oh yes. Forgot about him. I assumed from your post it was a spontaneous siding with Ribery, rather than a management decree.
Wasn't there some issue with Costa a while ago, leading to the suggestion that he's on the way out? Might be the manager backing one of his main players over a fringe one, more than anything. Costa could also have just overreacted badly to a challenge, too. We haven't seen it and probably won't. He's a talented player and could be just the sort of signing that we need, but we've not had the best record with Brazilians. I'd like to know why he hasn't really made it at Bayern, as every time that I've seen him play he's been very impressive. A bit too tricky at times, as he seems to do too many flair moves just for the sake of it. Entertaining, though.
As I mentioned a while back, the issue is Bayern's club president Uli Hoeness publicly slagging him off - which is exactly what Hoeness was doing this time last year with Gotze. I'm going to guess that nobody's suggested to Hoeness that maybe, just maybe, he's the problem here.
Why say this, Moyes? http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/39897361 Hey! Anyone need a proven Premier League striker on a free? Anyone? There's one right here!
What I find hard to take is that Sunderland didn't stick a new contract under his nose last summer to try and avoid the clause altogether. Surely somebody at the club would have twigged that, having narrowly avoided relegation in the previous two seasons, they were playing with fire to have these clauses in player's contracts? There's a reason that their going down surprised nobody this season, because it was inevitable that without an overhaul of their squad their luck wouldn't last - and bloody hell did it run out this season.
Given that they've basically ****ed everything else up this season, why would they get that right? They may have offered him one, though. I wouldn't have signed it, either.
SAFC: Please sign this new contract as you can leave for nothing if we get relegated and we don't want to lose your transfer fee. JD: How much do you think you'll lose? SAFC: Up to £10m. JD: Hmmmm......how about you give me £9m and I sign the contract? SAFC: Gulp......we were thinking a month's wages as we're going down. JD: Thanks.......but no.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! http://www.sports.fr/football/transferts/articles/tielemans-le-nouveau-joyau-de-monaco-1835750/
No quotes - in fact a verbal denial of signing any contract by the player himself - so by no means confirmed. But the only good news would be at least he hasn't gone to Utd or the Chavs!!
Are they trying to balance out the **** to not **** ratio of their squad? Wilshere's on the way out, so they need a new one, but Terry might push the scale too far. Sign Defoe to try and maintain things.
Seem to recall that JD and Terry were not exactly on good terms. Now, I know it's possible to keep the personal from the professional, but not sure that JD would think it necessary to risk it.
In a refreshing departure from seeing our starting xi being linked with a wholesale move up the M6, we're actually being linked with somebody - Freiberg striker Maximilian Philipp, who certainly sounds like a Poch-style player based on his workrate, plus he appears to be best described as a combination of Son's pace and directness along with Demebele's strength and ability to hold onto the ball. He certainly sounds a better option than Max Meyer, too, given Meyer's reputation for being a disruptive presence in the dressing room.
A tweet went round yesterday (can't be arsed to find it) that said a supposedly well respected City ITK who's got tons of stuff bang on has mentioned Walker to City is as good as done. Here's hoping Mr Reliable ITK is wrong on this occasion.
Poch to Inter rumours being talked up by ... Inter!!! ...guess they are still ****ed off over what Tottenham did to them in November 2010 Taxi anyone?
Saying they're coming to close a deal for him at the same time that Mauricio Pochettino is going on record as to his long-term commitment to Daniel Levy's Spurs project is a special kind of stupid. Alleging that there's a £4.2m buy-out clause is just funny. Even tribes in the darkest, uncharted parts of The Amazon have a saying........"When you do business with Daniel Levy, wear a protective cup. He'll squeeze them until the tears start."
