CaliMag

Man Citeh has a new set up, you never know they could be like Spurs and go for such a deal. Its not like Richards wants to stick around either. I say we get all 'Arry Redknapp on them and swap Richards for Dyer, Carr, free theatre tickets and a used lorry.

Off to Citeh? I'd take a straight swap with Richards.

Thank god he is still with us - he has quality versatility which for us this season may prove invaluable.

I totally agree with Geordiesned on this: either Owen is crocked/inconsistant or he bangs them in and leaves for another club. - Let's nt forget that his release clause supossedly shrinks every transfer window. Viduka will not survive under Big Sam's fitness regime and will be dropped. It's gotta be Martins.

Absolutely but Lalas has to take some of the blame here. He has worked tirelessly to make the Galaxy what it is today and that seems to be a "franchise" rather than a football club. Two years ago when he took over the Galaxy had just won the league and what Lalas and Yallop have done has resulted in LA dropping like a rock. There has been a focus on personality over actual substance and that will just not work for very long. My prediction is that both of them will be replaced at the end of the season because they won;t make it to the playoffs and the money men behind teh Backham move will force them to bring in real managment. My prediction: Klinnsman as either manager or CEO.

Got back from the game late last night - I'lll try to post some photos tomorrow. Couple of observations - The Galaxy are even more woeful than last year - they barely seemed to know eachother. Landon Donovan hasn;t been good since the 2002 world cup. Cobi Jones is as slow as Steven Carr... adn on that note - WTF happened to Shevchenko? He used to be a good player and now he is horrible. Made the Galaxy defence look classy and composed. Watching him turn was like watching the Queen Mary coming to port. We can all laugh at the fact that the loudest cheers were when Beckham was warming up, took the field, touched the ball etc.... but really as Newcastle fans we don't have any credibility on this subject... Imagine Shearer coming back from a 3 month injury say circa 2002. Overall a decent night out.

James Brown - get on up!

Carr starting at RB?!?! > Allardyce loses some street cred here...

I am supposed to go to this game (I periodically watch Galaxy games anyway and I get free tickets) - if anyone is remotely interested I'll post some pics and write up a couple of observations. Typically MLS teams are underestimated by European teams and they tend to do better than expected. NUFC hardly has an excellent record overhere (0-1-1 iirc). That said the Galaxy is dire at the moment, the media circus will be overwhelming for the team as well so I expect Chelsea to hammer them.

That was a good article. Thanks

The reason we have no presence at the Olympics is due to the fact that we enter the Olympics as Great Britain, but are seperate countries as footballing entities. And Olympic football doesn't actually matter in any case. We don't actually need government intervention to produce decent players through academies - why would we? The clubs have enough money to do it themselves, and are doing a good enough job. The US may produce talented youngsters, but can you give me a few examples of such youngsters who have made it in established leagues? I wasn't talking about football but sport development and athleticism in general among the british population and its youth. Just about every other European Country does better than the UK - due in part to better youth development.

Interesting comments but I think both of you (AS 9 and Brummie) have a bad core argument. Does a Country need a top notch league to be competative? Not necessarily. A good one will do with the best players leaving for the big three (EPL, Serie A and La Liga). Conversely by your logic having the most competative leagues would mean that ENgland, Italy and Spain would be the only winners of the World Cup every time and yet... The number of Americans playing in Europe has been slowly but steadily creeping up every year and it will ocntinue to do so. Anyway as I said before this is pure speculation on my part. I have lived in both the UK and US and have watched countless games at various levels in both countries but I am not sure that makes me more informed or just more entrenched in my beliefs.

We'll have to agree to disagree: and yes I think there are loads of kids in the US (U-15) that are better than what England have at the moment. Also that last bit was really my personal opinion and I was not trying to play that off as fact in any way. I don't really support the idea that foreigners are ruining the game either, but I do believe that the UK is getting worse for developing youth. As per the recent article in general chat about the best places to raise children in the world the UK was even behind the US - and very far behind in the amount of resources spent on youth and physical development. The UK as a whole has relied heavily on football's popularity to produce good players, but government support is just not there - witness the UK's lack of a presence in the Olympics. That would be the crux of my argument. I should add that I hope I am wrong and that the academy's at all of the many clubs in the UK (not just England) are able to get the resources to take up the slack.

