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Chelsea And Not Worried...
Initially I was shocked and afraid by the whole City takeover. They obviously have more money than us now and can outbid us for whoever they want. But at the end of the day, it isn't like we have suddenly become poor overnight either.
If there is someone who we really, really want, we still present a more attractive option to a player than Man City do. Do not forget, before Roman came along, we had already qualified for the Champions League, and had a sustained 10-year period of top-six finishes, with the odd F.A and League cup thrown in. We are located in London, guaranteed Champions League football every year and challenging for all trophies. I cannot see City top 4 this year, so Champions League football is still two seasons away for them at least. Ranieri also proved that the manager is just as important to winning the league as having 11 world-class players in the team.
Robinho didn't choose City over Chelsea. Not when his head was at Chelsea on Sunday. Robinho had to leave Madrid after what he said, he had to. Man City were the only club available to him, so regardless ofthe bollocks he has said about 'they are a big club, excited to be here etc etc' he went there because they offered him a shed load of money, his position at Madrid was untenable and we weren't prepared to pay over the odds for him, and yes I do believe the fee for him was over the odds.
From a City point of view, it is obvious they weren't interested in any specific players, the new owners just wanted to make a statement of intent, hence the Football Manager style bidding for anyone who another club was interested in. Berbatov rejected them, so did Villa and Gomez. But again none of those players had to join City, Robinho had to.
The new owner can bleat about Ronaldo all he wants, there is no way he is going to join City when he plays for United, and wants to go to Madrid. I would be very surprised if Torres and Fabregas go there too. They need to look at players in clubs operating around 4th/5th in the European leagues, put together a decent team and get into the Champions League first. A £200,000 a week deal might not be enough to tempt the likes of Ronaldo, Fabregas etc from leaving Champions League clubs to play in the Uefa Cup.
Thomas Newey
We Don't Spend Money And That's Fine
I find it hard to believe that people think all this money is ruining the game. Players' prices and wages have been inflating ever since I have watched football. Just because Berbatov was brought for well over his value, doesn't mean it's destroying football. Spurs have got a good deal and can buy two quality players with that money. I am an Arsenal fan, so I know Wenger could probably get three quality players for that!
We Gunners don't spend big and are doing fine, OK we haven't won anything for a while but we finished four points behind the Mancs last season with having major injuries throughout our squad, where as they didn't have none compared. You don't see us spending big in the transfer window, we make money! So in my mind, all the Prem clubs can have billionaire owners, bring it on!
One last note - I can't see any lost passion in the league from my eyes...
K Westcott
Don't Over-Estimate Footballers...
David Bryant - Most players would sign on for Hilter and the Nazi FC for 200k a week.
The f***ing horrible c**ts that they are.
Martin 'It's not a holocaust joke, just an indication of how I feel about the greed of modern society' Ansell
...To answer David Bryant and his question on whether the world's top players will go to a formerly unsuccessful but newly stinking rich club instead of one of the traditionally top European clubs I have one word for him: Chelsea
Cian, Bray Wanderers, Dublin
But Robinho Is Rubbish...
Just a quick question for City fans, I know the euphoria has yet to subside and that landing a Brazilian for £30m+ is a pant-wettingly exciting time, but have you ever really watched Robinho? I watch a lot Spanish football, and I have to say he's painfully overrated. It's not that he's bad, but he's maybe on a par with Joe Cole. No disrespect to Joe Cole, but he'll never command a £30m+ transfer fee or be considered one of the 'world's best'. For all Robinho's dribbling skills, he doesn't score or create enough goals, he just does things that look pretty sometimes. So in essence, you've just spunked over £30m+ on a glorified Alexandr Hleb with a more marketable name/face.
Lewis, Busby Way
PS. Although I'll feel differently if you actually start to challenge, I'll be cheering you on to knock the scousers out of the top four!
Where's The Catch?
