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[kaizoku]

great title run in, for some reason I had a feeling we'd drop points against boro, but also that chelsea wouldnt capitalise.

I still have a sneaking feeling they will beat us at home before we fail to beat west ham and lose it by a point. That would be a shame for good football imo. I would hate for chelsea to be so successful in what has been an amazing year for utd filled with amazing football and a poor year for them full of gritty wins. for them to win 2-4 trophies and utd to end up with nothing would be more painful than any other loss.

On another note, Ronaldo has just won both player of the year awards.

well done ronaldo.

PFA Team of the year:

Edwin VAN DER SAR - Manchester United

Gary NEVILLE - Manchester United
Patrice EVRA - Manchester United
Rio FERDINAND - Manchester United
Nemanja VIDIC - Manchester United

Steven GERRARD - Liverpool
Ryan GIGGS - Manchester United
Paul SCHOLES - Manchester United
Cristiano RONALDO - Manchester United

Didier DROGBA - Chelsea
Dimitar BERBATOV - Spurs

 

[Mama Smurf]

I don't understand what Gerrard's done this year to merit that.

Van der Sar doesn't deserve it either. The rest I don't have too much argument with, there's a few I'd change but I can understand the guys who got it.

 

[Booser]

PFA Team of the year:

Edwin VAN DER SAR - Manchester United

Gary NEVILLE - Manchester United
Patrice EVRA - Manchester United
Rio FERDINAND - Manchester United
Nemanja VIDIC - Manchester United

Steven GERRARD - Liverpool
Ryan GIGGS - Manchester United
Paul SCHOLES - Manchester United
Cristiano RONALDO - Manchester United

Didier DROGBA - Chelsea
Dimitar BERBATOV - Spurs

Whitewash! Or should that be redwash?

I'm glad to see Evra and Vidic get the recgnition they deserve, Evra has really turned things around for himself and Vidic especially has been immense. We have really missed him lately, especially in gritty, physical contests like Boro.

I didnt expect Ronaldo to get both awards. Thats just stunning. Im just worried he gets carried away with all this gushing praise and reverts back to being a one man show because he feels he is too good for team football. Hopefully Fergie will keep his feet on the ground.

We still have a 3 point cushion going into the final month (almost).

BELIEVE

I don't understand what Gerrard's done this year to merit that.

Agreed. Id actually put Essien in there ahead of him.

 

[kaizoku]

I know its quite strange, but I think Carrick and Rooney had genuine shouts to be included on there, Carrick has been key to our football and Rooney has had a very productive year even if he hasn't matched his own high standards, I'd say he's been better than berbatov.

VDS has been a bit weak in recent weeks, but before that he was fantastic and the votes were probably cast awhile back.

but its being voted by your peers so they must be voting based on direct experience of playing with these players....

would be criminal if utd didnt win the league this season.

 

[Lakitu]

Wow, that team is a pile of tosh, I've never seen a one-sided one such as that.

Here's my take:

Cech
Finnan Carragher Vidic Evra
Ronaldo Essien Fabregas Pedersen
Drogba Berbatov

 

[Ghost]

I don't understand what Gerrard's done this year to merit that.

Yeah i dont get that either.

 

[hadareud]

Do you want to share your betting results hadareud? [ highlight] without the space makes things red.

I lost 18 pounds out of 30 this weekend. Down a total of 11 pounds since I started. When I placed the bets for this weekend I knew I should sit out one week, but I didn't do it. Needless to say, I didn't get much right. Which calls for a change in my gameplan, I will only bet on games over 55 percent from now on and I will only bet on leagues I have a remote idea what to expect. Which is the Premiership and possibly the Championship. I will learn from this :lol

Seeing the results of the player of the year, you can't argue with Ronaldo winning it. He is more than deserving. Fabregas should have won the young player trophy though. And the team is a joke in my opinion.

 

[Ronok]

What is the maximum age for Young Player of the Year anyway? Ronaldo's 22... Really I think that's too old for Young player..... :-/ Especially now when the premiership really has so many talented young players coming through, it doesn't make much sence...... Then again this might be the Arsenal fan inside of me saying Fabregas should have got it. =P

I do think he should but that's just because of the age difference.....

