Rival watch

The fans, the fans.....

I heard one on the radio yesterday. His comment on KP not ruling out playing for South Africa in the future was that he hoped SA beat England in the next Word Cup because that would be right considering how badly he had been treated.

 

A quick check of my block list says otherwise...

 

Turns out you can troll Southampton without signing half their squad...

 

West Ham are making some interesting signings- Hart, Zabaleta, Arnautovic, Hernandez......?

 

It's the same scatter-gun approach as last season. Of that group of C-list celebs, only Chicharito will improve them. The rest are either on par or will hinder the development of younger players. Which of course dg is perfectly ok to do.

 

Are those 4 the 'Wild Geese'? 4 mercenaries all taking advantage of the pornographers tax windfall.

I suspect they are all earning more than any player at Spurs

 

No.
The "4" in the Wild Geese were top dogs in their respective fields,
even at their age.

 

Chelsea loan Zouma to Stoke now really taking the piss out of the loan system

 

I was thinking more the characters than the actors!

 

I was thinking only about the characters.

 

That's at least four players with other PL teams isn't it? Of course there isn't a rule stopping them lending 15 players to PL teams. When with the PL look at this "abuse" of the rules?

 

Not really The West Ham Way, is it? The average age of their squad must be creaking up a bit now.
Some decent signings in positions that they needed to strengthen, though.
They may need a good start to keep Bilic in the job long, too. No excuses now.

 

When it is Spurs doing it and it leads to two consecutive PL titles ??

 

Never mind the average squad age, feel the thickness (of a squad
"full of seasoned international dg" ) .

 

Do not want to be too hard on Chelsky, as Spurs had more than 2
PL loanees out on certain seasons between 2011-14.

However, where the Spurs model is/was valid was that those loans
were the last port of call for an academy prospect. And then a
"use it or lose it" model seemed to be in effect for the next season :

Either use them (brought into the senior squad fold) , or lose them (sell) .

Walker / Rose / Townsend / Caulker / Naughton / Livermore / Yedlin.
All of them followed the above pattern.

 

I know we've done it in the past but I still don't agree. As these loanees don't play against their parent clubs, they are effectively their agents and benefit their parent clubs by playing against everyone else.

 

Liverpool have effectively swapped Kevin Stewart for Andrew Robertson with Hull?
Is an £8M valued full back from a relegated team going to strengthen them?

 

They actually have a left-back now, so it might!

Robertson's got some potential. He looks better in internationals and he's dangerous on the attack.
Not a bad bit of business for them, especially when they picked up Stewart from us for nothing.
Another one for the Hull Hotspur group, presumably replacing Huddlestone, after his return to Derby.

 

It's worth asking if Fraizer Campbell counts as a member of Hull Hotspur or not, given he joined Hull on a free the other day.

 

He did play for us, though only on loan. Hell, why not? Lob him on the list.