Vesper

how much over 100m euros (£90.5m)? so vague Barca spent a potential (this really is mind blowing) £270m or so on Coutinho and Dembele. £95m (which is over 100m euros, it's 105m euros atm, 110m euros is £99.5m) for Sancho looks like a highway robbery in comparison. 20 goals, 20 assists in only 3200 minutes, mostly whilst still a teenager (3 goals (a hat trick), 1 assist after he turned 20) I think Manure lands him, they are crazy if the can grab him for £95m and do not. £95m is only £10m more than what some reports are say Leicester want for Ben Chilwell, lololol in exactly 5 and half years from today Sancho is 25 and Chilwell turns 29 (and we all knows what happens to fullback valuations once they are less than a year from turning 30)

Well sometime numbers flatter to deceive, (strictly making a philosophical point) but I agree 100% with you that right now, Kepa is amongst the worst starting keepers in the League. Of ALL our positions, GK is the one who worries me the most, followed by LB (fixed with one smart buy) and of course CB. In other words, basically our entire back core defence (as Reece is still learning and Azpi is almost 31 and his legs are going).

Chilwell is an upgrade from what we have now (there are multiple LB's out there who all are upgrades) but absolutely no way he is worth £80m. IF we had all the rest of the team sorted and we want to piss out an extra £30, 40m, on the exact LB we wanted, then sure, its only money, but we are not there at all. Money aside, Alaba, Theo Hernandez and even Alex Sandro (age makes him less appealing but right NOW he is a better player) are better LB's than Chilwell IMHO at this moment, and all cost far less. Bottom line for me is I have zero issue if we buy Chilwell, UNLESS (and it probably will) it fucks us in upgrading or adding at CB, GK and on attack (probably no Havertz at all if we drop 80m on Chilwell, and then even another winger (Havertz plays in so many positions he takes pressure off only carrying 3 true wingers) for far less than Havertz's cost will be in jeopardy. Atm it truly looks like Leverkusen are 75% plus likely to miss out on CL (all it takes is a draw or a win for Gladbach OR a draw or a loss for Bayer and they are out), and that lowers Havertz's (or should per multiple German reports) cost to around £70m or so. I cannot think of a realistic scenario where Chilwell is worth £10m or so MORE than Kai Havertz. It simply is not the case for me. If Chilwell was not English, his price would be half of what it is. We are amongst the least of the top ten teams who have a homegrown quotient issue, so another English player is simply not important at all. Leicester have zero reason to lower his price (unless he demands a transfer). They do not need the cash, they are 95% plus CL bound, have no huge stadium debt, have a multi-billionaire owner, and no FFP issues.

never said it was fair play, but I am not going to let some narrative be set in that Davies is a 'dirty' player the lad is 19, it is ridiculous to try and extrapolate out the next 13, 14, years based off one incident

