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Good news: you didn't miss anything. Bad news: you didn't miss anything.
In case anyone is interested.
Chelsea v Barca
Spurs v PSG
Arsenal v Inter
Aston Villa v Ajax
Liverpool v Sporting CP
Spurs get a really tough draw. If they beat PSG they get Barca or Chelsea.
Olympiacos v Anderlecht
Juve v Rosenborg
CSKA Moscow v PSV Eindhoven
Chelsea has a tough decision on goal keepers starting this summer. Courtouis (21), who is widely thought of as the second best or some say best keeper in La Liga this year, is very likely going to be a target of Barca and other clubs. He's on contract for another 2 years, but he's definitely ready to start. Keepers age differently so I'm not worried about Cech (31), but there will need to be a decision on whether you can ride out Cech for another 5 years or start the future now.
I'll be sad to see her go on one level. She is exactly my daughter's age, and they trained with the same trainer one summer. My daughter was really impressed at how strong ARod was. It was kind of nice to say that my daughter knew someone on the WNT. It's a shame she never lived up to her promise.
Enjoy!
Not sure where exactly you're getting your "news" from, but the deal's been announced on LFC's website. The delay was likely due to LFC/Coutinho trying to secure a work permit.
ESPN is stupid, that's where!
One possible stop gap which appears to have been discussed is loaning him to a Championship club for next season, so as to give him experience of the English game (which is demonstrably different for keepers, as De Gea's experience has shown).
This seems very reasonable, yeah. I hadn't thought of that way, but it does make a lot of sense.
Yeah, it is. She has had some really great moments in the uniform, though, which I guess is all anyone can ask for.
You have no idea how happy this made me. So anyway, here's the equivalence, I think:
Jim White - Jean Valjean (I am not okay with this)
Marouane Fellaini - Marius (that, err, sort of makes sense?)
Darren Bent - Eponine (well, I guess he is, at Villa, at least)
nobody - Cosette (well, technically Fellaini sings all of her lines, but still, that's the peril in having no individual lines in the song)
Roman Abramovich - Enjolras (*I'm* okay with that^, but I guess you all would find Javert more appropriate for him)
Arsene Wenger - Javert (forget it, this one is actually sort of perfect)
Harry Redknapp - the Thenardiers (this one is also perfect)
^ in the interest of full confession, like a seeming majority of Americans, I was in a production of Les Mis in high school and this was my role, so I actually really like this one, but that's my fandom showing.
"Here a little wheel, there a little deal / What a t'riffic player, he's a bloody steal"Also the peril of having one guy sing - he's already well beyond his range singing Bentonine's alto part.
edit: fixed some kind of freudian slip spelling error.
As I said regarding the handling of Lucas' comeback, I will never understand how PL teams handle players coming back from injury. I agree that the Defoe thing sounds sketchy. It never ceases to amaze me how every so often the Guardian or some other paper comes out with an article about how PEDs are unlikely to be used in football. Given the nature of the sport (soccer is pretty much all about stamina and recovery) I've always found that perspective naive. What exactly do they think the Milan Lab has been up to all these years?
No one does. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow. There have been so many rumors but Harry Kane coming back from his loan at Norwich seems the most likely solution. Callejon on loan from Real Madrid is another semi-realistic possibility as I don't think Spurs are going to buy anyone else this window.
Why not loan him to a Premier League team? Loan him to a team like Reading or Southampton (or their equivalent next year) would give him top-level experience and a lot of shot-stopping opportunities, although the risk of loss of confidence would probably be something to worry about. I can't imagine Courtois wanting to stay at Chelsea if Barcelona bids and tells him he'll be their first choice keeper. Obviously Chelsea can say no, but Cech has got at least three of four more peak years.
TBF, the ref has been terrible.
edit: On replay, maybe that was an ok call, but in the context of all the no-calls, it's really terrible.
Yep, seems like the perfect use case for recovery PEDs.
Bwahahaha!
EDIT: The googling also revealed the requisite Wikipedia vandalization of referee Daniel Bennett's page. "Bennett mysteriously won the Tunisian lottery on January 30th, 2013."
