutually frot with Chelsea for all of June, then join City

Would be amazed if City weren't basically waiting outside his house right now.

From The Guardian

Gareth Bale to sign new Tottenham contract worth £150,000 a week

• Forward committed to Spurs for the near future
• Real Madrid will have to wait at least one more season

Gareth Bale is poised to commit his immediate future to Tottenham Hotspur after agreeing improved terms in principleto remain at White Hart Lane despite the club's failure to get to the Champions League. The deal is expected to include a release clause for bids over £50m that can be triggered at the end of next season.

although they haven't exactly been reliable on matters Bale in the past

while I know very little of Pellegrini, he & City seem like an exceptionally boring combination

why the fuck wd we have to pay compensation to Millwall for Kenny Jackett, i thought he'd resigned?

yeah apparently he wangled himself some sort of lol contract where they still have to pay him a years notice

can't see us stumping up that sort of cash tbh

Utd coming from two nil down to beat Spurs in the U-21 final :)

almost as magical a comeback as West Brom

or Arsenal since March

Not really relevant to this thread, but here's a Guardian article about David Beckham from 1996:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/from-the-archive-blog/2013/may/16/david-beckham-retires-manchester-united

well behind Giggs, the Neville brothers and Butt in public recognition

idk

Letting him go in a year for 50m and paying him 7.5m for the privilege doesnt seem a very levy deal. Off with him now for 60m if he insists on any such clause.

Liverpool agree deal in principle with Kolo Toure ffs

excellent

"genuine man strength"

Pretty off-topic, but this Jurgen Klopp interview in the Guardian is awesome.

He hits his head with his palm. "Shinji Kagawa is one of the best players in the world and he now plays 20 minutes at Manchester United – on the left wing! My heart breaks. Really, I have tears in my eyes. Central midfield is Shinji's best role. He's an offensive midfielder with one of the best noses for goal I ever saw. But for most Japanese people it means more to play for Man United than Dortmund. We cried for 20 minutes, in each others' arms, when he left.

http://cdn1-www.craveonline.com/assets/uploads/2013/04/beavisandbutthead.jpg

lol

Klopp otm tho

Letting him go in a year for 50m and paying him 7.5m for the privilege doesnt seem a very levy deal. Off with him now for 60m if he insists on any such clause.

Lol srsly? This deal gives us a year to plan for his departure rather than having to suddenly rebuild over a summer, and there are maybe three clubs in the world who would even pay £50m for him, and no guarantee that they will. And we get a year more or him, at the very least.

Seems sensible if only to avoid a repeat of the Modric fiasco.

the klopp interview is brilliant. fairly sure he likes techno.

Matt otm, don't sell your best players unless you know you can cope without them. Xabi Alonso out and Aquilani in did more than anything else to turn Liverpool from top 4 club to the fiasco of recent years.

xp haha yeah i immediately assumed he was at the decks when i first caught sight of the article photo

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/5/20/1369067589901/Sir-Alex-Ferguson-012.jpg

what the fuck happened to chicharito's face

We have 4 years to prepare for his departure if that is the situation. The modric fiasco was we kept him for a year and he performed well.

Doesnt matter how many teams would pay 50m if there's more than 0, and there is.

17m bale gamble is worth taking what with bigger tv deal plus if successful champs league revenue (and ability to attract better quality of replacement) at the end of it. "time to plan" should really already be in hand tho

funnily enough i watched 'out of the past' after motd on sunday and the deaf kid was uncannily chicharito imo

http://dcairns.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/vlcsnap-537488.png

xp haha yeah i immediately assumed he was at the decks when i first caught sight of the article photo

one of those german house djs who also likes the smiths and skateboarding.

I guess i dont believe in a 60m player remaining at a club where naughton plays lb on occasion, where if our main striker scores 4 league goals in a season we start warming up clint dempsey, who is also btw our second choice rw, etc etc.

Give that outlook, three 20m players across lw and attack seem a better option.

Rodgers believes Coutinho can have a greater influence next season when he has adjusted to the physical demands of the Premier League. He added: "He has genuine man strength. He's 20 years of age but he's not a boy."

"seeking genuine man strength" would have been a great thread title.

Foreign deodorant slogan

throw it on the pile of other ignored great thread titles tbh

Give that outlook, three 20m players across lw and attack seem a better option.

― my name is louis and i'm an acoleuthic (darraghmac), Tuesday, 21 May 2013 11:26 (7 minutes ago)

ya in theory, sure. but it rarely seems to work out like that and in any case there should be enough money there now to still build usefully around him

name the three players btw (i was thinking of starting a "you are the dof" thread but couldnae be bovd)

Levy's main failing has been inability to plan for the departure of big players, or at least he's tended to leave replacements to the last minute, and bungled several deals as a result (Damiao, Moutinho being the big ones). As I've said before we won't sell him even if he doesn't sign, this is just to head off a summer of speculation and minimise pissing and whining.

tbf those two deals have been legit nightmarish by all accounts

I can see that outlook, but i dont agree that the cause is an inability to plan. Levy just pushes the deal too far. That wont change in another year, i mean damiao and moutinho have been 'just missed out on a deal' targets for three years now!

Capel would seem a decent lw candidate, damiao moutinho ya sure, and id prob make a cheeky bid at swansea's other spanish player

Tbf i acknowledge that there's no terrible hardship in the bale issue, but on a long term contract there sees little point inthrowing cash at him and also giving him an out next year.

Would happily take Pablo H, maybe Scott Sinclair as well although City are presumably paying him ludicrous money to never play.

James mccarthy?

Someone gimme an idea of what he'd do for us. More positive than parker but surely not a priority.

There'll be plenty of teams in for McCarthy, I can see him ending up at Liverpool more than anywhere.

Theoretically it would allow us to offload Livermore and put us in a position where we could listen to offers for Huddlestone and Parker. The chances of both Sandro and Parker being injured at the same time are relatively high I think. But I reckon he'll go elsewhere.

I still think livermore is a valid option, no reason to offload homegrown squad cover on low wages

Steve Davis just gone 2/1 favourite with Sky to get the Wolves job

Pulis gone from Stoke.

He can't argue. Saw this this morning in the Guardian's flops of the season noms:

Tony Pulis
This season Stoke were supposed to make a great leap forward. Or was that last season? Pulis has been promising for a while that he would add a new dimension to his team's play, adding a little more unpredictability to their admirable ruggedness. But you get the feeling that he never really meant it or just couldn't bring himself to loosen up enough to create or attack, especially away, where Stoke were routinely contemptibly negative. To have a greater net spend on transfers than anyone other than Chelsea and Manchester City over the past five years and end up with a right flank manned by Andy Wilkinson and Ryan Shotton is to confess to an extraordinarily limited vision.

That last sentence.

£18m on Crouch and Palacios together is some hardcore pissing away of money but part of the reason that net spend is so high is that Stoke apparently never sell anyone. Players just leave at the end of their contract or just disappear into the massed ranks.

old players are ground up and used as feed for emerging youngsters

It's an old horse-rearing trick Mickey Owen brought with him. Pulis was right about him making a lasting impact at the club.

pulis was fired after a burger labelled etherington was found to have traces of crouch

The emerging youngsters are then corralled, razor blades tied to their ankles in a Bet365-sponsored event, until one emerges alone from the bloody mist. He is then subject to a Shawcrossing, whereupon the cycle begins again.

He'll be in at Cardiff or Palace or someone during their inevitable mid-season panic next year. Unless he's going for the Madrid job or something.

Gutting for Man United to have jumped the gun and gone for Moyes.

Good work itt

Wenger's now been in situ more than a decade longer than anyone else

Actually, who is second? I can't get beyond three(?) years for Pardew.

Chris Powell is closing in on the top ten for fuck's sake

I know they ran it a bit close on survival this year but I kind of feel finishing 11th-14th every year since entering the league should keep you in a Stoke job.

It would be interesting to see what a Martinez type would do with a club like Stoke but I can't help feeling there's one more job for Martin O'Neill and this is it.

Tisdale would appear to be within 10 years of Wenger, if you're extending it to the League like I just did

58 English football league clubs have had their current manager in post for less than a year.

It would be interesting to see what a Martinez type would do with a club like Stoke but I can't help feeling there's one more job for Martin O'Neill and this is it

I'm hearing rumours of Phil Neville in to replace him.

Phil Neville is third favourite at the moment, behind Di Matteo and Hughes.

fter three years of discussions and negotiations, Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber announced on Tuesday that English Premier League powerhouse Manchester City FC and Major League Baseball's legendary New York Yankees have teamed up to acquire MLS's 20th expansion club.

The new team will be named New York City Football Club (NYCFC) and is expected to begin play in 2015.

smh

I mean NYC already has one horrendous corporate branded team that can't fill its 200 million dollar stadium... I know! Let's bring in oil $ and the fucking Yankees.

Man City are a shell of a club now, I see no comic potential in this whatsoever. Even the name is somehow boring.

rip guy who ran on the field during the derby, you were your last gasp

marcelo bielsa to stoke 100/1 on betvictor, lump on lads

Those odds are way better than the actual chance of it happening tbh

hughes and stoke is nearly too evil to comprehend

seems rude not to go for di matteo though

poyet would have so much work to do he'd be crazy to take it

hm steve bould's an interesting one. well ok not rly at all but ykwim

Frank de Boer just signed a new contract at Ajax till 2017. Clearly doing this just to fuck with Stoke's head

I know they ran it a bit close on survival this year but I kind of feel finishing 11th-14th every year since entering the league should keep you in a Stoke job.

