wacko

And anyone who had any sense of morality would walk away feeling mightily ashamed that they had managed to dupe the money off hard-working fans. However Owen is motivated by money, it doesn't matter that he is worth millions, and that the £2 million "loyalty" bonus and nearly £500,000 for the extra month is more than most of us will have in our lifetimes. He couldn't give a fuck, its all about the cash for Mr Owen, always has been, always will be. Well, not really. It's not like he was throwing bongo parties till 3 a.m. every morning and snorting coke from a stripper's tits. As far as he's concerned, he might not have scored the goals, but he put in the work, ate the right stuff, got enough sleep etc. etc. You can be sure he doesn't feel any guilt at all about his performances for NUFC, even if he'll be the first to agree he's disappointed. He's 29 now, and currently a former European Player of the Year who's been unlucky with injuries. This is his last chance at a massive jackpot before he retires to breed horses. If he stayed at NUFC for even a season, he'd not only take a big pay cut, but he'd be a 30-year-old Championship player who's not getting any better, and his earning potential for the remainder of his career would be perhaps a third of what it is right now if he plays his cards right. Any working-class person with an ounce of sense would do exactly the same thing. £30,000 a week from football for a few more years and then however much he makes from his horses is substantially more than the average joe will ever make tbh though Sure, but it won't keep the Owens going for all that long in the style to which they are accustomed. I mean, I go to work on a bike and he takes his chopper

And anyone who had any sense of morality would walk away feeling mightily ashamed that they had managed to dupe the money off hard-working fans. However Owen is motivated by money, it doesn't matter that he is worth millions, and that the £2 million "loyalty" bonus and nearly £500,000 for the extra month is more than most of us will have in our lifetimes. He couldn't give a fuck, its all about the cash for Mr Owen, always has been, always will be. Well, not really. It's not like he was throwing bongo parties till 3 a.m. every morning and snorting coke from a stripper's tits. As far as he's concerned, he might not have scored the goals, but he put in the work, ate the right stuff, got enough sleep etc. etc. You can be sure he doesn't feel any guilt at all about his performances for NUFC, even if he'll be the first to agree he's disappointed. He's 29 now, and currently a former European Player of the Year who's been unlucky with injuries. This is his last chance at a massive jackpot before he retires to breed horses. If he stayed at NUFC for even a season, he'd not only take a big pay cut, but he'd be a 30-year-old Championship player who's not getting any better, and his earning potential for the remainder of his career would be perhaps a third of what it is right now if he plays his cards right. Any working-class person with an ounce of sense would do exactly the same thing.

I went for City purely because they don't have Ashley etc. in charge.

Alot of Liverpool fans think he's a little s***. I know. How dare a player want to leave a club as historic as that to try his hand with Real Madrid. I think it's the way he did it that pisses them off. Yup. It's more the manner of his departure than the very fact of it. He basically promised and promised to re-sign until the day he f***ed off to Madrid. You're all familiar with Owen's vapid platitudes. How dare he, eh? Still has a year left of his contract in which to re-sign, and then the biggest club of them all makes the club and player a very good offer. Terrible. When I say promised and promised to re-sign, I mean for over a year. Real didn't make the club a good offer: they paid about half of what you paid a year later, which is to say Owen was pushing down his own price to attract offers, and all the while promising Liverpool fans he was this close to signing a new deal. That players want to leave is a fact of life (and they always seem to want to leave if Real Madrid comes calling), but they can be honest about it.

Alot of Liverpool fans think he's a little s***. I know. How dare a player want to leave a club as historic as that to try his hand with Real Madrid. I think it's the way he did it that pisses them off. Yup. It's more the manner of his departure than the very fact of it. He basically promised and promised to re-sign until the day he fucked off to Madrid. You're all familiar with Owen's vapid platitudes.