EDIT: Interesting in that this is back-to-back starts for Torres. Was expecting game-by-game rotation or Ba to grab 3 out of 5.
Interesting lineup for Liverpool. Carragher starting against Arsenal seems...questionable.
Skrtel seems to be in the dog house at the moment. He hasn't been good recently, but seems a much better option than Carragher.
Wondering if Walcott up front might not be a better option than Giroud. Not sure Liverpool can handle his pace in the middle. Of course, Arsene knows best and Walcott is on the right again.
I think the problem is that even if Walcott is better than Giroud in the middle, Giroud is useless if he's not in the middle whereas Walcott and Podolski are still good out wide. So if you put Walcott central you waste Giroud on the bench.
I'm pretty sure that Sepp has declared that there are no PEDs in football. And if he hasn't declared it, that is only because it needn't be said.
And that's before one gets into the tangled web of what Juventus were or weren't doing in the first half of the aughts.
To be fair, Southampton outplayed United the first game as well.
Marseille were widely thought to be doping during the Tapie years (86 -94), in part because Tapie's first foray into sports was in cycling. MilanLab was founded in 2002, right around the time that Juve were building the inventory at their pharmacy and Parma were giving all of their players IV treatments before big matches. There was a general interest among Italian clubs in better living through chemistry that we are unlikely ever to know the full details of, and plenty of players who submitted to injections without any idea of what was in the syringe. And for what it's worth, the rules at the time were even vaguer than MLB's.
Speaking of the Siggunator, sometime soon he is going to have a game where he comes on and scores a hat trick in about ten minutes and assists another two. His appearances the last two or three months have consistently been quiet but also quietly good. He works hard, he makes really smart runs to get into great positions (that Defoe and Dempsey pretty much never pick up on), and he's been beaten by the woodwork and some incredible goalkeeping on four or five occasions.
Back to Holtby, what impressed me the most besides his obvious skill was that he wasn't afraid to jump right into a tetchy, combative game and demand the ball straight away, all the time. That sort of energy and assertiveness is a good way to endear yourself to English fans right out of the gate. When that all goes wrong, though, you get...
Scott Parker, who looked like a kitten chasing a laser pointer out there. He should be slowly improving at this point, but in my view he's gotten steadily worse since coming back. Spurs really can't afford to be carrying a passenger in that area of the pitch while Scotty tries to play himself back into shape. He's a yard off the pace, his passing (never a strength to begin with) stinks, and he's surprisingly even lacking positional discipline as he tries to do too much too soon.
Spurs have already got holes elsewhere; they need that midfield to be solid if they're going to remain a team that's difficult to beat. A side with better attacking ability than Norwich (i.e. any attacking ability) would have scored a lot more than the one goal in that first half. Parker gets a free pass from way too many Spurs fans because he's tenacious and stuff. Tonight he was tenaciously terrible. I don't know if this means Livermore will get a shot or if this forces Levy's hand to meet Diame's release clause or try to swing some other stopgap deal.
News on the dawn of deadline day - thinly sourced reports of Everton turning their Fer money into Negredo, which would be a brilliant purchase. Just a pretty good striker would make a big difference for the toffees, who have been held back a lot by Jelavic's terribleness. And on the other side of things, reports of Sunderland buying Danny Graham from Swansea, which seems like a badly flawed team purchasing a good player and still not actually fixing any of their flaws. He's classic #9, and Fletcher's already the best player on that club.
Oh, and Damiao to Spurs. It was reported in a place. It's totally happening of course.
Obviously Spurs are the weird rumor team today. From what I've gleaned at the various Spurs blogs is Spurs have about 20 million quid to spend on a player and it seems like first come first serve for Willian, David Villa or Leandro Damiao. Honestly, I think it's too late in the day for a transfer like this so I'm expecting nothing. David Bentley does seem set for a move to QPR which, since he's in the last 6 months of his contract, would effectively end his time as a Spurs player. I'm enjoying the comedy of Harry relying on Taarabt and bringing in Bentley more than I should. Too bad he couldn't get any kind of performance out of Taarabt when he was in the lilywhite. The David Villa-Bale swap doesn't pass the smell test, of course. Villa's wife just had a baby so I don't think he'll be moving anywhere this window. I don't know why Spurs are even trying.