― The Parvenu Fucktard (onimo), Tuesday, 21 May 2013 15:08 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

ya ordinarily i'd rail against patronising any club fan who hopes for something better than pragmatism but stoke might be the exception. who do they think they are

Health & Safety nixes Dortmund tifo - how can this be? What's the worst that can happen?

Admit it, it's just to get back at the Krauts, oder?

I like to think Stoke fans would be cool with relegation, they just want an end to the tedium. But I don't know whether that works in the real world - maybe ask NV whether he'd trade places with them?

as pointed out, Pulis has spent a fair bit of money just to make Stoke the punchline to a joke about donkeys, maybe this season's flirtation with the drop was the final straw

Not sure it is, LBI, the English football fan today is a highly-regulated beast. At the Emirates all the timid little banners are regulation-sized and not blocking any branding.

i guess the bottom line is: most fans take the results as they find them, even when they're paying Premier League ticket prices to watch dour as fuck success. personally i'd have an eppy if the likes of Pulis managed the Wolves but i know plenty of people who wouldn't give a fuck if it got us back in the Prem

has any brit team ever choreographed anything beyond the odd sole person daubing grammatically dubious calumny on the back of a cereal box with the blood of a household pet

dean saunders a mere 10/1 at ladbrokes for the stoke gig btw noodles

pretty sure one does not sack Reggie Kray to replace him with Sideshow Bob

it's a question of perceived limits wrt pulis types, from league 1 up to idk his second prem season he was getting the most out of the rubbish he had (probably about as much as any freeflowing side with stoke's means could have achieved) but once the stakes were raised viable progress was flatly ignored

The Kop's the only display worth the name I've ever seen. Utd had a big flag being passed over heads when I was at OT, but a fan jumped in it and got stuck.

yeah i think every side has to set itself goals. 14th in the Prem is a fine aspiration if you're in the Championship or if you've just got yourself promoted, but once you've finished there for a couple of years you have to at least try to improve in some way, otherwise you just end up looking into some existential black hole where you begin to question what the point is of playing the game or supporting the club at all. by all means you have to be realistic but if you don't start a season looking to win something or to play better football or to gain a few memorable results then what the fuck is the point of just making up the numbers?

Not sure it is, LBI, the English football fan today is a highly-regulated beast. At the Emirates all the timid little banners are regulation-sized and not blocking any branding.

― Ismael Klata, dinsdag 21 mei 2013 18:10 (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

As with a lot of things in the UK nowadays no? Regulation to the extreme I mean.

I am surprised this seems to be Wembley's call. If it were UEFA's call I'd understand, since they are insane, but disappointed in this tbh

xp idk tho by the sounds of it imago would have been happy to sit in 12th or thereabouts with curbs til his dying day

'tis about the journey, not the destination

i kind of agree but to make the journey you've got to aim to go somewhere

yeah exactly people don't say that journey pish just circling legoland roundabout

14th in the Prem is a fine aspiration if you're in the Championship or if you've just got yourself promoted, but once you've finished there for a couple of years you have to at least try to improve in some way, otherwise you just end up looking into some existential black hole where you begin to question what the point is of playing the game or supporting the club at all.

I agree but I don't see what separates the Stoke experience from so many others in the same bracket other than their reputation for no nonsense Shawxing. Is it enough to be just as mediocre (results wise) all season if you occasionally see Berbatov scoring a beauty?

I know they should be looking to improve year on year but so is everyone else. You have to improve to stand still.

Not if the travel itself is pleasant

yeah but to occasionally see a Berbatov score a beauty you have to bring in a Berbatov

I don't think it's about 'looking to improve' so much as 'having a bit of fun'. Stoke have been in the epl six years, and for what? One Crouch goal, one Cup semi, a trip to Valencia (which they threw), and some Jonathan Walters lols. And Pulis was probably telling them to cut it out every time.

xp

yes, that. of course nobody can say "we will definitely finish 2 places higher this season/win a knockout cup/do the double over United" but there still have to be measurable goals in place, it's easy to see how Pulis mightn't've met those goals this season - there's no real sign of progress in his transfer strategy or tactics

so if jol does this pleasantly shit stuff for another four years at fulham that's fine is it

(shame on u btw darragh)

Why always me

15m for carroll not too bad I suppose

Eh what, to whom?

Confirmed? Good deal for lfc if so, he's no 1/4 bale

Liverpool have accepted, no comment from Carroll as yet

Read an article somewhere about how Chelsea couldn't afford to sell Torres because of FFP and what his worth still was, that what they could realistically get for him would put them close to breaching the £25M loss in 3 years condition. The sums from there reckon Carroll is still valued at £21M (£35M contract over 7 years, 4 1/2 remaining, straight depreciation) so a £6M loss on top of the £8M announced for last year doesn't make good FFP reading. Maybe that explains Kolo Toure?

£15m's good, we can use £15m - so long as its not on Ashley Williams, Kolo Toure's wages, or rescuing Deuce from his WHL hell

Thing about Charlton under Curbishley is that they were very rarely genuinely relegation threatened, they tended to go storming away at the start of the season and then slip into midtable in the spring. That's very different from what Pulis did with Stoke - although actually Stoke were virtually impossible to beat for the first third of the season and then completely useless after that.

It's all very well sacking the manager after successive midtable seasons but you've got to have a clue what you're going to do afterwards. Pretty obvious that Pulis didn't have a clue how to take Stoke to the next level - even Mark Hughes managed better at gradually finessing a team of lumpen thugs when he was at Blackburn.

Pulis did pretty well at keeping Stoke up but every time a club like Stoke is overhauled by a Swansea or even a West Brom that achievement looks less impressive.

to west ham, ik (in case you hadn't heard!)

me thinks it's a job for rafa

you know how with food (and prob many other things) they say: cheap, healthy or delicious, you can only have two out of three. For Stoke, I bet Pulis would have been ok if he had two out of three out of: thrifty, attractive or effective, but this year he was 0 for 3, so pretty abominable.

rtc, you're not looking at this the right way. A succession of midtable finishes it may have been, but it was punctuated with glorious defeats of apparently superior teams and some fairly decent football along the way. Only a tiny minority wanted to 'push for Europe' - most of us were very happy just being there, trying to mix it with the big boys, taking our small share of glory. Football support is not something best served terminal - you shouldn't follow a team aiming for continual success and domination - that way madness lies (and heaven knows there are enough mad cunts with a sense of entitlement following football). You support a team because it represents you or your area, and you cheer it on regardless, hoping to win each game, hoping for incremental stylistic developments, but accepting that sometimes their village will defeat yours. In that context, a sustained run of unthreatened Premiership seasons was heaven for us, and I'm sure a sustained run in a grotesquely-inflated Championship (English football IS where the money is) will make us just as happy. Well, until the minority of cunts begin their moaning about how we're not getting promoted. The ones who forget that literally every single Championship club other than the three promoted from League One has extensive Premiership experience, or at least a chance at raising the funds or the team to get there.

every time a club like Stoke is overhauled by a Swansea or even a West Brom that achievement looks less impressive

West Brom picked up only two more points than Stoke in the second half of the season, and one of those was in a lol 5-5 draw. Stoke are 4-6 points from being as "successful" as West Brom or Swansea. Middle to bottom of the league is ridiculously tight and it's been a poor season for them but I think his record since taking over (currently 20 league positions above their 2006 finish) should have been enough to earn another season.

Not everyone can go to whatever the next level is. Stoke may well get in a manager who takes then from 11th-14th up to 8th-11th but I don't think there's any realistic chance of them joining Everton or Spurs and threatening European places - they're just as likely to fuck up the appointment and end up fighting relegation again.

Swansea have won a trophy and West Brom have been in the top half virtually (possibly entirely) all season, and Swansea at least look they can improve next year. I know it's tight in the bottom half of the table but neither of the aforementioned sides seriously looked like getting relegated at any point, and Stoke did. Also, both of them played entertaining football, and Stoke didn't.

they're just as likely to fuck up the appointment and end up fighting relegation again

Totally.

In fact they're very likely to go down.

"Not everyone can go to whatever the next level is. Stoke may well get in a manager who takes then from 11th-14th up to 8th-11th but I don't think there's any realistic chance of them joining Everton or Spurs and threatening European places - they're just as likely to fuck up the appointment and end up fighting relegation again."

But we just come back round to the same argument about pragmatism/sustainability vs romance and imagination. Surely not having a realistic chance of finishing any higher in the league can't actually be an admissible reason to not even try and play with a bit more endeavour and ambition and joy in your game? I'm talking from the fan's perspective here of course, unfortunately too many boards are only after the result.

This season Villa picked up only 3 more points than they did under Eck, but there's been all the difference in the world between the two campaigns. The lows of this season were excruciating from a results perspective (15 for 3 against Chelsea, Spurs and Wigan, going out to Bradford and so on), worse than anything that happened in McLeish's tenure. But it's all forgivable because ethos behind it was that we were going to do our damndest to try and play football, even when that might not have been the most obvious or sensible course at the time.

I agree with NV and whoever else upthread that were arguing for the journey as opposed to the destination. Idk, I think Pulis had ample opportunity to start buying more interesting or creative players and showing a little bit of intent to change things up, but nope, it was Adam/Kightly/Cameron/Nzonzi and here we go again.

it's not like it was a sacking tbf to stoke. he prob was as bored as they were. better leave with dignity than do shit next year.

