General Football Discussion

[Orange14]

Arsenal have about 90 m euros to spend on players following the sale of Nasri and Fabregas and have so far bid for some obscure Korean from Monaco. and Man U's team were younger today .

Trouble is they really never addressed the defensive deficiencies which are many. Even with Nasri and Fabregas they would have trouble making the top four and without them they may be no better than 6 or 7.

[Kowalczyk]

This is brilliant... VIDEO

This happened last weekend after FC Oss - Almere City. Oss fan is not pleased with the referee's performance and tries to hit the ref with his scoot mobile. Hahaha. Guess what: the old dude in the scoot mobile has been given a stadium ban!

*LOL* HOOLIGAN! HOOLIGAN! HOOLIGAN!

K.

[Blind3]

I wonder if Arsenal offering free ticket to another away match as compensation for their ManU v. Arsenal survivors isn't like offering a poisoning survivor another drink ?

[SPL]

Talk in football that the transfer deadline should close before league competitions start and end of July is mentioned and also the January period cut down. I say this would be agood move. Lets face it we are holding our breath that Vertonghen or V d Wiel are not sold this week and we are faced with having to buy a last minute overpriced replacement .( And in the case of Ajax 31 August 2004 sell Zlatan on the cheap and buy no one to replace him )

In England especially we have the annual farce of the end of deadline rush . New players should be signed before the season starts so they can be bedded into the team. Also if a big rich club loses a player to injury say in August they can go out and get a replacement but if the transfer deadline was closed then those clubs would have to use what they have .

If we had ceased transfer business at the end of July players and even clubs would have to act and make decisions a lot quicker. We hopefully would have bought Cillesen back then and probably have found El H would have cleared off and a second striker signed.

I await your comments.

[Orange14]

I have no problem with the window being four weeks in length. However, it really needs to be closed at least a week before league competition begins. The difficulty in the UEFA region is that there is no standard starting time for league matches (Spain was delayed by a player strike and Italy doesn't begin until after this week's international break; Russia plays during the summer because they can't play winter matches and the same is true of some Scandinavian leagues). Every other year when there is a summer competition (WC or Euros) the league competition starts two to three weeks earlier so players can train with their NTs. It's going to be difficult to find a window that pleases everyone. Most US sports leagues have open transfer policies during all or part of the season and it doesn't seem to adversely impact play. The bigger issue is the fact that clubs don't want to keep players with only a year left in their contracts fearing that the player will leave on a Bosman (Nasri at Arsenal). Players are also looking to play for clubs that have a chance to win the CL and receive large salaries (Chelsea, ManCity). The only thing that will bring an end to this madness is Platini's fair play rules if they are workable.

[Orange14]

The other thing that is crazy is how players are valued. I just read that Arsenal are after Per Mertesacker of Werder Bremen (goodness knows they need a defender after last weekend). Here is a German international, 26 years old and the rumoured price is €10M. Didn't they pay €12M for Vermaelen a couple of years ago (I can't remember)? Mertesacker is a better defender; weird pricing if true.

[Orange14]

This documentarty is excellent, detailing the complex issues between finances and football: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxNKgS3V ... r_embedded It is long - 47 minutes so be forewarned.

[Blind3]

CONGRATULATIONS to AFC Wimbledon and Braintree Town on their victories at the weekend ; 4:1 and 1:0 respectively. Terry Brown , gaffer of AFC Womble , says it'll take 50 points to stay up. Well, only 36 more to go.

[Orange14]

This youngster lives in my neighborhood and attends our local high school: http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports...DgK_story.html I think he's making a huge mistake by going to Arsenal rather than one of the Dutch teams. I haven't had a chance to see him play but will plan on doing so.

What age did John O'Brien join Ajax and was he in the youth program for a period of time?

[Orange14]

The Swiss Rambler's latest piece on Valencia is good reading: http://swissramble.blogspot.com/2011/09 ... overy.html. It's also a cautionary tale about clubs taking on too much debt! Despite this they continue to play attractive winning football though for how much longer is the question?

