Village Idiot

what brings you to an NUFC forum then ? IIRC, he came here when SBR died and has been hooked ever since Yes, that's how it went.

Tévez has hit back at Neville today, calling him "abnormal socksucker" ("chupamedias y un tarado"). Game on!

Has José Enrique missed a league game this season?

Born and bred in Barcelona, Spain, been living in New York for the past 3 years.

Yes but most Pl sides have solid midfields who can keep the ball for spells or tackle back or cover ground. We have none of that. Poorer looking defences get by in the PL cause they have hard working properly organised midfilds in front of them and some pace that can stretch a game...We have none of that either. Plus Collo is a liability in the top league, he isn't strong enough and makes too many wrong descisions. I will concede that the 3 games I have watched this season your midfield has been truly bad (or inexistent), but the point stands that I think your defence is good enough. You do need backups though.

we did, shearer was the first player on 20k a week in this country Boro were first when they signed Fabrizio Ravanelli. He had no interest in joining them but Juve had accepted their offer, he said he'd join if they paid him £40,000 per week, a wage that at that time was at least £10000 higher than anyone else was earning (even Man Utd had a £30000 p/w wage cap at that time). He knew that a club like Boro were in no position to pay any player that amount of money so he assumed that he'd never have to join them. Unfortunately for him, Boro said yes and agreed to his wages. True, we did pay Shearer a lot of money, but Ravanelli was the catalyst for the mid 90's wage boom. That's right and Juninho after that...Juninho was on massive money. In recent history I believe Chelsea took it ot another level with players on 135k a week. Insanity. Oh, I remember when they signed Mendieta after we gave up on him due to the financials... Honestly, FC Barcelona outdone in the transfer market by f***ing Middlesbrough. On the plus side, Mendieta was an absolute sack of s*** and sat on those astronomical wages for as long as he could manage. Dodged a bullet tbh. He had been pretty good for us on loan the season before. Plus we ended getting Quaresma instead who was hardly better (admittedly more promising at the time).

I'm a GK, so I'm boring.

we did, shearer was the first player on 20k a week in this country Boro were first when they signed Fabrizio Ravanelli. He had no interest in joining them but Juve had accepted their offer, he said he'd join if they paid him £40,000 per week, a wage that at that time was at least £10000 higher than anyone else was earning (even Man Utd had a £30000 p/w wage cap at that time). He knew that a club like Boro were in no position to pay any player that amount of money so he assumed that he'd never have to join them. Unfortunately for him, Boro said yes and agreed to his wages. True, we did pay Shearer a lot of money, but Ravanelli was the catalyst for the mid 90's wage boom. That's right and Juninho after that...Juninho was on massive money. In recent history I believe Chelsea took it ot another level with players on 135k a week. Insanity. Oh, I remember when they signed Mendieta after we gave up on him due to the financials... Honestly, FC Barcelona outdone in the transfer market by fucking Middlesbrough.

The first batch of galacticos were all on 6,000,000€ net (twice that amount in gross earnings until the Beckham Law). That's for each of Ronaldo, Zidane, Raúl and Figo (he had this funny clause were had always to be the highest paid in the squad, Florentino loved it - NOT). That was the big break to stratospheric salaries, we followed suit with Ronaldinho and Eto'o at 5,000,000 net (it increased later on)... Nowadays people like Messi and Ibrahimovic are at 9,000,000 but that's not as high as it looks due to our tax breaks. Cristiano Ronaldo is at 13,000,000 net. I don't remember much about wages in the 1990s, I know it started to go out of control from 1996 onwards. We signed Ronaldo, Madrid got Mijatovic... Valencia started to overspend in the late 90s and early 2000s to get to our level (their team was actually assembled on the cheap, but they had to spend a lot to keep people like Ayala from going to Real for example)

I think you lot believe that every EPL club lines up with Ivanovic-Carvalho-Terry-Cole. Have you seen with the kind of crap Sunderland gets by? Bardsley? McCartney? Bolton has Gary Cahill, sure, but also Zat Knight, Robinson, Ricketts... I think your defense is sorted and you'll be fine. Also: Ramage - Bramble - Boumsong - Babayaro

Routledge for you lot would be mint, and I think he can potentially do the step up. Have you been linked to him or are you just suggesting the name?