I think Pulis bought a few players he could have expected more from and for the last season and a half he hasn't got the best from his squad (I predicted them to go down). Maybe LG's right and he agreed it was the end of the road.

arguing for the journey as opposed to the destination

I'm sure their fans loved going months at a time without losing a home game. I'm sure they also took some pleasure in football purists telling them they were doing it wrong.

they're from Stoke, entertainment options are pretty fucking limited

"it's not like it was a sacking tbf to stoke. he prob was as bored as they were. better leave with dignity than do shit next year."

Yeah tbf I was making some fairly sweeping assertions in that post given that we don't even know who's coming in yet.

And onimo, I'm sure you're right about their fans being happy enough when things were going their way. Maybe I'm being unrealistic? Idk, 6-1 against Sunderland for Villa was more enjoyable and satisfying than any result I can remember from the O'Neill tenure at Villa

Caroll back to Liverpool loooool

some fans are happy with results over performance, maybe the majority, but if that's all you aspire to then you get what you deserve imo. i don't think it's really purism to prefer to watch your team outplay the opposition rather than just neutralize them.

i cant see Carroll back in liverpool tbh

good posts both from windsor and onimo

but

Stoke are 4-6 points from being as "successful" as West Brom or Swansea.

is a bit disingenuous. 4-6 points is fucking massive, very often the difference between a terrible/fine or good/great season. almost always the difference tbh.

and while i dont doubt that stoke will never trouble the top 7, there are ways to not trouble the top 7. even for stoke fans. i dont think you need necessarily to play like swansea or whoever is this year's bright light surprise (mostly those guys get fucked out in year two i would think) but when you spend a lot of money and get worse that's when you've hung yourself. i doubt this was anything more than a resources/return decision tbph.

wonder where pulis will go now then

Wolves

rugby league

i can promise you, tho i'm sure it's not gonna happen, i will not pay one second's attention to any team with that fucking twat in charge

Pulis in as special guest ref for a no-holds-barred tag match of Keano, Chiles and Southgate vs Lawro and the Two Alans. Losers have to take it in turns doing Lineker's back, sack and crack every week for all eternity.

4-6 points is fucking massive, very often the difference between a terrible/fine or good/great season. almost always the difference tbh.

It depends on the season and where you are in the league - obviously it would have made a big difference this season when we had half a dozen teams within a week of being relegated or finishing mid-table. Stoke finished 13th with 42 points, last season they were 14th with 45 but weren't really flirting with relegation.

46 points got them 13th two years ago, this season that gets you 9th place and people talking you up for bigger jobs.

And not just any bigger jobs, Real Madrid ffs! I mean obviously it's Michael Laudrup and everything so it's a whole different kettle of boiling water, but my god, just imagine... One of history's great unanswered questions: who would Tony Pulis have bought if he was managing Real Madrid with their budget in 2010? Lawrence Dallaglio? Geoff Capes? It would have been a sight of terror and wonder, and no mistake.

Carl Froch at defensive mid

would appresh nominations for a team of bigs and brutals that has skill and/or european rep

obv pepe wd be retained. made captain, even

De jong

Witsel

Ivanovic

Fellaini prob

I suppose Yaya and Didier are like the platonic ideal of that form of bigness and skill, but I can't help but think that Pulis would have wanted to throw his chequebook at POJT and TWP if he had the necessary denarii.

Benteke tbfttl

Dembele at CAM

Belgium are actually dead good at this. Benteke, Lukaku, Dembele, Fellaini, Witsel, Kompany, Vertonghen and Vermaelen. How you gonna deal with that at corners ffs

Sorry, I'm aware that that's drifting somewhat away from the original intention of finding big lads with continental cred and a good set of feet. Lukaku ffs

Dont know about the last few, not rly 'bigs' theyre just big

Rooney and terry otmfm tho

Matic

Shawx and huth travel with him tbf

Yeah but once you've marked up Benteke, Fellaini and Kompany who does that leave to deal with the others? Pulis for Belgium manager at Brasil 2014 tbh

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/21/sports/soccer/a-guide-to-attending-a-premier-league-game.html

that article contains the odd factual inaccuracy ime

I love that

Fantastic

Bovril, a hot beef-flavored bouillon masquerading as soup

as good a description of liquid beef as I've seen

Pulis would have bought Edin Dzeko and everyone called Diarra.

Actually his team might have played a lot like City last season but without Silva and Aguero. James Milner is a real big league Pulis player.

ugh rmde at that nyt article, not everyone over here is so clueless I swear

Nonsense, it's great - I love things that make Britain seem a weird, alien land. The epl is getting a hell of a lot of mileage out of pre-epl culture though

The bits about the 80s are really bad. The bit where the dude is earnestly explaining that the food won't be very good and no one will be eating in the stadium is great.

That was the time of the Hillsborough disaster, the Bradford City disaster and the Heysel Stadium disaster, when spectators were sometimes beaten senseless or burned or crushed to death in stadiums

this sounds like spectators burned each other alive.

Götze's out of the final, this is terrible news

^^ yes. It sucks.

Bale with encouraging comments

"Good luck Spurs" ??

Encouraging comments about staying, deems? I thought you wanted him sold?

Not at all! But i wouldnt see his going as a catastrophe given the money necessarily involved, and id question the logic of doublin the money and adding a buyout to his contract given the years left on it.

But rtc's ideal is mine- motivated bale gives another year anything like that, but with sandro dembele in cm, and better cover on the wings. Upfront, ah look, dreamworld situation is adebayor performs but you cant rely on either striker and really at least one serious purchase is needed.

If arsenal and chelsea both spend wisely, the above is bare minimum just to make it as close again tbh

this

The bits about the 80s are really bad.

and this

That was the time of the Hillsborough disaster, the Bradford City disaster and the Heysel Stadium disaster, when spectators were sometimes beaten senseless or burned or crushed to death in stadiums

this sounds like spectators burned each other alive.

― ... (LocalGarda), Wednesday, May 22, 2013 9:11 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is what I was referring to

we definitely think britain is a weird, alien land btw

West Ham have signed Shaktar full back Razvan Rat

http://www.faber.co.uk/content/faber-to-publish-davidpeace-redordead

"I have written about corruption, I've written about crime, I've written about bad men and I've written about the demons. But now I've had enough of the bad men and the demons. Now I want to write about a good man. And a saint. A Red Saint. Bill Shankly was not just a great football manager. Bill Shankly was one of the greatest men who ever lived. And the supporters of Liverpool Football Club, and the people of Liverpool the city, know that and remember him. But many people outside of football, outside of Liverpool, do not know or do not remember him. And now – more than ever – it's time everybody knew about Bill Shankly. About what he achieved, about what he believed. And how he led his life. Not for himself, for other people."

Is he doing Pulis next?

The Interior Life of Paul Scholes is already better than anything he's done tbf

i don't buy Peace as a thoroughgoing football fan i gotta say

His book on clough made me think "a cunt wrote this" and yknow there's def an echo of that as i read that paragraph above, "a cunt wrote this" i thought, "david peace seems a cunt".

but at least he has written a cunt book

nine cunt books, and you're nearly ten cunt books behind him. time to write nine cunt or otherwise books

i think The Damned Utd is a pretty good book but it shdn't be thought about as non-fiction, and even as fiction Peace's relationship to football feels ambiguous

or just one cunt book that outweighs his nine cunt books, because while I'm perfectly willing to entertain criticism of someone's cunt book, when it comes from somebody who's gifted enough to knock out a cunt book especially a cunt football book then really I'm not willing to entertain criticism unless in the form of a cunt book of your own

dude you don't have to be a carpenter to recognise when a table's all wobbly

this is nothing to do with dmac's ability to recognise, it is to do with the fact that he needs to write a book

I'm actually bored of talented ILXors wanking it away online

I dont need to be able to fly to know that a bird has written a cunt book, but yr passion is v much welcome back. Ps im goin into programming so at best elegant lines of code will be my lot

sorry for seeming cranky folks, my fucken local area has turned into a race war

guess 'wanking it away online' is v harsh considering that ILX is a functioning community and haven of higher online discourse. sorry ILX and its denizens

total lit rockism, sorry

I'M A CUNT ROCKIST

I am legit lolling

GarethBaleGarethBaleGarethBaleandacoupleofunheraldedEredivisiemidfielders

bring on the European Superleague

bring on an EDL XI making the Isthmian Second

bring on the Graeme Souness biopic

brrrriiiiiiiing *it's the door* who could this be? oh look it's a racist in a balaclava and a terrorist! they want to use my bed to have sex in it

my dog has joined in and now I feel stronger than the sun. truly have we purified this Albion

make sexy sex in every orifice, not hatred or murdering

there's your cunt chapter one, proceed

True story i was a legit wunderkind at english even throughout moving schools and teachers and attending like idk 60% of my final year and not studying i purely cunted higher english out of the ballpark, 100% in the entire first paper (creative segment iirc) with the fella marking it in raptures in the margins - i got all my papers rechecked by my teachers cos i was 5 pts off law and languages and the teacher checkin my english was a cunt kicked me out of the higher class cos i joined halfway through curriculum and eh probably smelled bad and looked quite lairy and whatever and he read it and called it a lucky maverick effort and i had to be removed from the silent hall from laughing at him

But i digress

^^^that's like 100 words. took you 5 mins? ok do the cunt math. 1hr/day. it's fucken summer. no football worth spit. c'mon.

