Football (Soccer)

[admin]

Rumour is that Owen is not on your shopping list either (link. Poor Owen - he is being passed around all the clubs, and no one wants him. His wages (almost £100,000 per week) might be the problem for most clubs.

There is also the rumour that Ballack is going to Man U next season (on a free). But Arsenal might come in with a £9m bid this season to get the player instead (and Bayern would obviously like to deal with us now, than Man U next season). I highly doubt our interest in Ballack, mainly because of his age (29 next month).

[Oriphus]

'An offer for Owen is said to be unlikely unless [Louis] Saha can be moved on, which will entail a considerable loss for United, who would be lucky to recoup half of the £12 million they paid Fulham,' it states.

We are apparently trying to off-load Louis Saha to Monaco at the minute for a reputed £7m or so. Another prime example of the way in which Alex Ferguson has blundered his way through transfers. We need to stop buying people who have had one good season or "great potential" for the future. What we need are proven players. Ones that arent going to come and go in terms of form.

I agree that Owen's wage bill would be very expensive, and i think he will have to face facts that he wont be on his near £100,000 per week salary that he's currently getting at Real Madrid. to be honest, id be annoyed if he was offered more than £60,000 a week, but who knows.

Im interested in the Michael Ballack possible move. His contract is up at the end of this season, he'll have turned 29 by then of course, nearing 30. It would be a great move to sign him on a 3 year deal, especially since it will be a free transfer for us. He would most certainly make a good replacement for Roy Keane, who by the next year or two is likely to be moving on or playing less. Ballack has been a target so to speak, of ours for a while. People are for ever mentioning him in relation to a move to us. It would be annoying if Arsenal got him, but at the end of the day, if they're willing to pay, like a lot of clubs would be, then they might get him. However, i read a few months ago that he is a United fan, that might tempt him to wait it out until his contract is over....then bounce across the channel to United.

Who knows...its always the best time of the pre-season, a week or two before the leagues start and all the transfer news is running rampant, getting our hopes up and inevitably letting us down in the last minute lol (*thinks back to Ronaldinho and the season we couldve had*).

Chris

[Oriphus]

Phil Neville has eventually left United. Saw it coming for a while, and its probably for the best for both United and Phil. Its a decent signing for Everton i think. Ok, he hasnt done much this past season for United, and the games he did play in he was poor, but i think he will play well at Everton...

Got my fantasy football team in today for the coming season. Here's who i picked:

01 Van der Sar
02 G Heinze
03 R Carvalha
04 P Ferreira
05 M Dawson (yes i know lol)
06 S Gerrard
07 P Scholes
08 F Lampard
09 C Ronaldo
10 W Rooney
11 F Morientes

On a tight budget of £50m i think i did quite well. Rooney was the most expensive at £7.5m for me, with morientes being second at £5.7m. I could have paid £9m for Henry or £8m for Van the man, but that would have left me in a predicament for my midfield and defence. Iv already had to stick in Matt Dawson from Spurs so that i could get all the other players i wanted. But...i think iv done well and i hope to come high up in my league

[admin]

The clever chaps at F365 has released their latest edition of The Neville Diaries just for Phil's transfer:

http://www.football365.co.uk/features/fun_features/story_158736.shtml

I've never been good with fantasy football - every player I pick seem to go on a season long injury, or record goal drought if they were a striker. The same with football tipping. There was this free football tipping comp I joined on the net, and I created two accounts by accident, so I just ignored one of the accounts and concentrated on the other one. By the end of the year, the account I ignored somehow managed to get more points than the one I was working on, and that's when I knew my tipping system was flawed (the system was of course that Arsenal always wins, and Man U and Chelsea always loses ).

[Oriphus]

lol - i know someone like you in the fantasy football department. I think ill do well with my team - i have 30 transfers over the year, so i should hopefully be able to keep a competitive team going.

Well...predictions for tomorrow....

Really, i think it will Chelsea, basically because they have been a solid team in pre-training and should stay that way. However, Arsenal have lost their very influential captain. It would be like us without Roy Keane...certianly not as strong.

Whats your thoughts?

Chris

[admin]

When Vieira was playing well, he was a great player. When he wasn't, he was at best invisible, at worse the player in our midfield that was going to lose the ball (see SWP goal against us at Highbury last season). Everyone could see he wasn't 100% committed, and was psychologically afraid of certain teams, Man U included (but this was true of all the older players - the youngsters have no fear).

We've had a fairly decent pre-season. Beat Ajax, Porto, and the other smaller teams - certainly our best pre-season so far. But it's the Community Shield, so I'm not sure winning it is good luck or not. I certainly won't mind if we won it, but if we lost it to a the odd deflected goal or on penalties, I think that wouldn't be too bad either. We are still missing Gilberto and Sol Campbell, so it won't be our full team, but I think we can give Chelsea a good game.

