*Official* English Football Season 2009-2010

[BoyBrumby]

Plenty more time yet in the transfer market. They'll probably spend another 100 million signing a heap of defenders now



The thing is, you can't replace Ronaldo and Tevez with just Valencia and expect to have the same success as last season. Can you?

Liverpool have kept their full squad in tact as have Chelsea (I think?), so they'll likely remain the same or even improve. Same can't be said for Man Utd, it's like Liverpool losing Torres for me. Liverpool lose him and they're gone, same with Ronaldo with Man Utd IMO. Rooney's a great player, but he's not in the same class as Ronaldo and is never going to score the amount of goals Ronaldo did the past few seasons. Also, who's going to take free-kicks and corners for Man Utd now too?

It's early days, but the days of Man Utd controlling the EPL is coming to an end I feel.

Sincerely hope you're right, but strongly suspect Ribery will turn to the dark side this summer.

Make the Chavs the slight favourites at this stage because their playing staff seems the most settled and Ancelotti will suit their style to a tee.

 

[James]

Klass-Jan Huntelaar must be wondering what he did wrong, because he has been at the club for 6 months after his £20m move from Ajax and now he is seemingly on the scrape heap. Apparently he is available on loan.

Jimenez joins Hammers

Should be a decent get for them.

[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Geneva,Swiss,SunSans-Regular]Loving Zola[/FONT]

 

[The Sean]

The thing is, you can't replace Ronaldo and Tevez with just Valencia and expect to have the same success as last season. Can you?

Agreed - while I don't buy into some of the hysterical "United are finished" stuff that's going around in the media, it's a fair call that if Valencia is our only signing then we're clearly weaker than we were last season. Still a top 3 team, and contenders for the title, but not favourites.

I can't believe though that there won't be another signing or two in the coming weeks - remember that the transfer window only officially opened today, and outside of Real and City there hasn't been a great deal of activity from anyone just yet.

 

[roseboy64]

The thing is, you can't replace Ronaldo and Tevez with just Valencia and expect to have the same success as last season. Can you?

Liverpool have kept their full squad in tact as have Chelsea (I think?), so they'll likely remain the same or even improve. Same can't be said for Man Utd, it's like Liverpool losing Torres for me. Liverpool lose him and they're gone, same with Ronaldo with Man Utd IMO. Rooney's a great player, but he's not in the same class as Ronaldo and is never going to score the amount of goals Ronaldo did the past few seasons. Also, who's going to take free-kicks and corners for Man Utd now too?

It's early days, but the days of Man Utd controlling the EPL is coming to an end I feel.

Have heard this before.

 

[roseboy64]

Sincerely hope you're right, but strongly suspect Ribery will turn to the dark side this summer.

Make the Chavs the slight favourites at this stage because their playing staff seems the most settled and Ancelotti will suit their style to a tee.

He's only just come into office though so we'll see change soon enough.

 

[Johnners]

If Chelsea lose Carvalho (as it is expected) that's a fairly huge loss to them. He's easily a class above their next best best stopper (Alex or Mancienne?) imo. Although in saying that, in the even that he does leave, I'd be highly surprised if they didn't sign another defender to cover for his loss.

The official transfer period has only been open for 2 days though, so it's really anyone's guess who'll be lining up for who come the start of the season.

 

[Craig]

There were reports the other day Chelsea had signed Porto's Bruno Alves as Ricardo Carvalho's replacement. Other reports in L'Equipe link William Gallas to Inter. Err no thanks.

 

[Uppercut]

William Gallas invariably scores in big games, so he'll be a pretty good antidote to Ibrahimovic if you keep hold of him. ****ing good defender too, don't let the fact he's a whiny **** blur your judgement.

In other news, Antonio Valencia is useless and i don't know what the hell we are doing.

 

[duffer]

Yeah, as soon as Gallas got injured our unbeaten streak promptly ended and we leaked goals against Liverpool, Utd and Chelsea. He's a horrible horrible ****, but an excellent defender. As much as I love Kolo, he's the one who'd have to go imo.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Liverpool have kept their full squad in tact

Haha, dude, there's 8 weeks of summer to go and there's been stronger rumours of Alonso to Madrid and Mascherano to Barca than almost any other player. At least one of them won't stay IMO, and without them they'll be in struggle street.

And not one of them a defender.....hmmm

Haha, oh my.

 

[Craig]

Peter Crouch being linked with AC Milan according to Italian media.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Safe to say Real are going to win absolutely everything next season with the signings they're making.

Safe to say? Okay.

1) Pellegrini plays historically 4-4-2 and has already said that he will not change his formation at Madrid.