[Orange14]

Ajax financials for the most recent fiscal year have just been released: http://www.ajax.nl/Nieuws/Nieuwsarchief ... domzet.htm Club turned a €5.5 M profit which is going into reserves. The previous year the club had a debit of €22 M. It appears on first reading that the profit is a result of CL and Euro football last season.

[SPL]

Profit mainly due to selling Suarez ,someone quoted we received 19m euros as a downpayment so without that it would have been another loss.

[Blind3]

Selling players is a fact of life. Just happy it helped leave us in the black.

[SE6Ajacied]

Blackpool were in London at West Ham yesterday but tickets were a ridiculous £32.00 so I didn't bother and went to one of my local teams Fisher FC instead and enjoyed a 4-0 win rather than sufffering a 4-0 defeat at the Hammers.

I've posted some photo's of Fisher and Woking FC where I went the week before here

http://s322.photobucket.com/albums/nn40 ... er%202011/

http://s322.photobucket.com/albums/nn40 ... er%202011/

Woking v Salisbury City was 1st v 4th in the Conference South and after their 4-0 win Fisher are up to third in the Kent League (Division 9 equivalent).

[SE6Ajacied]

Well we're not the only team who didn't do as well as expected in the big game today....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15325536.stm

Manchester United 1 Manchester City 6

I don't have much time for City and their new found wealth and don't usually watch Match Of The Day but I'll make an exception to both of those today.

[SPL]

watched the second half ,Man city had a cert penalty turned down as well. My son ,who loves Arsenal, says Man City are not that bad as they have 4 englishman playing and 3 ex Arsenal . After suffering our draw v Fword it was great to see the scum ie Utd slaughtered.

[SE6Ajacied]

If anyone's interested there's a rare opportunity to watch two top "English" non league teams live on the www here http://s4c.co.uk/clic/e_live.shtml

FA Cup First Round - Cambridge United v Wrexham on S4C Welsh language TV. 0-0 just started.

[SE6Ajacied]

Just read all the stuff about Cruijff and LvG on the other thread. With all that upheaval goinng on it's good to see that things are at least proceeding as usual and with some stability at planet FIFA....(As usual and once again), what a complete tool Sepp Blatter really is......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15757165.stm

[Orange14]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/feature/_/ ... ms?cc=5901 Greatest Euro club of all time? No contest!!!

[SPL]

No dispute in my eyes .Ajax 1971 to 73 The greatest team of all time . All the pundits need to discuss is who were the second best team .

[SE6Ajacied]

Very sad news this - apparently hung himself. He was 42.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15908380.stm

[SPL]

Very sad news one must assume this poor guy was suffering from some form of depression. A horrible illness that no one really understands unless you have suffered from it .

[Blind3]

Terrible news. If it was depression, an insidious disease has claimed another victim. Stan Collymore's eye-opening extended tweet this week was really on point. As someone who sees a psychologist to deal with clinical depression, I can't even imagine what someone at his level ; pressure of fame and in spotlight by virtue of his celebrity; might be dealing with. My heartfelt condolences to his family and friends . R.I.P. Gary Speed.

[SE6Ajacied]

MP will be interested I'm sure that I've been to Sutton United v Notts County in the FA Cup 2nd Round today. Finished 2-0 to Notts though really it was a lot tighter than that and could easily have been a draw/

Only decided to definately go today and couldn't get a ticket for the home end so sat with the County fans who I can report whinge a lot ( ) and have quite the most bizzare chant I've heard yet. I know Notts are the Magpies but "you pies!" anyone lol

[ajaxcolombia]

Just had to share this, my favorite team here in Colombia, Atletico Junior form my hometown Barranquilla just reached the final of the colombian tournament by defeating Millonarios (the capital city Bogota's major team). We were down 3-0 in the first leg, and then came here and defeated them 3-0 in Barranquilla. We won the penalty kick definition. It was a thing of beauty. I'm super excited, the championship format in Colombia is similar to the chamíons league playoff that use to exist in ntherlands, except it decides the overall champions. Junior entered as the number one team in the regular round of football o we have home advantage al throughout the playoffs, still I really want to win this one since we hace been the best throughout the tournament, plus I'm super happy we defeated Millonarios, a team I despise. http://www.goal.com/es-la/match/71652/j ... ios/report