tmonkey

Peter Druery + Jim Beglin are pretty decent.

£25m would be a good price for Waddle if he was, say, 25. Plus, he lasted quite well - remember him being excellent in spells for Sheffield Wednesday during his mid 30s. Bentley should have been worth around £10m.

Only worth signing if we use him as Sevilla did - ie the target striker. Its strange why Madrid signed him for so much money, then used him in a totally different position to which he had made a name for himself - but its understandable too given the options they have. If we're looking at him as a midfielder, there are tons better out there imo. But surely he wouldnt come here given how much he moaned about the weather in London?

If ManU had not rejigged their finances just to sign Rooney (i.e. Ferguson knew he couldnt miss out on him), we would have landed Rooney. At the time, Everton were your bog standard lower mid table team with no money and no indication of moving forwards. IMO they had nothing but a dirty side that kicked lumps out of the opposition team, although thats easy to forget now that them and e.g. Blackburn have moved on and play decent football. Right now we'd look back and think Rooney wouldnt move because it would be a sideways step, but at that time we were still a club that had recently been in the CL, we were still in Europe having just finished 5th, and we still had some star players in the squad - i.e. it looked like we merely had a blip as all sides do. Hence, we'd have been a sizeable step forward over Everton at the time. On top of all that, you have the fact that we'd have offered ludicrous wages that even now Everton wouldnt be able to or want to match, just as we did with Owen. Hence, if ManU werent in the picture (as they had led everyone to believe) and the choice was between moving to us on big wages and playing alongside Shearer et al, or staying with Everton for another year, I think he'd have moved, and therefore I dont see how it never would have happened.

Better version of Bellamy - quicker, more skillful, but just as aggressive. Think he ruled himself out of ever moving to England half a year or so ago though. Only interested in Italy or Spain.

The Rooney bid was real imo. We made it a few days after ManU publicly announced that they had no money left in the coffers to sign Rooney, and simply could not afford it (Arsenal/Wenger had ruled themselves out long before that, Chelsea were looking elsewhere). We called ManU's bluff, and lost - they used future transfer budgets that summer to land him (and then spent comparatively nothing the following summer IIRC). The Owen signing a season later for a similarly large amount proved that Shepherd was out to get that one top player to replace Shearer as the main driving point of the team. Although many of us thought that it was too big a risk to gamble everything on Owen (and hence another in a long line of badly thought out decisions), a player with a history of injuries, the Rooney bid is something that Shepherd should be praised for, because that was excellent ambition. Had we signed him, we would have had one of the best all round forwards in the league playing for us over the past few years (and although he was practically finished by then, it would've been nice to see Shearer playing alongside Rooney for us). Its hard to see why the Rooney bid would have been fake. As stated, the Owen signing proves that Shepherd had the intention of signing a top forward to replace Shearer, the money was there (later flushed down the toilet by Souness, £35m of it in the first summer) and Rooney would have been the number one target, at the time playing for a lower mid table Everton side. There would have been little to be gained by stringing supporters along for a few days with a fake bid, especially knowing that it was going to amount to nothing eventually (meaning even more reason for supporters to get pissed with the chairman), whilst if we were merely trying to force ManU to show their cards and help Everton secure a big sale, what did we gain from it? Why would we help either Everton or ManU out? Even if there was a slightly dodgey element to it, such as Shepherd owning shares in some company that would have benefitted greatly from the sale (e.g. agent's?), it probably have been peanuts compared to shirt sales and boosted league positions and generally being a bigger club because of signing one of the top talents in Europe. Clearly, the money was there, the intention to sign someone of that calibre was there, the competition for the signature had at the time been reduced to zero based on other clubs ruling themselves out, we know for a fact that a bid was made, and to top it all off, Big Al, who rarely speaks about transfers, was very publicly making statements to Rooney about why he should sign for us (as he did when we signed Owen). Very strong case for a real, legitimate attempt to sign him imo.

Gerraway man. Until now, Spain are probably the only major footballing nation who've underperformed more than England at international level. I think you've missed the point. I haven't like. You can still produce class players yet underperform at International Level. Why did tmonkey mention the number of foreigners then? Seemed clear to me that he was talking about the excuses made about the England side re: the number of foreign players in the league. No reason to mention them otherwise. Im merely saiyng that its not enough to point at the foreign players and blame our lack of a real quality pool of players to pick from because of them. If we had better coaching and selection methods, as well as more freedom in domestic player transfers, we probably wouldnt need to sign as many foreigners as the Premiership does. Its easy to point to a few good domestic players produced by us and think we're doing OK, but look past that, and you'll find clubs like us are producing utter shit like Matty Pattison and Shola Ameobi when teams like Villarreal can put youngsters out on the pitch that could give our first team a run for our money in terms of ability/possession. Seriously, wtf is going on?