The team imo is way off, but, it doesn't really matter.... I think all those nominated and those who made the team really do deserve the praise they get despite the fact most of the attention will go to Ronaldo. hehe

 

[MrPing1000]

21 when the season starts I think.


ps all the voting for all of the PFA stuff was in January. Yes it's dumb but thats the way they do it.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Well let's be fair, it's got to take at least a day to add up all the votes and an hour on top of that to let everyone know they're nominated, then there's the time it takes to teach Rooney how to read and write again each year. I'm amazed they can get it done within 4 months frankly.

 

[Wes]

Aww shucks, was rooting for Gabby Agbonlahor for the young players one.

 

[enishi]

Luckily we still keep the advantage on title run. Thank you Butt

Speaking on our formation against Milan, I think we may play 4-2-3-1 like recent matches, but with Fletcher and Carrick as CMF. And push Scholes forward as supportive striker role; rest Giggs since he seems to be very tired in last 2 matches. That will be like this:

------------------VDS------------------

Oshea------Brown----Henize----Evra (if he is ok)

----------Fletcher-----Carrick----------

Ronaldo--------Scholes--------Rooney

-----------------Smith-------------------

Although playing Rooney as winger is not a great idea, that may be a balance between attack and defense from our defense crisis. We cannot lose too many away goals...

 

[Mama Smurf]

Giggs can handle Milan, I hear the average age of their players is older than the current average age of death.

It's all the olive oil that does it.

 

[Cornballer]

Nice goal by Altidore against Houston yesterday. He had another good run where he dribbled past a few players and shot over the goal. I'm looking forward to him suiting up for the national team sooner or later.

 

[hadareud]

todays rumours:

TRANSFER RUMOURS

Celtic have joined the chase for West Brom midfielder Jason Koumas, who is also wanted by Aston Villa, Blackburn, Everton and Man City. (Daily Mirror)

Everton are set to beat Real Madrid to the £1m signing of Swiss midfielder Bruce Lalombongo. (Daily Mirror)

Portsmouth striker Andy Cole, currently on loan at Birmingham, will decide at the end of the season whether to join Australian club Queensland Rovers. (Daily Mirror)

OTHER GOSSIP

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is considering a £92.2m buy-out of Manchester City. (Thai newspaper The Nation)

Manchester United have only four fit defenders for the Champions League first leg against AC Milan. (Various)

Chief executive Peter Kenyon led a Chelsea delegation which went to LA to sound out Jurgen Klinsmann about the manager's job. (Daily Express)

Portsmouth director of football Avram Grant was also on the trip - ahead of taking over in the same role at Chelsea in the summer. (Daily Express)

Blackburn's Tugay has been offered a new one-year contract. (Daily Mirror)

Bradford want Peter Beagrie as manager - after giving up on getting Stuart McCall. (Daily Mirror)

American tycoon Stan Kroenke will need financial support from investment bankers in order to complete his takeover of Arsenal. (Daily Star)

Gerard Houllier and Spurs sporting director Damien Comolli are being linked with the director of football role at Arsenal. (Guardian)

AND FINALLY...

The Queen has revealed she supports Arsenal, following in the footsteps of the Queen Mother who was, according to a senior royal source, "a self-confessed Gooner, due largely to her admiration of former player Denis Compton". (The Sun)

Nothing too special/believable. I highly doubt that Houllier would be interested in the job btw.

But: the Queen is a gooner. How extraordinary.

 

[iilluminate]

PFA Team of the year:

Edwin VAN DER SAR - Manchester United

Gary NEVILLE - Manchester United
Patrice EVRA - Manchester United
Rio FERDINAND - Manchester United
Nemanja VIDIC - Manchester United

Steven GERRARD - Liverpool
Ryan GIGGS - Manchester United
Paul SCHOLES - Manchester United
Cristiano RONALDO - Manchester United

Didier DROGBA - Chelsea
Dimitar BERBATOV - Spurs

Do my eyes deceive me? United and Chelsea have been neck and neck all season! I think Cech, Terry and Essien all deserve to be included. To include only Drogba indicates some strong anti-Chelsea bias.

 

[Shinobi]

Poor shot from Baptista, but we shouldn't be too harsh on him, it's difficult to even see the ball with all that rain in his face.

Poor Baptista, the ball was so wet it just skimmed off his head.

Tottenham 2-2 Arsenal (April 21, 2007) - Arsenal are leading 2-1 after 94 minutes when a long-range effort from **** Face hands Tottenham a point.

Years later, when we eventually did get together for a while, I found out she'd liked me just as long and wanted to be on my team for the exact same reasons.