Take this harassment to a dmac thread you rascally scold

AND Y CAAAAA-RROOOOLL IN A AIIINTREEEEE

Any cunt out there that reckons there's more to be gained from reading or writing a book (ANY BOOK) than from reading the Moneyball thread can fuckin do one. High watermark of post-post-post-modernist literature tbpfh. And these are the dying days ffs

BREAKING: RMC Sport claims both James Rodríguez and João Moutinho are currently undergoing a medical at newly promoted French side AS Monaco

read somewhere they were also after Berbatov

Shapin up nicely

Monaco really annoy me. Yeah yeah it's tax-free - but the owner's a billionaire, he could buy Nice or somebody with actual fans and take the hit.

He lives in Monaco and has done for some time, though.

He could commute, I'm sure there's a bus

I'm not having this as some Jack Walker local club thing

uefa confirm cl place goes to europa league winners form 2015 onwards

So many ways for Spurs to miss out

Xps, I have a half-formed thought about nouveau riche Russians buying into high-prestige status clubs (Monaco, Chelsea, Arsenal) to prove they're part of the European establishment while Arab princes, more secure in their personal status, buy less fashionable clubs (Man City, Malaga) but I'm not sure it it's worth finishing.

where do PSG fit in?

I was wondering that myself.

Anyone know how Polish clubs' ownership is structured? I was trying to think of where's left for your football megaproject to go.

http://kellcosport.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/airtricity-league-logo.jpg

@Portu_Goal: On the Porto transfers, Sporting entitled to 25% of Moutinho fee so perhaps James will cost €69m and Moutinho €1m!

amazing if this happened.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/sport/football/4940101/Asmir-Begovic-wants-to-leave-Stoke-and-join-Liverpool.html

Dodgy translation alert, and conclusion jumping ahoy, but still seems an odd thing to say without some substance.

Glad to hear the Ben Arfa deal is dead. Papadopoulos seems to be the new rumour, anyone know him? It's a horrible name anyway, so on that basis I'm saying he can gtf.

Papadopoulos at schalke is a beast of a CB yeah. Still a teenager I think but v physically imposing, good in the air. Will pick up a lot of bookings though, and not cheap ones, liable to cut people in half. Still quite raw so not sure if Darragh is happy to endure his learning curve or if he wants the finished article already. Played a little at DM as well and was okay.

― pandemic, Wednesday, 9 May 2012 12:55 (1 year ago) Bookmark

arise son of big soto

http://www.fussballtransfers.com/bilder/a/kyriakos-papadopoulos-kann-schalke-04-fuer-20-millionen-verlassen_36036.jpg

Nah Soto was a big brainless oaf, this guy is the complete opposite.

soto = feckless socialism
papa = golden dawn

dabizas = plato

seitaridis=surprisingly good in pro evo

is this where I wheel out that 'pro evoo sucker' dn that nobody commented on despite its brilliance

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BKthbS7CcAENMXs.jpg

http://e2.365dm.com/12/03/640/Papadopoulos1_2733389.jpg

oops

http://e2.365dm.com/12/03/640/Papadopoulos1_2733389.jpg

this isn't a new signing, they've just reincarnated skrtel in a younger, scarier man's body.

the big 'Gazprom' adds 20% to intimidation imo

Hughes to Stoke gathering steam. How the fuck is this chancer still even part of the discussion? I hope they finance him as heavily as they have Pulis, won't be sorry to watch him wreck another team

http://25.media.tumblr.com/1b853951a404541f54faac1e998311ae/tumblr_mf1d7qfrfd1qc0hbso10_r1_250.gif

Gibraltar in!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLCblp2CUAAlDq0.jpg:large

'Piersy my man, thanks for all the support! You made this day even more special! All the best, Van Pursestrings.'

https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/337941043234361345

A+ trolling

Rafa to Napoli, apparently.

but that's not in England at all

I can't decide whether that's a terrible combination, or perfect

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/Terry_zps4373da37.jpg

english defensive legend

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67794000/jpg/_67794399_167208943.jpg

rip

look at their fucking faces

just saying predicted the demise of phelan with startling accuracy years ago

nultations

classic Aimless

http://i.imgur.com/1N0yF3N.jpg

otm

now

imagine it was redknapp

Neymar signs 5 year contract at Barca

none of the reports ive seen have come with how much the transfer price is. got to be over 40m at least, maybe as high as 60m?

It has been kept private. There's speculation that it's around £30m as he only had a year left on his contract.

santos only owned 55% or so of his rights

it's not really clear.....suppoedly barcelona made a £10m downpayment a while ago, whatever it is rosell (former nike brasil president) is going to be thinking more about how neymar is the world's most marketable athlete (according to some implausible american survey.....but he is certainly the biggest 'star' in one lucrative market)

well said. if u remove bayern and dortmund, bundesliga won't be in top 15 league in europe. remove leverkusen and schalke and all EPL teams would still finish on top of the other 14 teams in bundesliga.

- MoeMintz, NEW YORK Manchester, United Kingdom, 26/5/2013 13:41

http://i.imgur.com/vwbWUzt.png

Falcao to Monaco happening, another 60 million euros, nbd guys. Woof. The battle for the Ligue 1 title could get silly in the next few years. Two grossly bloated superclubs hurling bundles of money at each other's heads and pulling in mercenaries and hired guns from all over the globe.

It's going to be ridiculous, him and Zlatan rolling up at Guingamp etc.

http://i.imgur.com/PjjcqPd.jpg

http://arsenalssillyseason.blogspot.ie/p/2013-summer-rumours.html

always love these

lol at the size of the jovetic one

Is he as good as he should be, judging by length of courtship?

He has always looked great when i've seen him for Fiorentina. He's strongly rumoured to be going to Juve though.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/15/article-2324784-19CABF50000005DC-726_634x1052.jpg

martinez leaving wigan

Meulensteen apparently favourite to succeed him?

Shots fired, Norwich turn down bid for Grant Holt. From Melbourne Heart.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/67873000/jpg/_67873170_20130525_132629.jpg

Aspas to Liverpool agreed, apparently. I don't know him but iirc Sid Lowe singled him out as the pick of La Liga for this summer.

he also mentioned he can be as nasty as Suarez as a result of his tenacity.

typical anti-Celta bias

aspas looks like he'll be handy and chip in, not much of a vote of confidence for borini tho

Borini'll be fine, he's too good not to be. I'm more worried he's a Suarez replacement. But I like that we're getting business done early, and recent strike rate's been excellent. Nothing's going to get me excited about Toure though.

I can't fucking wait for Being: Liverpool II

Busy with signings = less screentime for Ian Ayre

maybe he'll sign a new poet while he's at it

Ah hell, Guardian joining the same dots as I am: Suarez admits interest in madrid

Begovic for Reina

aspas headbutted someone so it's a like for like. will just have to ensure he learns racism.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/transfers/luis-suarez-im-ready-to-leave-england-8636805.html

Suarez still has another three years of his contract still to run after joining from PSV Eindhoven for £24m in January 2010

oops

Hughes in, taking Stoke down would be the perfect way to cap a fine career

Hughes is a deeply limited manager and too stupid to manage the sort of megaclubs he clearly craves but I dunno, Stoke feels like the perfect club for him. His best seasons as a manager were at Blackburn, taking a team of cloggers and turning them into a regular top-half team. By the end that side were not without a certain thuggish allure.

glossier Pulis, just what Stoke need

did a job with wales and half a job at city

I sort of think he's at his best when forced to work with limited resources and limited vision, give him a blank chequebook like the one he had at City or QPR and that's when things go wrong. Then again Stoke have wasted a colossal amount of money in recent years so this could be the worst of both worlds.

can see him doing a job at Stoke. a horrible, ugly job.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens if the board do decide to back him with a bit of money, especially given their apparent loss of patience with Pulis’s penchant for spaffing the budget every year on assorted Neanderthals and escapees from the 1970s. Whither might Hughes take them with £25 million burning a hole in his back pocket? He’d be more than welcome to Charles N’Zogbia and Steven Ireland.

Relegation obviously the best possible outcome here though. Tbf from a personal perspective, there’d be fairly rich pickings for a team in Aston Villa’s position (nae bad but desperately in need of a little more physical presence and steel at key areas in the side) were Stoke forced to dismantle this squad. Is Rob Huth out of our league? Difficult to tell with Stoke players

Do you know much about the Villa tadpoles? I know they're meant to be the business, but nothing about whether they're big lads, technical types or whatever.

I know less about them than I’d like tbh, too much MOTD and too few games attended this season. But I’ll do my best. Prior warning for those of you who are not interested, this is definitely going to be a tl;dr post I would think. Apologies for clogging up the thread, I know this isn’t really the place for a post like this. And I’ll also apologise in advance for the quality of the written English, I’m splurging this down at work in between doing other things. But anyway, pussy’ole cavilling is out the way, here goes:

Ashley Westwood has been something of a revelation in midfield. Apparently the only one of our crop of youngsters with the fabled ability to “put his foot on the ball and calm things down” when the going gets tough. He’s looked a little lightweight at times this season, but he’s got a good passing range and is reliable in possession. Has drawn comparisons to Joe Allen. Roy Hodgson’s mentions of him the other day as a player he would be looking at were undoubtedly premature, but he’s a prospect and no mistake.

