"and can slot in at right-back if required" - close season transfer banter 2014

http://img.thesun.co.uk/aidemitlum/archive/01327/Craig_Gardner_12_6_1327985a.jpg

it's all anticlimax from here

not ideal but it'll do for now

um, has anyone been reading the extracts from Bullard's book in the Mail? Horrifying stuff

Bentley was also my partner in crime when it came to taking the p*** out of Mr Capello. I remember looking at the gaffer on my first day and thinking, ‘I can’t believe how much he looks like Postman Pat; it’s him!’ The only thing that was missing was the black and white cat.

Because I was new to that whole environment, I didn’t want to make too much of my discovery so I did it on the sly and used it as an icebreaker, letting some of the boys know that we had a TV personality running the show.

Bentley obviously loved it — ‘Wa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!’ — and when we were on the team coach, we sat at the back and started singing the Postman Pat theme tune.

A few of the boys joined in — I think Rio, Ashley Cole and Jermaine Jenas might have had a quiet little sing-along — but most of the other dry lunches weren’t really up for it.

Another daft scheme Bents and I came up with was seeing who could say ‘Postman Pat’ as loudly as possible within earshot of the gaffer.

I’d walk past Capello and say ‘Postman Pat’ out of the corner of my mouth, but Bentley took it to another level when he would walk straight up to the boss and scream ‘Postman Pat!’ in his face before adding ‘And his black and white cat!’ for good measure.

Bentley had just as much front on the training pitch. Capello set up a training exercise in which he sent three players out wide to put crosses into the penalty area.

He asked David Beckham, Stewart Downing and Joe Cole to do the honours but Bents just followed them to the far side of the pitch.

‘No,’ Capello shouted to Bentley. ‘Just three, you come back.’

But Bentley was having none of it.

‘Leave it out, send one of them back,’ he told Capello. ‘This is my game. I’m one of the best crossers in the country!’

well what did fabio expect putting that big skip in the box

no way to talk about Crouchy

Apposite thread title given that Phil Jones, surely the archetypal player of this kind, will be on the market pretty soon.

i feel the quote captures a certain spirit of the age

If you had ever seen us
You'd rejoice in your uniqueness
And consider every weakness
Something special of your own
Being a right-back, I have no flaws

Considering how desperate Utd are and a lack of obviously available alternatives I'm surprised that Bayern couldn't get more than £20m for Kroos even with only a year remaining on his contract. Seems iffy to me.

They presumably want to reinvest the money quickly rather than dragging out a tedious transfer saga that lasts all summer and/or risking Van Gaal deciding to go elsewhere.

Not sure where Bayern are looking to supplement. RB so Lahm can play MF maybe. One good quality back up striker to add to Lewandowski and Pizarro perhaps. Still stacked in MF and the return of Badstuber and Pep's hints of 3 at the back with Martinez at the centre of them mean maybe they have the numbers there as well.

LFC being 'linked' to Pedro is too good to be true.

Is everyone staying at Spurs do you think Matt, when they eventually get a manager?

Sandro and Lloris are supposed to want out. Lloris to PSG, to be replaced by Ben Foster, has been circulating for a while.

similar sort of figure to what people were offering for lewandowski last year, not going to get much more than that with 1 yr contract

this transfer depended on van gaal and the murmurings from february time reflects that moyes was de facto gone from then until he definitively failed to get the top four, theres no way kroos was going to play for david moyes

getting to working with the coach who brought him into the bayern first team makes it a viable risk once the payrise is factored in, and he probably suspects thiago and lahm will be valued above him if he stays

Depends entirely on who the manager is + how much of a shitfest they kick up about leaving. A good managerial appointment would probably keep everyone reasonably happy, unless a player has an amazing World Cup and starts being courted elsewhere. I'm not sure who that would be, Lloris or Paulinho maybe and even then it depends on the money.

thiago + lahm are pep's favourites i agree, but kroos played an awful lot this season and pep would be happy to have him, but yeah can't see kroos backing down from his pay demands.

xp

Have seen no evidence that soldado can play as a lone striker so the new manager will either have to play with some formation that entails 2 up front the majority of the time or use him as an expensive back up or levy will have to sell him on at a probable loss given his age.

god if Sandro and lloris leave

.....

i guess spurs have europa league so they'll be plenty of games that soldado could feature in but he seemed like a forgotten man for the last 3 months of the season

need a CB or two and at least one full back also. Dawson/Kaboul won't be starting too many games next season if they're even there at all one would hope.