The dirty whore.

Giggs can handle Milan, I hear the average age of their players is older than the current average age of death.

It's all the olive oil that does it.

:lol :lol :lol Mama Smurf simply owns this thread...

What was wrong with Solskjaer's goal? I don't understand what he did wrong.

You can't do anything around goalkeepers anymore.

EDIT: Apparently the goalkeeper muist be allowed to strike the ball, according to the fourth official. That's a rule I was unaware of, and the commentators were unaware of, and apparently players are unaware of.

...I don't think it was a yellow card though.

Same thing happened with Henry a couple years ago...don't think he got a card though. But I remembered the rule from that point on, so the moment I saw Sols try it I knew it wouldn't count. I imagine that rule is there to protect the keeper's fingers from getting shredded by the opposing player's cleats.

Wait, here she is, I was just spelling her name in a non-stupid way, that's why I couldn't find her. It's Jacqui.

Not bad at all.

She's automatically the best commentator in the history of sports broadcasting. Could use a few of her kind calling games over here...**** these middle aged, out of shape white men.

Does anybody watch Star Sports streams on the web, there's a female presenter on there that's VERY distracting.

Is it the blonde that sits on the sofa? She looks absolutely gorgeous.

Come to think of it, Star Sports seemingly has a ****ing army full of babes hosting various sports highlight shows throughout the week. This makes them the best network in the history of sports broadcasting.

Man Utd fans may end up celebrating a Newcastle result? the end of the season really does cause some strange things :lol

You think that's odd? Wait till we play Chelsea in two weeks. :lol

Hard to believe there's only three games left in the season...doesn't seem like there's been much time off from soccer in the last two years, with the World Cup swallowing up most of last summer. And with Toronto FC in town (even though they kinda like er, suck), I guess they'll never be a real break from the game. That's not even getting into the Under 20 World Cup that's being hosted here, which I'm pretty excited about (Canada plays Argentina in an Under 20 friendly in a couple weeks...I plan to attend).

Thankfully there's one big game for us Gooners to look for. Arsenal vs Chelsea oughta be a treat. Gallas will finally get a chance to play against his former team, and Cashley will get to hear it from 55,000 fans that don't like him too much. I can't see how we're gonna win that game though...but I'd be more than happy with a draw. I suspect Man U fans would feel the same way.

Speaking of which, yesterday's game didn't bother me. We've got a top four spot about as locked up as you can get without it being official, and we kept our unbeaten run against Spurs intact, so that was all I cared about. It's funny though...both teams have made it a habit of getting late equalizers in these North London derbys. Tottenham scored two goals in the last ten minutes in the game that clinched the title in '04 (Spurs fans celebrated like crazy, apparantely thinking a tie would've kept us from winning the title that day :lol), Henry scored with about ten minutes left coming off the bench at Highbury last year, Mido had that equalizer in the second leg of the Carling Cup semi final, and now Jenas with his trick yesterday. Tottenham players and fans were again a little too giddy from merely rescuing a point, which BTW was enough to allow us to celebrate St Tottingham Day (the day when the chances of Spurs finishing with more points in the league than Arsenal is mathmatically impossible :lol). It's not like they kept their UEFA Cup spot for very long either. ****ing morons.

As far as the PFA Team of the Year goes, Arsenal basically beat them twice, so they can't be THAT good. Still, it's something voted on by the players, and their vote carries a little more weight to me then a bunch of old farts who do nothing but scribble bullshit to paper.

 

[Luna104]

nm

 

[Wes]

We don't want an ex-Bromie at Villa thanks!

 

[Osorio]

Nice goal by Altidore against Houston yesterday. He had another good run where he dribbled past a few players and shot over the goal. I'm looking forward to him suiting up for the national team sooner or later.

He should've scored at least 3 in that game. Hopefully when Angel comes he can teach Altidore a few things. I haven't felt this excited about this team in a long time. I'm feeling definite cup contenders at this point.

 

[psycho_snake]

The PFA team is wierd. Its almost as if fergie put together the team of the season. The players in the PFA team that I believe deserve to be in it are evra, vidic, ronaldo and drogba. Giggs and berbatov are arguable.

I cant get my head around stevie gerrard getting ino that team. he's been average this season. Cesc and Essien should be the ones in midfield. Cesc has done brilliantly for someone so young. he's not even 20 yet he's the main player of the team. Essien has really impressed me. Last season he was an overpaid thug, but this season he's been the best midfielder and right back in the premiership.

