at least we got £17 million back for the useless git! Whereas Loldado is worth about £10m at the moment, can see him going to lower prem team and same can be said of Lamela
Soldado was never worth the money Baldini paid for him - still better than Carroll though ( although that wouldn't be difficult!) Lamela? Jury is still out on him, for me. I sense that he's a very talented player - all reports from Italy say pretty much the same. However, I think he's having problems settling here. Different style of football, the language etc..whether he will eventually settle remains to be seen.
We had similar issues with Aquilani (admittedly older and more injury prone). It was clear he was a talented player but he got so bloody homesick and never really wanted to move in the first place and never had the space needed to play his game (a symptom of the premier league rather than the slow Italian league). That, coupled with more injuries, meant he ultimately was one big flop
Everyone wanted Benteke, the same way everyone wanted Michu. Both of whom were half-season wonders. Can blame the media for that, they get over excited far too easily
We were set to pay around £25m for Benteke, until AVB put the kibosh on it. Shame we couldn't negotiate about £7m off Lamela's fee - if we paid £17m for him rather than £24m (not £30m, as people regularly misquote - that's with the add-ons), there'd be less pressure on him to be an instant success, not least as it would be the same amount we paid for Paulinho (and only £500k more than we paid for Modric)
Oh sorry! I was referring to the River Mersey.Now that is a big sewer and Luis can jump in it any time he likes!
Derek Llambias, Newcastle's former managing director, confirmed that Mike Ashley's a Chelsea fan, when he was discussing the naming rights of the Geordie's ground. It says something that we're significantly behind Newcastle in that table, despite having accumulated substantially more points than them and the fact that they've spent two years outside of the top flight. How many extra penalties do you get for having the England captain playing up front for you?
Not really - ten years of Alan Shearer and four years of Michael Owen did wonders for their number of successful penalty appeals.
We got one penalty a season when Ginola was with us - which begs the question how one players reputation for diving counts against them, yet other players have their reputation for diving ignored. For example, how the media howl when a foreign player dives yet looks the other way when an English one does, either in the Premier League or internationals.