I am confused, is Brent from Sydney suggesting that if Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U and Man C all do a 'Leeds' and rapidly get relegated two divisions with severe financial problems that it would be a bad thing for football?
Dave, Pompey
More Apocalyptic Thoughts
There is nobody who can say that what has happened at Manchester City is good for the game. What happened at Chelsea was not good for the game, but that now appears as nothing in comparison to the the City situation.
Any club in the Premier League could be taken over at any given time. What Manchester United spend has been built up through decades of on and off the field decisions. Football decisions and business decisions and they have done it better than anybody.
Liverpool are England's most successful club, but a failure to manage the club off the field through the 1990s and beyond has left us a strong, but distant second to United. David Moores is a passionate Liverpool fan, but criminally lacked the capabilities and experience to build on the impressive business his family built up. Hicks and Gillett are obviously successful business men, but lack the passion, desire and finance to compete at the top of the English league.
But whilst these two clubs, as well as Arsenal, have spent decades achieving their status, success and power, it can all be eclipsed in a short space of time. All that is needed is someone rich enough to buy a Premier League club and bank roll it. It is like working hard all your life, taking chances, getting a good job, a big house etc... only for the work shy slob down the road to buy the winning lottery ticket.
What is happening at City is nothing short of a freak show. Everyone is glued to it, including myself, to see what happens next. Who will they buy? How far will they go? It is fascinating. There is even talk they want Ronaldo. Is that possible? Wave enough money under somebody's nose and anything is possible. Whilst Ferguson may start ranting and raving. I would state this now, wave enough money under Ferguson's nose and he would go to City. I am not trying to bait anyone here so please do not think I am attacking Manchester United (read paragraph 2 slowly for evidence of this). Offer the most diehard United fan one million pounds a season to burn his United shirt and start supporting City, would he do it?
We could end up here with a situation were we have ten rich owners who dwarf the current transfer fees and salaries because they can. Ronaldo to whoever could be £150 million and his salary may be £300.000 a week. That is why I am stating that football is finished. The solution is not 20 super rich owners, the solution is to revert back to a pre-Chelsea situation.
For the first time ever, something has to be done. Clubs should be allowed to spend based on income and factors surrounding this. Otherwise the skill of management, the desire to build a legacy and even the important challenges of marketing and selling the club off the field will be over.
Once the uncertainty of a season goes, so will the interest.
The freak show effect apart, the one good thing about the City takeover for Liverpool is that it may finally convince the two clowns we have in charge to sell. Otherwise Liverpool's annual aim of trying to win the league will reduce to trying to get fourth place. At the moment, first is still our aim, any longer under these two horrible Americans and the Liverpool fans will have to settle for fourth as the league will be impossible.
Steven Charles, Liverpool
Watching Real Football...
Ricky Cartwright, you are spot on. I watched a superb performance last night: two 25-yard screamers, some neat one-touch passing and proper tackling. No players diving or rolling around on the floor every five minutes and surrounding the ref. No boring transfer sagas (because we don't have any money to buy players) and you are close enough to the pitch to actually see what's going on. What's more, I saw 22 players who were playing purely for the love of the game because they are not motivated by money.
It was Gloucester City vs Bashley in the BGB Premier.
Matt Phillips, Gloucester
...Regarding Ricky Cartwright's magical solution to rediscover the magic of football by picking a team in League 1 or 2 (or Divisions 3 and 4 as I like to call them) to support, rather than some vacuous, passionless, filthy-rich boy's collection of self-serving millionaires, I can only agree this is an excellent idea to bring back the glorious memories of football years gone by.
Thankfully, I've not had to even change my team, as I've had it all done for me by the honest and charitable endeavours of Leicester City. I'm really having a wonderful time, and would heartily recommend it. And you get to discover exactly where Yeovil is.
Jason Peasgood
Really Not A Wise Move...