I dont get how van der sar gets the goalie position. He's been decenty, but he's made some mistakes this season, the one against portsmouth being very costly. Im going to go for the unlikely choice of david james. He srtill makes the dumb mistakes thats given him a bad reputation, but its difficult not to admire him when he's on form. When james is having one of his days, he is one of the best goalie's in europe. Buffon would be proud of some of the saves james makes.

The other central defender alongside vidic should be Carvalho. He's unlucky in the sense that he's playing alongside terry because whenever chelsea do well defensively, terry gets all the praise, but carvalho plays such an important role in that defence. He deserves more dredit than he gets.

Im stuck with right backs. I might just put essien there and stick Scholes in midfield. Giggs is arguably good enough, but arteta has been doing very well this season. Im going to go for giggs and yes, that is being a bit bias, but most people would agree that he does deserve it. For a 33 year old winger he's done wonders . Pedersen would have been a candidate, but he wasnt that good at the beginning of the season; he only began playing well later on.

Upfront drogba definately gets a place, but alongside him its either berbatov or benni mccarthy. Benni has been the bargain of the season. 15 goals is an excellent return from someone whop costs 2.5 million pounds. berbatov gets all the praise for bheing the best player outside the top four, but benni has to be considered.

This would be my team of the season

James

Evra
Vidic
Carvalho
Essien

Giggs
Cesc
Scholes
Ronaldo

Benni
Drogba

 

[psycho_snake]

All the talk about teams not being given penalties at OT are bullshit. There have been two incidents in the last two games where a penalty should have been given to sheffield united and boro. Both of them were clear penalties, but what people seem to forget, or ignore, is that united should have been given a penalty against sheffied united. One of the sheffield united defenders were holding rooney. Rooney got pulled down and the ball also hit the sheff united players arm, so there were two good shouts for a penalty. Rob styles was standing right infront of it and could see what happened perfecty, so he should have given the penalty. In a way the decisions balanced themselves out during that game.

Now I'll admit that we were very lucky against doro. they should have been given a penalty and o'shea should have been sent off. It was a clear penalty. That decision could be very costly for chelsea. A three point gap ias relatively safe for us because of our superior goal difference. Had the penalty against boro been given and they scored from it, we would only have been two points ahead and it could have been a massive difference.

However its stupid that mourinho is complaining. There have been times in the past when John terry has clearly handballed the ball in the area and nothing has been given. Im sure that if you go through all; the games in the last three seasons you'll find incidinets where chelaea shouldn't have been awarded a penalty and where the opposition should have been awarded a penalty. I was frustrated to see Chelsea get that luck and Im sure Chelsea fans are just as pissed off as us united fans were, but its happened to them and its part of football. So rather than mourinho blaming the ref, he should look at why his team couldnt capitalize on a glorious chance to catch up to us.

 

[Ghost]

Mourinho is a genius as far as im concerned, once again Chelsea play like crap and there is absolutely no mention of it on any of the back pages. He's obviously running low on material to wheel out the Refs @ old trafford story but the press ate it up once again so the players go another week with absolutely no pressure to perform from the fans.

 

[hadareud]

genius might be a bit of a stretch as he's not the only manager capable of this, but yeah, he's very smart and he is extremely good at this.

 

[Ronok]

All the talk about teams not being given penalties at OT are bullshit. There have been two incidents in the last two games where a penalty should have been given to sheffield united and boro. Both of them were clear penalties, but what people seem to forget, or ignore, is that united should have been given a penalty against sheffied united. One of the sheffield united defenders were holding rooney. Rooney got pulled down and the ball also hit the sheff united players arm, so there were two good shouts for a penalty. Rob styles was standing right infront of it and could see what happened perfecty, so he should have given the penalty. In a way the decisions balanced themselves out during that game.

Now I'll admit that we were very lucky against doro. they should have been given a penalty and o'shea should have been sent off. It was a clear penalty. That decision could be very costly for chelsea. A three point gap ias relatively safe for us because of our superior goal difference. Had the penalty against boro been given and they scored from it, we would only have been two points ahead and it could have been a massive difference.