I think the arrival of Yacouba Sylla has been beneficial for Westwood’s game. Sylla is big, strong, mobile, puts himself about a lot and is willing to do a lot of the running in midfield. He’s also more than happy to get forward, though he does show his youth sometimes with the odd stray pass, wrong decision etc. Hasn’t established himself in the same way that some of the others have, but certainly has earned his place for next season I think. A shrewd move by Lambert, in hindsight, although I was sceptical at the time. Added some much needed bulk to our midfield.

Of the fullbacks, Matt Lowton is certainly looking like the real deal. His defensive positioning needs work but there’s only so much you can ask of a youngun in their debut season. He’s mostly been reliable at the back and he’s superb getting forward. It’s also nice to have a player at Villa who can hit a 35 yarder every now and then, something we’ve been missing basically since Tommy Hammer left.

Joe Bennett, on the other hand, is much more interesting / worrying. Apparently has great potential getting forward, but that’s mostly manifested itself in a few beautiful crosses from the left it seems. Not that I’m knocking it, if we hold onto Benteke then beautiful crosses from the fullbacks in precisely what we want. But his offensive game is nowhere near good enough to cover his defensive game, which has at times been woeful beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. To describe him as a liability would be to sell this kid short. He’s the first player I can remember seeing in a Villa shirt where you really feel that he can and will cost you everything at the drop of the hat. He does more stupid or incompetent things per game then any defender I can remember. And he gives away needless free-kicks in dangerous positions like it’s going out of fashion. Got more solid towards the end of the season, but this was surely the multiplier effect of everyone else getting better. He’s gonna have to improve next year to keep his place I think.

Andi Weimann is patently the cat’s pyjamas. Works hard, is good on the break, and scores goals. He misses a few too many chances to be described as a great or consistent finisher, but he’s one of those players that just finds himself in the right place at the right time over and over again. A poacher by any other name. I hope he doesn’t go.

As for the others – Baker / Herd / Clark seem to fall into a weird utility player hinterland where they can all play at full back, centre back or defensive mid. And none of them seem particularly good at any of it. Clark as captain earlier this year really did feel at the time like a sign that the curtain was coming down. Lichaj isn’t good enough period. Bowery I don’t know enough about, but him over Bent this season was pure trolling from Lambo. And who the fuck knows what becomes of Villa Park’s real forgotten man (sorry Daz, you don’t even get that accolade) Marc Albrighton. I don’t think anyone even remembers that he exists. He’ll probably never cut it for us now unfortunately, at one point he seemed to moving up in the world.

These are my broad impressions, and it’s worth remembering that my assessments may well have been thrown off by the bottom-of-the-canal - top-of-the-world nature of the season. These lads have usually looked either really good or really rubbish, with not much in between.

FIN.

Suarez is staying, his agent tells Sky.

thiscraic of apologising for content has got to stop ffs

oh yeah alrighton

S'aight, I'm in work mode atm. I apologise in advance for everything, all the time. Makes life as an office junior quite frictionless, douchebag colleagues can't get on my back so easily. Curiously enough this is almost precisely where I stand wrt ILF.

oh ya? list equiv of douchebag colleagues pls you little fuckin toerag

ILF: never apologize, never explain

Would demonstrate a colossal lack of self awareness from all involved to misconstrue my reference to the ilf residents as douchebags as anything other than straight talking tbpfh.

You've been here a year sonny, time to start taking responsibility if you want that promotion

and get that report on the nextgen squad on my desk for tomorrow morning

PS if nobody complained about that tl;dr post, you should take that as a sign that you did a decent job

I got that line in my first appraisal as an office tadpole, really makes you feel a valued member of the team

(thanks btw)

iirc villa are meant to have a very tasty prospect by the name of jack grealish, little wingfielder forward type. england and ireland were tug o' warring over him

yeah as i read windsor's post i was trying to think of him. fairly sure he declared for ireland in the end.

what about barry bannan? he maybe had a poor season, or just overshadowed by westwood, who plays a similar role iirc?

Forgot all about the wee man tbh. He played a goodish number of games for us this year I think, but with the Westwood/Delph/Sylla triumvirate that was in place through the run in, as well as Charlie N-Z’s run of almost-decent form earlier in the season, there seems to be less of a place for Bannan under PL than there was under Houllier, same as Albrighton. Shame, there was definitely a point where he looked like he had a bright future, he’s always seemed very tidy on the ball.

But as you say, I think his status in the squad has suffered from a poor season - or at least getting his main run of games in a period when the whole team were absolutely arse and then not benefiting in confidence and general perception from the redemption of the last 2 or 3 months in the same way everyone else did.

http://www.marca.com/2013/05/30/en/football/real_madrid/1369899845.html

Spanish press claiming Suarez to Real already agreed with him, although not Liverpool (but if it meets his get-out clause then whether they agree or not is irrelevant).

Shit, only £40m

Is CR7 definitely on his way out? Suarez, Ronaldo, Ozil, Di Maria is a fearsome looking thing. Bale for Di Maria would obvs. have been twice as terrifying, so good that isn't happening.

aiui Marca is the unofficial mouthpiece of Real and where they do their public tapping-up. If that's true and they say he's shaken hands on personal terms then it's probably correct.

The buy-out clause seems to have been put in when he renegotiated his contract last year. That was a bit short-sighted and maybe should have set some alarm bells ringing.

Actually, isn't this exactly what happened at Ajax? Bit a player, got suspended, spent his time out of the team arranging a transfer and not playing again?

40m oughtnt irritate the nostrils

would take 40m for him. but his agent was on sky sports today saying he's staying, so who knows.

1.125 Andy Carolls iirc, or 2 Jordan Hendersons, if you will. Arf arf. Tbh a few more Coutinho-level signings and you'll be laughing

If his agent admitted he'd been talking to other clubs, would Suarez not be in breach of contract or at least have to give up his loyalty bonus when he transfers out (whoring himself around without asking for a transfer request)?

I thought that was a nice and fair impression of the Villa kids. Thanks.

Xp Well yeh, but tapping up never seems to have consequences.

Pool:Suarez::spurs:bale

Invest wisely and you're better off without than with.

Tbh a few more Coutinho-level signings and you'll be laughing

this is the question this year, if they can do that kind of business then all will be well, wouldn't rule out a few more clangers though.

The Aspas headbutt is well worth watching.

coutinho has only been there six months, it's too soon to say he is definitively a success (arshavin, jelavic, zaki, even pd cissé etc)

That's fair. Still, compared to Liverpool's recent transfer history Coutinho (and Studge too tbh) are both looking like great deals. Not saying that they'll be able to pick up the slack if Suarez leaves, anymore than whoever they snap up with £40 million could replace him. But Rodger's very recent track record in the transfer market is looking pretty good right now, I reckon he could spend that £40 mil without completely wasting it.

According to the Liverpool Echo, Aspas' buy-out clause drops to 7m Euro if Celta are relegated this coming weekend. Seems weird not to wait a week rather than shell out 2m extra.

The point of them moving now was to agree a deal with Celta before other bigger clubs get involved.

£15m for dembele looks a lot more sensible than £15m for allen

― A.R.R.Y. Kane (nakhchivan), Sunday, 16 September 2012 22:49 (8 months ago)

the worry about borini is that he doesn't really have a burst of pace or a trick up his sleeve, his qualities are more about anticipation and knowing-how-to-play, and the EPL isn't always friendly to players who know how to play football

― Unlike humans, dogs don't talk shit (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Sunday, 2 September 2012 17:00 (8 months ago)

aiui shelling out the extra £2m means having the field to ourselves; next week a load of other clubs become interested if the price is £7m

The other clubs that were supposedly interested (from the same article) were Valencia and Swansea. "Bigger" doing a lot of work there.

borini will probably show a bit more next season and coutinho and sturridge will possibly regress a little more to the mean

on balance i guess his transfers are alright, aspas included (not huge peidgree but lowish risk)

i rate papadopoulous highly as an epl player but it's not an obvious transfer (leaving a cl club for liverpool, other richer parties interested)

Suarez and Madrid deserve each other tbh.

Isn't his manager Pep Guardiola's brother though? When at Ajax Suarez was always saying how playing for Barca was his big dream.

His family lives in Barca too iirc

By manager I meant his agent

The other clubs that were supposedly interested (from the same article) were Valencia and Swansea. "Bigger" doing a lot of work there.

that's not what i read last night but you know, continue your sleuthing.

borini will probably show a bit more next season and coutinho and sturridge will possibly regress a little more to the mean

on balance i guess his transfers are alright, aspas included (not huge peidgree but lowish risk)

i rate papadopoulous highly as an epl player but it's not an obvious transfer (leaving a cl club for liverpool, other richer parties interested)

― ghosts of erith spectral crackhouse slain rudeboy (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Thursday, May 30, 2013 4:19 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Well ye, by very recent I was basically referring to Coutinho and Sturridge. Not yet prepared to make a defence of Allen, Borini or Assaidi. I hope Rodgers has got his phase of buying old Swansea hands out of his system, for all the talk of Kyriakos Papadopoulous I can't help but remember that Ashley Williams' name keeps cropping up as well

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/liverpool-fc-sign-spanish-striker-4028633

Athletico and Sevilla added since the c&p'd version I saw. Point still stands I guess unless you consider both of them to be bigger clubs than Liverpool.

Xpost

Paul Tomkins ‏@paul_tomkins 22 May
According to @BassTunedToRed, PL win rate with Suarez since arriving just 39%, but 62% without him. May not tell whole story, but surprising

cba checking but that is surprising, considering the goals and assists he seems to provide every time he plays. Does accommodating Suarez mess things up defensively (can't see any reason why it would)?