2) Where does Kaka play in this 4-4-2? He doesn't defend at all, he's the classic "in the hole" player. Playing him in central midfield alongside (presumably one of Alonso, Diarra, Diarra, Zidane, Bobby Charlton, Cruyff) will leak big time defensively. Especially with Kaka's deteriorating pace due to his knees.

3) Do you honestly think this team will gel straight away? (if at all, remember the last glacticos? Were good for one season, basically.) This Barca side has players that have been playing together since they were 10, who played the best football of the last 20 years last season and who are certainly not going to get weaker as a side.

4) Madrid still have a defence leakier than a decade-old tap.

 

[James]

Safe to say? Okay.

1) Pellegrini plays historically 4-4-2 and has already said that he will not change his formation at Madrid.

2) Where does Kaka play in this 4-4-2? He doesn't defend at all, he's the classic "in the hole" player. Playing him in central midfield alongside (presumably one of Alonso, Diarra, Diarra, Zidane, Bobby Charlton, Cruyff) will leak big time defensively. Especially with Kaka's deteriorating pace due to his knees.

3) Do you honestly think this team will gel straight away? (if at all, remember the last glacticos? Were good for one season, basically.) This Barca side has players that have been playing together since they were 10, who played the best football of the last 20 years last season and who are certainly not going to get weaker as a side.

4) Madrid still have a defence leakier than a decade-old tap.

Based on the amount they're spending, you can bet this won't be the end of it, and signing defenders will be next on their agenda.

Maybe they won't gel straight way, but with players of this quality, it won't take long, and it only takes one, possibly two moments of magic from one of them to win themselves the game. With Ronaldo and Kaka especially, that's very likely.

Correct me if I'm wrong but would Alonso really be that much of a loss to Liverpool? He wasn't on the No 1 teamsheet for Liverpool all season was he? And Benítez wanted to replace him anyway with Barry last season didn't he. What I'm getting at I suppose is, is he a nice to have rather than a must have?

 

[duffer]

They really can't have that much more money to spend unless they start selling players. This is already unfathomable how they can do this. Hope they fall flat, would love to meet them in the Champions League knockouts.

 

[dontcloseyoureyes]

Correct me if I'm wrong but would Alonso really be that much of a loss to Liverpool? He wasn't on the No 1 teamsheet for Liverpool all season was he? And Benítez wanted to replace him anyway with Barry last season didn't he. What I'm getting at I suppose is, is he a nice to have rather than a must have?

Alonso was their best player last season by some distance. Losing his poise and control in midfield would kill them, especially as they've only got (ugh) Lucas to step in for him. Alonso controls tempo, dictates play and runs his legs off every game.

Last season was his breakout in the Premier League, it would be absolute insanity for Liverpool to let him go now. Ironically, Benitez's spastic crusade to replace him with Barry last season may be the catalyst for his move away now.

 

[James]

Alonso was their best player last season by some distance. Losing his poise and control in midfield would kill them, especially as they've only got (ugh) Lucas to step in for him. Alonso controls tempo, dictates play and runs his legs off every game.

Last season was his breakout in the Premier League, it would be absolute insanity for Liverpool to let him go now. Ironically, Benitez's spastic crusade to replace him with Barry last season may be the catalyst for his move away now.

Ok - stand corrected. Cheers

 

[Johnners]

Alonso was their best player last season by some distance. Losing his poise and control in midfield would kill them, especially as they've only got (ugh) Lucas to step in for him. Alonso controls tempo, dictates play and runs his legs off every game.

Last season was his breakout in the Premier League, it would be absolute insanity for Liverpool to let him go now. Ironically, Benitez's spastic crusade to replace him with Barry last season may be the catalyst for his move away now.

AWTA

A lot of Liverpools success last season revolved around Alonso running the show, and his partnership with Mascherano in the midfield. Whilst the team could possibly cover the loss of Masch (should he go) easier, losing either of them will be a huge dent in Liverpools title hopes.

 

[TT Boy]

And not one of them a defender.....hmmm

Albiol.

 

[TT Boy]

Can Blackburn afford to pay him 100k a week like he wants (and has probably earned, tbf)?

Doubt it.

We couldn't even afford Kevin Davies.

He was a bit of 'Charlie' (sniff) when he was last at Rovers...

 

[roseboy64]

William Gallas invariably scores in big games, so he'll be a pretty good antidote to Ibrahimovic if you keep hold of him. ****ing good defender too, don't let the fact he's a whiny **** blur your judgement.

In other news, Antonio Valencia is useless and i don't know what the hell we are doing.

And your opinion is better than the scouts and Sir Alex who were watching every game of his for a year?