This Bullard thing is amazing. Paul Jewell slammed his head into a door and broke his nose. And he got in a fight with Nick Barmby in front of the Women's Institute.

He seems remarkably thick even for a football player.

iirc NV had heard he was chically constantly altered

chemically

Louis van Gaal has ended Manchester United’s interest in Toni Kroos, in what represents the new manager’s first major decision regarding the rebuilding of his squad this summer.

The Bayern Munich midfielder had been pursued by David Moyes, Van Gaal’s predecessor, with the 24-year-old identified as being able to help solve the deficit in United’s central midfield department.

Kroos, who impressed in a deep-lying role when Bayern knocked United out of last season’s Champions League, has only a year left to run on his contract at the German club.

Yet despite his ability to also play in the No10 role or as box-to-box midfielder, Van Gaal, who is aware of Kroos’s abilities from his own time managing Bayern, has decided he should not be a target for the club this close season.

just a slight contradiction between the guardian and the daily mail then

:/

maybe you are trying to neg bayern?

yeah, I can only assume this an audacious bluff to get the price below 10m. Woodward you sly devil

he has the look of a fedora'd gentleman a generation before his time

physics graduate from bristol no less

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/05/22/article-2636300-1DCA1A7300000578-438_634x551.jpg

as i opened this thread i was gonna say why tf would kroos pick utd/why is it seemingly only utd in for him and now im all wtf utd bite bayerns fucking hand off

Former Manchester United manager David Moyes is being investigated over an allegation he assaulted a man in a wine bar.

An incident between Moyes, 51, and a 23-year-old man is said to have happened in Clitheroe, Lancashire, at around 10 p.m. on Wednesday.

A spokesman for Lancashire Constabulary said: "Police are investigating a report of an assault at the Emporium wine bar in Clitheroe. "Officers attended the bar at about 10 p.m. yesterday and it was reported that a 23-year-old local man had been assaulted by a 51-year old man. He did not require hospital treatment.

"Inquiries are ongoing and we are speaking to a number of people to try to establish the circumstances.

"There are a number of differing accounts which we need to work through to try to establish exactly what has happened. No-one has been arrested at this stage."

Adams in at Norwich.

Not Tony.

This has been making the rounds over here as MLS clubs start to line up in anticipation of summer window signings:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2070335-top-20-players-to-poach-from-europes-relegated-clubs

*desperation moves to save the season* summer signings, that is

Of those listed in the article Kiyotake is v good. Ochoa is good as well.

Sunderland defender Phil Bardsley has agreed a three-year deal with Premier League rivals Stoke City.

"I feel the time has come for me to take on a fresh challenge in my career and the opportunity to come to Stoke is brilliant for me and as soon as I heard of their interest it was the only place I wanted to come."

Poyet is having a real Augean stables sesh this week

50m for David Luiz? Why the hell not

Is that PSG? How much are they allowed to spend this transfer winder under FFP sanctions?

Gotta hand it to Jose, £87m for 2 players he doesn't even want or rate.

€50m or £50m?

Not that either makes any kind of sense.

Ah, Gusrdian says £40m so that's 'only' £77m for Mata/Luiz. Add in £20m for De Bruyne and Chelsea are raking in the money on players Mou doesn't like.

Okay Mail and Indy saying £50m.

Mail said "close to £50m" in the body, so take yr pick somewhere in the mid 40s

also Costa to Chelsea, is that widely considered a done deal?

