There has been mounting speculation about Hargreaves joining United recently and I paid little enough attention to it until now. Just clicked on an article in the Time of London (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,277-2318283,00.html) and they reckon the fee will be ?17m.
Always thought Hargreaves was underrated in England but Christ theyâve turned that around. A combined ?35m for Hargreaves and Carrick would be pure crazy.
If Hargreaves does go Bayern might be in for Petrov.
Any chance, given their massive debts, apparent overpayment for players, and especially if Spurs sans Carrick can emulate Everton sans Rooney & make the Champions League ahead of them, that Man U could be the next Leeds?
Now thatâd be sweet.
EPL Preview 2006/07
Written by Bandage
Saturday, 19 August 2006
Quote:
âand Elton Johnâs boys may lack the penetration to come from behindâŚâ
Was that pun/in-you-end-o intentional Bandage?
Fooking brilliant!
DT
Yes, it was indeed intentional. I take great pleasure in punning.
As for iamthelawâs post, I wish ManU would be the next Leeds but their global fan base and massive commercial operation wonât allow for that. Shame!
Big debate yesterday about whether the buck stops with the manager or whether ultimate responsibility rests with the players. I think the buck stops with the gaffer. Look at the shit team Villa had out yesterday but how disciplined, solid and organised were they? A marked difference in performance because of the traits instilled to them by their manager. Not saying players are not important mind!
Maybe itâll be a bit more competitive this year as I see Chelsea have lost to Boro. Is 3 in a row a Bridge too far for the Stamford boys?
I dunno, even allowing for shevchenkoâs arrival and their undoubted wealth of talent I think they wonât be as hungry as before to win the Premiership. Terry and Lampard are still the main men and those fooks have the medals, the money and the women too I presume. Humans being humans it will be hard for them to maintain the superb form of the last 2 years. Coz talent alone wonât win you anything, hunger and desire makes the difference. The CL is still a challenge for them and must be their main focus, so their league form will suffer.
And as for VillaâŚOâNeill is well on his way again. Probably going to be one of the greatest managers of all time. His career has been measured, served his apprenticeship at Wycombe and steadlily moved up in class and club potential to where he is now. All he was missing in Glasgow was spending power and a decent domestic leaugue. Heâs got a decent if over rated league now and the spending power will come.
Anyway fook this, I know fook all about the garrison game.
Those Celtic mad members will love that!
Shocking statement appendage. Celtic are a much bigger team than Villa and certainly have greater potential. Interesting to see if he spends as much as he did with Celtic in his first year - probably close to ?20m on Sutton, Lennon, Thompson, Hartson, Valgaeren.
For the record I love MON. Brought Celtic the best years that I can remember and his passion and enthusiasm for the job was immense - which is why he has become such an idol for the clubs he managed.
He does have his limitations however. It will be interesting to see how he progresss at Villa. Certainly at Celtic he didnât plan for the future at all and once his side peaked it was fast downhill to mediocrity alarmingly quickly. Iâm not sure how much this was caused by his personal life but he may not be the best thing to happen Villa long-term if and when he leaves. Certainly Leicester and Celtic have struggled to achieve with the resources he left behind.
isnât that the difference between good managers and poor ones ? isnât their duty to achieve results in the short term whilst keeping/putting the structures in place for the future ? I 'm thinking of Wenger who has a transfer policy based on buying up the best young talent around, fergie too.
I agree with you to an extent bhoy but it has to be about more than simply buying up the best young players. Arsenal have had lots of success with Senderos, Fabregas etc but I donât think itâs a positive development for the game at all when they are offering big contracts to players the day they turn 16. United have done something similar with Rossi and Pique but in fairness to Arsenal they seem to have a better academy of players all playing to a particular style and system. They have a long-term attitude to football at the club and they have plenty of players coming through as a result. Ferguson has spent money on young players, but thatâs easy to do. There is no clear footballing philosophy in evidence at Old Trafford and Iâm not sure he does have a real long-term strategy.
