MessiWillSignForVilla

He's always been known as pretty boring and defensive manager. I think it was one of Madrid's gripes with him. Remember Inter at the Nou Camp about 4 years ago? They pretty much played with 9 defenders and Eto'o up front, nothing wrong with that though, it's the best way to beat Barca.

Ahh, that makes a lot more sense

No but he's won the US Open...

Are Ajax having money problems at the minute? I would of expected Eriksen to go for nearer to £20m than £10m, and if rumours are to be believed they're willing to let Alderwiereld, £5m, and Fischer, £6-7m, go too. Maybe it's because I don't understand football's transfer market, but those seem very cheap to me. All three are highly rated and maybe it's just because they want to move on but I don't understand why Ajax are willing to let all three go for so little. Maybe I'm reading too much into it also, just the prices suggested for these players seem so low that it looks like Ajax are will take whatever they're offered for them.

Liverpool are after Given apparently.

Come on, are people this naive? Are you seriously comparing a footballer to someone who has a normal job? The sentence itself contradicts you, as footballers obviously aren't normal folk. Some would make around 200k a week to kick a ball, 4 times what a normal to high earner makes a year. Bale is a Tottenham-player on paper, yes, but we all know he is going to Real Madrid. So why be so petty that you fine him for not showing up to practice? They are getting 90M for him, a figure higher than some countries' GDP, do you even think Spurs want him there so anything can happen to him? Imagine if Assou-Ekotto tackles him and he breaks his leg and so on. This deal has reached its final steps, it's the biggest deal in the history of football, all that's left is sour grapes (in many ways warranted) from Tottenham to show that they are in fact running the show here, to keep their dignity and so on. Bale is gone, what does it matter if he spends a couple of days away from the other players and manager? It would be totally weird for him to be there, just imagine it yourself. Hey guys, I'm the best player around here and now I am going to the biggest club in the world to play in the Champions League, enjoy playing Thursdays in the Europa League! Like I said, not one person at Tottenham would want him there either. You ask "why is it any different for footballers?", well, I think you already know the answer to that question so I don't understand why you are raising it. If Tottenham didn't want him there, then they should've said don't turn up, they didn't AFAIK so he should turn up. I really don't know why it's different for footballers, it sends out a bad message. He has breached his contract, depending on the terms of said contract, that could warrant a sacking, although the norm is a fine. Who gives a shit how much he's transferring for? It doesn't mean he should just ignore his job. Again, if a normal person was moving jobs, they'd still be expected to turn up and work until either their contract expires or their notice is up, or they are put on gardening leave. Why should footballers contracts be treated any differently to normal contracts? They shouldn't. Not just in this respect, but in other examples such as the Suarez racism incident. Again, normal person = sacked, footballer = still earns £100k + and is banned for a bit. This is why football is slowly circling the pan. People excuse out of order behaviour because they are footballers. They also earn ridiculous sums of money (Normally around £50k p/w, i'd guess roughly 20-30 players in the world earn £200k +) and still don't get punished for this behaviour. As soon as people stop putting up with this, the sooner football can start to get it's soul back. Oh, and another edit, it's not petty for Tottenham to fine him, it's showing some backbone and doing what is right.

Is that not more to do with the US's ridiculously low minimum wage compared to the cost of living though? McDonalds published a report that for one of their employees to just about stay above the standard cost of living in the US, they need a second full time job on top of their full time job at McDonalds. In that context, I think it's fair they strike. EDIT: Just had a quick search and found the story on the Daily Mail website, link ->http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2366370/Sample-budget-given-McDonalds-workers-proves-CANT-live-minimum-wages-need-second-job-make-ends-meet.html

According to their wiki page, they have 24 players, 9 of which are "home-grown", with 1 (possibly 2) being u21. They are also signing Lamela, Eriksen and Chiriches, leaving them with 27 players. All excluding Bale, looks like they will need to leave someone unregistered, or let Holtby and/or Sigurdsson go. I don't like Spurs that much and I think I'm trying to find reasons to bash them, and it's getting a lot harder On a side note, John Hartson reckons Bale shouldn't be fined, and if he is it would be ridiculous. Why shouldn't he be fined? He refused to turn up to his job! If anyone in a normal job had done that, or Hartson refused to turn up to his punditry, they'd get fined instantly, or possibly fired, why is it different for footballers. I really hope Tottenham fine him.

How many players do Tottenham actually have now? Can they register them all? AFAIK, you have a limit of 25 players in the premier league with at least 8 "home-grown" players. Do they have those 8 players and with all these midfielders they've signed, how big is their squad?