You'd have to look at opposition, competition, etc. behind those figures but it does like like Liverpool do ok without him and could possibly improve with £40m well spent.

Think it said Chelsea and Spurs in the one I read on Sky Sports, xpost.

athletico a bigger club tbh

Thanks, have just read that Sky Sports story and it says Reading were the main club who had asked about his availability (although does describe Chelsea and Spurs as "mooted" for which I read 'a rumour we just made up').

Rmde Liverpool haven't played enough games without Suarez for that stat to mean anything and for half that time he has been in the team he's been playing alongside Dalglish's trough of overpriced shite.

and making them wore

s

Thanks, have just read that Sky Sports story and it says Reading were the main club who had asked about his availability (although does describe Chelsea and Spurs as "mooted" for which I read 'a rumour we just made up').

seriously you need to get a life.

i mean do you ever look out the window? don't answer that.

I won't.

I mean, I could, but you'd just take it the wrong way.

coutinho and sturridge possibly the work of the new scouting team from man city? although there was also interest in sturridge in the summer during the carroll saga. assaidi was supposedly a product of the old scouting team. luis alberto from sevilla another one rumoured to be close to signing.

still very odd to me that Inter sold Coutinho at all let alone at that bargain bin price

Surly by this stage in the game the scouting networks of big EPL clubs are all equally competent and the differences in who finds bargains and who doesn't comes down to management team decisions/who the owner fancies, rather than who the head scout is.

not sure they are all equally competent. the last lot pissed £70m away on Carrol, Hendo, Adam and Downing.

the scouts arent supposed merely to say there is this interesting player called falcao

they have to give detailed reports and explicitly endorse players

a lot of english hacks still think it is an achievement just to notice a player like michu

was michu so obviously a good player? before his good season with rayo, he scored 14 goals in 4 seasons in the second division.

that's what i meant.....every scouting team will notice a midfielder scoring 15 goals in la liga, it takes a good scout to stake his reputation on it

Yeah tbf I always underestimate how difficult it must actually be to maintain your status as a top level scout. For every time I've ever made a call on a youngster that's turned out to be otm there've been at least half a dozen that I've got completely wrong. Maybe more. I never really think of it in those terms either, the accountability aspect never occurs to me (maybe I'm over-stating it and once the report is passed on the buck is somewhat passed to top brass?). But still, having to explain to an irate manager / chairman / board exactly why you thought jizzing £6 million smackeroonies away on Bosko Balaban was a good idea must be a hideous experience.

There's a thread idea in that - each find an under-20 somewhere to stake our reputation on, then follow his career Jenkstyle while our peers lol.

I suppose there's the child prodigies thread, but the stakes would be higher.

if i thought players were managed half right half the time maybe

I think we should get three each and drop one every season.

50 Shades Of Dench ‏@RalfyNine 28 May

Funniest Instagram account i follow has to be @sanchezwatt's. Some the pics he posts make my day xD
Retweeted by W A T T

I still believe in Rhain Davis

http://www.expressandstar.com/sport/wolverhampton-wanderers-fc/2013/05/31/wolves-offer-the-boss-job-to-kenny-jackett/

harrumph

http://i.imgur.com/sBDZKY0.png

Last week the law was looking for Bogarde, this time they want Michael Laudrup to appear in court in August. Laudrup supposedly 'earned' 3 million on his own 1997 transfer that he kept back from the IRS. Ajax paid the IRS but now wants the 3 million back from Laudrup.

The search add says Laudrup has 'no known address or location' lol

faith in arjan de zeeuw's detective skills was proving somewhat optimistic

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/may/30/adrian-mutu-adopt-baby-sewage-pipe

Has this been posted elsewhere yet? Hadn't noticed it. <3 this guy so much, wish he was still around

nice to see he's off the charlie

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLmGhlDCAAELTVy.jpg:large

#prayforsuarez

andy carroll your time has come

Aw man, absolutely gutted. How are we going to find someone else that good & that much fun?

Re: The English media and Suarez
Press are running amok in this country, not just sports journos.

Belligerent, sycophantic, and selfish. The sort who cried in the corner and wrote poetry on their own during the war while the real men fought and sung songs together. Phil McNulty and Henry Winter, two Grade A dipshits on the BBC gravy train, it's embarrassing to watch it unfold every day.

"My family have suffered and things got out of hand. My daughter and my wife have suffered. I'm not prepared to continue to put up with the English press."

lolz would that be the same wife who was reported as telling him to pack in the shenanigans the morning before he bit ivanovic

otm

I'm guessing that Suarez shirt wasn't burned following Poor Luis' ban for racially abusing a black footballer?

xxp nultic war poetry excerpts in 5...4...3...

Willhave Owen

alex pearce any good?

Never noticed him tbh, but I see he's another Scotland →Ireland turncoat, with the twist that he's actually neither.

slow, can't pass. other than that he's gr8

http://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/fb_news.php?storyid=32087

if anyone would perhaps like to gain a deeper understanding of hughes/stoke/qpr then this is the definitive piece btw

'It's about having a bit of fun and I don't see that with England. We were having the QPR team photo done and Anton Ferdinand looked at it and said, "Gaffer, no one could ever accuse you of being racist you've signed every black player going". The lads loved that, it's fun to be a part of my teams.'

Warnock is fed up with the waiting game at international level, with England's players coasting through matches and failing to generate excitement in the stands.

slow, can't pass. other than that he's gr8

What a day. Suarez out, this guy in, and Kolo Toure arriving tomorrow.

Falcao to Monaco confirmed, and somehow uniquely dispiriting

Liverpool are obliged to inform Suárez of any club prepared to activate a clause, believed to be in excess of £40m, that was included in the new four-year contract he signed last August. The clause will trigger negotiations should he wish to speak to that club, but not an automatic sale

I don't understand this. Offer £40m and Liverpool have to negotiate, but the negotiations don't actually have to achieve anything?

- 40m
- how about 400m
- no
- oh well soz luis, we tried

that probably doesnt mean any more than 'suarez would have to agree to'

im sceptical about this escape clause cuz british clubs seldom employ them

if liverpool refuses to sell him this summer, how will Suarez escalate next year? perhaps hair pulling?

The Graun reporting Liverpool want £50m for Suarez...I guess if they tried to sell Daniel Agger to Man City for £22m last year then that's about right...

julio cesar to arsenal seems persistent

does smack a bit of wenger false economy but i guess if valdes is to cost 8m or whatever it makes fair enough sense

ppl think he's brill cos of highlights and a superb month's spell before his brazil recall but there have been a good few truly woeful moments wrt command of area and claiming crosses, so much so that the fucking spaz rob green has even occasionally wandered back into one's thinking

obv a vast improvement to szczesny in terms of distribution but then so would be a four year old

“You always talk,” Robinho said. “It should be the manager who talks, not you.”

“If I’ve got something to say, I’ll f****** say it,” I said.

“Okay,” Robinho said, trying to bring the conversation to an end, “don’t talk to me again.”

“What are you on about?” I said. “You mean talk to you as in talking to you at all or talk to you after the game?”

“No, no, we are finished,” he said.

Whatever,” I said. “I’ll lose a lot of sleep over that.”

Click here for Bellamy's emotional reaction to pal Gary Speed's death

And here for "Mancini told me, 'Go home... for rest of the season'"

Robinho otm

OT, but tomorrow Dutch telly is airing a documentary w/ a reconstruction of the final and subsequent riots of the Feyenoord - Spurs 1974 EC final. It's deemed as the night Dutch football lost its "innocence", in that it was the first time hooliganism came to Holland.

I always knew our football culture was raped but didn't know it was Spurs who did it first.

Dutch link: http://nos.nl/artikel/507277-ats-de-gesloopte-finale.html

I've heard of that, I think. I might be wrong, but there're actually relatively few specific 'hooligans abroad' incidents that have notoriety here (at least not involving England). Heysel, plus one involving Spurs (presumably this is it), and Liverpool fans being attacked in Rome, that's about it.

Depends on your definition of 'abroad', but that ferry carrying Man Utd and West Ham fans that had to turn back to England was pretty notorious.

couldn't find the liga thread, but congrats to real sociedad for leapfrogging valencia into 4th on the last day of the season. i love Donostia!

negredo scored 4 against valencia, sevilla won 4-3

which means both negredo and soldado won't be in the CL next year, Levy sign them up!

yay, I have some Basque friends who are big Sociedad friends, I FEEL GOOD FOR YOU FRIENDS.

How reliable is the Daily Mirror when it comes to transfer news? Saying Stoke are interested in PSV's Pieters. Huge roflles that Pieters "tops Hughes wishlist". If true it will be a tough transfer window for Stoke fans.

Hoping the news is true btw.

well done sociedad

they will be unseeded so will probably face someone like milan in the preliminiary round and their manager montanier is going to rennes

rip sociedad

osasuna stayed up again. gora navarra

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BLs_m2WCQAA4DMI.jpg

Valencia though, nothing goes right for Valencia

mourinho left chelsea 6 years ago? that's ruined my day that.

Surely you must have heard? Anyway, he's back now so don't fret.

Daniel Sturridge Jose Mourinho has gone to Chelsea

Did he only last two years at Inter? I actually thought he'd been gone longer.

feels like 4 at the most.

looks like Navas has signed for City. Welcome to Manchester

Derek to Liverpool has me all a-flutter tonight

Derek?

derek of the deutschland

Derek Acorah, he'll be channelling the spirit of the 1970s team

did he actually play for Liverpool reserves?

