Posts Tagged ‘Neymar’

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So the bubble has finally burst! Poor little Ole Gunnar Solskjær has lost a game of football for the first time since joining the club as caretaker manager. In fairness, he managed to do it in some style choosing, as he did, a Champion’s League night at Old Trafford against PSG who won quite comfortably by two goals to nil.

The mitigating circumstances would be that he lost Jesse Lingard and Anthony Martial to injury and had to play entire second half with two of his elder statesman in Juan Mata and Alexis Sánchez. This, of course, meant sacrificing any pace whatsoever and completely nullifed United’s attacking prowess. (more…)

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So Wednesday night sees the first Champion’s League football for Manchester City and United. City at home to Lyon and United away in Switzerland playing Young Boys.

With their usual consideration for supporters UEFA have scheduled these games to kick off at the same time meaning anybody wanting to watch both, can’t.

This is a variation on the previous night’s games which saw Inter Milan and Tottenham Hotspur kick off at 7:00pm whilst Liverpool and PSG started at 9:00pm. No doubt there will have been football fans around Europe who wanted to see both matches and this timing will have made that possible. (more…)

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With only nine days of the transfer window left nothing much is happening. Despite clubs wanting business done early because of the World Cup, only West Ham and Liverpool appear to have done very much about it, although Everton are catching up.

At the time of writing Manchester United have spent the third highest amount of all the Premier League clubs but they have only really bought one player, Fred, who can expect to be a regular next season.

So is this transfer window proving more difficult than others? Has the Neymar deal really had a massive effect on all other potential signings? (more…)

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Nothing is happening. It’s as if somebody has pressed the global pause button. The World Cup has ground to a halt, even if only for two days. The transfer window is in danger of becoming even more boring than that game between France and Denmark.

What is going on and where is the news?

It got so bad that poor old Jim White on Sky Sports News had to resort to reporting the “incredible” news that a man had seen a bear in the woods in Montana and a shark had been spotted in the sea off the Australian coast! Truly incredible stuff!

Not to worry, avid readers, if there is any football-related news we will find it. Even if we have to actually read some other rags to do so. As far as the World Cup goes, this is what we think we know. (more…)

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The first game of the day between Mexico and Brazil was a pretty mundane affair and resulted in a fairly routine win for the South Americans.

Mexico rarely threatened and goals from Neymar Jr. and Roberto Firmino did the trick.

What the game may be remembered for, for a short while at least, was the ever-improving acting ability of Neymar. He isn’t quite there yet as it is evident, to anybody who knows anything about thespianism, that he is playing a part because he overdoes it.

What is also obvious is that he has been told that a career in Hollywood awaits his retirement from football and he has already started auditioning for roles. (more…)

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Brazil against Costa Rica was the stand-out game of the day, particularly as the setial winners of the trophy had only managed to pick up a point against Switzerland in a 1-1 draw. Costa Rica had lost narrowly by 1-0 to Serbia so it was all to play for here.

The final score of 2-0 to Brazil would have people who didn’t see the game thinking that this was a reasonably easy victory for them but the truth of the matter is very different. The fact that both goals came AFTER the 90 minute mark should give readers a reasonable idea how hard fought this win was. (more…)

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Where does all that money keep coming from? Reports from Madrid are now suggesting that Real are prepared to offer Cristiano Ronaldo £28.5 million per year to stay at the club, something which he was probably always intending to do but we all know how he likes to play his little games at the end of every season.

He is actually reaching the stage of his career where he has to be careful with his annual shenanigans because, at 33 and getting older, there will come a time when he will pretend to throw his toys out of the pram and Real Madrid will run a truck over them! (more…)

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This is a question which, in various guises, has been asked before, even by our goodselves.

In the not too distant past we have criticised the big clubs for waiting until players become household names and then spending a fortune to buy them, rather than scouting them as young players and picking them up for next to nothing, relatively speaking.

We are reminded of these instances every time, for example, Virgil van Dijk is mentioned in the press and, lately, this has been quite often. (more…)

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During the international yawn and, due to the paucity of anything remotely interesting in the football world, we will be publishing some of the articles written, by our goodselves, for other publications.

The reason for this is twofold. One is the lack of anything else worth reading, but the other is to see how accurate, or otherwise, we have been over the years. See what you think and please use the comments section to let us know.

To begin with, here’s an article we wrote back in 2015 which looks at how important Marouane Fellaini was becoming, even then, to Louis van Gaal. It was written just before the Champion’s League qualifier against FC Bruges of Belgium. (more…)

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Ah, the wonderful art of mathematics! Or should that be the wonderful science of mathematics?

Whichever it is, next season will see the Premier League’s top teams set about proving what every five year old already knows, that eight into four does not go. Higher up the title-chasing ladder and Chelsea, Manchester City and Manchester United will prove that three into one does not go either.

In other words it is widely expected that the title will be a three horse race but the top four will be an eight horse race. (more…)