The College Dropout

He's been on brilliant form for the last third - a half of last season and this season so far, mind. He's laid off the weights a bit and got his mojo back. The added muscle is really helping him now like. Explosive. If he gets the march/initiative on a defender with the ball, that defender is in deep trouble. He's still too fast for 90% of defenders but now he can really cmopete

So are Michael Owen and Alan Shearer in terms of style. But they serve te same basic function - same with Hazard/Mata. You want them contributing decisively in the final third.

Aye, you really want Wilshere to do as little off-the-ball running as possible imo. At least for the first few months

That's the most budget England side in 20 years. I hope they at least can be better than the sum of their parts..

No it's not. If they make the WC it will be close.

Or Spurs maybe. Barring the London location, we should be able to model ourselves on them. But the difference isn't really one of finance it's more about having competent people running the club. The London thing is big. People there have more money and there's way more room for corporate money when you're in London. Lots of competition in that area makes it less exciting.

Considering they spent so much on Bale, their net spend isn't as much as you would imagine. Thanks mostly to Napoli.

Loan money out to help fund the signing of an over-priced and over-paid footballer or loan money out to help the country's economy? No brainer, that. That's a very emotional way to look at business. If Madrid are good money - they are good money.

Madrid are good money to pay it back right? If so I see no problem.

To me Hatem is a forward. Similar to a Juan Mata, Eden Hazard where his game is all about how much he can create and how much he can score. If he's not doing any of that then he's having a stinker.

The way we play Gouff. He should be looking at getting 10 goals. Anything less than 7-8 would be disappointing. HBA's really in that same boat for me. I think he's good enough to get 20 goals/assists in a season. 8-12 goals is a realistic feat if he can stay fit. Cisse should be looking at 15 minimum. Remy depending on where we play him shoudl really be hitting 10-15. Cabaye 5 minimum. Marv should have 5 goals, 5 assists in mind. The rest? Need to just get off the mark....

There's a difference between being Jermaine Jenas and the way he is atm.

I don't think he's selfish or overly flashy. He wants the team to win and he works hard for the team - no doubt. It's a footballing maturity/decision making issue with the blind alley runs when he dribbles instead of passes. If his decision making was better and he could stay injury-free he would be a world beater

Very true. If I said this people would moan and complain.

Like I said, there's fundamental errors but the problem has evolved and one of the bigger issues alongside our footballing culture is that our top division doesn't invest in young British players. Spain's international problem wasn't exactly the same in 1970 as it was in 2000. I personally think we have a long way to go before we will consistently finish in the QF's again, let alone any better. I have a sneaky feeling we won't make the WC or that we'll have a very tight play-off.

How many English players were in the league between 1991 & 1995, where we failed to get out of a group and didn't even make a World Cup? I'm talking about if that would happen today. We had a good team just before that period (90) and a good team right after that (96-06). After that there was a 10 year period where we produced some phenomenal players. We are going to have an extended run of crapness. Believe me. There's fundamental flaws in the British game. We know that. However, the state of the Premiership now means we have truly bottomed out.

Don't think the Prem is losing any appeal. There's stiffer competition from such other rich clubs but the average PL club (Newcastle) can pay higher wages than 75% of teams in France, Spain, Holland, Portugal etc.

The answer is very simple imo. There's many players in the Championship that earn more money than a lot of players in top leagues around the world. There's average Premiership players earning more money than a lot of the 2nd and 3rd ranked teams in the CL. Simply too much money for mediocrity in English football. Then there's the like of Chelsea/City keeping talented British players on the bench to take advantage of HG rule. If English players made up 70% of the PL, i'm not saying England would be world beaters but they would be much better.

By best players I meant most talented/best XI. I've said earlier in this thread our season is dependant on Krul-Colo-Cabaye-HBA-Remy

Shola in 12 months

They scored 1 goal or less in more than half of their games last season.... the fact they were a creative and goalscoring juggernaut last season is a myth. 3rd highest scorers. 4 players that scored and assisted 10 or more league goals. It's not a bad return at all. Arsene Wenger builds decent football teams.

Arsenal where naive (again). Should have got Ba in on loan first.. the Ozil signing was made as a real marquee effort, to show that they can contend at the highest end of the table. So obviously they would be more of a threaty. no Arsenal side si going to struggle significantly for goals under Wenger tbh.

Sissoko was out of contract in 6 months when we signed him. If others wanted him so bad they could've bought him in the earlier September. Same with MYM. It's just Krul & Cabaye that are likely to attract the big boys. HBA needs to have a season without a big injury for once. He needs that kick-on season. 50 appearances in over 3 years won't have Manchester United kicking the walls down to sign you as a 26 year old. If he can stay fit and play over 30 games this season I do believe he would become a hot property. Massive if.

They've never even sniffed a CL race in 4-5 years. Let alone challenge for the title. They'll have a season battling for 4th. Probably 2. Then a title challenge if it gets that far. Was the case for City. The case for Chelsea. Even Wenger finished a distant 3rd before a title challenge (which they won).

Good summary on Anelka HTT. He's had a good career, won lots of trophies, been influential in a number of the trophies won, earned tons of money. But he could have been Thierry Henry - with all the individual accolades and records. Even someone like Didier Drogba didn't turn it on all the time. But he clearly worked supremely hard at his game. Will go down as a legend at Chelsea and Ivory Coast.