No way Derek is going for £22m.

no but he can still see translucent trophies in the cabinet suppppppp chris

who the fuck is derek

do you mean this armenian bloke?

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/liverpool-transfers-henrik-mkhitaryans-20million-1929693

Reginald is apparently on the cusp of signing for West Brom, £7m up front + a sell-back clause

Sheffield Wednesday look like they might snap up Harvey for just 2.5 mil, massive coup, he's meant to be mustard

hasn't done much since So Solid split up imo

lol i forgot about derek

http://media3.fcbarcelona.com/media/asset_publics/resources/000/055/496/size_640x360/2013-06-03_NEYMAR_90.v1370275881.JPG

http://i.imgur.com/kjTNh.gif

He cost Barca a good solid 57m, if I am to believe the reports today

christ

that's 3/5 of a bale

they're gonna need to get him on the growth hormones stat

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BL1_3QsCQAEuH5r.jpg

theyll need to catch him first

oppet alert: twitter rumour has it forrester is about to do a rowlands

Yer fackin' welcome to him. Wouldn't miss him much tbh, and it doesn't say much for the future of you lot either. He's hardly the key to getting promoted back to the EPL.

seems like a clear-eyed assessment

^^^slowly antagonising all of ILX's other lower-league fans in preparation for QPR's grand tour

last six years, nobody knows where they went, nobody knows how the fuck it'll get paid for

no but he can still see translucent trophies in the cabinet suppppppp chris

haha i'm going on the training ground tour (what a great idea btw!) next week so i'll ask the experts ;)

In the cold light of day I stand by my earlier comments. Forrester is a good league one player atm. He might improve, but there are attitude problems of the kind not suited to someone who will never play above mid-championship level.

that's alright, this summer is all about refreshing our attitude problem portfolio

Chris, any chance you could liveblog the tour? If you're allowed to roam free around Melwood, we could direct you where to go like it was an episode of Knightmare

I can imagine Rodgers playing some sort of annoying jester character

Skrtel as one of the goblins

no but he can still see translucent trophies in the cabinet suppppppp chris

from a spurs fan... you haven't even won your precious league cup as many times as a shit team.

try to get past the terrifying Carragher, slow but inexorable

enter the dungeon of failed title dreams, if you listen softly you can still hear the wretches whispering "a real push next year"

behold the enchanted jigsaw of anfield, always one piece short of completion.

Dr Zaf Iqbal dispensing life force

the poet for Being:Liverpool as the ringmaster fellow

I was talking to CHRIS fyi

hnwa

This transfer window sucks

still plenty of time to offload Torres

West Ham have apparently had a £15m offer for Negrado turned down.

Stekelenburg is on his way to Fulham iirc

I know he hasn't always been first-choice for Roma recently but could he not be looking a little higher than Fulham?

That's what I thought, but his spell at Roma seems to really have put a dent in his confidence. He's not the first Dutch goalie by default any more (tough competition from Krul and Vorm), and generally just seems lost and depressed in Italy. He used to be great, but is nowhere near his old level. Maybe Big Martin Jol can bring that back.

You must be excited about Mourinho, paolo? Do you remember Mourinho?

Chris, any chance you could liveblog the tour?

Ha great idea! We're not allowed to take photos though. I'm guessing they might be quite strict with regards to having phones out too unfortunately.

How would you feel about wearing a wire?

Or a wig?

For some weird reason I just can't get excited about Jose. It's great that he's back and everything but I'm not feeling the sense of anticipation I used to get. This could be because I've been depressed recently (I feel better now)

Chronic New Chelsea Manager Fatigue Syndrome (CNMFS)

City close in on £22m Fernandinho as Brazilian arrives for Manchester medical

Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder Fernandinho has arrived for a medical ahead of his proposed €29 million move to Manchester City, Goal understands.

BRAZIL midfielder Fernandinho has arrived for a medical at Manchester City after Shakhtar Donetsk accepted a £25million offer.

Manchester City close to signing £30m Fernandinho after player has medical

Sky sources understand that Manchester City have agreed a £34m deal for Shakhtar Donetsk midfielder Fernandinho.

MANCHESTER CITY will issue another statement of intent in their quest to regain the Premier League title by completing the £40m transfer of Brazilian midfielder Fernandinho from Shakhtar Donetsk.

£40m?! That's almost two Fernandinhos.

doubt it's less than £30m, shakhtar don't need to sell

the relevance of which is either 'how much did a sovereign wealth just deposit to rinat akhmetov' or 'how good is fernandinho'

1 is of no matter 2 is worth asking and in the current market £25m+ seems right

How would you feel about wearing a wire?

Yeah I'd be up for that, I can pretend I'm McNulty.

In contrast, it seems City's offer for Navas, also 27, more than met Del Nido's expectations. "I think this is a great deal for both parties," he said. "The player had said personally to us and then publicly to the media that he wanted to leave. He believed his time in Sevilla was over having contributed all that he could.

"The price at which we have sold Jesús Navas is an amount much higher than we thought they were going to offer, especially as there was only one bidder."

Grosshund move imo, if you're a playa you don't piss about trying to save ten million here & there

Speaking of which, so many stupid figures in this Chelsea summer blueprint

Big Pun feat. Arsene Wenger - Still Not a Player

feels refreshingly recherche for city to be spending big money on 27/28 yos with fairly narrow remits

i mean obv they'll have more their lockers than lennon and carrick but ykwim

xp could be onto something there, he only needs the big jeans and timbs to go with the coat

i'm not a player i just qualify for the cl a lot

Terry's relationship with Mourinho has broken down
Duncan Castles
The Observer, Sunday 23 September 2007

The following statement was printed in the Observer's For the record column, Sunday October 21 2007

In this article we did not intend to adopt any allegation that John Terry was a 'turncoat' or 'disloyal' or that he had played any intentional part in the departure of Jose Mourinho from Chelsea Football Club. We accept his assurance that he did not. We also accept that our original headline, 'Turncoat' Terry, might have caused confusion and apologise if any contrary impression was given.

Oho. I want him to be made to stick around now as Jose's plaything - not be punished by exile in Monte Carlo collecting a hundred and fifty large a week, net.

see if they'd've gone with Glassjawed Racist Cunt they'd've not needed to apologise

Terry abroad wd be like some bank robber trapped in the Costa del Sol tho, pining away for pwoper fish and chips and neighbours what talk facking English

The outstanding Marco Verratti evoked memories of Andrea Pirlo in Kiev last June, hypnotising those in white shirts with his use of the ball. He made 120 passes, 76 more than England’s best passer – Jordan Henderson – managed.

i watched a bit of that and england were trash

City's big signings suggest a big change of system next year but the looks of things. The writing's finally on the wall for Barry and Milner I'd guess.

What clown would take barry at his wages

Milner i rate

£34m for Fernandinho is quite a lot. Vastly better than Milner, though.

Not in all ten outfield positions

Yeah, i'd imagine they'd want to keep Milner as a utility bench player.

Masterful windup mail in f365 today from an 'everton supporter'

I've been taking a look at Martinez' record at Wigan, going by their position in the table at the end of each month (from September onwards).

2009/10: 10-12-14-16-14-16-16-16-16
2010/11: 18-17-18-16-18-20-20-18-16
2011/12: 15-20-19-18-20-20-19-16-15
2012/13: 16-15-15-16-18-17-17-18-18

The two 17ths last season were both on gd from Villa

so champions league it is

The writing's finally on the wall for Barry and Milner I'd guess.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 6 June 2013 11:42 (2 hours ago) Bookmark

on last season's evidence you'd probably be more entitled to think nasri and garcia were the ones at risk. (sinclair and rodwell go without saying)

agree with dmac on milner, he has his uses in a squad. iirc city have never used him the way villa did driving from the middle like a ham sandwich yaya toure

nb. idk what ham sandwich really means there but i'll give my brain the benefit of the doubt

i watched a bit of that and england were trash

― ghosts of erith spectral crackhouse slain rudeboy (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Thursday, 6 June 2013 00:13 (14 hours ago) Bookmark

according to someone i know who claims to be close to stuart pearce's family (yes i did just type that) hodgson seriously does not rate or even like him

i love the persistent rumour that inter might fancy signing tom ince purely out of sentiment for his dad

Which part of Pearce's family?

('ham sandwich' is in the lexicon btw, I'll be giving it a run out myself as soon as I can)

somewhat embarrassingly i think my subconscious dredged it up from here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2010/oct/09/jack-wilshere-england-arsenal

This aversion to the gratuitously splendid comes out in the most everyday objects. In Spain, for example, a "ham sandwich" is a deliciously sensuous experience, the fruit of generations of high-end artisan indulgence. In England a ham sandwich is a cold, pink punch in the face, an angry thing marbled with gristly neglect.

Guarin to Spurs is currently being rumoured. Inter have been mysteriously terrible recently and they're looking to offload players to fund Tom Ince a new squad.

that would be fun i think? otoh it's quite possible that his sterling service in fm2005 is clouding my judgement

I really like him. AVB does tend to be linked to everyone who played under him at Porto, though, so it might be nonsense.

I've only ever seen him do brilliant things, and not on showreels neither. I feel he might be quite unreliable, but want him nonetheless.

Is Guarin really a good fit for Spurs right now, his skill set seems to overlap with Dembele's a lot

http://www.youtube.com/v/YH0Ogn3FUXw&fs=1&hl=en

Imagine what he could cook up with thudd

Arsenal SWOOP for Fellaini, eh.

