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Yet More Proof That Short Is Best
Seeing as Abu Dhabi investments will presumably need to balance the books, will the price of petrol go up again?
Derick Yates
...Is it just me or does anyone else kind of wish Mourinho was still in charge at Chelsea purely for the press conference he'd give on missing out on Robinho?
Mark, Dartford
...I've been out of things for a couple of days ; I may have misheard this, but has Abou Diaby bought Man City?
Perhaps so he can tell his players not to tackle him so he doesn't pick up yet another injury?
Raymond Herlihy
...What's the betting on Peter Kenyon making his way back to Manchester soon?
I'm sure ADUG could do with a lapdog.. After all, he is a 'lifelong Blue'. Or 'red' - I never can remember..
Ciaran Bradley, MUFC, Merseyside
A Big Five? Not Just Yet
I felt I had to respond to a letter you published this morning from my friend and colleague Mark Nelson, Chester.
Now Mark and I are both LFC supporters and discuss all football matters, LFC or otherwise, on a daily basis across the office. However, normally I'm the pessimist and Mark the optimist, but his letter this morning saw the roles reversed. Whilst I agree with much of what he wrote, I do feel he's jumping the gun a little. Yes, City now have money to burn (assuming that the process of due diligence goes smoothly, which after 18 months of Shinawatra in control, who knows?!) but that does not automatically mean they'll book their place in the top 4.
Lets face it City fans, had Robinho not made it impossible for him to stay at Madrid, under normal circumstances there's no way he'd move to the blue half of Manchester. Mega-bucks will not persuade many world-class players to swap Milan/Madrid/etc for Eastlands, and even if it does, give it a season or two and they'll be itching to move on. On top of that, who's to say (a) Robinho will be a success? He appears to be a moody, sulky, inconsistent player who needs TLC to perform - is Sparky really the kind of man to do that - and stated only yesterday that 'his head was with Chelsea'!; and (b) who's to say Sparky is a good enough manager to get City into the top 4, even with limitless funds. He's inexperienced and not really used to spending great wads of cash. For all Robinho's step-overs, Michael Ball still has to play left-back...
As for LFC, I can't argue with anything Mark wrote, they are currently a shambles, Rick Parry and the owners are an embarrassment and the performances on the pitch aren't helping. Rafa may well be losing the plot. I love the guy and have supported him, but even I'm beginning to have doubts. The problem is, who on earth to you get to replace him? To me there are no obvious candidates who aren't already well set at other clubs. However, to counter Mark's pessimism, I feel confident that LFC will maintain their top 4 spot this year and for the foreseeable future, although it would help if Parry/Hicks/Gillet left. I think we will finish above the Arse because although they may thrash a few teams at the Emirates, they'll still struggle on their travels and will still fade away in the last third of the season when they end up relying on kids to support Cesc. If anyone is in danger from City's new-found wealth it's Everton, Portsmouth and Villa in the challenge for 5th...
Andrew Jones, Cheshire, aged 31 (I encourage all contributors to state their age, so we can put their crazt opinions in perspective)
Don't Hate City Before They've Done Anything
Please, don't start hating City just yet. At least wait until we've done something that deserves it. All we've done so far is give Chelsea a bloody nose.
Chances are, the City fans in the world this morning were almost all City fans yesterday morning. And the morning before. And the morning before ... We were fans in the third tier. We were fans when we were getting kicked around by the red side. We were fans when we got thumped 8-1 by Boro last year, and 6-0 by Chelsea. We have served our time.
We have endured decades without winning anything while our closest neighbours rubbed success after success in our faces. If we win a trophy, we will celebrate no matter how it comes about. Frankly, we feel we deserve some semblance of success as I'm sure a lot of clubs around the country also do.
After that moment, though, I genuinely have no idea how anything further will sit with me. I don't want to approach competitions with expectation, because I've grown up on a diet of hope. Expectation leads to arrogance and I don't think I've met any City fan whose support warrants being tarred with that brush. But it's all that goes along with any potential success that I find myself rather cautious of. I don't want the pure blood of City fans to be watered down by plastic morons. I don't want the world to hate us and for our every achievement to be cheapened by it's association with money. I yearn for some success but at any price?