Negredo to Everton would be a nice piece of business for them.
Oh, and some tosser named Beckham is signing for PSG. What a great football move that is...
edit: coke to Matt on the Beckham news.
edit: Jermain Jenas and Kris Samba to QPR, as well. Jenas and Bentley! Triffic!
I don't think Fernandes cares about the money. It's all ego now.
edit: Some weirdness with Andros Townsend today. He was all set for his medical at QPR and then someone called him at the last minute and told him to head back to North London. Strange.
Sylla is a defensive midfielder, so he's at least theoretically shoring up one of Villa's big weaknesses.
That doesn't sound like a Damiao move to Tottenham is imminent. Same ol' sam ol'. I look forward to 3 months of Damiao rumors in the summer. There is some talk of Lisandro Lopez as an alternative, though. Lyon are cleaning house for some reason.
Eh. Here are some crude numbers (which I didn't actually pull myself, so I hope to god they're actually accurate):
Two players, numbers for all competitions this year. Guess who they are:
Player 1: 19 GS, 18 sub appearances, 18 goals, 12 assists, 69 shots.
Player 2: 33 GS, 0 sub appearances, 14 goals, 7 assists, 117 shots.
Player 2: 33 GS, 0 sub appearances, 14 goals, 7 assists, 117 shots.
Are they both wingers?
Fair point (and yes, it's Walcott). I actually didn't mean to be an arse there, I was just having the exact same conversation over email with a friend about Bale.
Would you swap Bale for Walcott? I would not.
I think so, but I think QPR will be in the red even if they stay up. They're paying big wages to Hoilet, Bosingwa, Park, etc. The relegation scrum is going to be nutty with Reading and Soton playing well and QPR and Newcastle getting stronger and even Wigan is bringing in some players. I think Villa are done but the other two clubs...who knows?
I don't think that's a transparently crazy proposal, which is how I would expect most people to treat it. Walcott seems like he's been a disappointment, presumably based on his unmerited place on the World Cup squad when he was a kid, but he's been very good, and I think he's probably better than Bale right now. But Bale's left-footedness likely makes him the more valuable player. He's also clearly the better dribbler, by a lot.
Hahaha. Wake me up when Walcott gets double and triple marked as a matter of course.
Yeah, if QPR go down they are probably going to follow the Portsmouth path.
They are playing better but I think it's still a tall order. They are 4 points back of everyone which isn't huge but even with the improved form lately they have all of 2 wins on the season in 24 games. Since the advent of the 38 game schedule the fewest wins to stay up are 6 by West Brom in 2005 which is probably a pretty good comp for the way this year's fight is shaping up. Aston Villa stayed up with 7 wins last year and other than those to it's been a minimum of 8 wins needed. I'm not sold that QPR can get 4-6 wins in 14 games.
Part of that is that there is a LOT to play for out there right now. The relegation fight is shaping up to be brutal with 5 teams probably feeling threatened and the European spots also pretty open. There really isn't going to be a lot of games where teams don't have something to play for and that doesn't help.
--Puts fingers in ear, sings LALALALALALALALALA very loudly--
Barring some unexpected additions today, I think that’s AVB's best option for this weekend’s game at West Brom. Defoe is either injured or so out of sorts he might as well be injured. Dempsey’s been okay, but Spurs need someone with pace who will force the opposition’s center backs to play deeper and give the attacking mids some room to operate in the danger area.
Lloris
Walker–Caulker–Vertonghen–Benny
Dembele–Livermore
Lennon–Holtby–Sigurdsson
Bale
Something like that, with the band of three being very fluid, like they were after Holtby came on against Norwich last night - that was a joy to watch at times.
I don't even know where I'm going with this, just that I thought the difference in the two teams is striking and I'm starting to believe Spurs are too reliant on power and not enough on finesse.
The ball movement from Spurs last night, especially in the first 60 minutes or so, was just shockingly ponderous. I am starting to think that Sandro's athleticism, which allowed him to win the ball relatively high up the pitch quite a bit, and his quick and accurate distribution to prompt counterattacks in dangerous positions rather than in Spurs' own half was papering over a lot more cracks than I'd realized.
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