Morning chaps and PocketMouse.
EURO 2008 first then. 4 games this weekend. I am very excited. Switzerland v Czech Republic and Turkey v Portugal first up tomorrow, then Austria v Croatia and the 1939 replay Germany v Poland on Sunday which kicks off at 19:45, the same time the Germans were kicked out of Poland. I always enjoy watching the Czechs and hope against hope that they can qualify. Also looking forward to seeing Croatia on Sunday and seeing how they get on without Eduardo.
Elsewhere, this Ronaldo story won't go away. If his quotes are right then he seems to have burnt his bridges with Fergie and Man United. Best to let him go, get £80million and let him find out that the grass probably isn't all that greener in Madrid.
Juande Bamos wants to sign Lassana Diarra.
Dave Jones has told Aaron Ramsey to sign for Man United.
Everton are lining up a £3million move for Joe Lewis of Peterborough. This is the Joe Lewis who started last season on loan at Morecambe from Norwich.
Newcastle and West Ham are after Eidur Gudjohnsen.
Gareth Barry looks set for Liverpool after Villa reluctantly agree to let him go for £14million.
Martin O'Neill wants James Milner and Justin Hoyte.
Rafa Benitez wants Milner as well though. I hope he chooses Villa and regular football.
Middlesbrough want Crewe's Nicky Maynard and look set to sign Heerenveen's American midfielder Michael Bradley.
Chelsea want to sell Khalid Boulahrouz to Marseille.
Newcastle want to sign Paris St Germain's Didier Digard. A quality buy on FM 2007.
Sunderland's bids to sign Jonny Evans and Stephen Hunt are somewhat floundering at the moment.
Aberdeen striker Steve Lovell is set to sign for Bournemouth again.
Leeds want to sign Derby's Scottish winger Gary Teale for around £400,000.
Stoke want to sign Ipswich striker Jon Walters for about £1million.
Paul Ince and Steve McClaren may have to arm wrestle eachother to become new Blackburn manager.
Southend have transfer listed winger Nicky Bailey.
Carlisle wonderkid Gary Madine has signed a new 3 year contract.
Marlon Broomes has signed for Blackpool.
Hereford keeper Wayne Brown has signed for Bury.
Chesterfield have signed Swansea defender Kevin Austin.
It was the the MLB First-year player draft last night
That > ^this. But thanks for the Digard tip! I've just booted up a new game on FM2007.
He's at Le Havre
I think on 2007 and is usually gettable for about £350k. He usually becomes ace after the 1st season.
Gimme the fantasy league code.
Cheers.
.
http://www.drownedinsound.com/articles/3394882
Ta!
Thanks for all your hard work, Gareth.
I hope you'll be happy playing 25 games a season. xxx
I'm missing tomorrow's games because of a stupid wedding. Stupid wedding.
yeah, ta Garry
shame, looking more n more inevitable though
Everton can fuck right off
^This
Although Everton have got a bit of a reputation for buying young keepers then never really paying them that much. See - Ruddy, Simonsen etc
*playing even
You coming at us from the shed?
I'm hoping we can hang on to him for another season or 2. Might prove to be difficult though.
Summer House, I think you'll find...
Depends how he gets on this season really. If he has a really good few months, I could see him leaving in January. I'd be surprised to see him leave before the start of the season.
It's a fucking shed!
You're not Ryan from the OC!
It'd be a shame to lose him but I'm sure we'd make a tidy profit.
Seeing Ronaldo leave Man Utd would make me very happy.
I'd miss seing him play obviously but I'm a very bitter person and I like to witness unhappy Man Utd fans.
We love Ronaldo, he's going to be a Man Utd legend, best player in the world blah blah blah. Now he's putting a big middle finger up at your love for him and fucking off to Real Madrid, that's loyalty for you.
he hasnt gone yet!
He blatantly is going to leave though..
..he wants to leave, Real are prepared to spend stupid money to get him.
good.i absolutely hate him
i dont even like watching him play.you know when people are like "oh come hes a twat but you gotta love watching him play"
no not at all.i fucking hate him
he has been a great player for Utd
but, as with most footballers, he is first and foremost a preening, self-serving knobhead. Any Utd fan who ever thought otherwise was being naive.
But we've weathered plenty of big-name departures in the past, and with £60-80m presumably going into the transfer kitty rather than towards Malc's debt repayments, I don't see why we can't cope with this one as well.
