TOTTENHAM ARE STILL A BIG CLUB!

Is it going to be like this for every club, or is it just some proven early-season ennui effect that I don't remember from any other year?

'arry's got ideas for new owners:

Redknapp is not critical of the way moneybags City are dominating the transfer market.

And he said: "Man City fans don't care about the money being spent. Football fans don't care. The players don't care, either, because it's not down to them.

"Saddam Hussein could own your football club and, if he's putting millions into it, they'll be quite happy.

"They'll be singing 'There's only one Saddam'."

this ticket issue hasn't been a thing before, i don't think.

mind you, just about everyone has been expecting it to crash and burn with a few years now, really? maybe these are first indications.

At least you can rely on Saddam not to interfere in footballing matters.

o shit forgot abt that aspect of the saddam thing.

Any other club change the ticket prices depending on how good the team they're playing is? £44 to watch Citeh at WHL vs £29 for the Stoke City game.

i thought it was common practice? i knew spurs did it alright.

I've just tried to buy tickets on the Spurs site and although they were technically still available, the entire stadium was blocked out as unavaiable. General sale my arse.

you will beg for those tickets, beg i tell you

Uday interfered in football matters all right

i thought it was common practice?

Yeah, most clubs divide games into category A, B and C with three different price bands.

Yeah City went straight into category A almost as soon as the Sheikh's money came in. B will get you yer Villas and Evertons and whatnot and there are quite a few teams in category C now.

This does not happen at Ashburton Grove, probably because about three games a season go on general sale.

'b' games sound like the best ones anyway tbh, barring the boring boring villa obviously...

fire sale at city

New rules force Man City to sell 12 players

Manchester City will have to offload around 12 players before the transfer window closes at the end of next month - otherwise they will be left with players they are unable to play.

New Premier League rules state that a club must submit a squad of 25 players on September 1, and only those players will be eligible to be named in a matchday squad. Clubs can supplement that list with an unlimited number of players aged 21 or under, but in Manchester City's case they are currently well over the 25-man limit.

Players such as Roque Santa Cruz, Craig Bellamy, Jo, Felipe Caicedo, Micah Richards, Michael Johnson, Vincent Kompany, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Stephen Ireland, Nigel De Jong, Kelvin Etuhu, Pablo Zabaleta and Nedum Onuoha could find themselves out in the cold if they are still at Eastlands when the transfer window closes. Robinho is also officially still a City player...

i was wondering why this '25 man squad' rule hadn't been a factor in transers thus far- thought either everyone hsd forgotten it or i'd flat out misunderstood/imagined it.

city will have at least one toppish-level player left unregistered come end of august

Hope Arsene's got first dibs on De Jong, maybe Richards.

fuckin hell thought of arsenal with de jong isn't a happy one

but yeah, arsenal, spurs, villa, everton could all be doing a lot worse than sniffing round that partic table for scraps.

Given that City haven't yet spunked hundreds of millions on top level World Cup stars I think the idea of of Micah Richards, SWP and Stephen Ireland being left out of the squad is a bit fanciful, to say nothing of Nigel De Jong.

New Premier League rules state that a club must submit a squad of 25 players on September 1, and only those players will be eligible to be named in a matchday squad

I was about to flip out over this and call it the worst rule ever, then I saw the bit about the unlimited number of kids you could call upon.

Still think it's a dodgy rule though, it means clubs are more likely to offload a promising-but-risky 20-year old to a lower league club rather than give them a chance.

would be an improved rule without the unlimited kids aspect imo. either unlimited kids, 15 man squad or 25 man squad, minimum say 8 homegrown

Given that City haven't yet spunked hundreds of millions on top level World Cup stars

??

xp it may have that effect matt, but it'll hopefully do something to address the stockpiling of young talent to sit on the bench. maybe not.

xp not this week

Vieira and Gareth Barry != "top level World Cup stars"

I meant this summer. They've signed Silva, Kolarov and Yaya Toure but going from that to a load of first teamers rotting in the reserves is a very big jump.

they kinda had a p big squad before that, though, not really let enough players go since last year.

31 players on their site, and i left out 4 or 5 i didn't recognise tbh.

did roy hodgson really say 'beef' wrt torres/lfc? amazing!

have they signed balotelli yet?

city? still btwn them and chelsea it seems

bradford's grant gets 25 years for murder

this ever happened before?

No, pretty sure that's the first time he's been sent down for it.

Give Joey Barton time.

25 years of it

man city now the biggest net-spending club since premier league began according to f365 mailbox

They don't seem to make much money selling players - their biggest sale must be SWP to Chelsea right?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/26/manchester-city-liverpool-fernando-torres

i mean okay if pool got offered 70m for torres i think they should take it. but that said, where is the quote to back up the headline? the actual mancini quote seems to suggest if anything, city WOULDN'T be prepared to pay over the odds.

yeah, that's a bit of a reach from his quotes alright.

i can't see a 70m bid materialising for him from anywhere though, not with his injury runs the past year or two. one year under roy to both see how things work out at lfc and to prove he can do a full campaign again and then we'll see.

Get this small club shit off the Tottenham thread.

ha

70m would be a great deal for pool, tho ideally would prefer if he left the Prem.

70m would be a great deal for anyone unless it was Xavi/Messi leaving Barca.

Especially for a player who only plays half a season at a time. Hell you can buy a whole new team for that, or 4 superstars.

sell Torres, replace with Forlan, Aguero, Suarez, whynot.

exactly, he is brilliant but if he's going to be injured all the time you can't rely. plus i think these messiah will he stay will he go oh god if he goes we're fucked things are just bad for a club in general. and good strikers aren't that hard to find...sure they won't be as good as him but if you spent that 70m on a new left back, a right winger, a centre back, a striker, you'd get a fairly good set of players imo.

i think these messiah will he stay will he go oh god if he goes we're fucked things are just bad for a club in general

Exactly. If this wasn't the Tottenham thread I would say that Liverpool were over-reliant on Torres but that's because the squad is very poorly-balanced and spending that £70m wisely should help correct that imbalance.

I love Torres but I'd take £70m for him too. You could basically cure the first XI for that - Bridge, a centre back, Santa Cruz, Zamora if Roy wasn't such a gent, and probably still money left over. Gerrard would've been more useful sold too.

I am quite concerned that Mascherano is supposedly to be allowed to go, though, just cos he's exactly the player I'd want to build a team around and he wouldn't fetch as much. But even that should allow them to buy Bradley or similar, and they could even get by with just Lucas to an extent.

Isn't Masch just ignoring Liverpool until they sell him?