Football journalism

Wayne-Rooney-does-not-rank-alongside-world-s-greatest-players-Lionel-Messi-Cristiano-Ronaldo-claims-Glenn-Hoddle.html

MARTIN SAMUEL: Liverpool's mistake was not thinking like a big club when Suarez left, they should've gone for Costa or Benzema

Paul Wilson
The Observer, Saturday 16 August 2014 22.30 BST

City’s keynote signing of the summer is not the most physically imposing of stoppers either. Centre halves have slimmed down quite a bit since Bill Shankly invited local journalists into the Liverpool dressing room to be shown round Ron Yeats, but even so Mangala is willowy.

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Malky Mackay and his defenders show football remains in the dark ages

All the bright lights and vibrant colours of the new Premier League season are a misleading cover for an industry that doesn’t understand the modern world

Paul Wilson
The Observer, Saturday 23 August 2014 15.51 BST

Malky Mackay given fair hearing and a chance to redeem himself at Wigan

Former Cardiff manager has paid for his mistakes and has now been given a chance to resurrect his career by Dave Whelan

Paul Wilson
Follow @paulwilsongnm Follow @guardian Wednesday 19 November 2014 13.07 GMT

Van Gaal wants to add a midfielder, a right-back, one or two central defenders, a wide player and potentially a striker. The Dutchman is targeting Roma’s Kevin Strootman, who would cost around £30m, Borussia Dortmund’s Mats Hummels who may be priced up to £35m, Atlético Madrid’s Diego Godín – in the region of £25m – Barcelona’s Dani Alves, for around £15m

Dani Alves
Contract until: 30.06.2015

transfer talk is the most vapid shit. so glad pro cycling's broken business model means there's only very occasionally this kind of kite-flying.

this is ed woodward we're talking about tbf

pointless filler questions are nothing new of course but the craven, pusillanimous deference to van gaal from the brit media rly is especially beyond the pale somehow and so deeply aggravating

every week he talks about instilling his philosophy, every week he says it was a crap performance, WHY CAN'T YOU JUST ASK HIM THE GLARINGLY OBVIOUS QUESTION THEN FFS

you know he wants to be asked as well, you can see how bored and restless he is, every press conference a cunty lil goading comment to some scurrying hack but never a total shutdown always an open challenge to step to him that is never taken up

it's like, barely conceivable how much of an oxygen thief you have to be as a journalist to see this bloke forced to appear before you and not be licking your lips at the fun you can have

Actress Catherine Zeta-Jones was born some 40 miles from Caerphilly where Ramsey grew up, but the pair are top Welsh produce according to Jan Aage Fjortoft

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/30406982

JAMIE CARRAGHER: Allardyce and Pardew have shown why it's time to ban chairmen from firing managers during the season

are sky going to sideline that cunt now they have henry

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someone voted for paul pogba as the best player in the world

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/dec/24/cristiano-ronaldo-overtakes-lionel-messi-as-the-best-footballer-in-the-world

Could fill this entire thread with witless Chris Bascombe columns but instead let's go with his Telegraph colleague Luke Edwards

Sunderland's capture of Jermain Defoe could just be the best piece of transfer business done in the January transfer window, ever.

EVER!!!
A 3 1/2 year deal for a 31 yr old who wasn't exactly prolific when playing in a decent team for the last 3 years of his Prem career.

32, so he will be being paid £70k a week (about the same as pogba's recently signed contract) until shortly before his 36th birthday

at least if he helps keep sunderland afloat for a year or two it might just about be worth the inevitable payoff (or swp/wayne bridge sitting out of contract period) but that says a lot about the financial motivation for lower epl teams and very little about the merits of jermain defoe

oh god now i see his byline picture, this is par for the course for that idiot

In other words, they have swapped a player with Toronto who, with the best will in the world, had become a joke on Wearside – albeit a fondly thought of one – for the closest thing you can get to guaranteeing goals in English football.

To make that deal happen, they will pay Defoe around £20k-a-week more than they were paying Altidore.

this would presumably mean that since ron vlaar is marginally better than christopher samba who was being paid a mere £100k a week at qpr, he deserves 40% more than that guaranteed until he is 35 yrs old

jermain defoe has only scored more than 11 goals in an epl season on two occasions

He was better than that stat suggests given he was mostly used as a sub and even then fairly late on in a lot of games - he was probably the archetypal 'give him a run of games' striker but he was either second fiddle to Robbie Keane or not deemed physically imposing enough when we were playing one up top. Ironically probably his best run of form was as the lone striker in the early days of the AVB era.

Probably not much use at Sunderland at the age of 35 though.

I mean the statement in the article is still manifestly nonsense so hey.

