leffe186

The other issue is that City need to start shipping players out soon. Rumour is that the Milner transfer is the key for a merry-go-round with Bellamy replacing Young who's off to Spurs etc etc.

I think so too, but it's going to be an almighty pile-up this year. I'd love Liverpool to miss out again as that would probably bankrupt them.

Jesus, Man City should be so good this year......with their squad of 45 players. Surely they need to start offloading soon.

Surely he'd be earning more at Spurs or Chelsea? He's pretty much guaranteed first team football at Liverpool as long as he's fit, as he'll only be competing with Ryan Babel for that position. Apparently not as far as the money goes - story is that he was offered 65K pw for 3 years at Spurs, 80K pw for 2 years at Arsenal and 90K pw for 4 years at Liverpool. Spurs have run a tight ship on wages for a while now, Liverpool...not so much. Agree that he's much more likely to start at Liverpool. Right, fair enough. I just thought Liverpool were skint and wouldn't offer that high wages. Still think he's made a good move career wise, and as it seems to be a good move money wise as well, I don't think anyone can blame him for going to Liverpool. Yeah, I don't blame him at all and I'm not too unhappy with missing out. It's up front and centre-back that we need. I don't see where Liverpool are going to get this money either.

Surely he'd be earning more at Spurs or Chelsea? He's pretty much guaranteed first team football at Liverpool as long as he's fit, as he'll only be competing with Ryan Babel for that position. Apparently not as far as the money goes - story is that he was offered 65K pw for 3 years at Spurs, 80K pw for 2 years at Arsenal and 90K pw for 4 years at Liverpool. Spurs have run a tight ship on wages for a while now, Liverpool...not so much. Agree that he's much more likely to start at Liverpool.

That's pretty much the wages Liverpool are offering Cole for one year, isn't it? Main reason he went there rather than Spurs...the other being that he's more likely to get a game at Liverpool! I can't see all of Kuyt, Gerrard, Torres and Cole being fit together for more than a handful of games next year, if any. It depends how much priority the Europa Cup is given. Part of the reason that Liverpool were happy to throw money at Cole will have been the new squad rules, I'm guessing.

Will get a massive, massive ovation at White Hart Lane.

Is Remy any good?

And we've (Spurs) got 4 on our own. Caulker looks like he could be the business.

...and Sky's new advert has Drogba, Nani, Van Persie and......(Bale? Modric? Lennon?)....Tevez. The Sky 4 are dead, long live the Sky 4. Crawley is a horrible place.

Supposedly that's the maximum possible, but over 16M has been paid up so far. Carrick and Berbatov seem like cracking deals for us (Spurs) now.

Are City just going to completely ignore the squad regulations? They're going to have one hell of a yard sale soon.

Yes. It also works out to mean paying in installments over time, something the club has tried to stop doing for a few years now. ...and something that the new regulations appear to limit.

That's one problem, the next one is that the best team isn't that great. Who plays RB in the best team? CB? The best teams develop by playing together and that isn't often possible at international level (injuries etc) so you need intelligent and adaptable players. That takes us back to the Martin Samuel article.

Team selection yes, but I think the problems with motivation and psychology in this particular group of players are too ingrained for an international manager to change. I'm inclined to side with this particular "what's wrong with the English game by x" article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/worldcup2010/article-1290667/MARTIN-SAMUEL-If-England-brain-dangerous.html There are still people out there who feel that passion was the issue, which is buggering my mind. If Barry can carry the ball over the halfway line only to find Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney within ten yards, five yards in front of him then it's clear that no-one is thinking about the game. If Rooney can come deep to pick up the ball in midfield and turn to find two men on the right wing two on the left and no-one in the middle then it's clear that no-one is thinking about the game. Terry said that he was leading, what he was born to do, yet he couldn't make critical on-field decisions to cope with the way Germany played - talking to the players in front of him. One glaring problem in the first couple of games was so many players with "free" roles (Gerrard, Lampard, Rooney, even Heskey) yet the leader was calling for another one, Joe Cole. Capello should have known that by now. I would have been happier with a team that accepted our limitations and used the pace and guile of Adam Johnson and Lennon on the wings, the occasionally unplayable Crouch up front and kept it solid everywhere else. Lampard, Rooney and (before this year at least) Gerrard have been playing in teams that afford them the freedom to express themselves - hence we have at times called them brilliant. They are clearly not capable of adapting to anything else effectively, and since Capello found it impossible to drop even one of them then he reaped the whirlwind.

I love pens where i don't care who wins.