[Oriphus]

You certainly did give CHelsea a good game, and although you lost, i think overall you played better football. Your big problem in the game....Senderos and his eerily similar looking replacement Cygan....both very poor. I think Senderos lost the game for you, both of the goals i think were his fault.

[admin]

Senderos has been a bit rusty, probably because he hasn't played in many pre-season games as the others (he played in the youth world cup, so he was given extra time to rest). Overall, I think we did okay considering that Chelsea sent on all their stars, and a few of our players were only playing their first or second games of in pre-season (Gilberto, van Persie, Fabregas, Senderos). Someone mentioned that Drogba's second goal may have been offside, but I didn't really notice it.

Chelsea played really defensive football, and relied on long balls to a strong man up front. Despite all their money, they still play like Bolton.

At least we're not cursed for this season

[Oriphus]

Arsenal did play a decent game though....and it now eliminates,as you rightly say, the enigma of winning the Community shield and not going on to win the premiership, as has happened on all previous wins.

With Fabregas in your team, playing the role that Vieira left, i think you will do better, than if you had the big man back laying for you. I dont think he played as well in recent months for Arsenal. Makelele looked like he wasnt on the pitch for a while, and i hadnt even noticed that Duff was playing until a good 10 mins into the match.

Really looking forward tot he season now, not long to go

[Oriphus]

A good win for United, though i think we shouldve scored more. Both our strikers and Ronaldo scored, so it was good. The gold were good goals, the passing was good most of the time, and we didnt even have our full strength team out. S.J. Park looked pretty good, very happy with his performance and his speed...looks like he might have been a very good signing. Young Rossi played but didnt really get into the game. Still looking forward to him and Pique becoming top players...if they do.

[Oriphus]

Arsenal win as do Chelsea, though very very lucky to do so. I really thought Wigan had done enough...they were hard done by and deserved more from that game...

[admin]

We had a somewhat frustrating game against Newcastle. It became that way after Jenas was sent off, and Newcastle went even more defensive than they were before - I don't think it was a red card, and the sending off didn't help us really. The penalty was a definite, and van Persie's goal shows why he should play more often. Hleb came on and made a difference - his footwork is really good, and he fits into the side really well.

As for Chelsea, I watched the entire match - I wish the match had ended 30 seconds earlier. Wigan completely outplayed Chelsea, and deserved to win based on their chances, let alone draw. People talk about Chelsea playing badly yesterday, but having watched about a dozen Chelsea games last season (including the hilarious defeat against Newcastle in the FA Cup), they didn't play any better or worse. The only difference is that Wigan, unlike most other Premiership sides last season, actually bothered to turn up and give them a game. Regardless of the actual result, if teams play like Wigan against Chelsea (and I think many of them will, especially West Ham), then Chelsea will be in big trouble this season.

[lfcrule1972]

Morning lads,

Well back from 3 weeks in Florida, managed to keep upto date with the footie results via mates and SMS and have just read your posts so feel quite up to speed with it all.

Was well pleased to be back in time for the start of the footie season - Liverpool result was a shame, lots of chances but no goals still there is hope for us this season - I just wish Benitez would start with 2 strikers up front and not be so keen to sell Barros, still he hasn't let us down so far (well maybe the Crouch signing - judgement reserved) so will keep the faith.

Man Utd - good win against the toffees for you Chris, whilst in a queue for a 'coaster at Busch Gardens I had a Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan asking me why Glazer was so unpopular at Old Trafford, I was actually quite diplomatic but admin's link to the sign at Old Trafford would have come in handy !!

Arsenal - Didn't see the Charity shield but various SMS Texts seemed to confirm that your boys were unlucky, the result against Newcastle was well ground out as well and maybe the first nail in Souness' coffin for the 2005/06 season.

Other news this am.....

Essien to join Chelski

Arsenal don't want Jenas (Nothing to do with being crap at making tackles !!!l lol)

[lfcrule1972]

Ha ha this one made me laugh......

Woodgate to play with kids

[admin]

Welcome back lfcrule. I've been reading about Arsenal's performance last night, and if I didn't know better, I would have thought Arsenal had lost by the comments printed in the media. I especially liked The Times's article (appropriated titled "Arsenal struggling with life after Vieira):

But for two goals in the closing nine minutes ... they might have faltered at the first hurdle.

I think any team will struggle in a game if you discard two goals from them

They also gave Henry (who I believe did score a penalty) a 4 out of 10, and Shearer a 5 out of 10, even though Shearer managed a combined total of 0 shots on target and 1 shot off target for the entire 70 minutes he played.

Still feeling sorry for Wigan though.