*Official* English Football Season 2013-14

[Furball]

This coliyr commentator for the Chelsea game is a bit prone to hyperbole isn't he? talking about Chelsea stamping a warning to City and United. They've played 15 minutes of a 38 game season mate calm your hard on.

Get used to it, the English media collectively will be on their knees to fellate Mourinho's knob from now until at least the end of 2014.

 

[grecian]

Such a typical Mourinho-Chelsea performance, play decent football, get 2-0 up then kill the game, when there's goals for the taking.

Can't say I've missed him.

 

[fredfertang]

Such a typical Mourinho-Chelsea performance, play decent football, get 2-0 up then kill the game, when there's goals for the taking.

Can't say I've missed him.

I'd quite forgotten that was his modus operandi - glad he reminded me early on - I expect Wayne Rooney has been given food for thought too

 

[Pothas]

Barcelona only 6 up at half time....

 

[sledger]

Well they finished 11th last season, hard to see them going much better than that. They shouldn't go down though. Horrid to watch but they're really well organised with just enough quality going forward.

Yeah, they finished in a pretty decent position, but as others have said, they were pish for much of the season, and really looked like getting dragged into the mire at one point. They ought to avoid that sort of scrap this year, is what I was driving at.

 

[sledger]

Arsenal fans? group writes open letter to Ivan Gazidis | Football | The Sport Review

Hard to disagree with most of what is said there. Doubt it will make any difference though. What a mess.

 

[Uppercut]

We are now in a situation where we’re faced with a carbon copy of 2011, where it took an 8-2 humiliation at Manchester United to force a ‘trolley dash’ on the final day of the transfer window. Of course by then it was too late. For Arsenal to be in that situation once is unacceptable; for it to happen twice in three years will be unforgivable.

I find it really odd how that's gone down in folklore as some kind of farce. They signed five players: Santos and Park were total failures, but Benayoun was free squad-padding for a season or so and Arteta and Mertesacker are both now key players. Altogether it cost them about £30m, and those players probably made the difference in CL qualification for at least one season. It looks like pretty good business to me.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Holloway's comments today are absolutely disgraceful. Sums up a lot of what's wrong with football at present.

 

[grecian]

Holloway's comments today are absolutely disgraceful. Sums up a lot of what's wrong with football at present.

I know he always does it too. Get's away with it, because of his jokey persona.

The bloke is a bit of a **** on the quiet.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Haha, Man Utd are taking the piss if they think £28m will buy Fellaini and Baines. Been a strange summer, publicly chasing a player who says he is happy at Barcelona and putting in derisory bids for the best two players at their managers former side. Bet United fans aren't happy with Moyes. Will always be a legend in my eyes for that double at Maine Road.

 

[sledger]

I find it really odd how that's gone down in folklore as some kind of farce. They signed five players: Santos and Park were total failures, but Benayoun was free squad-padding for a season or so and Arteta and Mertesacker are both now key players. Altogether it cost them about £30m, and those players probably made the difference in CL qualification for at least one season. It looks like pretty good business to me.

It wasn't so much the players signed that makes the whole thing stick in the memory, it's the fact that there was very obviously a desperate scramble around in order to get them signed. Arteta and Mertesacker can be considered good buys, certainly, but Arsenal weren't even seriously linked with them until the deadline day of that year. The whole thing just looked desperate, and like no planning and foresight had gone into it. This was made worse by the fact that Arsenal had offloaded Fabregas a while previously (and it was obvious since the end of the last season that they would be doing so) but yet seemingly no plan was in place as to how to restructure the squad. It seems that the same thing is happening once again this time round.

And now Oxlade-Chamberlain is apparently out for several months too. Hopefully somebody at Arsenal will share my views on the need for more midfielders.

 

[Uppercut]

I'm surprised at how quick people are to question Moyes's judgment on dealing with Everton, I think he knows a wee bit more about that club than we do.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I'm surprised at how quick people are to question Moyes's judgment on dealing with Everton, I think he knows a wee bit more about that club than we do.

