Soccer 2013-2014

Springbok_sl said:

Barca paid 40m for Villa, sold him for 4m. Arsenal was willing to shell out 12m on him 6 months ago. Well done.

Unreal deal for Atletico - man have they had some fucking brilliant strikers. Forlan, Torres, Villa, Aguero, Falcao.... You know its the silly season when Dwight Gayle cost twice as much as David Villa in the xfer market.

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Villa had no interest in leaving Spain. I believe in 2008 or 2009 Chelsea or another EPL club (think it was Chelsea) wanted to drop tons and tons of money on him and go beyond anything Valencia could offer. He declined. The bonus for Barca selling him was getting his pay off the books. I believe he was making 11 mil after tax, 22 mil prior. That is an insane amount for basically a bench player. In addition, I want to think Barca wanted to give back to him and offer him to a club that will allow him the best chance to be picked by del Bosque for WC 2014. It is blatantly obvious that del Bosque first looks at players in Spain before looking abroad.

Also the issues regarding Xavi and how he slows play/is ineffective lately... blame Tito 100%. He kept playing Xavi when the league was won and kept Thiago on the bench. Xavi still has plenty of gas in the tank, but he cannot play 50 game seasons. Since 07/08 he has been at 54, 54, 52, 50, 51, and 48 games. In addition during this time he played at the 2008 Euro, the 2009 Confed Cup, the 2010 World Cup, the 2012 Euro, the 2013 Confed Cup, and tons of qualification/friendly games. This is a player who reached his peak around 27-28 and up until now has played around 350 or so games in that span. He needs to have Tito save him for crucial games and keep his total to around 25-30 games max. Cesc and hopefully Thiago should take the rest of the games. In addition during this spring he kept being forced back into the team due to having to play RM, AC Milan, and Bayern yet never allowed to fully heal from injuries. The coaching staff is basically running him into the ground needlessly.

Dyvim_sl said:

Still think Arsenal should have made a bid for Gomez, they could easily pay more than the 17M of Florence and hes a good striker for the next say 2-3 years so they would have time to go for another by then.

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I don't really follow Arsenal, but aren't they a pass/flow/possession based team that develops plays instead of playing counter or sitting back? If so Gomez would have been useless. The reason why Bayern released him is that he cannot do anything but poach or sit in the box. He has no passing skills and halts plays like no tomorrow. If you look at his numbers from the last few seasons he has been at Cavani/Falcao levels and this year had one of the best goal/min ratios yet still went for very low price due to offering very little to most teams.

Passenger_sl said:

Also the issues regarding Xavi and how he slows play/is ineffective lately... blame Tito 100%. He kept playing Xavi when the league was won and kept Thiago on the bench. Xavi still has plenty of gas in the tank, but he cannot play 50 game seasons. Since 07/08 he has been at 54, 54, 52, 50, 51, and 48 games. In addition during this time he played at the 2008 Euro, the 2009 Confed Cup, the 2010 World Cup, the 2012 Euro, the 2013 Confed Cup, and tons of qualification/friendly games. This is a player who reached his peak around 27-28 and up until now has played around 350 or so games in that span. He needs to have Tito save him for crucial games and keep his total to around 25-30 games max. Cesc and hopefully Thiago should take the rest of the games. In addition during this spring he kept being forced back into the team due to having to play RM, AC Milan, and Bayern yet never allowed to fully heal from injuries. The coaching staff is basically running him into the ground needlessly.

I don't really follow Arsenal, but aren't they a pass/flow/possession based team that develops plays instead of playing counter or sitting back? If so Gomez would have been useless. The reason why Bayern released him is that he cannot do anything but poach or sit in the box. He has no passing skills and halts plays like no tomorrow. If you look at his numbers from the last few seasons he has been at Cavani/Falcao levels and this year had one of the best goal/min ratios yet still went for very low price due to offering very little to most teams.

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Agree with you over Xavi. From what I know, the reason Tito played Xavi so much is because he simply doesn't like Fabregas' style of play. He advocated against bringing him back when Guardiola was in charge. An interesting thing I heard the other day actually, is that apparantly to try and "rectify" the Spanish football financial inbalance, the next TV rights will be all be central, and not sold individually. Will be interesting to see the effect it has on Spanish football, namely Real Madrid and Barcelona's financial power.

Interesting also how their two squads right now, need major regeneration.

Springbok_sl said:

Passenger, just man up and realize Barca made a mistake signing Cesc and give him back to us.