*as with most people
He wants success at as many places as possible and to earn as much money as possible. He isn't Mother Teresa, but he isn't guilty of much more than being your average human being
perhaps
but a bit of loyalty to the club would have been nice, considering what Ferguson and Queiroz have done for him. Watching him pimp himself to Madrid has been disappointing.
Tbh I'm just sick of hearing and reading about it every day, if he is going to go then for Christ's sake let's get it over and done with and move on.
I think the problem probably is
more how he has gone about it, rather than the possibility of moving itself.
I remember Chelsea sitting on top of the league about 5 years ago and Desailly saying that if they won the league he'd move on, despite it being his first season, because he'd always aimed to win as many different trophies as possible. His openess and the way he said it made it hard to be angry at him.
We'd be nowhere near as gutted
about losing Ronnie as your lot are about Moscow.
To be honest, if people are talking such daft sums of money, sell him - hell, drive him there - no player is worth that much and if we can actually invest that money rather than plug Uncle Malc's interest bill, I'd trust Fergie with it no problem to get a couple of world class young players in. The days of Veron, Bellion, Kleb and DJ2 are a bit of a distant memory, and who's to say that coming out of Ronaldo's shadow wouldn't bring the best out of Rooney?
I don't think you'd collapse
Even without Ronaldo, you'd be dead certs for either 1st or 2nd next year.
He would be a major loss to your side and it would massively affect how you played though.
It was aimed at the Man Utd fans that love him to bits..
..not all fans.
No matter what anyone says you can't replace Ronaldo, no winger is going to get that many goals/assists Man Utd will not be the same without him. You'll still obviously have a great team though.
Dos Santos to Spurs
I'll only decide how I feel about this after the fee is disclosed.
I've never seen him play
is he any good? Same with this Jo bloke being connected to City
i saw him score a REALLY nice lob once but that was about it
he's the Mexican Jason Cundy
isn't he
Didn't he score from close to the halfway line
once by slipping over when hoofing the ball forward?
.
that's the fella
Could be interesting.
My friend (who's a Barcelona fan) was quite excited about him.
7.9 million
apparently. Not a bad piece of business, really.
£6m until he makes so many appearances etc
then £7.9 after that.
GOod signing, especially with the silly money we've splashed out in the past.
'19:45, the same time the Germans were kicked out of Poland'
brilliant.
^^^^^This
I can't believe I forgot to metion it.
Yes, many lols!
:D
I just got tickets to see Franz Ferdinand
JUST found out it's the same date as the final.
ARGH.
Should be pretty good in a small venue, but not worth missing it for. I'm hoping to Sky+ and not find out the score...
Where abouts?
Seetickets has nothing on the final day.
Jumbo
apparently tickets are only available from there and crash. A few people were queueing up this morning.... wouldn't be surprised if it's sold out now, annoyingly.
I suppose that'll be Ince then
I could live with that.
Well, over McClaren anyhow.
Actually, screw that, I vote Tugay for player-manager. He's already on the coaching staff, so that's half way there...
Anyone is better than McClaren.
please let it be Shearer
and please let him fail
cheers
The worst thing, is that
a fair proportion of Rovers fans seem to -want- to become a Newcastle training/exoerimentation ground. It scares me. I imagine we're pretty safe from that one though...
I don't know
like you say a lot of your fans seem to want it
But they're idiots
Just have to hold out hope that John Williams isn't...
I'm missing out on all the transfer gossip
Inter apparently don't want Drogba. I don't blame them
C'mon Poland!
I have no faith in them even scoring a goal but I have to support them. Oh why could my Grandfather not have been Spanish.
They ought
to at least score against Austria.
Especially with the awesome might
of Ebi Smolarek.
Racing Santander flop
But really good on the international scene? The Polish David Healy?
We can have an e-brawl this sunday.
My grandma is german.
is that you on my lawn?
Am I naked?
yes, and may I say Bravo
I feel sorry for you.
I get to support Chelsea & Italy you get Derby & Poland. ;)
and don't forget England
although i guess we share that curse.
I'm comfortable with defeat, my side as a youngster went 2 years without victory...
i'd bite milan's hand off
if they really want to give us £32m for adebayor...