But why do they need to bring in recognised superstars? There's no reason why they couldn't buy up-and-coming youngsters instead of trying to buy Europe's biggest clubs' star players. They'll have to pay the players double what the biggest clubs would. I like the way Lerner and O'Neill are going about things at Villa. What Citeh are doing, and what Chelsea did before them is vulgar, and bad for football. At least Chelsea typically pay silly money to a smaller club, which is a good thing. Citeh are trying to make Europe's richest clubs even richer!

Those days are long over. He'll want as much wedge as possible and to be close to his sodding horses.

To be fair, in those 3 transfer windows we'd spent biggish money in terms of fees and wages on a right and left back, centre back, three wingers, three central midfielders, and a big name centre forward before Owen signed. (Solano was a few hours later if we're being picky) You could give Souness a billion to spend and he'd just end up paying 10 times as much for the same dross. As much as i hate Sourness he did say he wanted Anelka and someone else for the amount Shepherd wasted on Owen. Fair enough. I guess even a stopped clock ...

To be fair, in those 3 transfer windows we'd spent biggish money in terms of fees and wages on a right and left back, centre back, three wingers, three central midfielders, and a big name centre forward before Owen signed. (Solano was a few hours later if we're being picky) You could give Souness a billion to spend and he'd just end up paying 10 times as much for the same dross.

Actually played on the wing a fair bit for Pompey this season. To be honest, I don't think I saw the lad play a single match last season, so I can't really comment on his ability as a player. Not impressed by the price, though. Rafa has been after a decent wing-back for a while, now, possibly as an alternative to a winger (there don't seem to be many top quality wingers around these days). Certainly, with Kuyt on the wing instead of Gerrard we need a decent attacking full-back to balance out that side of the pitch. But 18 million... I'd much sooner the money had been spent on a proper attacking player. Arbeloa has been just fine at RB. Is part of it that Glen Johnson is English though? Heard something about Liverpool needing to sign an Englishman or two this summer to meet Champions League quotas - not sure how that works if it's true though? I believe the EU have declared the proposed CL nationality rules illegal under European law (though not officially), but I imagine it's on Rafa's mind. He tried to flog Alonso last summer to bring in Barry, and I can't think why he'd want to do that apart from the fact that Barry is English. You need 4 players trained for 3 years before they were 21 at the club, and with 8 British nationalities in the 25 man squad. Currently, yes. But UEFA/FIFA were blathering about tighter regulations, and EU bigwigs commented that they would not be allowed under EU law. I imagine the current rules might not stand up to a legal challenge if a club or association brought one. It's impossible to say until it actually does go before the relevant court.

Yup. So under 30% of the amount.

OMFG. That cannot be true. 100K for a full-back.

Actually played on the wing a fair bit for Pompey this season. To be honest, I don't think I saw the lad play a single match last season, so I can't really comment on his ability as a player. Not impressed by the price, though. Rafa has been after a decent wing-back for a while, now, possibly as an alternative to a winger (there don't seem to be many top quality wingers around these days). Certainly, with Kuyt on the wing instead of Gerrard we need a decent attacking full-back to balance out that side of the pitch. But 18 million... I'd much sooner the money had been spent on a proper attacking player. Arbeloa has been just fine at RB. Is part of it that Glen Johnson is English though? Heard something about Liverpool needing to sign an Englishman or two this summer to meet Champions League quotas - not sure how that works if it's true though? I believe the EU have declared the proposed CL nationality rules illegal under European law (though not officially), but I imagine it's on Rafa's mind. He tried to flog Alonso last summer to bring in Barry, and I can't think why he'd want to do that apart from the fact that Barry is English.

Actually played on the wing a fair bit for Pompey this season. To be honest, I don't think I saw the lad play a single match last season, so I can't really comment on his ability as a player. Not impressed by the price, though. Rafa has been after a decent wing-back for a while, now, possibly as an alternative to a winger (there don't seem to be many top quality wingers around these days). Certainly, with Kuyt on the wing instead of Gerrard we need a decent attacking full-back to balance out that side of the pitch. But 18 million... I'd much sooner the money had been spent on a proper attacking player. Arbeloa has been just fine at RB.

