"Tottenham were also regularly up among those clubs with the highest number of days lost to injuries but the picture has reversed completely sinceMauricio Pochettino became manager. They finished this season having lost the fewest days to injury (just 541) compared to Newcastle United’s 1,995, Arsenal 1,645 and Manchester United with 1,554"
France lost a friendly in Albania 1-0. It's the first time that the French have lost to their hosts. Olivier Giroud was subbed off at half-time, having had less touches of the ball (13) than Hugo Lloris (14)! He also gave away the free-kick that their opponents scored from.
Mark Warburton set to be appointed manager of Glasgow Rangers. That's a very good career move for him, I hope he 's up to it as Rangers are a massive football club. The scrutiny on him will be vastly different to what he experienced at Brentford. He did very well for them, but Rangers really is a huge jump for him. I wish him good luck, let's hope Rangers treat him with more respect than Brentford did.
It's an odd one, as he's joining a weaker division with a much bigger club, but he's probably inheriting a worse team. He did a brilliant job with Brentford, but Rangers is a completely different ballgame altogether. It's a life-changing appointment. I hope he's prepared for it.
Man Utd fans are up in arms at Real's reported £13m (yep, that's thirteen) bid for David De Gea. Let's see how they like having their crappy media bullshit tactics thrown back at them.
We have to bid thirteen million and one. I’m as serious as a heart attack. I’ve been trying to make sense of Man U’s Kane tapping up. One possibility is they’re hoping that by flooding the papers with their attempts to screw us, people will hardly note Real’s actually screwing them.
Rafael van der Vaart has joined newly promoted Real Betis on a three season contract, following the expiration of his deal with Hamburg. He admitted to having a poor couple of years in Germany and claims to be targeting the title, somewhat strangely.
I think it's fair to say that Clint Dempsey didn't appreciate the contribution of the officials in the Seattle Sounders' game yesterday. They lost 3-1 to Portland, ending the game with only 7 players, as they lost three players to red cards and one to injury. The first two dismissals were fairly controversial, but I don't think that our old player can really complain about his:
Swansea and Southampton continue to look like they will make canny moves to strengthen well-integrated teams built with limited money. I think the teams that spend in a more old-fashioned way may find what they’re doing works better. I’m glad Spurs seem to have taken heed.
With the bias so far in favour of the Champions League teams, it's pointless to try and compete with them. Sad as it may seem, it's no longer "aim for the stars" but "aim for a statuary orbit and maybe get a little stellar drift that takes you near the moon and one day, with a bit of luck you may briefly get somewhere near a star"....... But that doesn't make a neat little soundbite though.
This probably isn't quite as funny as I initial thought it was, at least for Dempsey and his team. He's set to face a ban of around 3 months for his little temper tantrum, apparently. Three. Months. They're classifying it as assaulting the ref or something. A little harsh, perhaps.
Interesting, he used the exact same "pre-emptive self-defence" line that Gerrard did, but with vastly different results: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-33204251 As for this, there's only one valid response...
2nd most expensive English player of all time, despite the move being in 2002, complains about English players being overpriced nowdays: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/33212131 Something tells me that he won't be refunding all of the money that QPR spent on his overpriced arse.
Wrong. The price of English players is irrelevant. It's the price that English clubs charge for players, as they've all got tons of money. Even his examples are stupid. Aguero had a release clause and Barca wanted to sell Sanchez. It's a completely bent comparison. Are Brazilian players completely overpriced because Chelsea sold Luiz for £50m? Are Columbian's too expensive because Falcao and Rodriguez went for £114m? Are Welsh players taking the piss because Bale cost £86m? If you want to buy something from someone who's got plenty of money and who doesn't want to sell, then you have to spend big in order to do so. English clubs have large incomes. End of story.
Exactly PNP. More money in the system = inflated prices, as English clubs don't need or want to sell such players more often than not these days. When you add in the fact that normally an English player will help you hit the homegrown quota, its no wonder that the likes of City are being quoted such hefty prices for Sterling, as United would presumably be for Kane if they put in a bid.