In response to this morning's mailbox, I'd like to offer a repy to Andrew Woo, Sydney. He asks the question 'What would happen if Mike Ashley actually appoints Dennis Wise as Newcastle manager to replace Keegan, and Mr Wise actually pulls it off?'. The answer is that there would be no chance of this ever happening. If Wise is in charge of the Hull game I think there will be about 20,000 supporters. This is not like when we were not happy with the appointment of Souness over Robson, this is a man we do not want anywhere near our football club possibly forcing out our most popular manager in the past 50 years. It would be a matter of time before Ashley would have to step in and admit enough is enough.
I actually don't think it has anything to do with Wise, but no one knows what is going on at our club right now. Ashley doesn't help matters one iota, but he has an appointed director of football and chairman (Derek Llambias) to do his hands on work. I have not read one interview from any of these tools since the day they were appointed. Chris Mort used to be our chairman and did Ashley's speaking for him, christ we even knew where we stood under Shepherd!
I am still hoping that Keegan is our manager, from what I can gather there is no way Keegan would want to walk out on the club again. It would be the most exceptional of circumstances for him to want this to happen. I also believe Ashley would not want rid of Keegan. Unless he is making other people's jobs impossible, then why would he? He has had a cracking start to the season, the few signings we have made have impressed, and the feel-good factor was back at St James Park. Ashley even had a 'King Kev' shirt on last week, its not rocket science to work out the problem is with the middle men. Llambias never speaks so immediately I can't possibly trust him, Wise is Wise, and this Jiminez bloke is a scout who used to be at Madrid. The majority of our signings have been from Spain this year so it's not hard to see who exactly is making these signings.
Come on Ashley, we are not asking for a lot. Let us know what is going on. We don't even know if we have a manager at the moment. I like Ashley and I like Keegan, as do most fans...However, whilst the owner of the club can be the only winner of power, we all know who the popular and moral winner is.
Gary, Newcastle
Newcastle: The Two Paths
As I see there are two possible outcomes of this for the club. Amazingly, one of the outcomes could lead to a positive future for NUFC. The other is unthinkable.
1) Kevin Keegan leaves (sacked or resigns). If this happens - and let's be honest it appears to be the most likely at the moment - then the club is in big trouble.
Mike Ashley will face the biggest fans' backlash in the history of English football. The feeling of anger is so great that fans will boycott the club on mass, and St James Park will be like a ghost town. Not only that, but fans will also boycott Ashley's sports company Sports Direct and affectively he will be forced out of the club by very angry fans. It does not matter who Ashley appoints as new manager, he would be on borrowed time and the clubs fans will want him out. Surely this will eventually lead to Ashley selling the club.
2) Kevin Keegan stays as manager. If this happens - and at the moment it looks unlikely - then Dennis Wise and maybe Tony Jiminez also will have to leave the club. Kevin Keegan will need to be given full control of first-team affairs and allowed to manage the club his own way - working within the budgets given to him by the Club. This is surely the only way KK will stay. If this happens, and Dennis Wise is sacrificed by Ashley, then the relationship between Ashley and the fans could be repaired over time.
Mr Ashley has a straightforward choice. Keegan goes and all hell breaks loose. Or Dennis Wise goes, Keegan stays and is allowed to manage the club. It's up to you Mike????
Michael, gutted Newcastle fan, South Shields
Ashley Makes Yanks Look Good
I'm a Liverpool fan. After disheartening news in the past year, such as missing the boat with DIC and its Arab owners and having the club's name dragged through the mud by silly owners, along comes Mike Ashley who makes Hicks and Gillett, the Dumb and Dumber tag-team, look like model owners. Then again I'm not surprised - Dennis Wise as Director of Football???!? Maybe it's because he's cheap! Mike Ashley makes skint Hicks and Gillett look like the super-rich Arabs from ADUG! Thanks Mike, you've made my day! I'm really glad my club's not run by you!
And no, I do NOT think we will win this year. We've been winning ugly because we've been fortunate; the old adage about 'champions = winning despite playing ugly' doesn't apply here because we're way, way too thin in quality! We've played ugly; we'll continue to play ugly, but we won't win the league. Not this year, not until we get (a) rich sugar-daddy(s) of our own and not some phony swindlers.