He was one of the best players in Europe in 2001, in the form of his life until he tore his hamstring. It's been one downhill ride since then for Owen.

I hope to dear God we didn't spend that much on a full-back. Christ, we should have bought Dani Alves when we could have had him for less than that. He'd better be insanely good for us for that money. Unbelievable amount. And we still need a winger, just as we have since Rafa took over. Perhaps he things Johnson can do that job.

How often do Championship players start for England? How often has someone like Michael Owen played in the Championship? Dunno. Like England managers, I don't watch it. If I had a bazooka, I could think of much more interesting things to shoot at than footballers.

How often do Championship players start for England?

Hull would not be a step up from us that's for sure - regardless of our current league status. Doubt Owen will go there. They might offer him more cash, though. Most top-half clubs probably see him as a decent squad player and would offer corresponding wages. He'd be a big fish at Hull and will get more money. That's suit his big ego better, and he'd get more games, assuming he can stay fit, improving his England chances (in his head), which is all he's ever really cared about.

In the summer he said he wanted to go to Liverpool and it was purely about wanting CL football, nothing to do with money He's just gone to Man City, who won't be playing any type of European football next season, without even seeing if the Liverpool interest materialised again. I wonder what could have changed his mind. Quite.

Does that mean the club is £40m overdrawn or that the overdraft limit has been cut from £40m to £20m and the current overdraft is over £20m?

Maybe, but if we do have that kind of money for a player, I'd rather it weren't spent on Tevez.

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Clicky you'll forgive me for not clicking. i suspect it'll be a rick roll and as soon as you hear the tune you know i'll be stuck for 5 mins giving you time to take the car stereo. You could hover before clicking... Surely, rickrolling is a banning offense?

Also represented in the last 5 finals, and three of four semi-finalists for the last three seasons. Barca, AC Milan and PSV are the only non-English sides to have knocked out an English club in those last three seasons. Barca's sweet, sweet victory last night and their semi win against Chelsea were the only times an English side has been beaten by a continental side since the 2007 final, I believe. Barca and Milan are the only non-English sides to have appeared in the final since 2004. That's pretty dominant. How much of that is down to timing and circumstances with respect to the other major competitors though? Real Madrid are going through a rebuilding period (and even though they're s*** at the moment, the best player in the Premiership playing for the biggest club in the Premiership is desperate to sign for them), a result of their constant chopping and changing and undermining of their managers since Del Bosque. Milan and Juve were hit hard by the match fixing scandals, which has propelled Inter to champions when they never had the team to be that in the first place. Both are also in the process of rebuilding their teams. That's three clubs who would normally be looking to challenge for the CL, and would provide strong competition for the top Premiership sides, yet for different reasons unrelated to the emergence of Premiership clubs, they aren't able to do so at this point in time. These three clubs are giants in the game, and will always attract the best players, so it's surely only a matter of time before they get back to their previous standards. Arsenal's & until this season Liverpool haven't been able to really challenge for the PL. They've handled all foreign sides before them except PSV. But they've not hit the lows Madrid, Milan and Juve have recently. Not being able to challenge for the PL doesn't mean they've hit a sizeable slump. Maybe the arguement could be made that these clubs aren't recovering as fast as you'd expect them to (or used to) because Premiership clubs are now signing the players that these clubs would normally have signed first? Difficult to tell right now though. Which is kind of another way of saying that they haven't been mismanaged like Madrid, Milan and Juve. All of these clubs' woes are fully of their own doing. I think the main reasons are the professional management of the English clubs and their relatively recent ability to attract and afford the world's very best players. Man Utd always had the cash and cachet to be in with a chance of getting Europe's most wanted players, but for other clubs it was usually a case of foreign pros past their peak, and Man Utd always struggled in Europe until Fergie accepted he had to play possession football. The CL regulars can play the fast, hard-pressing, high-intensity football typical of the EPL, which a lot of continental struggle mightily with, and they also have the skill and tactical sophistication of the best continental sides.