Find Coentrao being the 4th highest transfer fee paid for a defender hilarious.

Yes on Costa to Chelsea afaik

Chelsea had better hope Terry stays good for a couple more seasons cos no way is Zouma ready from what I saw of St Etienne this season. Kalas might be I guess.

Also lol at Mail insisting that Man U and Bayern agreed a fee for Kroos but that now the player has ruled it out. No, you were wrong.

PSG already have Thiago Silva and just paid 32M for Marquinhos last summer. Are they gonna play David Luiz in midfield?

rly wanna hit the sack but if i miss the falcao deal falling thru i'll never forgive myself

i selected jones purely because lvg gave him a hug or w/e in preseason that time tbf

also i'm probably showing myself to be massively behind the times here, but what's with the growing prevalence of big name loan signings? Is this a consequence of Financial Fair Play, teams trying desperately to get talent in on the cheap & other teams trying desperately to sort out their wage budget? Because I don't really gt a transfer like Michu on loan to Napoli for any other reason, surely from Swansea's perspective if you're happy to soldier on without him then you wanna take the payday and reinvest?

Blind as a dm is a terrible idea rtc tbh

Jones has been our best defender so far but that's not saying much. Evans has been horrible in the first few games but most fans would consider him our most capable CB and he is just coming back from injury. Rojo is a total wildcard. In summary, idk

uh, I thought he was a DM?

that's where he's been signed to play anyway

Blind's a left back, left midfielder. He ain't no dm vacuum cleaner, not by a long shot.

did he not play all of last season in central midfield for Ajax though? I've been reading a lot misleading articles if not

I mean

His familiarity in the role and Ajax’s modern interpretation of totaalvoetbal (modified by Johan Cruyff and Louis van Gaal, which De Boer has gradually re-implemented) has made his assimilation smooth. His energy and discipline has become the kernel around which the rest of the side’s panache is constructed. In the role Blind is essentially a ‘third centre-back’ – dropping between the central defenders – and conductor rolled into one. He’s tasked with retaining and recycling possession: averaging 68.6 passes, 2.1 tackles and 2 interceptions per game (according to WhoScored.com).

Blind, who often operates as single-minded man-marker – normally designated to do a job on the opposition’s playmaker – shuttles across the pitch following the ball once with it his impeccable metronomic passing and grandiose football intelligence triggers their positional game/ Ajax in possession morph into a 2-3-2-3, one-touch combination football is second nature to them. In the Eredivisie their pass accuracy (86.8%) and average possession (62.9%) is ranked first (stats from WhoScored.com). He dictates the tempo: whether Ajax needs to slow things down or raise it. This also depends how high up the pitch they are.

The controller, or in De Boer’s system ‘third centre-back’, is the most important position. Sergio Busquets – a revelation under Pep Guardiola and easily Barça’s second most important player – plays a similar role and has long fascinated the former Oranje captain. Guardiola, now managing Bayern Munich, played alongside De Boer for three seasons at Barça and has been a silent influence. As teammates they enjoyed lengthy conversations about the game. De Boer noted how Guardiola back then was effectively a coach. Guardiola equally saw the same.

Always on the left. And he prefers playing on the left. I dunno, you could perhaps say he's a left dm, but it's stretching it. Blind's no Nigel de Jong. He's not got the fysique or power to be a dm. He's a technical player (and therefore quite shit at pure defending).

Xp don't know where you got that article from, but 50% is right off the bat bollocks. "Ajax morph into a 2-3-2-3" in possession? Totaalvoetbal? Get the fuck outta here. It all sounds very nostalgically romantic and nice and stuff but that quote, sorry, is half wishful thinking and half bollocks. It's say too much a theoretical interpretation of the chaos that is football.

Dutch Football @football_oranje
Blind's agent Rob Jansen told Fox Sports that Louis van Gaal plans to use Blind in midfield, in a "controlling" role.