5-a-side: Playing in the middle at the back, intercepted a pass for their CF in front of our D, two of their players closed me down, shifted it L-R-L to ghost between them while accelerating to full speed, beautiful body swerve to leave their CB on his arse and was heading towards the other D at pace on the right hand side. Problem is, my right foot is fucking dreadful. Rather than bury it, as the keeper came to narrow the angle I stepped over the ball and backheeled it right into the far corner. Mind, I did it when running close to full pelt. Keeper called me a fucking cunt. ...and you can score scorchers in 5-a-side. Was playing indoors in Falkirk with over-head-height allowed, I'd hit an ambitious shot from the left that their keeper held. He tried to release their RM by throwing it down the line but I'd got back up to cover. Jumped to intercept with my head and nodded it to our CF, who cushioned a volleyed pass down the left wing. I ran onto it and from halfway inside their half hit an absolute peach of a half volley that crashed into the far top corner. Still remember how sweetly I hit it now.

Dracula?

A little bit of the new Deloitte figures: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10249101.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10253000.stm Shows the extent to which the wages/turnover issue is not confined to England - also cocks two fingers at the guy who applauded Rafa for doing so well with the fifth highest wage bill. Still extraordinary that Chelsea's wage bill is still more than twice that of Man City.

Not that I don't love these games.....but class & dignity?? I didn't mean this is particular. For this, they just sucked all fun out of it. I wish I could be watching it

Not that I don't love these games.....but class & dignity??

What's Simon Baker like? Hypnotised anyone?

Think he's done a decent job myself, although he's left Liverpool exposed on the "domestic footballer" front.

I'm not sure where Brian Reade got the idea that they had the fifth highest wage bill - wacko, do you know? For example, in 2006/7 Deloitte had Chelsea 114M, Man U 85M, Arsenal 83M, Liverpool 69M, Newcastle 52M. I'm going to guess that he's added Manchester City in, which would be actively misleading and clearly show his agenda. I stand to be corrected, mind.

He spent £60m more gross than Fergie from 04/05-08/09. And £60m less than Chelsea in the same period. If you count in 09/10 as well the figures are £90m more gross than Fergie and £38m less than Chelsea. It's not like he hasn't had money to spend is it? So what? Apples and oranges. In summer 04, Fergie already had a fantastic squad that had won the league the previous season. Rafa had a s*** squad full of dross like Diouf and Diao that Houllier had bought. Spurs have spent a similar amount to Liverpool over that period, yet it took us to drop the ball for them to catch us. The thing with Rafa though is that he has continued to buy s*** in some cases. And to be fair Spurs have spent more than you over those seasons, but they are on their 4th manager during this period. So, their board has apparently realised that their managers has bought players who weren't up to it. Much the same as what Rafa has done in some cases. I'm sure you understand this. It's the same with Chelsea really, they're on to their 5th manager in the same space of time. If you don't get the adequate results at a big club, you're out. You can bet your bottom dollar that Wenger would've been out on his arse as well if he had a net spend of over £100m with the same results they've had. At Spurs it's clearly the board that is their problem. Levy doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah, I do agree that Rafa has bought a lot of players who weren't good enough. Yet at the same time, he wasn't given the money to buy enough players who were good enough, anyway. You can talk all day about how much more he's spent than Fergie since Rafa arrived at LFC, or how many players he's bought and sold. The bottom line is, the £85m net he was given to spend was simply not enough money to build a squad that can compete with Chelsea's or Man Utd when you're starting with a squad like Rafa had in 2004. Levy doesn't know what he's doing??? Can't let that one slide. If you mean that he doesn't know what he's doing when appointing managers then, well, sort of, but for Ramos there was Redknapp, for Hoddle there was Jol. If you mean he doesn't know what he's doing running a football club, well that's a bit silly. The figures really do speak for themselves. Why did he fire Jol and hire Ramos in the first place? The money Spurs have spent under Levy, they should have done better than having to wait for us to drop the ball to break into the top 4. Possibly, though when Jol and Arnesen came in our squad was rather worse than yours under Houllier and needed far more money thrown at it, but that's not the point. It's not up to him to decide which players to buy, but to generate the money to buy them. With a relatively small stadium and a team that was struggling to get into Europe at all (let alone get CL money every year) he has managed to supply his managers with plenty of funding and got a great deal back in selling those players on. At the same time, he's kept the wage bill under control - more so than at any club except Arsenal and Man U. He knows what he's doing. It looks like he wanted Ramos in because he and his advisors felt Jol had taken us as far as he could. That might still be the case, and at time getting Ramos seemed like a bit of a coup. Personally, I think he fucked up, but even people who know what they're doing fuck up occasionally.