However its stupid that mourinho is complaining. There have been times in the past when John terry has clearly handballed the ball in the area and nothing has been given. Im sure that if you go through all; the games in the last three seasons you'll find incidinets where chelaea shouldn't have been awarded a penalty and where the opposition should have been awarded a penalty. I was frustrated to see Chelsea get that luck and Im sure Chelsea fans are just as pissed off as us united fans were, but its happened to them and its part of football. So rather than mourinho blaming the ref, he should look at why his team couldnt capitalize on a glorious chance to catch up to us.

It doesn't just go as far back as a couple of weeks..... Look at the stats for the number of penalties given against man u at OT........ I'm not too sure if it still stands now, but, last year it stood at 0 in years........... The arguement is there, but, there isn't really any evidence that goes against it being pure luck. lol

 

[hadareud]

 

[Mama Smurf]

People do seem to forget Benni McCarthy, which I'm happy about. The less attention he gets the better as fas as I'm concerned.

I don't know why though, he's the 3rd top scorer in the league with 15 goals, 2nd top striker. Berbatov, on the otherhand, is in joint 17th place with 9. Even taking away penalties McCarthy remains a couple of goals ahead of the Bulgarian.

Taking all games into account, not just the Premiership, it's much closer with McCarthy on 21 and Berbatov 20, but we got our guy for £2.5m, while they got theirs for £11m, so I know who I think was the better buy.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=BTa8c2WAyGY

Check out his shot against Fulham, go to the 3:50 mark and it's just after that.

In other news, Simao Sabrosa is being linked to Liverpool. Apparently he has a £13.5m release clause, so even if Benfica don't want to lose him he could go. If you remember, he was one of the players I said Liverpool could look at with their new found wealth, and in fact one of the two I said they should definitely go for in the transfer window. The other was Tal Ben Haim...let's see if it happens.

 

[Wes]

What side of the field does Simao play?

 

[Mama Smurf]

Either, though I believe he's right footed. He's basically Cristiano Ronaldo lite.

 

[Wes]

Pennant is never going to get a game now!

 

[hadareud]

McCarthy definitely would be at least as deserving to be in the team as Berbatov.

Even Van Persie should have been in contention imo, especially since this list was made in January, when he was in excellent form. He is still joined 8th in the top goal scores list and was 2nd at the time of his injury. Which isn't bad for the type of striker he is

And what did Ferdinand do to be on this list? And Neville?

Obviously Man Utd were great at the time of voting, but Ferdinand would not even be in my top 5 centrebacks, let alone the 1st team.

I always knew that footballers are stupid. Until next year, when Cesc will win it. Then they're not stupid.

 

[Lakitu]

I've never seen Sabrosa play so I can't judge to be honest, he's not very good on Football Manager 2007 though

I'd rather we went for Quaresma.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Man Utd's injury crisis just gets worse. Apparently only 10 outfield players trained today, with Evra still a doubt and Solskjaer just sitting it out (though he'll be fine for the bench apparently).

They're missing Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic, probably Evra, Silvestre, Richardson, Cathcart (I don't know who he is, only that he's a defender lower down the ranks and even he's been injured), Park and Saha. If this isn't a situation worthy of recalling players like Bardsley and Pique from their loans, I don't know what is.

Anyway, they'll probably have to play:

Fletcher---Brown---O'Shea---Heinze

though I suppose Heinze and O'Shea could swap. And if any one of them gets injured, there's no defensive cover whatesoever. Carrick will have to go into defence and I guess Smith back into midfield and Solskjaer on up front.

United just need to make it to the second leg still in the game. Then Evra and Neville should be back and things look a lot better, if not ideal. Obviously they need to protect their back 4 more than usual, I imagine Ferguson will stick with his European 5 man midfield with Rooney on the left so that should help, but keeping possession will also be key. In fact, United are such a dangerous team on the break, I'd be tempted to play deeper than normal, to both protect the weaker back 4 and expose Milan on the counter attack.

 

[Wes]

Sounds about right Mama. Carrick needs to have a great game. I see him staying deep most of the time, not venturing forward as much as we've seen in recent games. I can Milan looking to shut down Ronaldo a lot so Giggs/Scholes/Rooney will have to be the creative spark in the midfield here.

 

[Mama Smurf]

I like Ferdinand, he's really stepped up his game recently, kind of like Drogba. He doesn't make the mistakes he used to, in fact ever since the World Cup I think he's been England's best defender, he certainly was during the World Cup where Terry had a bad run of form. I'd probably put Carvalho ahead of him personally, maybe Carragher, but no one else.

