Roiling football blather

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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
e/y said:
yes. he's been good value for entertainment - and in terms of football, his Chelsea side early on was genuinely exciting.

now, though, I get the impression that he's not just trolling / winding up the opposition and the press, but he seems to be cracking up. it must be frustrrating for him to see that his side playing very, very well cannot beat a half-strength Barca side which didn't perform too well (wrt to the first leg).

also, the manner in which he has his players behave is dangerous - Pepe, Marcelo, Ramos have all been very close to seriously injuring their opponents, and is getting worse.

very ugly and very close to no longer being amusing.
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Didn't see the Super Cup, but I guess those CL semis last season were indeed pretty ugly. I was just reading through the number of new players he has, and it's crazy - doesn't seem the way to build a cohesive squad, with the constant arrivals and departures - typical Madrid, I suppose.

La Liga is the new Scottish Prem though, for sure. The PL is bad in terms of competition (Everton are about 300-1 to win the league, I think, which considering they're arguably the best/biggest team outside the 'Top Six', is crazy - wonder what the equivalent stats would've been 20 years ago. Can't believe it's have been much more than 30-1 for the seventh best team), but the Spanish is just crazy. Valencia are 50/1 third favourites ffs.
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
yeah, true, it is incredibly noncompetitive wrt to the league title outside of Barcelona and RM (but as much a result of those two being quite exceptional teams as it is due to the weakness of the rest, I think) , but I am actually pretty excited for the Liga this year, especially since Biesla (who managed Chile) is the new Bilbao manager.

plus Valencia, a rejuvinated Seville, Malaga and Villarreal are bound to be interesting to watch.
 
Sectionfive

Sectionfive

bandwagon house
Abramovich's new yacht is too big to moor near his villa in Antibes.

J3FdW.jpg


Abramovich's Eclipse is 162,5 metres long and thus the largest yacht in the world, beating the yacht of the Emir of Dubai by 50 centimetres. Build in Hamburg, Germany and fitted with all sorts of 007 gadgetry: missile defense system, laser guns to blind nosy paparazzi, underwater access via a 3-seater mini submarine, helicopter platform, bulletproof glass, crocodile leather tables, the works...

Well over half a billion dollars worth.
 
D

don_quixote

Trent End
baboon2004 said:
Didn't see the Super Cup, but I guess those CL semis last season were indeed pretty ugly. I was just reading through the number of new players he has, and it's crazy - doesn't seem the way to build a cohesive squad, with the constant arrivals and departures - typical Madrid, I suppose.

La Liga is the new Scottish Prem though, for sure. The PL is bad in terms of competition (Everton are about 300-1 to win the league, I think, which considering they're arguably the best/biggest team outside the 'Top Six', is crazy - wonder what the equivalent stats would've been 20 years ago. Can't believe it's have been much more than 30-1 for the seventh best team), but the Spanish is just crazy. Valencia are 50/1 third favourites ffs.
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in 1996/97, when forest were relegated from the premiership and had finished 9th the season before i think, they were 30-1 for the league title. nowadays that's a top 6 side.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
@ Sectionfive - if I had half a billion dollars, I'd sure as hell spend it better than that. That's shit. Paucity of imagination.

@DQ indeed. i'm not trying to romanticise the pre-prem/early prem, as i remember being genuinely shocked when klinnsman signed to spurs (such events were rare in those days, and no doubt quality has improved because of it), but there certainly was more uncertainty. Man U were far from favourites when they won in 92/93, as I recall.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
He's thirty years old but he is a winner. I dunno probably doesn't make that much sense but even that plus the £20m odd transfer fee makes more sense than £35m for Carroll. I mean Carroll has a long career in front of him but I don't expect it to be a particularly good one.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I think Eto'o is one of the most underrated footballers of recent times. Deserves to be on any list of all-time best strikers. Barcelona's inexpicable decision to swap him for Ibrahimovic remains bizarre and annoying, as I'd have liked to have seen Eto'o play with the 2011 vintage Barcelona, arguably even better than the team in 2009.

So they have Roberto Carlos already? Have Anzhi ever had much success in the Russian leagues?
 
bandshell

bandshell

Grand High Witch
Eto'o is a fantastic player but that wage is just obscene. Football wages are ridiculous, as we all know, but that takes the cake.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Dunno I have to admit but this seems like a Man City style statement of intent - we've got money and we're not afraid to use it. Have they just had some kind of cash injection?
 
e/y

e/y

Well-known member
They're owned by a billionaire who made his money investing in oil / gas and metals in Russia. He's a close ally of our Dear Leader, who allegedly asked him to invest money into sport in Dagestan in order to pacify the people (''get them down from the mountains and into the football grounds'' goes the saying). Same thing is being done by Moscow's Puppet / Idiot In Chief in Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov.

Anzhi also bought Zhirkov from Chelsea last (?) week. He then got booed during Russia's friendly, presumably because the idiots in the stadium took offence to him joining a non-Slavic team. I'm sure Eto'o will score an immense amount of goals - he's a great player and Russian central defenders are hopelessly bad. The whole league is pretty shit, aside from 4-5 teams.

wrt to his transfer from Barcelona - it kind of made sense at the time.
 
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D

don_quixote

Trent End
that arsenal match was a cracker last night. can't believe people are wittering on about wenger not having bought anyone because gervinho looks really good.
 
Slothrop

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
I'm finding the 'pressure on Wenger' thing a bit crackers, to be honest.

Am I right in thinking that it boils down to
i) a couple of disappointing results pre-season and in the first couple of matches
ii) consistently finishing in the top four on a tightly controlled budget but not being able to beat teams who spend money like it's going out of fashion
iii) not having replaced Fabregas yet.

Where i) is probably just a temporary form glitch, ii) is actually quite impressive on an objective level and iii) is presumably not entirely his choice.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Also to do with the perception that money has come in and has not been spent. Something which annoys people when it seems that the team has obvious gaps in it and the tomorrow when the kids will get good never comes.
 
B

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Also, on a very basic level, whatever he's doing, it hasn't won ANYTHING in six years (and that last FA Cup victory was a total undeserved fluke, must be said). he set such high standards in 2001-4 (and before obv, but that seeemd to be his peak), and he just hasn't delivered anything to touch that since. Victim of his own success, too. But Abramovich and the Man City owners have kinda changed the game, as you've said.

Edit: Also, Ferguson's continued success (OK, the guy has more money to spend, but the team ethic he builds every time is staggeringly successful) has perhaps left Arsenal fans wondeirng why they can't compete with the nouveau riche teams to the same degree (ie, beating them)
 
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