I hear Adidas also want to see Gareth Bale and Ben Davies play down the left wing for club and country, and are hoping to see them reunited at White Hart Lane next season. It's the same f'n story!
Charlton forward Ademola Lookman is wanted by Manchester City and Chelsea, with Everton and Tottenham also expressing an interest in the 18-year-old. (Independent) 18 years old! The very last places on Earth he wants to be trying to ply his trade are at either £ity or Chelsea. They are the worst clubs in Europe for giving youth a chance! If he joins either of those clubs, he'll be loaned straight out. He'd be far better off coming to us, and going straight into our academy for a couple of seasons. If he's any cop, he knows he'll get a crack in the first XI.
A quick glance at their reserves and academy squads gives another: just like Chelsea, they hoover up prospects from around the world and put them in the academy despite knowing full well the club will just spend away any gaps in the first team - which makes me wonder if, like Chelsea again, their academy exists not to produce first teamers but to produce a secondary source of income with players like Karim Rekik or Denis Suarez spending years on loan at other clubs before being sold for a tidy profit while never playing a single game for City. Here's a breakdown of nationalities in their reser...sorry, "Elite Development Squad" English: 13 Ghanaian: 5 French: 4 Spanish: 4 Irish: 2 Welsh: 2 Nigerian: 1 Norwegian: 1 Albanian: 1 Portuguese: 1 Belgian: 1 Turkish: 1 Austrian: 1 ...and that's before considering how mental it is that they have 37 players in their reserve side!
I must admit that I really bought into the Leicester story. Yes it is certainly refreshing to have a non-Sky favoured team in the top 4, don't get me wrong about that. Also everything looks fine when you see them on MOTD because they certainly have enough highlights for most matches (not necessarily Wednesday's!) However when you have to watch a whole match you do see a distinct lack of ambition other than to rely on the other team doing the work and effectively stealing the match. That isn't always going to work, regardless of how much people like to draw conclusions from one season of success (at least I really hope it doesn't always work!) They certainly have a few good players, again looking good on MOTD, but until you see them over a whole match you don't see what else they get up to. I really don't think a great player can be a cheat as well (though I seem to be in a minority there). Yet they don't get any criticism from pundits - it's almost like it's taken the pundits a year to realise that Leicester are quite good, and now they've adjusted their position they aren't prepared to look at any depth about how Leicester are achieving these results. Perhaps it's fear of not wanting to be the first to burst the bubble, just as any criticism from a Spurs supporter is probably seen as sour grapes, but it's not. It's not like Leicester could guarantee that we wouldn't score our good chances and they would. On Wednesday they had two shots on target, yet I didn't hear any commentators suggest that they didn't deserve to win. They get so much praise for counter attack, but the team doing the attacking get any credit. So how boring would the league be if everyone went only to counter attack! Perhaps it will be telling to see how they do against Villa this weekend who aren't going to pin them back with 60% of the possession - if Villa do get over half possession that will be very sad! In some ways I think Villa have as much chance of beating them as we did.
Ranieri's got things sorted out pretty well at Leicester and I think they're capable of switching tactics for their opposition. He doesn't do anything drastic to the system, but he makes minor changes in personnel and their approach. Against a side like us he'll play very much on the counter and be pretty happy with a draw. He'll be looking to get at Villa at the KP, though. Their midfield's as weak as **** and some of their defending's appalling. Don't get me wrong, they're probably not going to dominate possession and play most of the game in the Villa half. Things will be much more even, though and I expect they'll create plenty of chances. We won't see another Stoke-under-Pulis performance, where it's everyone behind the ball and a reliance on set-pieces. They even tried their hand at the trademark long throws, though they weren't up to the same standard.
Just seen that cheick tiote has agreed personal terms with Chinese side Shanghi Shenhua. Seems like a strange move, he is still fairly young and is a pretty decent defensive midfielder, I'm surprised no one else has come in for him, or maybe he has his heart set on a move to China.
He's looked poor for a while now. I agree he was a decent player, but has gone down hill from the couple of games I've seen recently. Still a legend for completing the comeback against the Gooners!
The officials in our game against Leicester were rather mediocre, but the ones in the Swansea v Sunderland game were appalling. They seemed to get virtually every big decision wrong, including most of the goals, the penalty and the red card. I don't remember Graham Scott refereeing any of our games, but on that evidence, I'm hoping that he doesn't get the chance.
Totally agree and at least he can play again this weekend now, but that doesn't compensate Swansea for having to play the majority of an important game a man short. This wouldn't help either, but in cases like this where the card is overturned maybe the 1 match ban should be handed to the referee instead
Yeah, he's been up and down the divisions this season, though he's only had 12 games in total. Only got it because Marriner pulled out due to illness, too. Back to the football league with him, I think.
I've never understood the notion that, if a referee is crap in the Premier League, dump him in the Football League. He'll be just as crap there.
Being pregnant never stopped Roger Willis from being a referee He just stood in the centre circle Well, he certainly looked pregnant