Oh come on, he bid £12m for Baines then tries a £28m double bid for a guy who had a release clause at £23.5m and Baines. If that isn't a pisstake then what is?

He spent £17.5m on Fellaini so he is trying to buy him for less than he did when he was at Everton if they have once more bid £12m for Baines. If Everton bid £10m for Rooney today people would laugh at them so why not laugh at United trying to do things on the cheap.

 

[marc71178]

Top scorers in the country with a bunch of kids.

Still 4 points adrift at the bottom of the league.

 

[Furball]

Holloway's comments today are absolutely disgraceful. Sums up a lot of what's wrong with football at present.

Link?

edit: nvm, found it. The man's an arsehole who should get the book thrown at him for that.

 

[Furball]

I find it really odd how that's gone down in folklore as some kind of farce. They signed five players: Santos and Park were total failures, but Benayoun was free squad-padding for a season or so and Arteta and Mertesacker are both now key players. Altogether it cost them about £30m, and those players probably made the difference in CL qualification for at least one season. It looks like pretty good business to me.

I think the issue with that close season was that it was blindingly obvious that Cesc and Nasri would need to be sold yet Arsenal ****ed around for ages (Nasri started in the 2-0 defeat to Liverpool) selling them both when they could have punted both players at the start of July, got in the £50m they got and started their rebuild a lot earlier instead of scrambling around on deadline day.

 

[sledger]

Link?

edit: nvm, found it. The man's an arsehole who should get the book thrown at him for that.

Just seems like he's trying to cover his arse for their inevitable relegation to be honest. I notice he's whinging about the players not being fit for some reason as well. Berk.

 

[Uppercut]

True, but you almost always get the best deal by waiting. Levy pulls the same strategy every year and tends to get praised for pushing through some fantastic bargains (Van der Vaart, Lloris). But they constantly start the season slowly as a result and end up missing out on the CL by a couple of points. Whereas Arsenal pulled a similar gamble but still went on to finish 3rd after losing two of their best players. The press narrative of "Arsenal panic trolley-dash" was based on perceptions at the time, and it seemed fair enough, but hindsight has shown it to be wrong.

 

[sledger]

True, but you almost always get the best deal by waiting. Levy pulls the same strategy every year and tends to get praised for pushing through some fantastic bargains (Van der Vaart, Lloris). But they constantly start the season slowly as a result and end up missing out on the CL by a couple of points. Whereas Arsenal pulled a similar gamble but still went on to finish 3rd after losing two of their best players. The press narrative of "Arsenal panic trolley-dash" was based on perceptions at the time, and it seemed fair enough, but hindsight has shown it to be wrong.

Only if you take an ends justifies the means attitude. IMO it's no way to run a football club, not one that has (supposedly) serious ambitions for challenging for honours anyway.

 

[Furball]

True, but you almost always get the best deal by waiting. Levy pulls the same strategy every year and tends to get praised for pushing through some fantastic bargains (Van der Vaart, Lloris). But they constantly start the season slowly as a result and end up missing out on the CL by a couple of points. Whereas Arsenal pulled a similar gamble but still went on to finish 3rd after losing two of their best players. The press narrative of "Arsenal panic trolley-dash" was based on perceptions at the time, and it seemed fair enough, but hindsight has shown it to be wrong.

Yes and no.

Arsenal have an absolute skeleton squad; they need to make signings. And when you let yourself get to the stage where you need to do something, you'll struggle to find any sort of value. There's bargains to be had if you wait until the end of the window and you can pick up someone a team doesn't want to keep around (van der Vaart) or you end up having to pay a ridiculous price out of desperation. If Arsenal want Suarez, then they've completely lost any negotiating position they had. If they go after someone like Fellaini, they'll probably wind up paying more than they would have if they'd opted to sign him at the start of the window.

There could be value in raiding Real Madrid if Bale ends up going there - you'd think one of di Maria or Ozil would be available for a reasonable fee if Bale ends up making the move to Spain. But that's a ludicrous gamble to take.