Teasy

If there was a plague that killed 90% of the population of England and he survived he still wouldn't get into the England squad.

Ba should look at the 'success' that others have had since leaving for so called 'bigger clubs' over the past few years. There's a big difference: Nolan and Barton are ok, but limited players while Ba is a fucking beast with excellent allround play who will score goals in his new club too. I don't think he was referring to Nolan and Barton considering the "so called bigger clubs" comment. Carroll and Enrique would be my guess.

I don't really do twitter so I'm not sure how to even find those posts Anyway I have little doubt clubs will find ways to maneuver themselves some extra spending room but what I am at least hoping is that the unlimited spending days are now over. EDIT: Found it, pretty much goes along with what I've been thinking but with a few more details that I wasn't aware of. Basically because of Champions League win Chelsea will be able to spend, but at least they have limits now, as do Man City. Makes me wish ever more though that Chelsea had lost the final, would have been very interesting to see what they did then.

Well they did win the Champions League which will have brought in a lot of money and guaranteed a lot again next season. Also Drogbas going, freeing up wages and they could yet sell someone else to balance things out.

Catts for me, he did play for France right?

He's on

Watch out, that's a racist remark apparently

Dunno if I'd go so far as to say I want England to do badly, but I just don't care. Wish it wasn't the case. Yup. Same old players serving up the same old shit. Why bother? I'm always a little bit indifferent towards England at the start of a tournament. Because the seasons just ended and my focus has been on Newcastle all year. But as the games go along I usually get more and more into it to the point were I'm desperate for England to win. Though I have to say this time I feel especially indifferent. I just don't like any England payer this year, they're pretty much all toss pots. But I still expect to be on the edge of my seat desperate for a win by the end of the groups. I means if England come up against Germany again who here wouldn't be desperate to beat the cunts?

Steady on. Neat and tidy on the whole but haven't seen anywhere near enough to decide on his quality. Given his injury problems over the last two years, it would be folly to earmark him as a first time regular next season. Didn't say he's quality, just that he's looked quality every time he's played, and I stick by that. I've been extremely impressed by his passing and technique, we'll see just how good he is when/if he plays regularly. I wouldn't count on him being a first team regular. But I'm very hopeful that he'll be an important player for us, my biggest doubt by far is his fitness rather than his ability.

Marveaux's looked quality every time he's played IMO, immaculate technique and passing. Just hope he can stay fit.

Yeah apparently our 65 points tally only managed 5th because the league wasn't very competitive this year, despite 62 points being the average total for teams finishing 5th in the Premier League. Meanwhile Valencia got 3rd place with 61 points in La Liga

Can't agree with that. Their support is very similar to ours. Don't do what they do, man. We're bigger than that. Yeah they've always had good support, not nearly as good as ours but better than most.

Not sure which is uglier, Tevez's personality or his face, nah its his face, just.

Player fees and wages have also gone up due to Chelsea and Man City.

The distinction is obvious, it lies in one club using money they've earned from their Footballing successes to create more success vs one that's just been given unlimited funds on the whim of a bored billionaire "here buy the league". If you have no problem with that then fine (though I certainly do because IMO it devalues the entire sport) but don't try to claim there's no difference between Man U's success and Man Citys.

Aye. Ive always thought that too!! Sure he was Ranieri's interprator when he first came over. I always wanted to know who the stunner is who always sits in the Chelsea dugout, just checked: First team doctor Eva Carneiro: http://www.libertaddigital.com/c.php?op=thumb&id=http://s.libertaddigital.com/fotos/noticias/eva-carneiro-290212.jpg&x=0&y=550 Imagine having her as your doctor

Isn't it also down to the fact that they didn't score a goal themselves?

1 - Ben Arfa vs Bolton 2 - Cisse second vs Chelsea 3 - Ben Arfa vs Blackburn IMO, very hard to rate them against each other but Ben Arfa just nicks it.

Would have said the same about us a few years ago. According to last years data we were at around $65k they are currently on $78k. Given the players that left when we were relegated I think our average wage when we went down may have been pretty close to Villa's now. It would be even worse for Villa, since they rely more heavily on TV money then we did.

What always confused me as a young'un was that US contracts were announced with the whole contract's worth, not just weekly/monthly/yearly pay. And US deals are quite often longer than the 5 year limit in our football, are they not? In almost all leagues except for the NBA (where there is a 5 year max now on contracts) you will often see 6, 7, or even 8 year deals. The NHL (ice hockey) even has a couple of players on FIFTEEN YEAR contracts. It's scary to think how high football salaries are now and how fast they are growing when compared to US sports. NFL teams are way down on the list despite being the most popular sport, AND they have the massive TV revenues that european teams just don't have - the NFL makes $5 billion a year from TV contracts alone, which are distributed evenly among the 32 teams (aka $150 million a year), and that's before even adding in tickets in larger stadiums, merchandising deals, radio, advertising, licensing, sponsorships, etc. Salaries also have a hard cap for each team, so it's impossible to spend more than something like $150 million a year. The NBA and NHL have similar structures (though not necessarily as profitable), and even MLB has a structure so that it hasn't spiraled out of control even with more imbalance between teams. With all that combined, it's a very healthy structure setup to continue for a while. When I compare that to how football is going with the wages and billionaires leveraging so much debt to fund teams, it's impossible to think how this is all sustainable. Revenue in Football isn't spread around as evenly, but you do have some Football clubs earning a lot more from TV rights than any NFL team (a lot more in revenue overall as well). Also while the average NFL stadium is bigger, ticket revenue isn't due to the very small number of games in an NFL season. I do agree that Football is much more out of control financially obviously. With even average Premier League teams often spending more than the top NFL sides. The whole billionaire play thing nonsense has totally distorted any financial sense and I hope the new Uefa rules will do something to counteract it.

Two wins and a draw would probably do it, I seriously doubt Tottenham will win three in a row. Still very difficult like, but lets just hope Tottenham get back to losing ways and maybe we can do it with less

By the looks of it we might have already seen Ba being lined up for that one, if he's still here. complete and utter load of s***, both of you. Most people in here are saying he was s*** and responsible for one/two goals going in or whatever. Where exactly are they blaming him for the performances of the other players, or the team as a whole? I've been saying since the win at West Brom that Ba looks absolutely shagged after 60 minutes, pretty much every single week. Were we blessed with options that came anywhere near his quality, we could definitely do with giving him a rest for one or two games. Simpson gets the blame for far too much when things go wrong in defence. Williamson cost us the first and crucial goal yesterday yet nobody bothered to bump a thread about him and slag him off for it. Williamson cost us a goal, Simpson cost us two and did his best to give them a third, that's why its his thread being bumped.

He didn't look ordinary, he looked horrendous. Wigan played well and it clearly wasn't our day, but the fact is Simpson was beaten all to easily for one goal and completely disappeared for another. Whenever our defence comes under pressure he's usually the one that the opposition exploit.

If I was a millionaire on 60k a week for another 6 months and I had to drop to 30k so I could actually get the game time I, apparently, so badly wanted then yes of course I'd take the cut. You'd have to either not really want to play or be one hell of a greedy fucker not to.

I'd love to see Villa go down, but us winning comes before everything else for me wether it gets us into the Champions League or not. I don't think villa are safe anyway. They've just lost to third bottom Bolton at home. They're only 3 points in front of Bolton who have a game in hand. They could be in trouble.