Jype

Bye King Salomon and good luck to the future. :blue scalf:

Arbeloa > Maicon any day for the last couple of years. You simply don't play in the starting lineups of the Spanish national team and Real Madrid if you're shit. Probably one of the most underrated defenders out there. But that's enough off topic, back to Maicon.

As crazy as it seems, this time I 100% agree with TMO. People who think Maicon at the age of 30 would be more than happy to sit on the bench with tiny wages compared to what he currently makes at Inter are delusional. It's not like he's already at the point in his career where he goes to a smaller league or takes a smaller role when he's not good enough to play with the big boys anymore.

Debuchy isn't really a promising youngster who requires a lot of playing time to develop but a 26 year old who's already good enough to come and challenge Ivanovic for a starting spot. A little competition for a place in the team is always healthy and there's still more than enough games for two good players to share them. Maicon on the other hand has been on the decline for a couple of years now but with the reputation he has he would still be at least as expensive as the other options and I would hazard a guess he would be on a lot higher wages too despite supposedly coming in as a backup player. And who's to say he would be happy to sit on the bench a lot either? Of course if he's really available at a cut price and is willing to take a pay cut to be second choice for the champions of Europe, then I would happily take him, but that stuff only happens in our dreams and in Football Manager, doesn't it?

Good to see the board have finally grown themselves a functioning set of brains.

Hope this doesn't happen. For the last couple of years most of our signings have been mostly sensible and this would be another Deco / Modric case when for nearly the same price we sign a +30 has-been instead of a younger talent who's close to hitting his peak as a player. Obviously he's still a good player but for how long? Rumors of Inter looking at Debuchy to be Maicon's replacement if the Brazilian is leaving. Why shouldn't we try to buy Debuchy instead?

Romeu?

So Bertrand, Luiz, Romeu, Mata and Sturridge are all going? That's a couple starters and a few decent squad players we'll be missing for the pre-season and the first couple of weeks in the league if they're given extra holidays after the tournament. Big losses. How many players from other top clubs are playing in the Olympics?

Courtois is 100% certain to be our future number one keeper if the man himself wants it and is willing to wait a couple of years. Already a cracking player and I honestly think he's got what it takes to be the very best. I rate Courtois to be better than Begovic already and five years younger too.

@ESPNSoccernet: Harry Redknapp has revealed that he tried to sign Mario Balotelli during his time in charge of Tottenham Hotspur. In other news, grass is green and the sky is blue. Who hasn't he tried to sign?

Yeah, so what? I know full well he has only a year left on his contract and now it's looking likely that Torres is going to be our main striker next season and Sturridge would serve as a backup but still that doesn't change the fact he's a 22-year-old English versatile centre forward who scored 11 goals in the league last season despite sitting on the bench a lot since Di Matteo took over. Considering what the transfer market is like these days, a player like that is worth 15 mil easily. I said it myself earlier today that Danny could be used to tempt Spurs into selling Modric to us but if we agreed to give them one of the most promising strikers in the country as well as a shocking amount of £30m in cold, hard cash, we would be the fools of the deal, not them. If they want Sturridge in exchange, we can think about it but the amount of money wouldn't then be anywhere near £30m or we would once again be the laughing stock of the footballing world when it comes to transfers. Of course Modric is one of the best midfielders in the world and would improve our chances a lot for next season but somewhere there simply has to be a limit of what we are willing to pay for such a player.

£25-30m + Sturridge for Modric would be one of the most ridiculous deals ever. If we really wanted to get rid of Sturridge I'm sure he would go for something like £15m so that would take the total to around £40-45 million. That's way too much for Modric and we'd be more than foolish if we took it. I still think a ridiculous bid like that is what it takes for Levy to even consider selling Luka to us. Hope we're not that desperate to agree to it though.

Spurs are on the verge of signing Sigurdsson and are rumored to be after Moutinho too if AVB takes over so Modric looks certain to leave now. Only question remaining is where he's going. The way I see it there are three options: Chelsea, Manchester United and Real Madrid. If there are no player swaps involved in the deal then a transfer to Real Madrid would be the best option from Tottenham's point of view because they're not even playing in the Champions League ( ) and wouldn't have to face Modric in any competition whereas selling to another English team would improve their direct rival. Manchester United would most likely be the one to offer him most playing time because their midfield is the worst and also the oldest but I believe they're not willing to spend as much money on him as Tottenham are asking. We would be able to compete with Real Madrid financially but the problem is Levy and that cunt won't sell to us. I think the only way for us to get Modric now is if their new manager (AVB by the looks of it) wanted one of our players badly, which would suddenly put us in good position in negotiating with them. Sturridge is of course rumored to be in AVB's radar but would we be willing to sacrifice one of our most promising players to get Modric, and even if we were would Spurs still sell Luka to us? Real Madrid and Manchester United don't either have players who Tottenham would want in exchange or the players themselves wouldn't want to go there (Sahin for example). I consider rejects like Diarra to be indifferent, they could be used to sweeten the deal a little but would they really affect Tottenham's decision one way or the other?

He was on too high wages for a backup goalkeeper.

Agreed. A shame people don't rate him anymore but to be honest he was awful last season. He stayed for too long and maybe should have left a year ago when his performances had already started to decline. Now some have even forgotten about how good he was only a couple of years ago and only remember the bad things nowadays. I've always liked him as a player and most of all as a person and wish him all the best to the future if it has come to the point he's leaving. Same goes for a couple other long time Chelsea players (e.g. Essien).

Maybe he was smart enough to negotiate some release clause in that new contract?

No need to slate the board, they've been brilliant lately with the signings of Marin and Hazard, giving Di Matteo the job on a permanent basis and all those new commercial deals to increase revenue in order to get the club in a better position regarding the FFP. Of course I agree that Essien should be sold before Meireles but it's not always the board's fault if things don't go ideally. After all players are human beings and not some robots who can just be got rid of when they're not needed anymore.

It is the year 2012, isn't it?

What the hell? A part of me wants those ridiculous rumors to be true so we'd at least get to see him play more often even if it wasn't for Chelsea but Barcelona, are you fucking kidding me?

He will get his chance during pre-season and if he does enough to convince Di Matteo to give him a place in the team then he will get it. If he doesn't perform then he goes on loan to get more experience. Simple as that.

Didn't Modric sign a couple Chelsea shirts as well last summer? Doesn't mean anything yet.

De Bruyne?

Nah, just something too fancy because I like stadiums to be a bit more traditional.

To me the stadium is near perfection as it is now and that remodeling will make it look just another plastic piece of shit. Some things are better left untouched if they aren't broken. If they think they have too much money in their hands and are itching to do something then a retractable roof at most would be enough to make it one of the finest stadiums in the world (if it isn't that already).

That sketch for the remodeled Bernabeu looks absolutely disgusting.