"Morph into 2-3-2-3"... In don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Sure, Van Gaal can use him that way, but it's not where his strength lies, nor is it his natural position.

there are loads more that I can't be bothered c&p'ing. They all say he played at the base of the midfield

He's not Nigel de Jong but he's a decent simulacrum of Busquets. He played that role excellently when Ajax beat Barcelona 2-1 in the CL group stages last year - only for the first 30' or so, until the starting LB was injured and Blind had to move there, replaced by Christian Poulsen - but I'm certain I've seen him do it on a number of occasions. Didn't he play there for NED for at least part of this World Cup as well?

Personally I always thought a deep-lying midfield role might suit Vertonghen better than CB or LB too, and that he'd get a chance to prove himself there when he moved to Spurs, but that never happened.

He does NN, but way left usually. He dictated the pace at Ajax too, this is true. But he dictated the pace wherever he played, because he was the best player of Ajax. Don't get me wrong, like the dude, he's a good player, but Ajax never even once played 4-1-3-2 like rtc painted, so for him to take on that 1 role? I dunno. God speed.

Still cracking up about that morphing into 2-3-2-3 quote, where's that from?

FALCAO TO MU: DONE DEAL

@Boxall, yeah, that was where Vertonghen was really good at at Ajax

http://afootballreport.com/post/72079101700/reinvented-by-de-boer-ajaxs-daley-blind

you'll enjoy the first sentence I'm sure

So is this rip Rooney then? Hard to imagine LvG dropping RVP tbh

xp lol yeah, that's a hoot, for a team that has been dreadfully stagnant for four years now.

RVP has to have an operation apparently

Rooney is now dictator for life

Yeah what is that with rvp's knee? Rumors buzzing here that he'll never be fully fit again? Hiddink, the new holland manager, declaring "in theory" RVP will stay captain? Mysterious.

I don't know if I want to live in a world where Rooney rules all.

Falcao speaks! In suspiciously press-release friendly sentences! “I am delighted to be joining Manchester United on loan this season. Manchester United is the biggest club in the world and is clearly determined to get back to the top. I am looking forward to working with Louis van Gaal and contributing to the team’s success at this very exciting period in the club’s history.”

Louis van Gaal speaks! Constructing sentences in a very similar way to his signing! What a coincidence! “I am delighted Radamel has joined us on loan this season. He is one of the most prolific goalscorers in the game. His appearance-to-goal ratio speaks for itself and, when a player of this calibre becomes available, it is an opportunity not to be missed.”

Love this Guardian reporting. And Falcao's script written "at this very exciting period in the club's history" line.

and after all that i totally forgot that no one came in for adel :)

Spurs' failure to land a striker made all the more bitter by the news that Helder Postiga was available on a free.

that's a complex emotional string that

everyone out

We've signed 3/4 of a new back four and a DM so it's not a disaster, but well done creating a situation where there's basically zero pressure on Adebayor to perform. This will end well.

Pretty sure Hull won transfer deadline day in the same way Everton did last year.

We'll have to hope that Togo don't storm the ACN qualifiers.

steady now....

Cleverley to Villa BACK ON

(on loan)

he'd do well to get a game during lón imo

so do loans not have to happen during the transfer window (and if not, why all the hoo-ha with falcao?)

free agents can move whenever is my understanding

Paul Parker talking sense re: Rooney
https://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/paul-parker/falcao-coup-brilliant-for-united---but-rooney-will-be-left-out-in-the-cold-114609509.html

ouch

"The only thing in any way remarkable about his performance is that he collects £300,000 a week to play that badly."

jamie jackson ‏@JamieJackson___ 7m

Cleverley to Villa on season-long loan, Prem have allowed

this is a disgrace

if it had been a smaller club trying to get rid of Cleverley they wouldn't have been allowed to

lol "mexican tony cottee"

ha! my son asked if little p had to leave united because there was a big q in front of him in the team

where's he get it from eh

prolonged exposure to dad joeks will do that to a kid, what can i say

Di Maria just set up three and scored one vs Germany.

One of the three scored by Lamela.

sweet

that's what sandro reducers are for