Neville is the second best right back in the country to my mind, after Finnan. I can't think of anyone else who could compete for that spot.

I think you probably have seen Simao play and just don't realise, Lakitu. He's played against England and Liverpool before now.

In fact...you might remember being knocked out of the CL by a certain Portugese team last year:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jQZ-0vaxNiY&mode=related&search=

He's scored 72 goals in 172 games for Benfica, so I think he'd be a real success.

 

[Lakitu]

I think you probably have seen Simao play and just don't realise, Lakitu. He's played against England and Liverpool before now.

In fact...you might remember being knocked out of the CL by a certain Portugese team last year:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jQZ-0vaxNiY&mode=related&search=

He's scored 72 goals in 172 games for Benfica, so I think he'd be a real success.

.................HIM

 

[Cornballer]

He should've scored at least 3 in that game. Hopefully when Angel comes he can teach Altidore a few things. I haven't felt this excited about this team in a long time. I'm feeling definite cup contenders at this point.

You've got some crazy fans there...

I didn't watch the entire game - just a few highlights here and there.

 

[hadareud]

I'm still not convinced by Ferdinand. Of course he has the ability, but to me it looks like he only plays if he feels like it. That's not a great attribute for a striker, but very concerning for a centreback.

He did have a good season, but whenever Man Utd struggled it was that time of the month for Ferdinand. It didn't happen too often, especially compared to the last few seasons, I agree with that. I would still rate Terry, Campbell, Toure, Vidic and Carragher higher than him this season, possibly even more (Woodgate etc.).

 

[Lakitu]

I'm hearing Arsenal target Eric Abidal is probably heading to Barca. Truth?

 

[Cornballer]

The New York Times checks in with South Africa's world cup preparations. Too long of an article to quote the whole thing, but it's worth a read if you're thinking about going in 2010 like me. The article speculates that attendance will be about 1/10th of the people that showed up to Germany.

 

[Mama Smurf]

On the Quaresma/Simao thing...why not buy both?

Old post phoenix down!

GK

Reina
Dudek

LB

Riise
Aurelio

RB

Finnan
Arbeloa

CB

Carragher
Agger
Hyypia
Paletta

LW

Kewell
Leto

RW

Pennant

CM

Gerrard
Alonso
Sissoko
Mascherano
Luis Garcia
Zenden

FW

Bellamy
Voronin
Crouch/Kuyt

^ These are the players I said you should keep before adding others at the start of the month. I've changed my mind a bit now:

GK

Reina
Dudek

LB

Riise
Aurelio

RB

Finnan
Arbeloa

CB

Carragher
Agger
Hyypia
Paletta

LW

Leto

RW

Pennant

CM

Gerrard
Alonso
Sissoko
Mascherano
Luis Garcia
Zenden

FW

Voronin
Crouch
Kuyt

Kuyt had a bad run of form for a couple of months, but he's started scoring again and has picked up 12 league goals this year (13 with other competitions). Crouch may only be on 9 in the league, but 18 overall means you can't lose him...so it's Bellamy on the way out. And rumours seem to support this anyway.

Kewell is the other change, I think he's good but not needed if you were to bring in the two Portugese. Besides, you could get decent money for such an injury prone player.

So you'd be selling:

Fowler - free
Gonzalez - £4m
Bellamy - £8m
Carson - £5m
Cisse - £7m
Le Tallec - £1m
Kewell - £4m

= £29m

Now we'll work off the lowest transfer budget we've heard, £40m.

Simao - £13.5m
Quaresma - £17m
Ben Haim - free

That leaves £9.5m for a striker, even if you didn't sell anyone. If you sold the players above for the price I said, you'd have a massive £38.5m left, but even if you only sold Bellamy and Carson, you should easily make the £20m mark. Then you buy Klose or Trezeguet or Bent or whoever.

Leto is supposed to be a star of the future, the best player since Messi to come out of South America or something like that, so you might question buying two other wingers...but he is only 20, he's one for the future as much as now.

GK

Reina
Dudek

LB

Riise
Aurelio

RB

Finnan
Arbeloa

CB

Carragher
Agger
Ben Haim
Hyypia
Paletta

LW

Simao
Leto

RW

Quaresma
Pennant

CM

Gerrard
Alonso
Sissoko
Mascherano
Luis Garcia
Zenden

FW

Voronin
Crouch
Kuyt
Klose

Or if you sell enough guys, maybe an even better striker than Klose.