Arsenal are buying up all the young players on the continent as the FA rule states you can only sign English youngsters on contracts if they live within (I think) a 60 mile radius of the club. Fair enough, they coach the youngsters expertly and have brought many of them through like Fabregas, Senderos, Eboue etc but I think it?s really cynical the way they almost snatch these players from the foreign clubs who have started to give them their footballing education. Many of these clubs are small and not financially secure so Arsenal can bully them into selling the players. Sometimes they come up against a club like Barca like when they poached Fabregas and this involves them paying ridiculous sums of money for 16 and 17 year old kids to get them.
I actually have much more respect for a club like Boro who won the FA Youth Cup the year before last and used 12 of that squad in the EPL last season (according to Football Focus on BBC1). They even fielded a team of 11 homegrown players towards the end of last season in a dead rubber league game against Fulham. Other clubs like Manchester City are investing in their youth set up too as they overspent in the past and can?t compete with the big boys in the transfer market. They?ve brought through some cracking talent lately in Wright-Phillips, Barton, Onuoha and now Micah Richards looks the real deal too.
Agree on MO?N leaving Leicester and Celtic in precarious positions. The argument put forward against him was that he was shy to look to his younger players and always relied on older, experienced ones with a resulting neglect of the youth and reserve teams. He always replied that he brought Heskey through at Leicester and used Maloney and McGeady at Celtic. A couple of case there alright but he left both teams with aging, past-it squads that required plenty of surgery. Leicester (Taggart, Elliott, Ian Marshall etc etc) and Celtic (Thompson, Hartson, Sutton, Varga, Lennon).
I agree with the bhoy. A really excellent manager will combine a strong first team with a youth programme underneath that feeds into this. Thatâs why I think Wenger is the best manager in the EPL even if I have reservations about how Arsenal are going about it.
The Celtic argument is obviously a contentious one but Iâm standing by it!!! Thereâs a huge emotional attachment to them in Ireland and thats understandable. However, the Scottish Premier League is a joke and has given a false indicators of managers ability in the past.
Open to correction but wasnât Graeme Souness a huge success at Ibrox and a complete and utter failure at Anfield. An FA cup in 92, hardly a massive haul with what at the time was the top club in England. Julian fookin Dicks for god sake, Razor Ruddock(Actually met him in the jax in Lillies about 7 yrs ago, does that count for Celeb thread. He was drunk, smelly but a nice guy and was playing for W Ham I think 48 hrs later!) Souness hasnât done much since to prove himself, apart from a decent performance with RTE in the summer. Walter Smith, he did well with Rangers and not much with Everton.
I think Villa compare favourably with both Celtic and Rangers, and I feel will give OâNeill a better platform to maximise his potential. If this American investor has the dough as reported he should have some decent funds at his disposal. That will be the test, to buy players that can do the biz in EPL and in Europe. Alot of muppets perform in Scotland for the big 2 but canât cut it anywhere else.
As for Bandage, its the managerâs job to get the first team winning as often as possible. Sure he has an input everywhere else but the flagship team must be performing or heâs fooked. And ultimately all the big clubs get out the cheque book for that extra special player. The same argument could be brought against A Daly in Clare right now but he picked the best team available and got as far as they could. He couldâve looked more to the future but got pastings in the process and destroy things in the short term.
So Iâll judge OâNeill on how he performs in the role, not on what happens when he leaves.
I?ll respond to the O?Neill question later when I?m not as busy and nervous. I do think Villa have huge potential though. They?re in England?s second city with their main rivals in lower leagues, have an excellent stadium and facilities, and have tradition also with titles and European Cups won in the past. There?s no doubt O?Neill delivered at Celtic and Leicester but he left a decaying team in each case. Fair enough his priority is the first team but I?m saying he had barely any regard to the future. By that I don?t just mean the youth set up of each team. He left both first team squads in terrible shape, full of veterans and kids and hardly any players in their prime [aged 26-29 there was only Petrov really left at Celtic when O?Neill went] If Wenger left Arsenal tomorrow the whole club would still be in superb shape. When O?Neill left his two previous posts a root and branch overhaul was required of the first team. Actually I just responded to the O?Neill question in full there.