Reconsidered: Just how good was Zidane against Brazil in the 2006 World Cup? https://theathletic.com/1882390/2020/06/21/michael-cox-zidane-brazil-2006-world-cup/ This is a series re-assessing the most famous individual performances of the modern era. Some will be legendary displays by established world-class players, others will be once-in-a-lifetime cameos that have nevertheless gone down in history. It’s easy to look back on historic performances through rose-tinted spectacles or to revise our memories of particular displays based on what came afterwards. A second look at such games from a greater distance can be revealing. This week, we revisit Zinedine Zidane’s display for France in their 2006 World Cup quarter-final win over holders Brazil… Why this game? This is often cited as the most concise summary of Zidane’s brilliance, when he dominated a World Cup game on the highest stage. What was the context? Zidane had said he was retiring from football after this World Cup. We’ve become accustomed to players announcing they’re stepping away from international football after a major tournament, then spending their final years as a professional concentrating on their club career. Not Zidane. He had already retired from international football after Euro 2004, then reversed that decision on the condition he would be deployed in his favoured central role rather than from the left. But his Real Madrid form had been extremely patchy over the previous couple of seasons, and Zidane had basically had enough. About to turn 34, he’d grown tired of falling below the standard he desired, both because of his physical limitations and Real Madrid’s increasingly shambolic approach to tactics. “It’s been two years now that I haven’t been playing like I want to,” he explained, when justifying his decision to retire completely. He had a contract at Real Madrid until 2007, but was so underwhelmed by his own performances he decided to depart a year early. A World Cup was a fitting finale, though. Zidane often felt like an international footballer more than a club footballer; he endured several disappointing campaigns with both Juventus and Real Madrid, but his form tended to recover on the international stage. You think of Zidane wearing No 10, but it was only for France where he wore that shirt, having worn No 21 for Juventus, and No 5 for Real Madrid. This was unquestionably the most eagerly anticipated of the 2006 quarter-finals — it was a meeting of the sides who had won the previous three World Cups combined. It was Zidane against Brazil for the first time since his two headed goals won the host nation the 1998 World Cup final. Whoever won this game would go into the semi-finals as favourites to win the whole thing — Argentina had surprisingly been defeated by plucky hosts Germany, Italy progressed past Ukraine but hadn’t truly been tested, and Portugal hadn’t been particularly impressive in progressing past 10-men England on penalties after a goalless draw. France had laboured through an easy group, finishing second behind Switzerland, before a late victory over Spain in the second round, with Zidane scoring the final goal in a 3-1 victory. Neither he nor Thierry Henry had been at their best — Patrick Vieira and Franck Ribery had been their liveliest players. Brazil had won all four matches, albeit without having been tested seriously. Significantly, coach Carlos Alberto Parreira made a major tactical change for this game. Having previously used the “magic square” of Kaka and Ronaldinho behind Ronaldo and Adriano, he brought in defensive midfielder Gilberto Silva for Adriano, and moved to more of a 4-3-3, or 4-3-2-1. The reason for Gilberto’s introduction was obvious: he was there to shackle Zidane, as he had done effectively in Arsenal’s 1-0 Champions League victory at the Bernabeu a few months beforehand. As you probably already know, ultimately this wouldn’t be Zidane’s final game in football, but it would be the last World Cup game played by the likes of Cafu, Roberto Carlos, Ronaldo and — most surprisingly — a then 26-year-old Ronaldinho. What was his best moment? Zidane’s best contribution comes in the opening minute. Collecting a loose ball in the middle of the pitch, he traps it to suck in two opposition midfielders, Ze Roberto and Juninho, and then backheels it to turn past both. Dribbling towards goal, he approaches Gilberto, then gives him a stepover and changes direction as he goes by him. Parreira beefed up his midfield to try to stop Zidane, and Zidane has dribbled past all three Brazilian midfielders within 40 seconds of kick-off. Was he as good as we remember? It is a wonderful display of technique and grace, right from the outset. Throughout his career, Zidane wasn’t at his best when shooting, or passing, or even dribbling, but simply when controlling the ball. If Henry was best when receiving the ball wide-left, Lionel Messi best when presented with crowded bodies on the edge of the box or Cristiano Ronaldo best with a ball hung up to the far post, Zidane is best when a wayward ball is dropping in his general direction. Here, on 12 minutes, he kills a high ball beautifully, almost without moving. Later, he takes a bouncing ball, launches a counter-attack which leaves Cafu and Gilberto hopelessly hacking in his general direction, and slips in Vieira. Gilberto often can’t get near him, not merely because of Zidane’s trickery, but because of his physique and ability to shield the ball. Later, in midfield, he lofts the ball over the head of club team-mate Ronaldo, and then casually heads the ball out to Eric Abidal. Little touches like that make Zidane’s best matches so memorable. There’s the whole range of Zidane tricks, and he’s particularly expressive when France are 1-0 ahead. There’s a double turn between the lines, not to evade his marker but simply to slow the game and control the tempo. There’s a classic “roulette” past Gilberto which gets an “Ole!” from the crowd. There’s a drag-back and then a chip in the general direction of Willy Sagnol. Zidane is focused on showing off, on doing what looks and feels impressive, rather than necessarily playing the right passes at the right time. What might we have forgotten? For an attacking midfielder who played between the lines, and played with a succession of top-class forwards, Zidane wasn’t particularly effective at hitting a delicate ball in behind the defence. That’s obvious three times within the first 10 minutes of this game, as Zidane plays three alarmingly bad passes intended for Henry. The first comes inside the first minute, after the aforementioned skill to avoid all three Brazil midfielders. Zidane neglects to play a simple through-ball between defenders for Henry and instead tries a remarkably ambitious chip over the top, which Lucio gets his head to, and it runs through to goalkeeper Dida. Two minutes later, after Lucio has dribbled forward and lost possession, Zidane has another chance to release Henry into space. Cafu — who, a little sadly, looks woefully short of the required speed to defend properly throughout this game — would have been panicking had Zidane sidefooted a simple pass to Henry, in his usual position on the left touchline. Instead, Zidane tries an overcomplicated outside-of-the-boot pass for the sake of it, miscues it horribly, and the ball goes in completely the wrong direction. And then, when Zidane collects the ball on the left touchline himself and has the opportunity to launch it over the top for Henry, who is making a run from an inside-right position, again he plays completely the wrong pass. He should be looking for a drifted ball over the top, instead he pings the ball with far too much power and it bounces through to Dida. Zidane would get the assist on Henry’s winner just before the hour, his deep free kick volleyed home at the far post. It was a curiously simple goal that came from a situation that developed throughout the game — Brazil played a very dangerous, disorganised offside trap at wide free kicks. But Zidane assisting Henry was an anomaly; the two never developed a good on-field relationship. It was his second and last assist for the former Arsenal striker; the first came from a simple short pass on the halfway line against Denmark at Euro 2000, which Henry took, dribbled 50 yards and then finished into the far corner for his typical goal. Neither goal demonstrated genuine understanding between the pair. Henry found Zidane immensely frustrating to play with — he’d been disappointed by his return from international retirement in the first place — and the first 10 minutes here demonstrate why. An attacking midfielder less focused on showmanship but more assured in terms of passing — an obvious example would be Cesc Fabregas, as he was playing with Henry at club level at the time — might have created three chances for him with these passes. Zidane’s attempts all went astray. What happened next? Zidane remained centre stage. He settled the semi-final four days later by scoring the only goal from the penalty spot in a 1-0 victory over Portugal. Then, in the final against Italy, Zidane’s performance was perhaps the most famous — or infamous — individual display of all-time. It was incredible enough that he chose to attempt a Panenka penalty on that stage — it bounced off the bar and only just crossed the line — and later, having nearly buried a header to put France 2-1 ahead in stoppage time, he ended his career in incredible circumstances, headbutting Marco Materazzi in the chest and being dismissed. His lone walk past the World Cup trophy was the final time he was seen on the pitch as a player.