Although not Father & Son, Thiago is cousins with Rodrigo who plays for Benfica. And a brother, Rafinha, who also plays for Barca.

Again? Better avoid this thread for a while then, it got really annoying last time

Assou-Ekotto? Not in the frame either. I heard that he doesn't actually like playing football. He only does it because he's good at it (and the money obviously helps). No idea if that's true. I've heard that before too, I actually quite like him for it. At least he's honest and says it how it is instead of hiding behind any false pretense of "ambition" or other shit like that.

Don't forget Mads Laudrup too, Michael's other son. EDIT: Michael Laudrup's uncle was Ebbe Skovdahl, former Brondby player and one time Aberdeen manager. What a sporting family!

That highlights that they have too many midfielders and not enough defenders. That back up back 4 looks awful (for them). Having said that I've never heard of Fryers or Chiriches. Holtby must be pissed off now though, right? Was signing on a free and spurs push the transfer through early in Jan, now they sign 5/6 players that'll probably be ahead of him. Tottenham have a good team but I imagine the squad harmony won't be fantastic with all those midfielders competing for 3/5 places. Same as at Chelsea, I can see disharmony ruining what should be a great season for them.

At home against teams who will shut up shop like Liverpool did on Saturday, yes we could operate with 2 in midfield, i.e. Delph-Westwood, with an AM in front. Away or against the top teams, no we couldn't, that's when we go with a midfield something like Delph-Westwood-KEA and play on the counter.

Milner was a good player for us, but no. He wasn't that good, we did extremely well to get what was effectively £24m for him, he is a good Top 6 player, possibly CL player if played in the right position, but he was no world beater. Delph is only 23 and has a lot of potential. Delph will be no world beater either, but he will go on to play for a side that consistently gets into the top 6.

Milner sitting in with Westwood and Delph given a more forward role would be very nice though. Also, if we're planning on using a number 10, we absolutely need a Milner-esque engine sitting behind him. We can't do it with the players we've got at the moment That said, I'm not buying that we're in for him at all I don't think Delph has the technical ability to play that AM/#10 role. He is also that Milner-esque engine IMO. As I said, I don't think Milner would be much of an improvement on what we already have in Delph. Also Sylla who did very well in the work-horse type role last season. We need an AM/#10 who is natural in that position, a Cazorla or Ozil type player, a player comfortable sitting behind the striker.

It's just deluded Arse fans. It was started by an account call FootyHumour with a photo of RVP lifting the Premier League trophy. Why would anyone believe that.

I doubt this signing, if true, is Milner. I wouldn't want him anyway. Don't get me wrong I loved him when he was here, he was a great player for us. But he's now 27, is on huge wages (probably) and is not what we need. He's a pure work rate and guile midfielder, and with 3 years rotting at Man City with inconsistent football, I would say he's not much of an improvement on our current work rate and guile midfielder, Delph. We need a creative midfielder and Milner is not that. Plus I don't like him too much for the way he left.

I'd say it's more a case of different team without Delph. Plus after 25 minutes of the second half where we went for Rotherham's throat, the other players are probably tired and have taken their foot off of the gas.

Great cross from Helenius

I don't, it's giving away pointless free kicks.

At the moment I'm 100% with you. But how long will you be happy with that? Surely there has to come a point where we up the level of investment. Now that doesn't mean going down the MoN route of signings before anyone brings it up. I don't believe there is a set level of investment in place. Obviously there are limits but as I've explained before I don't think it's a case of Randy saying to Lambert "here's £10m for you to spend on players plus whatever you can make from sales". Lambert would have to know how much he was limited to before he starts, how could he plan his targets otherwise? Or Lambert gives a list of players in order of importance to Faulkner, and Faulkner sorts out the transfers from there. Then if the board decide a players is too expensive or they have spent too much, they tell Lambert, at which point I'd imagine Lambert would stress how important certain players would be or he accepts that there would be no more signings. I would be very surprised if Lambert was given a set budget, I'd be surprised if many managers were given a set budget.

Yeah, School of Comedy I think on E4, a sketch show with teenagers, wasn't too bad I thought, but then again I was a teenager when it was on (I am still! Just) EDIT: Actually, come to think of it, he was one of the only good things about that show.

Lee Clark has said they will go through the proper channel's to complain Yeovil didn't break any rules, what do they want the FA to do? Yeovil let them score and they won on penalties, why are they so upset. Giving the ball back after the opposition kick it out is pathetic anyway, if a player is injured let the official deal with it.