capriccioso

We're talking basics here. His 'movement' is hardly out of this world, its basic striker positioning. Any competent goal scorer would know where to be instinctively, and if they didn't, their coaches would drum it into their heads. Now we've established that praising him for positioning is not valid, we have to examine his finishing, which is absolutely terrible, you cannot rely on him to tuck away a chance. You don't know if he'll hit the top corner or do something like this: And that is exactly what's not needed in a striker. We need someone confident. Someone who'll tuck away the chances he will get. Any idiot can get himself in the same goal scoring positions Torres was in several times last season.

Yep, Spanish football is predicated on the condition that Barcelona and Real Madrid always receive 130+ million in TV rights and under absolutely no circumstances must a third club earn more than 50 million, which is one of the major factors in how far ahead of the pack they are. The other teams know the Europa League is the only chance they get at a trophy- all the domestic ones will invariably end up in the hands of the big two and that explains why Spanish teams take the EL so seriously and tend to do very well. That kind of scenario lends itself to murky corruption (Operacion Puerto) and domination. England are nowhere near that and thankfully never will be. Domination like that is just not possible anymore. Even Man United in the PL era have never walked to a title, they've always had at least one rival and they've had to fight their way to the title on many occasions.

Peace called it all in February when many still had some hopes for him : He's also spot on in the post above mine; he's not been confident for a long time now. Even that Barcelona goal, a confident player would have taken a shot earlier than him- he took an extra touch to get it round Valdes.

Yep, he's finished. First off, he was never that good unless the entire team was absolutely dedicated to doing nothing else than getting goals out of him- probably because they had no other choice but to play like that to remain competitive (hi Atletico) or because they relied on a nucleus of players and had very little in striking depth (hi Kopites). Though recently I've had a spate of calling people shit before them responding with incredible performances, at the first possible occasion, making me look a fool. Now I've said that he'll probably score 4 goals in the Community Shield.

Will you two give City-United 'DOMINATION FOREVER' a rest? If Term's right then they'll go to shit in 5 seasons. If Justin is right they'll go to shit in 5 seasons. Both the arguments fail to realise that they, reasonably soon, will be hit with the same problems we have been having since 2010, selling their ageing shite.

Totally agree. Experience > youth, always. Unless your youth happen to be world beaters, which ours plainly aren't. And Mikel.

Good point. I guess we won't know until it happens. A touch of disappointment that we've been unable to go back-to-back, I guess. As long as we don't embarrass ourselves and at least get to the knockout stages, I don't think we'll be that crushed.

The stature of the teams doesn't change the fact that its a glorified pre season friendly.

It seems AC Milan are willing to take a risk on him.

Hello Mr. Redknapp, how goes the hunt for a new job?

They're not a threat, at least immediately. As TC said, super teams don't always work out as expected, especially not in a short period of time. I can see them doing a City and troubling the bigger teams 3-4 years down the track, though.

2 trophies out of 7 3rd/4th place in the PL Knockout stages of the CL Anything more than that will surely be beyond us.

Deco, perhaps?

Sorry. Still a plagiarist! But that's okay, plagiarism is awesome.

We haven't had a player likeable straight off the bat since Kalou, imo.

Plagiarist.

Going off topic in transfer threads really is cool.

I'm not talking about the nobodies, I'm talking about introverts who don't actually like speaking with the press. Foreign Paul Scholes'; who perhaps because they aren't bothered learning the language, won't give out interviews.

I'm sure a lot aren't really arsed. The foreigners who don't speak much to the media, for example, probably don't care.

Some people don't like to be immersed though, Carlos Tevez, for example. In that case it'll be ESL, and that's if they want to.

I can hardly imagine Terry spending his time teaching ESL. We'll have a professional language teacher on staff, I'd imagine. Or they'll be sent to an ESL school. They don't even need to be that fluent, how hard can it be to say "Fuck off ref"/"That was never offside"/"Pass!" and other related football mannerisms?

The previous number 11 was fairly good but didn't exactly set the place alight as Drogba did. It will be very weird to see 11. OSCAR on the teamsheet instead of 11. DROGBA

I think we'll win 1-0 with City dominating, or we'll lose 2-0 with City dominating.

Played, Spike.

I don't think they have that kind of cash at this point. What are we talking here, 38 million and 100k wages?