nope, not buying your attempts to set in a false frame narrative that you will then keep pushing and referencing your own words retroactively to try and lend legitimacy to it not going to work

Shevchenko exclusive on Ancelotti, Mourinho and admiring Lampard https://theathletic.com/1882055/2020/06/20/horncastle-shevchenko-chelsea-milan-ukraine-ac-mourinho-ancelotti/ “There’s a bunch of us,” Andriy Shevchenko tells The Athletic. Looking back at the great AC Milan side he played in, it’s remarkable how many of his team-mates have gone into coaching. On Wednesday night, Rino Gattuso masterminded Napoli’s triumph over Juventus in the Coppa Italia final. Pippo Inzaghi’s Benevento are top of Serie B with an insurmountable 20-point lead. Alessandro Nesta may yet bring Frosinone up too, through the play-offs, a feat Massimo Oddo achieved with Pescara in 2016. Cristian Brocchi recently celebrated promotion to the second division after the Lega Pro season was curtailed. His Monza team, owned by former Milan owner Silvio Berlusconi and run by the club’s old chief executive Adriano Galliani, were 16 points clear of the rest and will be in Serie A before you know it. Shevchenko also mentions Clarence Seedorf, Jaap Stam, Hernan Crespo and Andrea Pirlo, who recently completed his coaching badges at Coverciano, Italy’s Ivy League coaching school. Just as members of Milan’s great team from the 1960s and beyond — Cesare Maldini, Giovanni Trapattoni, Gigi Radice, Nevio Scala and Albertino Bigon — found inspiration working under the mythical Nereo Rocco, the calm leadership of Carlo Ancelotti has encouraged his former players to make the transition from a life on the pitch to one in the dugout. “I think everyone who worked under Carlo took something from him,” Shevchenko says. He calls playing under him a “rite of passage”. To Shevchenko, the number of coaches Ancelotti nurtured provides another reason why that team got to three Champions League finals in five years from 2003. “It tells you there was more to us than just great players. We had smart people too.” If the pandemic hadn’t caused the postponement of Euro 2020 until next summer, Shevchenko would have been in Bucharest this weekend preparing a game plan for Ukraine’s final group stage match against Austria. Elements of Milan have been incorporated into his coaching staff. Mauro Tassotti, the three-time European Cup-winning defender, left the Rossoneri after 36 years to become Shevchenko’s No 2. “He was the first person I chose when I decided to go and coach,” Shevchenko says. “I spoke to Galliani, who was still Milan’s chief executive at the time, and Berlusconi. I did everything to have Mauro by my side.” Andrea Maldera, Ukraine’s match analyst, is also Milan through and through. His father Gino and uncle Aldo won everything there is to win in red and black in the 1960s and Seventies. The Milan mentality is evidently rubbing off on Ukraine. “We didn’t lose a game in qualifying,” Shevchenko recalls, “and we were in a group with Portugal, the European champions.” The future looks bright for Ukrainian football. As if topping a difficult qualifying group wasn’t already a source of considerable pride, winning the Under-20 World Cup in Poland last summer is yet more reason for optimism. Spirits were high because of the momentum Ukraine had generated going into the Euros. Shevchenko says he was so looking forward to the tournament that it was initially difficult to accept the decision to reschedule it. “Psychologically, it was a good time for us. As a country, we live for these moments. Our league doesn’t have the profile of some of the others around Europe. The national team was doing well. Looking back though, there’s obviously nothing you can do about it.” After succeeding Mykhaylo Fomenko in 2016, Shevchenko was clear about what he wanted to achieve. “At my first press conference I said, ‘Right, we’re going to change the way we play’. We used to counter-attack a lot. I wouldn’t say we were predictable but the structure of our play was totally different. We wanted to be more expansive and to have more control of the game through possession football, positive transitions. We wanted to be a team that creates lots of chances. Looking at our stats over the last three and a half years, the team has come on a lot in that regard.” As the Premier League restarts, Shevchenko will be watching from his home in Surrey — and not just because Ancelotti is now calling the shots at Everton. “I think Frank Lampard deserves a lot of praise (for the job he is doing at Chelsea),” Shevchenko says. “You know why? He’s got courage. Lots of courage. Frank plays the kids. He believes in them.” And who knows if Lampard sticks around long enough and keeps promoting talent from within, maybe one day Kristian Shevchenko, Andriy’s 13-year-old son and a trainee at Chelsea’s academy, will begin to attract his attention. Of the managers Shevchenko keeps notes on, it may come as a bit of a surprise to hear him name-check Jose Mourinho, given they only worked together for one season at Stamford Bridge. Nevertheless, Shevchenko insists: “I learned many things from Mourinho. The way he managed the team was very interesting.” We reflect on the Champions League game between Dynamo Kyiv and Mourinho’s Inter in 2009 when yet another Shevchenko goal — the 43-year-old is the most prolific player in the history of the Derby della Madonnina and still gives Milan’s rivals nightmares — threatened to end the Nerazzurri’s treble-winning season before it really got started, only for late strikes from Diego