Robben, who turned 31 last month, rubs his bald head ruefully in a small room on a sunlit yet freezing February afternoon in Munich

It was good to be in the company of many former Spurs stars during the week at Planet Hollywood for the launch the new football social media site Hinch.as – listening to Ossie Ardiles and Garth Crooks in a heated debate about politics and religion was absorbing.

That is among the worst conversations I can possibly imagine. Not to mention one of the longest and least comprehensible.

It was a wonderful opening salvo by Jordan Henderson when he scored against Manchester City. Here is another player who seems to relish the freedom and extra responsibility afforded him in the absence of Steven Gerrard. I don't think I've seen Liverpool play with the same intensity or tempo as they did against City. If Philippe Coutinho is the new playmaker at Anfield, perhaps Brendan Rodgers might think about making Henderson the new captain.

garth crooks. presumably sub-edited. henderson is liverpool's vice captain. this decision has already been made. bbc sport in general has always been shit but it is just full of hot air morons who drag down the reputation of sporty itself.

spoken as a sporty fan and not an autocorrect fan.

Alzheimer’s was one of the ailments which afflicted his last years and in that sad sense we have been missing this great footballer and nice man for some time already.

Over in Marca, Roberto Palomar called it “a bad day to stop sniffing glue.”

Tickled by the idea that Marca journalists look to Airplane for inspiration.

Chris Bascombe, that talent free dolt, can fuck off with his club propaganda hatchet job on raheem sterling.

how much of his time must brendan spend whispering sweet neggings to raheem sterling

he seems to be sensible about wanting to get the market rate, or about trying to get to a better club if that's what he wants......german papers think bayern's interest is serious

Bit rich of Rodgers to be playing the 'you can't give young players too much' card when Sterling has been the only fully fit and trusted member of their attack all season, and has played 90mins of virtually every game.

In a season full of badly used players he's been particularly ill served by inadequacies elsewhere within the squad.

How much do you think they're paying Balotelli per week?

do we need a mino raiola vs jorge mendes poll

pands could you see sterling at bayern in 2016? he'd have a year left on his contract and ribery would be 33, robben 32 so there's space for at least one versatile attacking mid/winger opening up before too long

Most of his very best games/performances have been in a slightly anarchic up and down fast break kind of games, like I dunno Nash era Phoenix Suns. Not sure he has the nuance to be suited to a ball dominate team. Robben/Ribery can do transition yes but they can also beat players off the dribble in v tight spots against compressed defensive lines which I haven't seen as yet from Sterling. Would more easily see him at Madrid or Dortmund stylistically. Not to say he couldn't develop.

I'm also assuming Pep hasn't the intention of being at Bayern for more than another season and a half so Sterling to Bayern could happen under a different manager as I'm not sure he (pep)is super concerned with having semi-trad wingers at all and is more likely to replace Robbery with a different *type*.

Also having a hard time imagining Sterling wanting to leave England. City seems a more likely prospect to me, dynamic, young, English, suited to a more haphazard style of play.

So I don't see it no, but tbf he has proved to be more tactically versatile than I had thought likely. His movement in the CF position has been p intelligent in the main.

don't think guardiola intends to stay, he used to say he would only spend three years in one place before he decided to stay for a fourth at barcelona, which he probably regrets or at least sees as superfluous

the main reason i can't imagine sterling at bayern is just language and to a lesser extent 'culture' but i would like to see the best english player learn to play a more advanced sort of football than just reprise the twp/gerrard force of nature crap

Would like to see at least a few times what a Pep BM would look like with everyone fit and available. ie how would he construct a line up with Robben, Ribery, Badstuber, Martinez, Thiago etc Would Lahm be in MF? I'm not sure what his platonic ideal looks like.

xp For all Greg Dyke's wire fence to keep foreigners out blueprint feel like English football would be as likely to improve through exporting large numbers of players. Of course it won't happen cos richest league in the world.

the thing that most strikes me about bayern's squad is how many of the players can play different positions to similarly high levels

even a more conservative coach would appreciate that, though hopefully neuer gets to play deep lying playmaker at least once before guardiola goes on sabbatical to a sufist monastery in yemen

do you think he'll manage the Spanish national team some time in the next 10 years?

I have no idea if he's interested

i'd imagine the idea of having a constantly shifting potential squad of 50 or 60 technically gifted players appeals to him, but i can't remember how strong his catalan identity or whatever is

https://twitter.com/wwfcofficial/status/580488732391903232

Sky: "How important is that win going into the international break?"
Ainsworth: "We're in League 2; we're at Dagenham on Saturday!"

http://www.theguardian.com/football/picture/2015/apr/07/david-squires-on-mike-ashleys-reign-at-newcastle

ahhahahaha

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