Looking forward to this Panorama thing - I love these type of programmes.
Was watching the EPL yesterday. Thereâs been some surprising results so far and Arsenal and Liverpool are already getting a little detached. Was Bellamy injured yesterday? Canât believe he wasnât used. As much as Liverpool supporters regard Fowler as a hero itâs clear that heâs past it and has been for about 8 years now.
Was very interested in the ManU game what with Celtic going there this week. Delighted to hear this morning that Ronaldo is suspended having been sent off away to Benfica when they went out last season. Not sure they have a natural replacement wide right? Would Fletcher or somebody come in? They do attack at pace and with a lot of numbers so theyâll be dangerous alright. I presume theyâll line up something like this:
Van der Sar
Neville, Brown, Ferdinand, Evra/Silvestre
Fletcher, Carrick, Scholes, Giggs
Rooney, Saha
Spurs got at them with crosses so hopefully JVoH will get some joy. I think Celticâs strength is going forward so Iâd like to go there and have a real go at them. Iâd play Miller cos his work ethic is superb and heâll work the channels all night. He can drop deep too if needs be and run at them. Lennon has to play as we need someone to sit deep at OT and break up there attacks. Very doubtful about whether we can accomodate Naka in a 4-4-2 down there but he gets the team passing so heâll probably play but is going to have to track back and work his balls off. The defence looks much better balanced now with Wilson on the right but youâd obviously worry about Caldwell and McManus up against Rooney and Saha (Caldwell was excellent yesterday though). Iâd like Celtic to be more incisive and direct. It may surprise the SPL sceptics but they sometimes pass the ball to death. With JVoH there they now have the option of mixing things up and getting the ball forward quicker on occasion and using his height and Millerâs pace.
At the moment Iâm thinking:
Boruc
Wilson, Caldwell, McManus, Naylor
Naka, Lennon, Gravesen, McGeady
Miller
JVoH
Looking forward to the respective left wing battles; McGeady against Neville and Giggs against Wilson. It should be smashing.
Ruud Van Nistelrooy scored a hat-trick for his new club last night
More on this âbungâ stuff, canât say Iâm at all surprised to see Portsmouth and Bolton implicated. From the News of the World:
THE News of the World can reveal the football clubs, managers and staff targeted in the TV bung row tearing soccer apart.
High-profile staff at Bolton, Portsmouth and Middlesbrough have had letters from the BBCâs Panorama programme telling them they have been suckered into an elaborate sting aimed at exposing the bung culture in English football.
Among the BBCâs targets are Pompey manager Harry Redknapp, ex-player Kevin Bond, now at Newcastle, and Craig Allardyce, son of Bolton boss Sam.
Others involved are soccer agent Peter Harrison, Sven Goran Erikssonâs manager Athole Still and England star Stewart Downingâs agent Ian Elliott.
Undercover
They were among a long list of soccer personalities introduced to a German businessman called Knut Aufdemberge.
He claimed to represent a mega-rich American tycoon, Paul Silverman, who wanted to launch a new, money-rich sports agency in the UK called Dynamic Soccer.
What the football men did not know was that the two âbusinessmenâ were really undercover BBC investigators.
The pair secretly recorded meetings and conversations over a six-month period.
They tried to persuade some of their targets to offer huge sums of money to Premiership managers illegally in a bid to involve them financially in the new agency.
All the BBC targets vigorously deny any wrong-doing.
They insist they refused to offer or accept bribes.
Harrison even sent an e-mail to Aufdemberge last April threatening to report him.
He then wrote to the FA two weeks ago, warning them that two mysterious businessmen were attempting to bribe Premiership managers.
But before that, Harrison helped set up a meeting between Redknapp, Bond and Aufdemberge at Portsmouthâs training complex.