Milito and Wesley Sneijder to complete a famous comeback. “Jose always finds something out of nothing,” Shevchenko says. “This is his mentality. You must always believe. You can turn a game around in the last second. There are lots of examples of big games being decided at the end, like Manchester United against Bayern in 1999. Two minutes is all it takes. Great teams have this mentality. When you coach top players, they have to believe games can come down to the last 10 seconds. If you believe that, you can even win the Champions League in stoppage time. Look at Carlo’s Real Madrid. This is the beauty of football, but you need to build the right mentality.” While Ancelotti’s personal touch and man-management skills remain a key touchstone for Shevchenko, no one had a greater influence on him than the legendary Valeriy Lobanovskyi. Arguably the most powerful image of Shevchenko’s career is of him returning to Kyiv after scoring the winning penalty in the 2003 Champions League final and placing the trophy on a bench next to a statue of the late coach known as The Colonel. It was a trip Shevchenko would make again a year later on emulating Oleg Blokhin, another of Lobanovskiy’s proteges, after France Football awarded him the Ballon d’Or. “It was very emotional for me,” Shevchenko recalls. “Lobanovskiy had passed away by the time I won the Champions League. I knew how much winning these trophies meant to him. My triumph was his triumph. I wanted to share it with him.” Reflecting on their bond, Shevchenko says: “He was more a teacher than a father to me. I used to listen to him open-mouthed, hanging off his every word. He had a huge impact on me. Unbelievable. Lobanovskiy was very disciplined, a very intelligent person. He was interested in everything. I was at Milan in his later years. He coached the national team and every time I arrived for international duty he was there waiting for me in his office. I used to go in and see him straight away and we’d spend four or five hours just talking. He asked me to note down the training sessions we did at Milan. He was very interested in how training was developing in Italy; the load management, the importance of rest. Lots of things about the job.” Lobanovskiy was a pioneer, applying science to football long before anybody else. When Shevchenko attended the Milan Lab, little of it was new to him. “The first coach to use physical data and performance metrics was Lobanovskiy,” he says. “He based everything on statistics. The maths never lies. You can have your own opinion but if the numbers on the sheet of paper say otherwise… Lobanovskiy was ahead of his time 40 years ago. He brought in scientists and put a team of them together. He created a model and wrote a programme that gave him precise data on heart rate, workloads, all kinds of different tests.” One of them helps us better understand Shevchenko’s quick thinking and the alertness he used to show in front of goal. “There was a test where you had to look at a blank computer screen on which different coloured squares would appear. If, for example, the square was red, I had to push a button on my right. If it was green, there was one to my left. It tested your reaction time and how you react to what you see. It’s simple but it gives you a data set that allows the manager to compare you to the other players. If you go to Dynamo Kyiv now, you’ll find all the results from the physical tests I did as a 10-year-old on a computer.” Lobanovskiy turned a natural talent into a goal machine. Milan’s scouting report from the famous game at the Nou Camp in November 1997 when Shevchenko announced himself to the Champions League with a breathtaking hat-trick ended after a single paragraph with the line: “It’s superfluous to add anything else.” Italo Galbiati then signed off by engaging caps lock: “HE’S A MILAN PLAYER.” And not just that. Ukraine’s all-time top scorer would probably have become Milan’s record marksman too had he not left for Chelsea in 2006. Only Gunnar Nordahl stands above ‘Sheva’ in their record books. Quite remarkable, isn’t it, when he couldn’t exactly rely on Inzaghi to set him up for any of those 175 goals. We laugh in recollection at one in particular his old strike partner managed to score against Lyon, a classic Inzaghi number. “The one where I took a shot, hit the post, then the other post and he put it in! He was a grandissimo striker. It’s hard to find one like him, you know. His reading of the spaces in the penalty area was incredible. He knew where the ball was going to bounce.” As for Pirlo, well, he knew exactly how to find them. “At the time I retired, Andrea was still playing at Juventus and one day I asked him, ‘Do you even sweat when you play?’ He was young when we were team-mates. Andrea used to run, but once he turned 30 he knew the game so well that he could walk and still do everything better than everybody else. He had the ability to read the moment, such a high football IQ.” Naturally, training against Paolo Maldini and Nesta at Milanello kept him sharp too. “The games on a Sunday were the easy part,” Shevchenko recalls. “Carlo didn’t want us playing games in training. They were tough and competitive and you risked getting injured in them more than during a game. It’s the truth.” Shevchenko will expect the same standards when Ukraine next get together. Following in the footsteps of a giant such as Lobanovskiy and coaching his country represents “a great honour and a big responsibility” for him. And when the Euros finally come around next summer, they could be a revelation.

