Football: WORLD CUP 06 and close season/transfer discussion.

KevG · Post by **KevG** » Mon Jul 04, 2005 2:05 pm 0

romanista wrote:isn't it benitez scheme to get rid of all the Liverpool stalwards, just so he can build his own team, and doesn't have to play with Owen and Gerrard to keep the Kop quiet?

Not sure about that. It's true he wants his own team. I rather thought that MO left BenÃtez in the lurch. There is an opinion though that he presented MO with an ulitmatum: after 18 months of stalling, sign here or go. Allegedly. If that was true then I admire him for it. And if this is what SG is doing, then, though I would prefer SG to stay, it's got to be done. No player is beigger than the club etc. LFC have ben run ragged in recent years with this sort of carry-on.

romanista wrote: my italian side, Roma, is in far more trouble.. they are banned from buying any player for a year, Serie B, here we come

I saw something about that this morning. What happened there. Why the ban??

Sickboy · Post by **Sickboy** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:34 am 0

Ah, Chelsea... Say it ain't so, Stevie.

KevG · Post by **KevG** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:22 am 0

Sickboy wrote:Ah, Chelsea... Say it ain't so, Stevie.

Well it sort of fits I suppose.
<total specualtion>
Chelsea have been really quite. Omenously so.

Why would SG go to RÃ©al? He's won the CL with his home team. What's next: Premiership. And who stands a better than average chance of winning that?

It wouldn't surprise me if SFX hadn't been 'hinted at' shall we say to stir things up to get this exact scenario set up in the first place.

All alleged, of course
</total speculation>

What gets me with this is that SG's agents represent him. If he really wants to stay at Liveropool then it would be very easy for him to tell his agent to cool it, get on the blower to Rick, sit down and sign.

But, as of yet, he hasn't. So, despite the 'Why would I want to move?' announcement, at the end of the day he doesn't want to play for LFC.
In that case it's better that LFC get shut. Win-win for them really.

*gah* What an unseamly mess

romanista · Post by **romanista** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:27 am 0

KevG wrote:
romanista wrote: my italian side, Roma, is in far more trouble.. they are banned from buying any player for a year, Serie B, here we come
I saw something about that this morning. What happened there. Why the ban??

Well, to say it short, Roma (in effect Sensi, the roma president) have not been excactly paying up for transfers the last couple of years.. e.g. when they bought Chivu from Ajax (my dutch squad) Ajax (in 2003) had to threaten with all kinds of things to get their money a year late..

Last year their dodgy finances were saved by a special "legge calcio" by Berlusconi (not just for roma, but Lazio and some other squads too), otherwise they probably would have gone down like Fiorentina en Napoli (which isn't necessarely bad, as you can start over as fiorentina proved, and the Italian Fa will help you a bit by e.g. extending the serie B)...

But they kept on buying nevertheless and the current affair is concentrating on the (mediocre) defender Mexes which they bought from AJ Auxerre last year. They still owe them 10 million euros and their refusal (in effect probably inability) to pay led to this ban

Roma is a strange club, despite having won only 3 scudetti, it is probably the club with the highest attendence in the serie A (juve is never sold out for example), and loved by the citizens of the city (Lazio is more the club of the region).. and my love for the club grew immense while studying there (hence my nick)

KevG · Post by **KevG** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:44 am 0

Thanks for that romanista.

You know I can't help thinming that, in Italy, we are seeing one possible "future" of the English game. Clubs spending and spending way beyond their means to bolster squads whilst running themselves into more and more debt.

I remember when I was in Rome, Lazio weren't very popular in the city itself. I'm surprised that Juve don't sell out. Amazed in fact.

Zen-Chan · Post by **Zen-Chan** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 9:54 am 0

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 651003.stm

They've knocked back a Â£32 million bid from Chelsea.

But hey, Liverpool fans, look on the bright side - Peter Crouch is back in the picture again

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/footbal ... 650337.stm

KevG · Post by **KevG** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:16 am 0

Starting to wonder whther RPis deffo behind a bidding war here

. Hope I'm wrong.

Re Crouch. I could be doing the lad down but I'm utterly underwhelmed by the prospect of him coming to Anfield I'm afraid. I just hope we make decent use of the Â£35 mil plus if it's coming our way

GeeZa · Post by **GeeZa** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:26 am 0

I've been waiting for Chelsea all along. Looks like they're prepared to pay 35m+ for him which is money *no* club can honestly keep turning down. I guess the big question, which is why I've always favoured Real, is whether Gerrard will play for them, he seems to have always said he'd go abroad.

KevG · Post by **KevG** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:32 am 0

GeeZa wrote:I've been waiting for Chelsea all along. Looks like they're prepared to pay 35m+ for him which is money *no* club can honestly keep turning down. I guess the big question, which is why I've always favoured Real, is whether Gerrard will play for them, he seems to have always said he'd go abroad.

I'd much prefer SG to go abroad if he is to get off.

Â£35 million is obscene money. As is Â£100K a week, IMHO.

