Chelsea have signed 16-year old Welsh centre back Ethan Ampadu from Exeter City. I hope he is learning the following phrases: Hallo, ik heet Ethan - Hello, my name is Ethan. Ik ben Walisisch - I am Welsh Ik speel als verdediger - My best position is as a defender Wie is Nathaniel Chalobah? - I aim to emulate John Terry's transition from the youth team to the first team Je neuken zwarte kutje - I do not agree with your opinion, sir
Captain, Leader, Racist to be confirmed as a Villa player today. No doubt his zealots will now be claiming he told Anton Ferdinand he was moving to the fahkin' Black Country...
Much is being written about Everton's transfer business this summer. They've certainly been splashing the cash with Sandro Ramirez and Michael Keane set to join today. Some people in the media are tipping them to make a step to challenge the clubs above them. It could happen but I definitely have my doubts. Goalkeeper - Pickford has talent but very little experience and there's definitely a mistake in there still. The others are poor. Defence - Williams, Jagielka and Baines are ageing and it showed at times last season. Coleman is their best player and will miss half a season. Keane's a good young player and there are some Academy prospects but it's transitional for me. Midfield - Barry is ancient and but Schneiderlin and Gueye should form a decent platform but there's not too much on the bench. Attack - This is the crux of the problem. Lukaku and Barkley are probably leaving. Sandro Ramirez could be a good signing. It's reported that we tried hard to sign him last summer. We're **** at buying strikers, so, he's probably not very good. We missed out on Batshuayi too and he's off to West Ham or Pedigree Chum or somewhere. Klaassen maybe up to it but we know to our cost Dutch strikers can be a bit tricky. Bolasie is out until Christmas and a bit ****, Mirallas is just full-on ****. They really need someone to up their firepower. Siggy and Josh King could do it but will be expensive, very expensive as we're finding out and we have significantly more income to spend. Rooney will be free and would bring advertising but is pretty damn **** these days, even if he cuts down on the ***s, booze and junk food. Would they bank on him being a success? The strengthening rumour is he's going back there. There's also rumours of Giroud for £20m. At that price, you'd not be getting enough beef for my money. He's limited and absolutely nowhere near to being as mobile as Lukaku They are going to improve but I wouldn't be risking much money on it being evident next season. Shades of us after the sale of Bale. Some good players signed but they have been relying too much on the departing talent and what they're buying is mostly young players that are going to need time to bed in and improve, especially the foreign ones. Their time is still a few years away. If they can bring on and keep their 18, 19 and 20 year olds..........they might have a team of players they just couldn't afford to buy and that others, currently above them, could want to.
I felt that Everton's biggest problem last season was the 'generation gap' between their players. I don't think you'll find another PL team with so many first team regulars born a decade or more apart. Barry, Jagielka, Williams, Baines etc.on one side of the spectrum, and Davies, Holgate, Lookman, Calvert-Lewin etc. down the other end. The age difference between that group is as much as 14 years, and it really shows on the pitch. The trouble was, most of their 'in betweeners' - player in their peak "sweet spot" of 25-29, are journeymen and chancers who really aren't very good. Mirallas, Funes-Mori, Valencia, McCarthy, Cleverly, Lennon (sadly). There's a truckload of deadwood who should really be the core of the squad, nurturing the youngsters and supporting the pensioners. Think of it as an invisible middle class. That's why the acquisition of Schneiderlin was smart business. Gueye, Keane and Klassen will also be looked towards to fill that void. If they do, I have to admit that Everton have the most promising group of youngsters in the country right now - far more than ourselves. Their performances at the u20 WC will have boosted their confidence no end. If Koeman gets the balance right and manages to replace Lukaku's goals, they could well be hammering on the top 4 door by the end of this season. But I do tend to agree with you Brian: there will be too many players to blood in this season. 2018-19 could be a superb one for them though.
Arsenal's problem is defensive and they have not addressed that yet. They are very strong up front but this signing will mean Giroud, Welbeck or Sanchez is leaving. If it is Giroud or Welbeck the goons will be as strong as last season but if Sanchez leaves they will be weaker. If the goons signed at least one central top defender, a top holding midfielder and a very good keeper (Cech is beginning to pick up niggling injuries) and kept Sanchez then I think they'll be nailed on for a top 4 finish.
Not confirmed yet, as he's having his medical - so watch this space for Moronho gazumping this one at the last minute too.
Not happening I'm afraid. Medical completed 5 minutes ago. Not even Willian can save him now. Having said all that, I'd much prefer him to go to United. The Car Park Attendant will find a way of crushing his creative instinct in no time.
Utd are doing a good job of f***ing up summer transfer business again. Only Lindelof signed, but supposed other targets, allegedly almost signed weeks ago, haven't been signed. Pre-season tour imminent and only one new player to bed in. The Wicker Man seems more interested in flying to New Zealand to watch the Lions. So who will we be signing at the end of the window this time for £4.5 million more than their release clause?
Last summer's signings were pretty much done by bulk buying Mino Raiola's clients in a one stop shop. Other than that, The Equaliser has been pretty **** at spending all that money he's been bringing in. We can recommend Franco Baldini. He'll spend your money for you.
Still, it looks like Rooney's off back home. That's £30m saved over 2 years unless you've paying him to go away, which wouldn't surprise me at all. Maybe £10m or so to sweeten the deal? Now, where's that bloke who had a go at me when I said Rooney had no transfer value any more? It's suggested that Rooney will be followed in at Everton by Giroud. I'm guessing that's the pressing game out the window,
If/When Lukaku goes and Giroud/Rooney come in then that's looking like quite a slow front line for Everton all of a sudden. With all these signings coming in, you wonder if Koeman is worried about what happened to both ourselves and Liverpool. There are going to be a lot of players, personalities and ego's to bed in.
Here we go again. Yesterday two Chelski players confirmed loans to other PL clubs. THIS SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED. Yes, I know we have done it and I still don't agree with it. It's just wrong to have players that play against all other clubs in the league except (understandably) their parent club. It's almost as if you could field 16 players in one round of matches, and I'm a bit traditional in thinking 11 should probably be the most. Would it make a difference to people if it was more players - for me one player is too many, but what if Chelski one day (and it's possible) had 10 players with other PL clubs - would that be too many? I think there are two reasons why this shouldn't happen: (1) it gives an unfair advantage to the bigger clubs who can afford to have all these extra players, which they can then cherry pick the best and (2) it would discourage certain teams from "stockpiling" all the countries talent and abusing the loan system, ruining the careers of many of them because they'll never play for the first team - if they can't be loaned out to PL clubs they just might not be so ready to have so many young players on their books.
Arch-Gooner and Wenger's biographer, John Cross, is reporting in The Mirror that Alexis Sanchez wants £400k p/w to stay at Arsenal. Even with my maths that's just over £20m p.a. Twenty million pounds. TWENTY MILLION POUNDS! He's a very good player. Very good but **** me sideways, twenty million pounds. As Alan Sugar said all those years ago when Sky first bought the PL TV rights, "it doesn't matter how much money they pay us, we'll piss it all up the wall on wages."
And of course every penny that Sky pays over is extracted from fans one way or another. I suppose that has the effect that all fans are paying towards our costs rather than just those that go to games but the overall effect is that 30 very well off people at each club are taking about £100m off relatively poor people each year. It's all by 'choice' I suppose but it does seem an unfortunate outcome.