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I never really denied that. He was a surplus addition and seemed forced by Rosell. Rosell has been trying to keep making massive landmark deals to solidify his legacy as president. He has made 8 signings so far and reinforced the weakened back-line a whopping ZERO times (Alba and Adriano don't count as reinforcing the back line). In addition, he was one of the people who released Abidal, when there was zero reason to. Abidal showed that he could still play and was getting stronger every game. He was also willing to go on yearly contracts. If Rosell doesn't sign multiple center-backs, Barca is fucked. Another issue I have with him is his shady connections with Nike/Brazil. He keeps trying to make these insane deals for Brazilian players. The 57 mil Neymar deal (a bit easier to justify) but the continued pursuit this year of Thiago Silva is insane. He will cost 40-50 mil Euros, is turning 29 in September. Seems like such an iffy deal regardless of the fact that Silva is currently the best center-back in the world.

The problem with Barca and Cesc is with him being forced into the team and unnatural positions. They keep trying to play him in odd locations/formations just to make him fit into the starting 11 and justify his transfer. They need to forget about his false 9/striker partnership with Messi/forward positions and just put him in the middle already. It seems that for every game he gets in the middle (when Xavi isn't playing and Barca play a random weak team), he gets 5-10 games in idiotic forward positions. With the forward 3 being semi-solidified with Neymar/Messi/Sanchez-Pedro-Tello, hopefully they forget about Cesc being upfront and focus on rotating down Xavi's games and contribution, and turning Cesc into the midfielder he was at Arsenal.

Brando_sl said:

Interesting enough, of the 57m euro's spent on Neymar only 9m actually went to Santos. The rest went to 3rd parties, agents and Neymar's dad.

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Raped.

Moyes has actually got quite a difficult task. They need a new winger or two, and two more bodies in central midfield (Carrick has NEVER impressed me when he plays against the best teams). Btw does anyone here actually rate Johnny Evans? Makes too many mistakes for a top class centreback imo.

That's a rather strange set of critiques.

A winger would have to depart first before I'd see a new signing to be honest. Wingers had a terrible performance season last, Nani has had a bad time with injuries and performances in between, Valencia had a mare and Young also. But Nani & Valencia can easily step into new gears and act like a fresh signing, and I'd much rather give Zaha the chance to blossom rather than relegate him to the reserve team due to having 4 wingers ahead of him. So unless any one of the first 3 depart, keep faith.

Carrick is by and large the exact type of player you want in a match vs Madrid, City, Chelsea, etc. Last season he played on par or above in all of these fixtures (inb4 brando with your useless pair of eyes), he finally won over the majority of his critics last season (of which any United fan can tell you he's been on this form for a few seasons already). He's not out there to impress anyone, nor is a player like Busquets or Alonso but by and large they all put in performance after performance which is critical to the flow & success of their team.
But ultimately, no one can do it alone if they are paired with Giggs, or if Jones is on man-mark duty. Scholes is gone, Cleverly was promptly removed from selection due to poor performances in key matches during the last half of the season, Anderson is STILL injured more than half the time. Moyes can afford to buy someone that can solidify that hole, certainly. But certainly not 2 new players..

Evans is already an accomplished highly rated centre back. He's had to slot in for many matches due to the fragility of Ferdinand & now Vidic but rarely have you noticed their departure. Things start to go hairy once both Ferdinand & Vidic are both out though because Smalling tends to be the replacement and they haven't paired well together very often.

Wonder if Bayern will sell off some players now. As they have a really packed midfield.

Springbok_sl said:

U20 final was an absolutely horrible match to watch. Pogba deservedly player of the tournament. Guy was fantastic. Future really bright in France.

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the french goalkeeper was really awesome too (Areola?), he also parried two of Uruguays penalty kicks

So... United just put in a bid for Fabregas.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/23316448

darkseid_sl said:

Wonder if Bayern will sell off some players now. As they have a really packed midfield.

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Myself and a friend were joking today Bayern will play a new 1-8-1 system this season.

Brando_sl said:

Which will be rejected and then nothing further will happen, might as well as not even call it news.

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Well, it's an actual bid, not a shot in the dark from caughtoffside.com. Doubt it will happen, but that surely must mean that there have been some talks held.

Bidding on Thiago was pointless, as he had a buyout clause. As soon as he accepted the personal terms, Bayern just payed the clause and he was gone.