We contacted both Harrison and Redknapp last night and both refused to comment. The Portsmouth manager has made it known that he has contacted his lawyers to defend his reputation.
One man who did go on the record was Ian Elliott, who insisted he had done nothing wrong.
Buy
He explained: "I agreed to a meeting because I was told these people wanted to buy my company, Elliott Sports Management, for ?1.2million. It all seemed too good to be true.
"The meeting did not last long, about 20 minutes I think.
"Afterwards I told my accountant and my lawyer that things just didnât add up.
âAnd I must stress that the subject of paying managers or players was never raised by me or by them.â
Bolton boss Sam Allardyce is privately furious that BBC bosses tried to take advantage of his son.
Craig Allardyce quit being a sports agent last month amid concerns he could be compromising his fatherâs position in the game.
The BBC sting began last November when Aufdemberge first contacted Harrison.
The pair had a number of meetings and dinners to discuss the project. Aufdemberge claimed Silverman wanted to form a âsuperâ agency in England.
His plan was to unite a number of top English agents who would work together to take on the gameâs biggest names.
Dynamic Soccer claimed they would pay managers cash bungs of around ?200,000 to get involved in their company.
But the News of the World understands that all the BBCâs targets refused, insisting the plot would breach FA rules.
Harrison claims he was told he alone could earn a staggering ?1.8m if he could help to launch the agency successfully.
The agent was so keen to cash in he even wrote a detailed business plan for Silverman to put into operation and also recommended a number of agents who might be interested.
Corruption
He suggested Ian Elliott, Craig Allardyce and Athole Still.
A BBC insider said: "All the agents fell for the story.
"They had no idea the company was not for real or that the two individuals were in fact reporters.
"The tactics were to persuade them to offer Premiership managers large sums of money to get involved in the company. It was hoped it would uncover widespread corruption.
âNow there is a big legal row over what Panorama can or cannot screen.â
FA chiefs have vowed to investigate, providing the BBC shows them its evidence.
The programme is due to be screened later this month ? providing it gets the green light from lawyers.
Shay Given was taken to hospital with a suspected punctured lung after the Newcastle game today. Thatâs a kick in the balls for Ireland - not sure how long that would keep him out.
Watched the end of the ManU-Arsenal game after the GAA today. Arsenal looked the better side and Fabregas is a gem, great play for the goal, very important win for them and gets them up and running. ManU are not as good as their first 4 wins suggested - Celtic and Arsenal showed theyâve a good few weaknesses. Interesting to see Fergie replace Rooney and Scholes to a chorus of boos and Arsenal go straight down and get the winner.
Liverpool are getting slightly detached now. Iâd be slightly worried if I was a supporter of theirs. Too much tinkering with players although they were said to be unlucky today.
Great to see Kevin Doyle scoring again yesterday, keep them coming Doyler and I fear for Manchester City now under Stuart Pearce. Iâd reassess after the next 5 or 6 games and have Alan Curbishleyâs number on speed dial.
Liverpool definitely have cause for concern alright. They were lucky yesterday that Sissoko and Warnock stayed on the pitch (MOTD highlights by the way so I canât comment on the whole game). Also felt Robben was fouled in the box (by Carragher I think who came thundering in recklessly once he had already been dispossessed). Finally I donât think Lampard fouled Gerrard. When you see it again from the wide camera shot, the angle of Gerrardâs run is not directly towards Lampard but he goes looking for him to make contact. Another example of cheating in my book.
Glad to see United beaten - I think their deceptively easy start to the season flattered them.
I canât see that any of the managers have done anything wrong. I think by putting the words âbungâ and âinvolvedâ in close proximity, the News of the World are trying to make a big story out of very little. The real scandal here is the sensationalising culture of Britainâs tabloid journalism.
I agree. I thought the same when I read it. All it says is that certain managers, coaches, agents etc met these guys but nothing further happened.
I just hope there is some substance behind it, Iâd love to see idiots like Redknapp, Allardyce and Souness get done.