Dio · Post by **Dio** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:43 am 0

KevG wrote:What gets me with this is that SG's agents represent him. If he really wants to stay at Liveropool then it would be very easy for him to tell his agent to cool it, get on the blower to Rick, sit down and sign.

That's one of the great questions of the modern game for me. Look how much trouble Arsenal and/or their players have supposedly had with 'rogue agents' saying silly things to the media that the players don't believe in. That part of the system needs sorting somehow...

You know I can't help thinming that, in Italy, we are seeing one possible "future" of the English game. Clubs spending and spending way beyond their means to bolster squads whilst running themselves into more and more debt.

I think that the Leeds example happened in time to put the frighteners up enough of the top division clubs to prevent it becoming an ingrained part of the culture like it has in Italy. The rules changes about bail-outs and bankruptcy certainly don't hurt in that respect either.

Looking at the top five money earners in the Premiership (oh, how I wish I could say the top five clubs!) Man U, Chelsea and Newcastle are all stable in the medium to long term (on the condition we don't get relegated, at least). Liverpool and Arsenal both have new stadiums to sort out, so are a little less assured of long term stability, but again I think as long as they can stay in the top half of the Premiership - which looks likely - then I can't see any serious problems.

The real danger financially is the teams overspending to try to break into the top group without the broad financial base to support it long term. Man City and Everton certainly have decent underlying bases, probably Tottenham, Villa and maybe even Sunderland as well, but it's hard to see anyone else in the leagues putting together a top-club financial package for the long term.

romanista · Post by **romanista** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 10:47 am 0

KevG wrote: You know I can't help thinming that, in Italy, we are seeing one possible "future" of the English game. Clubs spending and spending way beyond their means to bolster squads whilst running themselves into more and more debt.

Well it is a bit starting in england already, isn't it, teams from the championship down struggling, and tv deals falling through[/quote]

I remember when I was in Rome, Lazio weren't very popular in the city itself. I'm surprised that Juve don't sell out. Amazed in fact.

Roma is truely the club of the capital.. it is a very different situation from e.g. Milan where you can have one milan street next to a inter street, in roma if you are born in the city you're romanista etc.

Juventus support is mostly from around the country, a bit comparable with ManYoo. Especially in Sicily they are very popular because (a) until last year sicilian football wasn''t that succesful (palermo and messina did well), and (b) many people moved from sicily to turin to work. People in itself are mainly routing for Torino (which was more succesful then Juve until the 50s, with the wondersquad that died at Superga hill..

the stats for last year

football365 wrote: 1 Milan (2) 19 1207467 79775 63551 85700 74.1%
2 Internazionale (3) 19 951838 78471 50097 85700 58.4%
3 Roma (8) 19 856380 68000 45073 82307 54.7%
4 Lazio (10) 19 686779 65000 36146 82307 43.9%
5 Fiorentina (17) 19 606465 46000 31919 47282 67.5%
6 Palermo (6) 19 600966 36046 31630 36980 85.5%
7 Messina (7) 19 525382 40000 27652 40200 68.7%
8 Sampdoria (5) 19 465824 36000 24517 40117 61.1%
9 Juventus (1) 19 435784 54181 22936 69041 33.2%
10 Reggina (13) 19 335721 24000 17670 27763 63.6%
11 Bologna (16) 19 322957 30000 16998 39279 43.2%
12 Udinese (4) 19 313758 24504 16514 41705 39.5%
13 Cagliari (12) 19 305712 23134 16090 40000 40.2%
14 Parma (18) 19 299221 25000 15748 28783 54.7%
15 Lecce (11) 19 284706 30482 14985 41000 36.5%
16 Atalanta (20) 19 282167 23000 14851 26197 56.6%
17 Livorno (9) 19 272210 25536 14327 30000 47.7%
18 Chievo Verona (15) 19 209167 24500 11009 44758 24.5%
19 Brescia (19) 19 167157 16504 8798 27547 31.9%
20 Siena (14) 19 158534 14604 8344 12500 66.7%

Nore that juve has a really large stadiun which is as you can see on average only 33% filled, and the ones below them have smaller stadium... also that both roman clubs had horrible seasons, ending 8th and 10th but being in constant danger

Dio · Post by **Dio** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:07 pm 0

Clever tactical play by Liverpool today though . Basically they're giving Gerrard two options: stay, or say you really don't care about Liverpool after all, because we sure as hell care about you staying.

Emotional blackmail of the highest order.

Sickboy · Post by **Sickboy** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:09 pm 0

Liverpool Echo website are claiming an exclusive "shock" in the later edition...

KevG · Post by **KevG** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:14 pm 0

@Dio: absolutely. If he goes, there'll deffo be a scapegoat and it won't be Rick Parry IMHO. I think they're making sure that SG will hand in a transfer request ... if we're at this stage

*pphphphuttt* brain pops

@SB

...which oculd be the Echo 'shock' annlouncemnet which will doubtless filter through soon as people walk past billboards outside. Watch this space

Right then. Site has just been updated. No text just a 'Gerrard: I want to go'

Great.

Sickboy · Post by **Sickboy** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 2:20 pm 0

Yeah. He's gone. Bidding war time.

Just, please. Not Chelsea.