GermanBlue

I'd love him here, but to me, Cavani should still be the highest priority. Probably Dortmund can technically afford him, but he'd have higher wages than any other player in the team, if he doesn't accept a cut. They did something similar in the early 2000s when they won the leauge in 2001/2002. After that the players demanded higher wages (got it) and when Bayern tried to sign a few players of them at the same time (similar like today with Götze and Lewandowski), Dortmund raised the wages again. In the next season, their success began to end when they even missed international football in 03/04 and because the wages were still very high, they made a lot of debts. In 2005, they were nearly insolvent when Bayern helped them out and gave them 2m €. What I want to say is that Dortmund have learned from this. Of course the success in the last three years was more than one league title and one UEFA Cup final and the wage of Reus, Hummels or Kuba will be high enough, but I expect them to act very cautious this summer. That's why I also think that they are not going to sign Jackson Martinez for example where Porto is demanding 40m€. I can't see them doing this ridiculous stuff. And because Dzeko is on very high wages (Remember that Wolfsburg pay ridiculously high wages, too), I don't think he'll join BVB unless he accepts a huge wage cut. But if we're seriously interested, too, and City are cool with it (which is the big IF I think), why would he accept such a wage cut, when he can get a lot more money here?

He is surely way way way better than Marin! But what he's still lacking a bit is consistency. If you watch videos of him on youtube, you are of course impressed. He bangs in dream goals and performs very well at times. But between those performances, there are very often 5-6 games where you don't see him at all and when the media seems to question him, especially in the NT, he bounces back with another great performance and the cycle starts again.

Schürrle is very explosive, too. Pace is one of his main strengths which he trains on specifically with an expert in Leverkusen. I don't know why all of you put workrate as an explicit strength of him? He's surely no lazy bastard, but don't expect him to run after every opponent down the touchline. Though I think that tactically, players in Germany are more forced to a strict pressing within the team. As a rotation player, he can surely be considered, but is a rotation player worth 20mio and maybe even losing one of our biggest talents which actually could be used at the same position? I don't know...

No please just no. His playing style is soo annoying. He's a bad finisher, he has no right foot, he rants at his teammates when they play a bad pass (he doesn't play any passes, he can't misplace one), he's injury prone and he's a fucking diva. When Heynckes settled his first formation in the beginning of the season with Ribery, Kroos and Müller behind Mandzukic, Robben and Gomez were forced to warm the bench. The latter has just come back from injury and while slowly starting to train harder, he came closer to the team, getting some joker appearances and when he started, he always delievered. You never heard him crying in the media about being benched. But Robben behaved like an absolute diva. Even though he fucked up the Bundesliga and Champions League title for Bayern, he was crying when the fans booed him and he was still demanding a spot in the first team. He cried through all the media. Finally at the end of 2012 he did get more and more appearances. He delievered, yes! But he certainly wouldn't be a starter without the Kroos injury and even though he's celebrated as the hero of the CL final by a lot of supporters because of his goal and assist, most of the people forget he should've decided it way before when he was having 3 100 percent chances. I still think there is a chance that Bayern might sell him this summer if there's a good offer for him. He's past his prime, his "signature-move" is known all over the world and he's probably on very high wages. But would he want to return? He himself will probably do everything to stay, because it seems like every football player wants to train under Guardiola and I can certainly understand that. So yeah, I'm not his biggest fan.

Just withdraw. He's not better than KDB, especially when he's being forced to play on the right wing.

Had to write a mediation in English class today about bizarre and dangerous initial rites to join students clubs. In Germany, being a student is also going hand and hand with drinking a lot of beer, but what I've read in the article today was somewhere between hilarious and disgusting. Is it really that fucked over there?

I'd love to have Sneijder here, but nothing more than a rotation option though. Maybe it's time to re-open the Sneijder thread so we can discuss him separately?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18AsO6LlJ6Y&feature=player_embedded First ten minutes. Other parts will be uploaded in a while by the same guy.

