leffe186

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.

Agreed, but are Spurs really buggered? Was that a mistake? Arsenal and Spurs are having to watch every penny but EVERYBODY should be doing that. The point is fair - Newcastle were in a position where a clever new owner could have stabilized and then built more solid foundations. Ashley signally failed to do that, and it will take longer to recover as a result.

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.

King with dodgy knees would still do a better job then Carragher and Upson (and even Terry tbh). Ferdinand was badly out of form anyway so no big deal. Thats ridiculous,he only plays once every two weeks.I wouldn't have taken him at all because of this and the fact he was awful against Mexico.Carragher for all of his faults is a safer option. Would rather alternate King and Dawson tbh. Carragher is about 3 years past a level of acceptability. ...but he looked good against Mexico whereas Rio was abysmal. The difference at CB between the two halves was huge. Not happy Rio's injured, and I don't expect Dawson to play, but I'm not too worried about this injury. The only one that would really fuck us over would be Rooney (or possible Ashley Cole) and even with Rooney missing we might surprise a few teams with an orthodox 442. Crouch can be an absolute nightmare for oppos if the refs don't do him over.

Davies would have done well. There are a lot of kids in the US side who will get good experience too. Problem is, if Dempsey and Donovan are injured it's all over.

Not sure this can be applied easily. For example both Barça and Madrid routinely post profits, which are just accounting craftmanship as the debt (sorry, investment) keeps growing for both. I'm sure there will be lots of ways to circumvent this rule. Yeah, I was thinking about Barca and Madrid but don't know their financial details. I worry (in my anglocentric way) if the regulations will be applied more stringently in England than elsewhere.

I wish that really was Jerry Dammers.

Last year I saw Rogers at the Crew a couple of times and was very impressed indeed. Saw him against Chivas the other day and he was really disappointing. There's a very good player in there, maybe he needs to go abroad to develop.

I'm sure there are clubs across the continent who will be decimated by this, if it's applied fairly. There are several clubs who are bankrolled by a wealthy benefactor. Will be interesting to see how collective bargaining over TV deals will change too as TV money will become massively more important overnight.

I watched the beginning but had to miss virtually the whole game. Who did well/poorly for the US? I know it was a B team, but one or two may have booked their tickets.

I see that St Mirren have got a couple of shopgirls from Braehead as part of the sponsorship deal.

Had a quick glance over it. Appears to start talking at length about his family life and housing situation halfway through. What a mental. Same thoughts here, then realised it was exactly the type of thing I'd expect to read on N-O Did you read through to the end? My favourite bit is when, after he's fallen out with - and is not speaking to - his sisters, he smashes up the pot plants they got him for Xmas. Closely followed by the Louth Fire Brigade sending him a bill for their services after he crashes his car in a hailstorm. There's a few NO ones I'd read. NE5, for one.