I just don't know.
What the hell. None of that's happened yet. We've signed a player; that's all. For the time being, I just can't start worrying about it. I feel like a kid at a theme park who's gone on a few rides, has got a bit braver than he really is and has just buckled into the biggest fastest and scariest roller coaster in the place and it just started rolling. All I can do now is wait it out, try to enjoy it and hope I don't soil myself on the way round.
Billers (Running to keep up with my emotions today. This is new territory for my addled brain)
Hello Arab Chaps, Goodbye King Kev
Man City have been taken over by a consortium with more money than sense, and on their first day in charge they break the British transfer record. Villa have been taken over by a bloke who remains quiet and dignified, backs his manager to the hilt and sticks the logo of a charity on the front of the shirt. Spurs haven't been taken over but they might as well have been - using the proceeds from two big sales to sign players like Pavlyuchenko and Corluka, generally being aggressive in the transfer market and backing the manager with cash (and plenty of it) despite the team's lacklustre start to the season.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, 'media-shy' Mike Ashley is being questioned by the police after being filmed knocking back a pint in the stands, as his team is demolished by Arsenal. Rumours abound of football no-mark, avowed West Ham fan and sneering Theo Paphitis-a-like Derek Llambias kicking off with Keegan over his refusal to toe the party line. A party line which appears to involve an explicit acceptance of the fact that the manager has almost no say in anything that the club does. Who does this bloke think he is, and what the hell is he doing at MY football club?
It's all very well taking the piss and saying 'caveat emptor' to the fans - but did we really have any say in this? We are now a billionaire's plaything - it's just unfortunate for us that this particular billionaire appears to have very little knowledge about how to run a football club. More to the point, he has very little knowledge about Newcastle itself, and appears not to care.
A football club is not your average going concern. To pilfer some vaguely relevant business parlance that Mr Slazenger might understand, every supporter (especially in this part of the country) has signed up to a personal guarantee of sorts - only up here, it's got more to do with emotion than finance, more to do with heart than head. It's all very well saying you'll bring back Keegan-esque football, but when the club is being run from London and your transfers are conducted by Dennis Wise, it's a bit of a kick in the teeth to people from Newcastle. It also comes across as extremely patronising. It's not as if we can't do it ourselves - our most successful period in the recent past has come under the stewardship of a Geordie manager, and before that we nearly won the league with John Hall at the helm. Sure, we didn't win it - but God, it was exciting, and 2nd is a hell of a lot better than lower mid-table.
Know your consumer base, Mike. It's one of the most important rules of business. Newcastle fans are used to the club being run by a factotum, or at least a numerically small oligarchy. And they're not the only ones. Why were the Glazer family at pains to keep Ferguson as manager when they took over? The answer is to do with the fact that Ferguson is not just a manager. He is a guru and a figurehead, and his involvement in nearly every part of Manchester United means that his absence would equate to a chasm separating one half of the club from the other. While Fergie has been mollycoddled and given thirty million nicker to spend on one player, our own particular figurehead has had his hands tied. When he fails to adhere to the rules, by speaking his mind in a press conference, he is 'summoned' to London for 'showdown talks' like a schoolboy being sent to the headmaster's office. The stupid thing is that Keegan's the expert here. He knows that Newcastle fans appreciate transparency, and he's only trying to give it to them.
As I write this, I've recieved a text to say that Keegan has indeed left. As the club lurches from one crisis to another, others are spreading their wings and beginning to challenge the top four. We are being left behind. Don't blame Keegan though - anyone in his situation would have done the same. Good luck Kev, and God help the poor bugger who has the misfortune of succeeding you. Unless it's Dennis f**king Wise.