Alternatively, you could keep Kewell and spend the combined money of Quaresma and Simao on Alves instead.

 

[Mama Smurf]

BTW, when did Portugal become Brazil? If we started speaking Portugese in England, would we produce such talented midfielders too?

 

[Wes]

Klose will leave Germany this summer but I think it'll be for more than £9mill! I think a lot of clubs would be after him.

O'Neill seems to have his heart set on getting Bellamy to Villa Park so you'll probably get £6-£8mill for him there.

 

[psycho_snake]

I'm still not convinced by Ferdinand. Of course he has the ability, but to me it looks like he only plays if he feels like it. That's not a great attribute for a striker, but very concerning for a centreback.

He did have a good season, but whenever Man Utd struggled it was that time of the month for Ferdinand. It didn't happen too often, especially compared to the last few seasons, I agree with that. I would still rate Terry, Campbell, Toure, Vidic and Carragher higher than him this season, possibly even more (Woodgate etc.).

The only defenders better than ferdinand are vidic, terry and possibly carvalho. He's an excellent defender and this season has been his best. He's very composed. You rarely see him make a bad pass and when he brings the ball out of the defence he does it well. Ferdinands problem was that he was careless at times, but I cant really think of a time that he's made a mistake this season. Yes I do remember what happened at portsmouth, but that was van der sars fault more than his.

And since we're talking about defenders, let me make something clear about carragher. His work rate cant be criticised but on the technical side of things he's shit. There are times that henry and other top class strikers have made him look like a sunday league player. I do like carragher because he works harder than any player in the premiership. He's the one player that you know will play football with the same enthusiasm even if he wasnt paid. I love him for that sort of commitment, but when it comes to technique, he's poor.

 

[psycho_snake]

The New York Times checks in with South Africa's world cup preparations. Too long of an article to quote the whole thing, but it's worth a read if you're thinking about going in 2010 like me. The article speculates that attendance will be about 1/10th of the people that showed up to Germany.

I'm planning to go. My best friends gf lives in SA, so myself, him and a couple of our other friends will probably go there. Ive heard that cigarettes and beer is very cheap over there, so it should be ****ing awesome if we can go.

 

[Cornballer]

I'm planning to go. My best friends gf lives in SA, so myself, him and a couple of our other friends will probably go there. Ive heard that cigarettes and beer is very cheap over there, so it should be ****ing awesome if we can go.

I'm planning on going, as well. Should be a good tournament if SA can get their act together and finish preparations in time. Sounds like we won't have as much trouble getting tickets as in Germany due to low turnout. I wonder how the stadium capacities measure up - perhaps they're building smaller ones because there won't be as many people there.

 

[hadareud]

We'll have to disagree then. Not about Carragher though, I know that his ability is limited.

 

[Mama Smurf]

Klose will leave Germany this summer but I think it'll be for more than £9mill! I think a lot of clubs would be after him.

After they've sold players to have £20m min left.

O'Neill seems to have his heart set on getting Bellamy to Villa Park so you'll probably get £6-£8mill for him there.

My heart's bigger than O'Neill's!

Carragher lacks pace, nothing else. The reason he can cope despite lacking pace is because he's technically so good. There's a reason Liverpool have such a good defence, and he's it. They;ve had the second best defence these last two seasons, second only to Chelsea.

 

[psycho_snake]

I'm planning on going, as well. Should be a good tournament if SA can get their act together and finish preparations in time. Sounds like we won't have as much trouble getting tickets as in Germany due to low turnout. I wonder how the stadium capacities measure up - perhaps they're building smaller ones because there won't be as many people there.

I doubt they are going to have a problem with low attendances. Its the loody world cup. Whilst SA might not be as popular as germany, I reckon tickets will still sell very very quickly.

We'll have to disagree then. Not about Carragher though, I know that his ability is limited.

Toure is debatable. The only thing that he's going agaisnt him is that arsenal have been letting in too many goals, which really makes no sense considering toure and gallas sound like a perfect central defence partnership on paper. As for campbell, its arguable that he was better than ferdinand when he was the same age as him, but do you still think that now?

 

[Mama Smurf]

There's no way I'm going to South Africa. They have spiders the size of dinner plates! I'd rather Robbie Savage sat on my face.

Besides, it's basically the same timezone as the UK anyway, I'll wait for a WC where I can either go or watch the matches during the night before I head out somewhere.