Davies is nowhere near Ramos level of bad actor. smdh

Agree until the last part. We are not winning the league with the GK, LB, and CB situ we have now, even with Havertz.

That is not germane. Sorry but I love Davies as a player. Everyone has a few rash actions.

Alphonso Davies is 19, has been playing LB for only 7, 8 months, and is already top 3, perhaps even the best (if not, soon will be), LB on the planet. Chilwell is not remotely in his league.

Declan Rice starts AT CB someone is listening

West Ham United v Wolverhampton Wanderers http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/premier-league-west-ham-united-vs-wolverhampton-wanderers-s1/ https://www.totalsportek.com/west-ham/

roflmaoooooooooooooooo

they are full rage at AFTV

lol arse coughed it up at the death

what a goal by Pepe

sweet Gladback won 1 3 and Bayer lost 2 nil

GD is 9 atm and a 2 point lead all they needed to do to have clinched CL today is have scored one in that dreadful nil nil v Werder

all Gladbach need to do is draw v Hertha next game and its over zero chance Bayer can make up 8 or 9 on GD

Gladbach just scored again

AFTV live comedy gold

Leno did his knee bad or maybe broke his leg surely out for the year

red card banned

Brighton & Hove Albion v Arse HD Streams http://www.sportnews.to/sports/2020/premier-league-brighton-hove-albion-vs-arsenal-s1/full.php https://www.totalsportek.com/arsenal-streams/