It's obvious Cardiff want Ramsey to go to Man Utd
Any danger of Dave Jones getting his tongue out of Ferguson's arse? I may be biased, but I'd say both Arsenal and Everton are better options for him in terms of playing time
Everton probably
not so sure about Arsenal. I think he'd be on the fringes of both Arsenal and Man United's side. Carling Cup fodder.
not if Utd loan him straight back to Cardiff for a year
Top class young players get pleanty of games at United
ones that are just 'good' don't.
If Ramsey is as good as he's made out to be, there's no better club than United for him, esp if he's willing to do a season back on loan first.
Hell, learning from Scholes and eventually perhaps replacing him? Is there actually a more attractive offer ANYWHERE?
I'd rather ramsey come to arsenal
but i invisage him going to everton for some reason. ManUre can just fuck off.
A funny quote from an Arsenal blog
"We're one of a number of clubs who have had bids accepted for the midfielder but the smart money is on him joining United. You see, this all boils down to whether he's a cunt or not. If he joins United then we know that he's a cunt. If he joins us then he's not a cunt and is determined to join the fight against cunts. It's possibly the greatest method of discovering if someone's a cunt or not."
I hope he comes to Arsenal.
'If he joins us then he's not a cunt'
erm, Eboue?
How, in three whole minutes,
did you manage to come up with just one example?
I didn't give it three minutes' solid thought obv
special dishonourable mentions to Gallas, Van Persie, the recently-departed Lehmann and also Fabregas for that weird Cesc Fabregas Show thing on Sky.
I haven't seen that show
But I imagine it's beyond terrible. I don't think van Persie is terribly cunty, but he does have shit hair I guess. I will grant you Gallas and Eboue with no complaints.
it was just bizarre
loads of odd sketches and pointless cameos from celebrity 'footie' fans. It didn't help that it was presented by that complete knobber Andy Goldstein either.
I only saw five minutes
but the biggest problem seemed to be Cesc Fabregas has absolutely zero charisma, so any time he spoke (quite often given the show), all the energy was sucked out and all you could hear was Arsenal fans laughing at his scripted jokes like he was a girl they fancied.
This is the exact reason I haven't watched it
All his talent went into being an awesome footballer, there was none left for charisma.
Someone needs to leave a comment
reminding them that as of this moment Arsenal still hold the registration of Jens Lehmann.
:D
Paul Merson
And
Chris Kamara were massive arsenal cunts
I'm in Switzerland when it all kicks off.
SWISH!
Everyone's taking it incredibly seriously here. In a sort of cuatiously diplomatic "Oh, this should be quite exciting" way for which they are rightly famous.
And the Portugal-Turkey match is taking place about 20 minutes from where I study! It's wonderful.
I still think the Czechs are going to hammer the Swiss in the opening game though.
by the way, what does everyone think about this
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/jun/06/facup
the dreamer in me thinks this is a beautiful idea, but the part of me with a head on says it'll "devalue" the FA Cup amongst the very top clubs even more
most of all, i think this proves that nationality is a bit of a weird concept in club football, and generally unimportant
It would be more of a statement
than anything. Most clubs play what? Two or three games in the FA Cup?
It's hardly going to lead to a boom in English players coming through.
The key here is this
"Triesman is unconvinced that Blatter's motion to impose a quota of homegrown players on clubs would make it past EU anti-discrimination laws, but believes that some kind of voluntary agreement might be reached over cup competitions"
No Premiership club with any interest in winning the FA Cup will voluntarily agree. So either it won't happen, or it will confirm that as far as the big boys are concerned, the FA Cup is worthless.
Dos Santos for £4.8m
Initially, rising in incriments to £8.8 dependant on appearances.
If you manage to keep Berbatov
That's a pretty tasty front line you're putting together
But please, no SPURS WILL BREAK THE TOP FOUR this year, yeah?
SPURS WILL BREAK THE TOP FOUR
this year
Fantastic deal
Lot of people lining up to say he's never going to make much of himself. Anyone who say his hat-trick against Murcia last month knows he's still got a ridiculous amount of talent on his day.
*saw
Pffffffffffffffffffffft!
"Former Chelsea striker Adrian Mutu ordered to pay London club £12m for 2004 positive cocaine test."
I thinks it's ridiculous to be honest.
He made one mistake and got sacked for it, isn't that enough?
he should of been clever and not turned up to his drugs test thing
rio got away with it
Eight month ban isn't really getting away with it
8 months or potentially getting the sack from man utd
he won
:D
Exactly! Why go to a drugs test when you've obviously been taking drugs? If they can't test you, they can only be unproved allegations.