Quincy, Newcastle
This Is Madness
The first letter form Anon in this morning's post box summed up the current situation perfectly. "A day yesterday where sulking multi-millionaires and investment groups rule the headlines. This is not the football that I grew up with and have loved for 25 years, this is back-stabbing, soap-opera, ego-driven filth"
Has anyone else actually watched football this season, England's performance, Aston Villa v Liverpool or even Chelsea v Spurs
The football is crap and we now seem to get our entertainment form the transfer window and who can out buy whom. And for how much
Danny the red - ( the original love kindled by the holy trilogy, Law Best and Charlton)
The Game That Ate Itself
Since when did "Transfer Deadline Day" enter the football calendar as if it was a cup final. Dipping into the radio, internet and Sky Sports "News" throughout yesterday did not exactly overwhelm me with excitement or rush me off my feet. The fact is that our(?) game is now so oblivious to the reality of modern life that it has not only eaten itself, but has disappeared up its own backside.
So Man U finally have their man - £30m please! Man City have their man - £32m please! In desperation to keep up, somebody at Everton has authorised £15m for a player nobody has ever heard of! Can the game get more insane? Apparently yes.
Meanwhile, tapping up complaints get forgotten (again)...until the next saga unfolds...Ronaldo anyone? Television coverage gets worse - Shearer and Redknapp anyone? No I thought so. Ticket prices continue to spiral - when will the gullible public vote with their feet?
I would'nt mind so much but the football on offer is dire. Sunday's double header was nothing short of piss poor - CL finalist and semi-finalist against 2 wanabee CL participants. There was nothing "super" about those games.
No doubt many fans will be jumping for joy when their new signing scores a goal and he is kissing the badge. Suckers! Can anyone offer a positive view?
Ib
...Last night I had an epiphany, though it's something that had been slowly creeping up on me over the last few years, it hit me like a Barton cigar in the eye, I no longer love football.
Gone are the days when teams spent years building their squads. No, now football is simply a billionaires playground and players are highly unlikable, morally dubious, self-serving mercenaries.
One Chelsea was despicable enough, now that Man City have arrived and signed a player who all summer long had been adamant he wanted to leave Real Madrid (Real Madrid!!) for chelsea in the blink of an eye, the message is clear; get a billionaire and stuff your squad with the world's best mercenaries or you're finished!
Football has rapidly become the epitome of everything I despise about our money-grabbing world!
This is a truly sad day for football.
Rob (lost his love today) Henry
The Shame Of Berbatov
Is it just me or has no-one cottoned on to the appalling sub-text to the Berbatov transfer?
As if contracts weren't worthless enough (except to players/agents..), we have had a situation where a football club wishes to purchase a player, is not given permission to speak to the player by the current owners, and then carries on regardless with a medical!!! Having accepted Man City's bid as the only bid, why was Berbatov not whisked straight to Eastlands? Presumably this now means that a bid does not have to accepted for a player to, by-and-large, complete a transfer?
The other side to this sorry tale is Tottenham have been bought off and the Premier League will do nothing without a complaint. Even with a complaint it would probably be hushed up. This is a dangerous precedent being set..for all football fans this one act, not Robinho's move, should be the major talking point of the transfer window.
Chris, Greenwich
Ooohh, Someone's Tired
Do any of you City supporting muppets think that this will be good for the team? Do you think that Mark Hughes is going to retain any real control of decisions about who comes and who goes? You're just pawns in a money making game now (I discount the last year as, despite his promises, Shinawatra did bugger all). Take a reality check. Blue Moon my arse!
John Neesom. Dundee
Righto
In London there are about 50,000 Chelsea fans who claimed they used to follow the club when they were in the old second division. At least in Manchester there really will be a hardcore of 30,000 who followed them in the lower reaches when they too are inundated with plastic fans.
Sarah Scott
Eduardo, Robinho & Djimi Traore
Three things...
First of all, I'm not surprised we, Arsenal, ended up in Pete Gill's losers section for the transfer window madness. We have looked a little weak in the first few games this season, but that's just it. It's only a few games. I don't rate Eboue, Bendtner or Denilson, but other than that we have a squad capable of competing for trophies. We might not have splashed out 30 million on one player but we paid less than 10 for Eduardo! So I for one still trust Wenger and like the stability of our board.