Ozzie's right. I would favour Nobby because he is a good communicator (significantly better than Given and the mute Butt), currently our best set piece artisan (god forbid we would have someone else take penalties), and is immensly popular among supporters (If things go wrong he won't be booed off of the pitch and crack under pressure which happened to Parker)... but then how many games is he expected to start next year? And I would not want to go the Roeder route and play him every game even if Geremi and/or Milner are clearly better. I would feel comfortable of Nobby over Carr every time though if Big Sam is not planning on having Geremi there. My vote would be for Solano and Given with Given wearing the armband when Solano doesn't play.

I'd say its 50/50 that Oba will stay which would put an additional 13m in the coffers making it less likely to have a net spending above 10m.

I haven't seen any of this yet, but FYI the Mayor of LA is embroiled in a scandal involving an extramarital affair... with a journalist who was responsible for covering LA City politics... you can imagine how well that is working out for him. Some of the observations on here are a bit wide of the mark, but yes there is a distinct difference between fandom of footie in LA and Newcastle which is probably one of the most footie obsessed places on earth so hardly a fair comparison or a realistic one. Some pertinent points: Average attendance for an MLS game in 2006 was 16,000 which is the similar to the SPL and Eredivisie, but about 4K less than Le Championnat. Galaxy attendence ranges around the 24,000 mark - its important to note that tickets are cheaper in the US and almost a quarter of them are given away for free, to boost attendance so its like the makems in the Championship. Here is a very critical article on MLS attendance figures from last year: http://www.signonsandiego.com/sports/soccer/20060927-9999-lz1s27goal.html Los Angeles DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A GRID IRON TEAM - money is a factor but it's just not as important to Los Angelinos as the rest of the Country. "Soccer" is a regional interest that is generally limited to the immigrant Latino communities and the middle-class & educated white communities - that description covers the vast Majority of Los Angelinos and understandibly in this context the Galaxy have the highest attendance figures. Its attendance is better than the local NBA and NHL franchises (~18,000 - albeit much smaller stadiums). Only Baseball has higher attendences in LA (46,000 for the didgers and that is the second highest in the Country - http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/attendance). It should be noted that Baseball tickets are even cheaper than Galaxy tickets and have an even higher percentage of free/complimentary tickets. The bottom line I suppose is that Sports in general are not taken as seriously in the States (especially in California) as footie is in Newcastle - nor will it ever. That said "Soccer" is a sport that is increasing in popularity and the overall game has improved in the States steadily since the 1980s when NASL still existed. Persoanlly, I think the US team will be comparible (if not better) to ENgland's in the next 15 years but this will be 50% based on US improvement and 50% based on ENgland's decline which at this point in time seems inevitable.

Any update on this?

I feel the same way as the majority on here but I admit I am biased due to family reasons. Serbia feels that there nationalism is justified because the whole world is against them . These types of actions and the ones suggested on here only strengthen these feelings... nowt to be done but ban them anyway.

Good riddance... I f*cking hate nepotism.

I liked the old Nike Galaxy shirts... I can't decide what I hate more - the new colors (sinful to change them... and to something so f*cking boring) or the new logo (its boring and will look dated in about a week). ... And "Herbalife" FFS ! - a goddam pyramid sceme company founded by a alcoholic snake oil salesman who topped himself on prescrition drugs... Not ever buying that shirt. Bring back the green diagonal sash I say.

If we ever won a game due to cheating I would think "Finally!" If we ever won a trophy through cheating I would start believing in instant karma.

Rockstargames more like. You're the only one who got it. My excuse is that I have a couple of friends who have worked for them and I live less than 70 miles away from their >ahem< offices... what's yours?

Thanks, shows how well I know Argentina and Brazil's teams... not at all.

Keep in mind that was in a team filled with the best of Argentina against the USA B team. I think many average players could have been made to look good in that game.

It would certainly end any hopes for Owen leaving this season. I can imagine reading side by side articles of "Berbatov sign with ManU" and "Owen: 'I've always wanted to stay a magpie"