James Ducker @DuckerTheTimes
Re: Fernandinho, deal worth £34m to Shakhtar (see statement) but actual cost to #MCFC is £30m as player has sacrificed £4m to get deal done

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2013/jun/06/arsenal-wayne-rooney-arsene-wenger

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/22802685

compare these articles for more guardian lying clickbait bullshit.

I'm trying to work out what I'd think about Rooney as replacement for Suarez. I think I'd be into it. Academic anyway, Ligue 1's the only place where he'd be a 'sensible' purchase at his price.

Unless Mourinho really does love him

Is Guarin really a good fit for Spurs right now, his skill set seems to overlap with Dembele's a lot

Haven't really seen him play but if the above is true it'd be a good thing. We were terrible without Dembele for most of last season and he'd pretty much broke down from exhaustion by March.

The idea of Rooney at Liverpool is just too funny.

tbh we've never really replaced Kuyt

But is Rooney up to that task?

the even whuyter kuyt

rooney could warm the bench i guess.

http://img163.imageshack.us/img163/7559/picture5ql.jpg

xps you never mentioned the real clickbait. I bet they were dying to make that the lead

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Football/Pix/pictures/2013/6/7/1370597768967/Wayne-Rooney-008.jpg

Not sure they've consulted United's lawyers on that Park image.

In case you were wondering, Mister Potato are United’s “Official Snack Partner in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Brazil, Paraguay, Peru and Africa.”

That sound you here is football repeatedly being kicked-in-the-crotch-to-death.

I had no idea Mister Potato was so global. I particularly like the 'and Africa'.

I thought Rooney was United's official snack partner.

also Mister Potato himself reminds me of Raymond Domenech

very original idea for a snack tho. crisps in a tube with a moustachioed face advertising them - genius. i bet once you squeeze the tube open it's difficult to cease consuming those crisps.

they should actually use that in a campaign.

'Once you insist, you can't desist' would be even better

Actually once you start eating the crisps you eat loads in a short burst but then don't eat any for another four months and no one notices. Also none for the first month of the season at least.

Shit you end up reading on the Internet: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7490346.stm

Pringles managed to convince a judge that they were more like cakes than crisps in order to avoid paying VAT.

this discussion is about mister potato fyi

Ah, the infamous cake/biscuit tax dodge, good times

'Once you insist, you can't desist' would be even better

i can't think of a better slogan than this.

once you begin, you can't fin

once you've begun, you can't un

surely that shd've been "once you've began, you can't fin"

once you start, you will shart

fuck it, 'once you've begun, Kim Jong-Un' since they seem to be Official Snack Partner for a reunified Korea

Just came here in my brief lunchbreak to post the important Mr Potato news, but I see ILF has already served up comedy gold here and then some

Mainly then some

^^^ spokesman for a rival potato product

like Rooney, we make the most of what we've got

England getting swatted aside here, falawful stuff from the three lions

the three donkeys

actually, no, that's an insult to donkeys. sorry donkeys.

donkey's a funny word isn't it. donkey. donkey. donkey.

this shambles is no laughing matter

shawarmbles

So Higuain is on dis ting? Well excited.

Looks like it's between Arsenal and Juventus, but I guess if you don't get Higuain, it'll probably mean you're more likely to get Jovetic. Can't see Juve needing them both.

Arsenal definitely going for either Higuain or Benzema I heard. Benzema would kill in the epl imo.

When I say 'I heard', I mean 'I read somewhere' btw

I'm 'going for' penelope cruz watch the back pages for further updates

Lars Bender and Ilkay Gundogan also being lined up for Arsenal, according to the papers.

Spurs are being linked to Bernard, which would be exciting, but Dortmund want him and idk whether there would be work permit issues.

Arsenal also going to sign cron messi and bale before teatime guaranteed

^ bricking it

Anyone watching Holland vs Russia? Can't believe Mönchengladbach paid 15m for Luuk de Jong, he's so rubbish.

Glad that Maher didn't tear his ankle ligaments just now. That wasn't a foul on him, that was an assault on his ankles. Red card totally justified.

kicking myself for not putting some money down on holland to win the competition tbh

And of course De Jong scores now, lol

RTC, have you seen Spain play already? I haven't but surely they are top contenders too?

did you back england

always

The umpteenth rumor that probably isn't true is that Van Ginkel - playing now with Holland - is off to Chelsea. Had a brilliant season and is v v talented. With the obvious ties between Vitesse and Chelsea I won't call total bs, but still find it hard to imagine tbh

Lukaku returning to Chelsea has me all sad today

Yeah that's a dire shame

154 PL free agents says the DM

more than ever you have to think of chelsea as two teams now, it's just going to be an awkward marriage system where mourinho and emenalo (or whoever) do whatever the fuck they want separately

5-1 for Holland now. Well done lads.

Really feel for the Oscars and Lukakus who are going to get royally fucked over these next few years

van ginkel, strootman, maher sounds like a p sick midfield if their hype is anything to go by

idk i think jose might yet take a liking to lukaku once he fills him with hate

you fear for oscar though definitely. him hazard mata is not a jose midfield

It *is* a p sick midfield! The three go together so well. Strootman is the work horse with genius passes, Van Ginkel is the brain, the stylist, and Maher is the prodigy, the super talent. They all complement each other really well. I'm not exaggerating thinking that will be the midfield of Holland in two years, for some years to come.

does seem like a great crop when you factor in the feyenoord boys too

how good is de vrij btw

De Vrij is pretty promising, but he's having a really bad tournament so far. His mistakes lead to both Germany goals in the first match, and he didn't play well today either. It's been a long tough season for I'm though, maybe that's it. His partner at the back, Bruno Martins Indi, I can see ending up in the PL in the coming years. Hard as a brick, fast... He reminds me of Jaap Stam at times. De Vrij will be alright though, I think. And it's about time because we've not had a decent defense for donkeys years.

The Feyenoord boys indeed are also p good. Mostly benched this U21 tournament. And don't forget about Leroy Fer, who was this close to going to Everton last winter, but it fell through.

The Guardian's had Ronaldo transfer stories near the top of its page for several days now. As far as I can tell:

• Ronaldo wants to stay at Madrid
• Madrid want him to stay
• Madrid are confident he'll sign a new deal
• Ronaldo's confident he'll sign a new deal
• nobody can afford him

esp/ger is not very good

sweet goal from morata

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mbkw48FJOO1rt354lo1_500.jpg

But only some

Dortmund boss: We will not let Lewandowski go, period. (German link)

If they keep Lewa to his contract, he's free to go next summer.

theyd pretty obviously sell him to anyone but bayern, id be surprised if one of madrid/united/city/psg etc dont offer

dont think there has been a precedent of a player seeing out his contract with a move to their main rivals already public knowledge

madrid makes the most sense in terms of fitba and finances (but not marketing from perez' pov) and in terms of being prestigious enough to rival bayern but madrid are not going to be well run this summer

Barcelona midfielder Xavi Hernández is convinced that there is no footballing crisis at the Catalan club. In fact, he says that he laughs whenever he hears of the so-called 'end of an era' at Barça. "It won't happen for a long time. It's very clear that all those people who enjoy talking about this end of an era aren't Barça fans," he said.

In that sense, the midfielder offered up a strange interpretation of the Champions League tie against Bayern Munich, which the Germans won 7-0 over two legs: “We enjoyed the bulk of the possession against Bayern, they couldn't control the game. To look only at the result doesn't really tell the whole story."

http://www.marca.com/2013/06/08/en/football/barcelona/1370717058.html

Dutch press saying Spurs are interested in renting/buying Afellay from Barca. If he can get fit this summer, that is.

No sorry, Spanish press (El Mundo Deportivo)

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BMdsVwKCcAA2RwK.jpg:large

Mou otm

he is such a little fuckboy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/jun/10/jose-mourinho-chelsea-unveiling/print

ronay understands this well

Even our own occasional Chelsea/dubstep fan can't get excited by this, what hope for the rest of us?

I'm struggling to think of parallels tbh. It's not jumping the shark because nobody's jumping; and also because it's not a shark, just a big, flopping cod.

Maybe if you went to a Genesis gig and Peter Gabriel did a guest appearance, only for them to just keep playing stuff from We Can't Dance, while Gabriel stands to one side shaking a tambourine.

it's just the press conference - it's hardly going to be riveting. him being "back" would not comprise a single media event if this happened 20 years ago.

I hadn't realised retaining the title was such a rare thing, at least until recently - he's one of only I think four managers ever to have done it.

Really? Ever? Or just since 1992?

Ferguson, Mourinho, Paisley...

Obviously it's only him and Ferguson since 1992 - I'm sure I've read that only Herbert Chapman and Bob Paisley had done it before.

(xp) Busby. That Wolves sergeant major bloke? Herbert Chapman?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/jun/10/jose-mourinho-chelsea-unveiling/print

ronay understands this well

― ghosts of erith spectral crackhouse slain rudeboy (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Tuesday, 11 June 2013 09:12 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

wait. they... they don't really have a spackman lounge do they??

yep, the nigel spackman lounge. there it is.

Yeah xp, I must've been misled - Stan Cullis and Busby must've done it too. Liverpool, Villa, Wednesday and Preston also retained titles in sepia times, but I'm willing to believe they may not have had managers as such in those days.

gosh, Portsmouth too