LucaAltieri

Yup, but he's better than our existing technically limited crock. Better than Debuchy? lol Taylor. Who's also rumoured to be off.

Sounds plausible. However, if Debuchy goes then I imagine getting a replacement in will also depend on how close Ryan Taylor is to fitness.

Yup, but he's better than our existing technically limited crock.

We're nowhere near affording Johnson, surely. Both Johnson and Richards would probably be on the expensive side. Not sure they'd be value for money but wouldn't sniff at either of them. Not sure which of the two I'd prefer. Johnson's form can be pretty up and down at times.

Would be nice to have him but if we end up sticking to the same recruitment policy then I doubt it'll happen. Too expensive. Too English.

Fucking yawn.

Any good? Heard a lot of him, but he's played like 20 games in his career. Seen a lot of him? Heard he's supposed to be the next big belgian thing. He's raw but will be a good player. Seen bits of him. He's tiny. My HBA comparison was a little off... he's somewhere between a Hatem and Walcott. Some seem to rate him higher than Januzaj. They got another nice generation on their way Belgium. With HBA, Obertan, & Marveaux all potentially off this summer we really need to be in for this type of player.

More money and fixed match times are both good news.

Not sure how he can drop Eddie Johnson on the basis of form but include Jozy Altidore.

4/10.

Listened to a podcast with some Spanish football expert about that yesterday. Was asked the secret about how either Spain or Argentina keep turning out top players. He claimed there was no secret in the coaching, just that more kids play and the top 10% have a good chance of a career, the top top players in the group can end up being Lionel Messi. Just playing the numbers. Ajax take similar approach. They have a lot of kids on the books at any one time, lots of individual youth teams, and a very small elite squad that players can be shuffled to if they're good enough.

You foreign asshole. Definitely the most foreign post Flip has ever written. Worse than the HBA fanboys. Worse than the Turkish death threats.

Just discovered that Galatasaray play "I will survive" every time they score. Presumably this is followed by "I'm too sexy for my shirt" and a reach around.

3 of the 4 what I would call lesser teams have the advantage after the first legs. Defensor getting a 0-2 win in Colombia being the biggest shock. Cruzeiro are going to fuck the bed in the next game aren't day.

He got £2 million. Really? Ballbags. Where did I get £8m from then Were you forced out too? Nah, she had a cesarean.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/sideline/news/article/2014/05/09/video-lithuanian-soccer-player-celebrates-goal-running-stands-applauding-himself?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=News&utm_campaign=Unpaid

I'd love a Keegan DoF, personally. He's someone who knows football and has a clear vision and culture for the club. But I'd prefer someone more involved in the modern game was the manager.

Why am I being forced into defending Allardyce, FFS? Didn't want him, didn't enjoy the football, don't think he's among the elite managers, but he was capable of getting more out of our Newcastle team given a bit longer. Hardly controversial.

Like at West Ham? Where he's about to be sacked? He took over a relegated team. Got them back up at the first attempt and kept them up since. If West Ham think he should be doing better then fair enough but it's still not really the same set of circumstances as him taking over Newcastle.

Allardyce's approach is pretty limited but he'd have done much better if he'd been given time to get this methods working. A year to do what he does isn't really enough. Should have recruited better in the first place, obviously. But if you're going the Allardyce route you have to give him the time to do what he does.

Isn't the TalkSport formula to say something ridiculous with enough conviction that people call in to shout at you?

Not too mention Yup, even in the US where it's a bit of a racket, my level 6 course only cost $150. Next one up, the National Licence is a bit of an increase, though. Jumps to ~$800

Just turned it on to have a look and Callum Cooke (Boro lad) skies it, high and wide, from 6 yards out. It was beautiful.

Agreed.

He's right. Which is why you seldom see an English player come all the way through Arsenal's setup. He buys foreign teenagers then builds them up to play for the first team. I'm sure he'd love to just use the local talent pool and avoid paying a few million for a foreign kid, but they just aren't up to standard. This all comes back to coaching. Too many coaches at the lower levels are 1) shit 2) care more about their ego and being a winning coach than actually developing good players. My kid's team came up against one of those last night. Shouting at the kids when they make mistakes, encouraging them to boot the ball out of play, everyone charging the around after the ball to win it back. I'm sure it gets them some results but those kids are fucked for their future development. They're not going to know how to retain possession, turn defence into attack, and they'll be so afraid of messing up they'll never try anything creative or complicated ever again. My experience as a kid wasn't dissimilar. At that age it almost shouldn't even be a competitive sport. So, to cut a long story short, Arsenal's coaches training under 16s are shit? Not just Arsenal. The vast majority of them. So if Wenger knows this (which he apparently does) why isn't he doing owt? Changes are coming. Up until now it has just been easier to buy foreign. But there's a constant conversation among coaches about how to improve the situation. The problem is that it's expensive and time consuming to retrain the thousands of grassroots coaches to do it properly. The result has been for academies to start recruiting younger and younger so they control the coaching and development of players as early as possible. That has it's own issues. How do you identify which 7 year old is a better player? For the most part, at that age, the "best" players are the biggest, strongest, fastest players. How do you identify a good attitude towards training? How do you identify which players will have an aptitude for positioning and general football intelligence when you haven't even started coaching tactics at that age? It's all technique (or supposed to be). The current system doesn't work and there's been a slow realization that we are eventually going to have to bite the bullet and just do it the hard way.