England has a vast array of class players, certainly to rival Spain and the other leading European nations. Good manager*? No. Good team? No. *that's not really in reference to Capello, yet... It's debateable, but I think theres a massive gap in technical ability between players coached in England compared to those coached e.g. in Spain. Its not to say we dont have class players, Gerrard for example is one of the best midfielders in the world when it comes to drive and threat, just that theres little technical ability in most of our players. Even our more skillfull ones, like Joe Cole or Bentley, pale in comparison to what players like Deco can do on the ball, or even less skillful ones. Croatia against our lot at Wembley a few months back was a prime example of that. You can point to McClaren and his shit tactics/selection/whatever, but as with a decent manager like Svenn, its frequently been obvious that theres a big gulf in technical ability, and therefore ability to maintain possession against good sides, compared to the other top sides at international level. We're essentially at the same level as a standard Scandinavian national side. Very avearge in tersm of talent and ability without being shit, strong defence, players who work hard and can get stuck in, but thats about it. Add a player or two who can punt a long ball well or has slightly more skill/ability than the rest of the side, and thats England's national side. Its OK if we're a mediocre domestic league with little money like those in Scandinavia, but otherwise its ridiuclous how crap the pool of players is. You are right, in that the team itself hasnt been good, and we could do better in the same way Germany have, but for me I think we should be aiming alot higher for players produced in this country. We should be producing players with good natural ability and technique, not ones who can run around all day and get stuck in. Beyond looking at coaching at lower levels, we seriously need to do something to lower the price of talented English playesr. Maybe copy the Spaniards in the way they include release clauses in the contract of every player. That way, if a young English player with a release clause of e.g. £5m rises to stardom, his career isnt then held to ransom by the club holding his registration purely because they'll refuse to sell or want an arm and a leg for him - Ramos for example has moved quickly from Sevilla to Real Madrid for a large fee (£19mill), but thats alot better than e.g. noone being able to purchase Micah Richards because City cant be forced into a sale by a bidding club.

Iniesta has been class imo. Spain have such an excellent midfield, all technically gifted. And its important to note that La Liga has a huge number of foreigners playing there, particularly South Americans, yet the Spaniards have had no problem consistently producing class/gifted players.

I would rather someone like Sabri than Beye tbh because of his attacking strength/ability, especially for this 4-3-3 system where width needs to be provided by the fullback. Yes, he'll leave gaping holes at the back, yes, we'll be exposed at various points of the season because of that, but play a centreback or central midfielder capable of covering for him and we'd increase our attacking play and creativity considerably.

Exactly. Same with Arda - there's no way a player like that would move pre-tournament when a good tournament would see their stock rise to such an extent that bigger and richer clubs would be in for them, and even a poor showing would barely see their value depreciate. If the big was bid, as it was for Modric, they'd have sold him - the benefit of a big price regardless of a shit tournament would have outweighed any relatively small increment in the price if he had a good tournament. Of course, we'd not have made the big bid unless we were sure they were potential top class, hence the only option was to wait and see, hoping that they have decent tournaments whilst showing glimpses of potential, rather than being the top stars in the tournament that they did turn out to be. We should now just move on and look at the potentially top players who didnt get a chance to perform in the Euros. Huntelaar for example - if we bite the bullet and offer big now, Ajax have no reason to hang onto him in the hope that a big CL club will come in with a marginally bigger offer, and it seems like hes off the radar due to the top sides scrambling for the Arshavins etc.

Scored 1 goal for Bayern in 46 appearances last season. Wouldn't know the details as to why that is, but wouldnt be suprised if hes a very average player who overperforms for his country - a goalscoring version of Veron maybe?

Manchester United, Arsenal, Barcelona? Hasnt been this exciting for donkey years. As soon as a team like Liverpool or Chelsea are involved in a game, it almost always become stiffled and an utter bore. They've bogged down the entertainment factor in the Premiership imo.

What a tournament from Turkey. The Turks, the Dutch, the Spaniards, the Russians - that how football should be played. Cunts like Fat Sam, Benitez and Mourinho, with their shit philosophy on how the game should be played, have made me forget how good watching this sport can be even when you have noone to support.

Oh dear...

OMIGOT.

Huntelaar would be perfect. Would no doubt tell us to 'eff off.

Keep him for one more season as backup, then release on a free. At least if hes fit some of the time, it'll mean we wont be having Smith or Ameobi playing "some of the time". We definitely have to sign a first team targetman to play up front, unless we're planning on playing Owen or Martins up there.

That Ugo Bugor looks a tidy little left winger.

Someone sitting up in the satellite's space station decided they couldnt put up with listening to Moston and Lawrenson's crap anymore.

Excellent sliding lob leading to the goal that hes been given virtually no credit whatsoever for.

Will be criminal of Italy go through on penalties. Its what theyve played for since the start of the game.

U21 matches are completely pointless though, theres nothing wrong with Bentley choosing to put the club first in that situation. And him being a twat is probably why he's a good player - he has the confidence to try things on the ball, which results in good end product.

This is so fucking boring. We've been spoilt by so many excellent games prior to this snoozefest.

I think Owen would go back top. Aimar does have a good through ball in his locker, although its not seen that often - maybe with someone like Owen up front making darting runs (instead of e.g. a Carew or Kanoute) Aimar might have more options? But thats the first team. I think he'd be a canny player to bring on as a sub or replacement for eg Martins/Owen/a wide central midfielder. Its always good to be able to bring on a good footballer in an attacking position when necessary.