Posts Tagged ‘Luis Suarez’

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So to the day’s games and first up was Portugal against Morocco or, more realistically, Cristiano Ronaldo against Morocco. Fresh from his 3-3 draw with the entire Spanish team he set out to prove it was no fluke and, indeed, that he could take things a stage further by actually beating a team.

He managed it but it was a close-run thing. With just the one goal, a bullet header in the first half, he had to rely on his team mates at times to defend his lead. They did this heroically, albeit with a few of the stutters they showed against Spain.

So for a few short hours Cristiano was top of the group. He is, of course, far too modest to accept all the plaudits and was gracious enough to allow the team name to be used when the tables were shown. (more…)

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According to the headline of an article in The Guardian, Gareth Southgate wants “young, hungry England to dream of winning the World Cup

Well, we have news for you Gareth, they do! The problem is that dreams, particularly that one, rarely come true!

In fairness, the reporter actually quotes Southgate as saying he has no problem with the players believing they can win the World Cup, which is slightly different and just goes to show that members of the press often submit articles which then have the headline added or edited by somebody else. (more…)

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If you could pick one player from the last twenty five years to represent your team in the present day, who would it be?

Here we make a few suggestions by picking one favourite from each of the top six teams, see if you agree and, if not, then let us know in the comments who you would pick.

The only condition we make is that the player in question must have been bought, not brought up through the ranks, so there will be no Steven Gerrard or John Terry, for example. (more…)

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Due to a shortage of actual, interesting transfers, Sky Sports News are treating the transfer of Neymar from Barcelona to PSG as though it was important to anybody not from one of the three locations directly affected. It isn’t, but we will now devote almost an entire article to that very subject.

Yes, there is a knock-on effect with the fee that PSG are paying for someone generally  regarded as being only the THIRD best player in the world because it will certainly drive up the fees for average players. But that alone does not make this particular transfer any more interesting to the average fan.

The average fan does not really care about how much a player is bought or sold for, he/she just cares about whether or not they can play football. (more…)

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This transfer window promises to see English Premier League clubs spend a massive amount of money, breaking the record set in the previous window yet again.

As of writing, Manchester City have already signed Bernardo Silva and Ederson, whilst Manchester United have signed Victor Lindelof. These two clubs alone are likely to spend many more millions before the window is locked until January. (more…)

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For a short period of time, a couple of years ago, Brendan Rodgers looked as though he may win the Premier League title with Liverpool. He certainly came closer than they have done for many a year and all the stupid cliches came babbling forth from the experts and the press. My favourite is, “they will never have a better chance of winning it than they did that year“.

That, of course, is complete nonsense as, under Jürgen Klopp, they may very well have their best chance of winning it, although it is yet to come. (more…)

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(Yet again Ronald Koeman has donned his Claudio Ranieri mask in order to slip under the radar!)

If you believe everything that you read, then yes, the Premier League is very open this season. The fact of the matter is though, that it isn’t really.

What do we mean by “open” anyway? There are twenty teams in the division. For the title race to be wide open, (as in “that result has blown the title race wide open“, a frequently heard phrase), then every one of the twenty needs to be in with a chance of winning it. (more…)

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The straightforward, down-to-earth answer to the above question is: Yes, he is ridiculously expensive and nobody should be spending that amount of money on one player. As Jürgen Klopp mentioned, at least three top class players could be brought in to strengthen a team for that sort of money. Also, the knock-on effect for other clubs is frightening, particularly the smaller clubs.

The true answer is: No, United will recover the money in a relatively short space of time, effectively meaning that he will have cost nothing. In fact, I read a short while ago that advance orders for Pogba shirts totalled somewhere in the region of £72 million, so not much more is required to achieve a complete refund! (more…)

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So, failing to qualify for the Champion’s League is not the disaster that all the “experts” predicted it would be. In fact it appears to have had little or no impact on the two main “failures” in England. These are the two teams who contested the final only eight years ago in Moscow! The ability of Manchester United and Chelsea to sign top players and managers does not appear to have been diminished at all.

It is probably true to say that a prolonged absence from the competition would begin to have a negative effect at some stage as a considerable amount of money can be made by appearing in Europe’s top competition. The loss of this money over a sustained period would prove harmful to the clubs trying to attract the best players and, by doing so, make qualifying again the following year a more difficult proposition. In this respect it is a vicious circle. (more…)

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There now exists, more than ever before, a two-team competition in oneupmanship in Manchester. No sooner have Manchester City appointed Pep Guardiola then Manchester United are appointing Jose Mourinho.

City sign Ilkay Gundogan and United sign Henrikh Mhkitaryan, both from Borussia Dortmund and neither of whom will have the fans singing their names for a while, certainly not if they have to learn to spell them first!

United are reportedly looking to sign Paul Pogba so City are immediately linked with Luis Suarez.

United will break the world transfer record, but only if City don’t! (more…)