Incidentally, Zaragoza looking to offload Braulio, Ayala, Luccin, Songo'o and Ewerthon. Ayala was one of the best CBs in the planet... 7-8 years ago. Luccin was a scary DM, but I think he's lost his legs already. Braulio's never been very good, but he scored that backheel against Spurs. Songo'o a tricky winger, and one of our former boys, but he isn't very good. However, he already has experience in being ineffectual in the CCC for a series of club, and even warmed the bench for Pompey. Ewherton scored 28 in Segunda División last year. Actually this reminds me somebody should go and rescue Zaragoza's *other* and better former Brazilian forward, Oliveira, who is now in some Arabian joke team (probably on crazy money though). Guy scored 15+ in back to back seasons of La Liga.

Must be a bit frustrating to see all your targets linked to EPL clubs, it is starting to feel like a FM game.

Main issues are with not being able to switch the play from left to right unless Simpson has pushed on BUT without the ball we have our right back totally exposed. Having both fullbacks pushing forward is quite dangerous, even Barça doesn't do that. If we want to switch play we usually do it via one of the central midfielders drifting and offering an outlet (this is commonly done with Iniesta going to the left when Alves pushes on the right)

Doing so increases pressure on the opposition's box, since with the wingers cutting in the defenders have more players to mark and it increases the likelihood of mistakes.

"If he keeps his great progression he will surely become a Spain regular"

I always thought his nickname was 'the buffalo' rather than 'the bull'? Sure VI mentioned it. His nickname at Villarreal was "El búfalo", yes. Check his thread at the Villarreal forum: http://www.forogroguet.com/v3/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=11988

Ah. That's how it's been reported in our media. However, ultimately this is just a verbal agreement, and the exact details won't come out until ink is put to paper after the elections.

Certainly. But, as I'm sure you agree, calling him corrupt is baseless. I thought Defoe fouled the keeper tbh. He gave him a tug across the shoulders and I assumed at the time that it was the reason the goal was disallowed. Aye, like Jermaine Defore muscled Reina to the ground. Anyway, I don't think Webb's corrupt but he's been shocking tonight and is generally a poor ref. Indeed, usually most accusations of referee bias and corruption are more easily explained by simple ineptitude.

There's an option for another but any of the parts can pull out after the first.

Oh, and I didn't post this when it happend a few weeks ago, but Juanma Lillo has taken charge of Almería. I'm glad to see him back to managing, his interviews are absolute crackers (probably the smartest Spanish manager around, but not really the most successful) and he always wants his teams to play silky football, which is usually his downfall. He is also very close to Guardiola (who considers him a bit of a mentor), and Pep wanted him to manage Barça when he was running for the DoF post in 2003.

That's one of the things that has been commented, but I believe his legacy - and challenge - would be to establish a dinasty, not just a tremendous season. Guardiola lives managing extremely intensely, though, and it is more or less acknowledged that he will burn out at some point. Yes, he is a club legend, he was already before him becoming our manager, imagine now.

Messi is left footed and plays on the right, Henry is right footed and plays on the left. Abidal and Alves, conversely, play on their natural sides and go forward to provide a crossing outlet. It works.

Please somebody tell me what the fuck has happened at Villa Park, I left half an hour ago to prepare lunch and it was 0-2 to the Rovers

Fun fact, Cronaldo has given 22 interviews since joining Real Madrid, while he just gave 2 (to non-club media) during his entire last season with Manchester United. In total he has been involved in 37 promotional events of different kinds since joining them. That doesn't count the ones he has separate from the club, like his photos for Armani, advertising a Portuguese bank, etc... Surprisingly, in between he manages to be a damn good footballer.