Hack Watch

How many teams that we have completely dominated have been said to have "rode their luck" in getting a point or a win against us? Did they say that Leicester rode their luck to win with their only shot on target, or Swansea rode their luck to get a draw without having any shots on target at all? No, that was clever play and those teams apparently deserved it.

 

They certainly rode their luck in not conceding penalties...

 

"Real Madrid are plotting a swap deal involving Tottenham's DELE ALLI, according to Spanish news site Don Balon. The 21-year-old attacking midfielder is under contract until 2022 but Real bosses are reportedly keen to look at a swap with fringe midfielder MATEO KOVACIC."

Swap + at least 80m in cash UP FRONT.
And that is for a sale that happens right now.

 

Lord Sugar @Lord_Sugar
Redknapp and Sheringham pathetic on SKY in thier anti Spurs attack over wages.
One assumes they are having an indirect pop at Chairman Levy.

 

The other day I saw a headline along the lines of Super Agents offering Alli moves to Man Utd and Los Ladrones

So what if he says "Actually, I quite like it at Spurs, so how about negotiating a new deal for your client?" - a conversation a lot more players should consider, frankly, rather than adding another lucrative 10% to their agent's long list of 10%s.

 

Why do you need a "super agent" to do that ??
If those clubs want to buy you, they'll be in contact with your
current club soon enough.


"So what if he says "Actually, I quite like it at Spurs, so how about negotiating a new deal for your client?" - a conversation a lot more players should consider, frankly, rather than adding another lucrative 10% to their agent's long list of 10%s."

Actually what should be on the CV of these agents is :

1. who their biggest clients are/were

2. the average amount of time those players remain at a club
from the moment they became a client of the agent to the
moment they leave

3. the average % annual wage increase they get for their
clients during #2


Based on 2/3, I suspect I would be telling most of those
"super" agents to eff off as they are offering nothing more
than what the rest of the herd can do.

 

There's that Jorge Mendes quote where he says Messi isn't any good because, if he was a Mendes client, he'd have moved clubs three or four times since joining Barca.

By that insane logic, Paul Stewart is six times more successful than Ryan Giggs or Paul Scholes.

 

If that was actually said, how would he square that
with the fact that CR7 (one of his clients) has been
at Madrid since 2009 ??

Or perhaps he went all Baelish on his clients' tax
affairs to try and cause a departure this summer.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if Mendes is getting a cut of the dodgy image rights money that several of his clients who just so happened to be playing for Los Ladrones at the same time all seem to have been caught trying to get away with.

 

A quick summary of today's edition of George Osborne's Evening Standard

Front page: Comrade Corbyn will see us all die cold, afraid and lonely
Back pages: Spurs will fail in the Champions League because the Manchester clubs have more money

It's as if the reporting is informed by the Chelsea-supporting ex-Tory Chancellor editor's fear that what they dictate the status quo to be is on the verge of collapse...

 

1. I will take 82% as the lowest likelihood of reaching the KO
stages, any day. < click bait >

2. Didn't a statto simulation by somebody else have Spurs as 71%
likely to reach the KO stages BEFORE the week 2 games ??

 

What makes the Standard's reporting so utterly moronic is how one minute they're saying Barca/Los Ladrones/Bayern/etc etc have a good chance of making the last sixteen due to winning the tournament, yet on the other they're saying that Dortmund and Porto have worse odds of reaching the last sixteen than Besiktas and CSKA in spite of the obvious fact that Dortmund and Porto have won the tournament - and this is me politely leaving out mention of all the teams they're dismissing in spite of their reaching the final, something Man City's bank account hasn't.

 

A basic methodology check makes their method seem sound.

I assume their QF/SF stuff takes into account the severity of all
the leagues as well as the quality of the likely remaining teams
(we know the PL top-end dogfight is well underway then, while
other leagues are usually processions with hardly any 6 pointers) .

 

It didn't take into account things such as Porto humping Monaco 3-0 the other night, so they're already off to a bad start.

 

Unless they gave the probability of that result as zero,
then they did.

 

Somebody actually got paid to write this drivel: https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/sep/28/pep-guardiola-carlo-ancelotti-bayern

How many times have we seen that, when a manager has stated they'll be leaving at the end of the season (or tournament, in the case of international football), there's a noticeable drop in the team's energy and cohesion on the pitch and their season/tournament end up going south as a result? Did it occur to the hack that this may be a large part of Bayern's sluggish start to the season and absolutely nothing to do with the bloke who increased Bayern's wage bill by £30m a season yet took the club backwards?

Just what is it going to take for the press to realise that Guardiola is not the messiah they are convinced he is?

 

Whoa there! If you persist in this line of comment I will have to set the narrative (TM) police on you!

 

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/foot...rry-Kane-Real-Madrid-Guillem-Balague-transfer

Is there a death penalty in Spain for claiming stuff like this ??

 

Barca won't be signing him because, after signing Paulinho for a fee that stopped people sniggering at how we paid £17m for him, they've had their transfer privileges taken away until they learn how to be responsible with them.

 

The click bait sweep today ...

Harry Kane refuses to rule out future move away from Tottenham Hotspur Sports Mole 09:36

Yeah, like there is no combination of future events in the
universe that could ever force Kane to leave Spurs.


And in a similar vein :

Cristiano Ronaldo ready to block Real Madrid raid for Tottenham star Harry Kane Daily Star 12:40