And speaking of Eduardo, look at what happened to him! Football can sometimes slap you in the face without warning. For all we know, City could end up paying Robinho his 92k a week to lay on the physios table for a year! Of course it's exciting signing the big names, but isn't everyone getting ahead of themselves claiming it's a new order in the Prem? There are plenty of clubs who could match the sort of wages City could offer and these sort of mercenaries can go as quickly as they came.
Lastly...to anyone who thinks you need a team full of 30m+ superstars nowdays to win anything I say only this: Djimi Traore - Champions League Winner.
Matt G, Bristol
This Mail Would Have Some Worth If Only Wenger Didn't Announce On Arsenal's Website That He Couldn't Use Toure As A Midfielder Because He Doesn't Have The Stamina
The rumours at Arsenal is that Arsene decided that if he couldn't get Alonso he didn't need another midfielder because of the purchase of Silvestre. Confused?
Apparently the plan is for Silvestre to go into the first team and Toure to move to the central midfield role to protect Fabregas, especially in away games. Denilson will be cover for Fabregas and and be used as his partner in home league games.
I know Toure used to be a right sided midfielder back in 2002-03 but not sure he is the best replacement for Flamini myself.
James (Only 4 months until Almunia becomes the new England number 1) Bowman
Chelsea Didn't Lose
Hang on - now Chelsea are losers for NOT being held to ransom? As you might have noticed, our record in the £30m transfer bracket is slightly less than 100%...
While I think we missed out on a chance to improve the squad yesterday and get ourselves into the 'winners' category, a lot of Chelsea supporters were looking for a finisher as opposed to Robinho - so while it wasn't a great day, neither was it the bad day that you make out. In the meantime we have picked up a great right back, and Deco for a price that makes yesterday's shenanigans laughable. Additionally, we have kept Cech, Carvalho, Essien, Lampard, Ballack & Drogba when all and sundry said they were off. So overall, a 9 out of 10 sort of summer.
And while I'm here, I'm not sure Spurs will be feeling too suicidal this morning either.
Dominic Dennis, London
Permission To Speak Please
Spurs fans ... Don't you think the fact that Berbatov had a medical and signed a contract means that Spurs did give United permission to speak to him. I haven't heard anyone from Spurs saying on record that they didn't know anything about it. The fee would have been agreed and then they wouldleave it to the player to agree terms. That's how transfers work.
Please stop believing some hyped up, baseless media rubbish and look at the facts. Next you'll be saying that WWE is real because you saw it on Sky Sports.
Nez, Horsham
...Does anyone really, really think that Man Utd are stupid enough to meet Berbatov and parade him around Carrington and Old Trafford in front of the cameras without permission from Spurs????!!!!!
Honestly, it seems to me that some football fans and journos are just plain stupid or see an opportunity to vent their spleens and whip up a storm against Man Utd without actually thinking through the likely facts.
The media don't always get it right or have the latest information - just because Sky Sports didn't say or know that Man Utd had permission to speak to the player, it doesn't mean that they didn't!! In the press, how many transfer rumours that are apparently certainties ever actually happen? Exact-a-bloody-mundo.
The likely scenario is that Spurs used the Man City bid to force United's hand but it's a certainty that they would have been talking to Utd officials at the same time. Spurs probably even put Berbatov on the plane so that they could say to Utd "look guys, Dimi is on his way up to see City right now so you probably won't get him unless you can match the bid." All the time both parties knew where Berbatov wanted to go but City played hardball and it worked. Do you really think that Campbell would have also been included in any deal if all parties had not been talking for the last few days? Give me a break!!!!
It never ceases to amaze me how fickle some people can be and how they believe in the gospel according to Sky Sports or the Sun....stop being spoon-fed by the media frenzy and desire to whip-up controversy at every sodding turn.
Sterling (hope Robinho is looking forward to the Manchester weather) Cosmos
An Email Printed Exactly As It Appeared
hello,
could u please forward me the email adress of dr sulaiman al-fahim ownerelect of manchester city.
it would gratly appreciate. i also congratulate him on his projectn success.
nareeman his fan.
look forward to receive his emai adress.
And Finally...
Anyone else bored without the transfer gossip?
Adam (cant belive saha passed a medical) Williams