Also wish ADUG had bought my club instead, but no, I do not begrudge Man City their good fortune. Hope it all works out with Robinho though...What are the chances of a 'Crying Game' tag-team of Robinho and Ronaldo when things don't go well?
Gabriel Wong
Raging At The Media
Do any of 'the gentlemen of the press' ever actually do any real work?
All summer long we've suffered the endless twists and turns of the non-stories about Ronaldo and Barry's 'transfers'. Day after day, week after week, we've been bored stupid by the latest 'reporting' of these two non-events.
Yet the Citeh takeover - on the face of it the single biggest news story in English football since Abramovich's arrival - appeared completely out of the blue (no pun intended). The legion of hacks had absolutely no inkling this was coming, as the scrambling for scraps of information as to the backgrounds of the new purchasers amply demonstrated.
And the response of the media's finest? A day of speculation and innuendo about wor Kev's employment status, leaving egg on the faces of all those reporting his 'definite sacking' yesterday. He may well still leave, but you hardly covered yourselves in glory did you?
Perhaps we get the media we deserve...
Alan, Chester fan
Carragher: Tit
How refreshing to see a footballer release a candid, expressive autobiography for once.
How utterly unrefreshing to see that he's an ignoramus idiot with his head up his own arse.
What a tit.
Nick Price, Stoke-on-Trent
The Jimmy Bullard Love-In Continues
Can I join the Jimmy Bullard love in?
What does Jimmy do on his days off? Does he do what most Premiership bling-bling players seem to do? Go out on the town, get trashed, end up in a hotel with maybe more than one large-chested lady for a bit of lovin? Throw up in the back of the car on the way saying "you should be honoured I've done that in your car" on the way?
Does he then get caught speeding and over the limit the next morning, late into training in his Bentley? Only to have some crack lawyer get him off scot free.
Does he generally believe his own hype and act like a giant t**t? Which I've got to say, most players seem to be like. And not just in the Premier League.
No...this is the guy that goes down the river in his flat cap with his fishing gear and spends a few hours down there. He's actually pretty good at it. I know he's won a couple of competitions. Only regional and club stuff. But it's a hobby that he enjoys doing. And I bet you'd see him in the local on the way back probably drinking a pint of mild. He just strikes me as that kind of guy.
He's always seems to know he's hit the jackpot. He loves being a footballer, he enjoys himself doing it. It's not a lifestyle. He enjoys the job. He know's he's getting a wad full of cash for doing something everyone else would love to do. He has pride in that. He's not boastful. He seems to me that he always can't believe his luck. To be honest, the only way realistically I think I'd feel the same way, is if I won a serious amount of money on the lottery or something similar.
He might not have the skill of Ronaldo. But when Capello was giving us the list of conditions for conduct on and off the pitch. Jimmy would have been one of the very few players that would have ticked all the boxes.
If picked for the starting 11, I'll be thinking that it's a shame that a good guy like this will be lining up with some of the most despicable players in the game in my mind.
But I can bet all he will be thinking is. How fantastic is this? I'm in the England team. These guys all have Champions League, Premier League, FA Cup and League Cup Medals. And here's me, Jimmy Bullard playing in their team! I'm f**king loving this.
Jimmy. Sir you are a legend in my eyes. And you're living the dream for all of us.
John Goy, Pembrokeshire
We Predicted A Riot...
Not to make light of what is happening in Thailand but all the trouble started the day Peter Reid became the national Manager...Coincidence, I think not.
Alex (hiding from Fat Sam and his monkey) Normand, London
Can't Read, Won't Read
One of my mates rang me this morning with the news that Martin O Neill had advised Curbishley to leave as West Ham manager.
He had seen your headline 'Neill tells Curbishley to lead' and misread it.
True story.
Paul, Dublin