Wrong. In 04/05 for example we signed Didier Drogba and Mateja Kezman for attack (44,5m€). We spent 75,4m€ on the defence (Carvalho, Ferreira, Alex, Cech, Alcides), but we only spent 30m€ on the midfield with Robben and Tiago. In 05/06, you might be right, because we didn't sign any attacker and spent 69,5m€ on the midfield (Essien, Wright-Philips), but in the next season we also signed Shevchenko for 46m€.

Dat video.

That moment at school when you're hanging on your smartphone on day to finally see this official announcement.

De Bruyne > Schürrle. As the whole German team.

They just said that Dortmund could be interested in signing Gomez. They may well be the German Sun in terms of the writing style, but they're mostly spot on at (German) football. Also, the article doesn't say he's surely signing there, they just say he's about to sign which mostly means the deal is about 80% done. They say his agent has agreed to a three year deal with Napoli and that he's already moved out of his flat. People have reportedly heard him saying goodbye to his teammates in the dressing room, too, although I don't believe that. It seems like it's all about the transfer fee now. Here's the original article btw: http://www.bild.de/sport/fussball/mario-gomez/wechselt-zum-ssc-neapel-30657530.bild.html

Was just about to post this. I think so, yes. I'm happy though that he didn't signed for us.

Premier League is clearly the priority. José has the ability to bring some consistency in the squad which was one of the main issues this season. We didn't play that bad against the top oppositions, it was the losses and dropped points against WBA, West Ham, QPR, Southampton etc that broke our legs. If we can get some quality signings in like Cavani and a world-class CM, I'm sure we can challenge the title which should be our priority in my opinion. After a disappointing last CL campaign I'm happy if we make it into the quarter finals. Depending on the opposition, we'll have to see if the semi is necessarry. I'm sure we'll make it at least to Wembley in the FA Cup. I don't care about the Capital One Cup, but I'm sure José wants to win it all. I would not be too disappointed if we don't lift a trophy at the end of next season, but surely we have a chance. What we should be focussing on, is bringing consistency and depth into the squad. I'd love to see us performing an unique kind of playing like that fast counter-attacking football José has always loved.

WTF

The problem is: With Higuain leaving, Real will pretty surely be the biggest opponent in signing Cavani.

So Bayern won the German Cup today. After a 3:0 lead, Stuttgart showed great effort and made it 3:2. It was pretty nice to see that after a season like that, Bayern still had to shit their pants in the final minutes. But still, big respect (especially to Heynckes) for this great season. Guardiola has big boots to fill.

He's been left out of Senegal's squad for their World Cup qualifiers against Angola and Liberia this month. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11095/8749311

Nevermind: Thought we were talking about Schürrle...

Big LOL on the media bitching on him, because he left out Casillas again for his last game in charge against Malaga tomorrow although Lopez can't play. It's Adan's last game for Real and he would've started anyway...

Kick me, but to me, Oscar has not shown why he should be regular starter. He's had great moments and he definitely has the potential to become world class, but his performances - especialy in the league - were not more than average. He mainly benefited from Moses drop of form after the African Cup, Hazard's 3 match ban and Marin being a complete flop (and having injury problems as well). To be fair, it's his first season in England (mostly not playing in his favored position) and it was hard to shine alongside your two magicians in the attacking three. Hatestorm approaching...

I'd appreciate this signing. He could provide more defensive depth. But he's never worth 30m.

His best position is right behind the striker, because that's where he's most goal-threatening. That's where he played for Gladbach 11/12, he has just been forced to the left wing by Götze. Mata played a beast season at this position though. We're not gonna sign him soon anyway.

As I've mentioned in the Schürrle thread, this seems like just a cry of desperation from Holzhäuser. He probably recognised that Kevin wants to join Dortmund if he is to be sold/loaned again. In the German press message it's more clear, because he's saying "I assume that Chelsea hold their promise.", but he knows that Dortmund has the money and the popularity to be ahead of Leverkusen in the race for KDB. The same happened a week ago when Bremen's CB Sokratis reached an agreement with Leverkusen to join them, but signed a few days later at Dortmund, so Holzhäuser just seems pissed at Dortmund ("BVB wants to keep us small.").