Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

[evilC]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Any rumours around Falcao yet? If Tevez goes from Man. City, I wonder if they might pursue him?

[AMMS]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Sorry to interrupt all this talk of Galacticos or whatever you call them.

David Robertson, 24 year old midfielder, has left Dundee Utd for St Johnstone which is a little surprising. He seemed to be a regular at Utd but rejected a new contract. Are St Johnstone paying more than Dundee Utd these days? If so that doesn't auger well for either club.

Sasa Papac signed a contract extension with us today, everyone thought he was off, I'm very pleased he's not.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

I know folks will say that Ozil would show that I shouldn't make this claim but if Kaka had been healthy, Ozil would have rode the bench.

Hmm, Ozil was at werder bremen, a team far too chaotic to ever have a meaningful stab at the CL. And I'm not sure that ozil's move has been that much of a success. I've watched a lot of games, and he's done well in quite a few, but not as well as I would have expected because I think he's a very special player indeed. If real madrid made it more about ozil rather than ronaldo, they'd be a much more cohesive team.

[Sean of the Shed]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Ronaldo sells the merchandise, though. Maybe if Ozil oiled himself up and pranced about in Speedos a bit more then he might be more of a focal point in the side.

[Borracho]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

garcia wrote:

sahin plays deeper than that. he's not a dribbler like ozil. he's a stocky powerful midfielder who passes and shoots very well. they could complement each other. kaka doesn't even come into it.

I didn't say anything about dribbling, I was talking about where they play. Sahin is very definitely not a man who stands on the halfway line protecting his defenders, as Khedira and Diarra do.

I've seen Dortmund play about eight times this season on ESPN and, in all but one game (the 3-1 win at Schalke), Sahin spent 90% of his time on the attack, setting up moves. In the Schalke match Shinji Kagawa was pulling the strings, but then missed several months after breaking a toe at the Asian Cup.

As for Ozil, one noticeable thing about his season for Real Madrid is how many times he gets taken off.

He was replaced at half-time of the 5-0 Barcelona match, when it was only 2-0, and again got taken off at the interval of the 0-2 Champions League semi-final in the Bernabeu. He was on the bench himself for the two matches that ended 1-1.

Madrid played 480 minutes against Barca this season and Ozil was only on the field for 225 of them, despite starting three of the five clasicos and coming on as sub in the other two.

In 37 league appearances for Madrid this season, he was subbed off 23 times. Either he's having problems with the climate or he's Mourinho's first choice whenever it comes to sacrificing a player, especially against Barcelona.

[TNC]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

I wouldn't read quite so heavily into the 23 from 37 substitutions as the vast majority of these came after the game had been won.

Although you are quite right that Mourinho couldn't find a place for him in his eventual Barcelona grinderman formation, although I believe that Madrid's best spell of the EC second leg came in the ten minutes following the replacement of Kaka with Ozil?

[Toby Gymshorts]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Several months with a broken toe?

[Borracho]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

His toe or his metatarsal, something like that. He finally returned as a sub for the last few minutes against Eintracht Frankfurt at the weekend.

[Sixmartletsandaseagull]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Brighton's Glenn Murray (top scorer with 22 goals last season) is in talks with... Crystal Palace! Some things just ain't right.

He'd better sign for them, or leave for somewhere else, or start scoring lots of goals for us from the off next season, as even talking to Palace is treachery, treachery I say.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Ronaldo sells the merchandise, though. Maybe if Ozil oiled himself up and pranced about in Speedos a bit more then he might be more of a focal point in the side.

Ronaldo's 52 goals make a compellling argument for the status quo, but losing the big games to barcelona would make the other argument though.

[Felicity, I guess so]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

I've been on the bench at the Bernabéu, actually, and indeed they are very comfortable seats.

You've done the stadium tour aswell then?

I set up lots of shots with comic intent, inc one on the bench looking tense captioned, 'Florentino installs 14th new manager of the season' which my Madridista friends thought was funny.

Dundee Utd are having a clearout: Robertson, Conway, Gomis, Buaben and Shala are all out of contract and the blurb on the weekly club email is along the lines of 'popular players have to move on some time'. And clearly we can't afford to pay them what they were getting, or the rise they'd be expecting, sadly.

So far so economic realities etc, but to have so many of them leaving for nothing seems like very poor planning.

Our problem since Webster left has been central defence, but I fear for central midfield next season when Gomis AND Buaben (both good passers, incredible workers) leave together.

[Guest]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

The cup winning team has been decimated within 12 months when you throw in the likely departures of Kovacevic and Goodwillie.

[diabloinglés]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Efrain Juarez has been a marginal figure for most of the season and it'll be no surprise if he leaves.

I was surprised he went there in the first place.
Same story for Pablo Barrera at West Ham too...

[bovril]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

evilC wrote:

Any rumours around Falcao yet? If Tevez goes from Man. City, I wonder if they might pursue him?

[Borracho]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

I was surprised he went there in the first place.

Well, when he has played, he hasn't been all that great, apart from a couple of decent displays against Braga and Utrecht near the beginning of the season.

He was the most big-name of all the summer signings, simply by having played reasonably well in the World Cup, but Kayal and to a lesser extent Ledley have very much stolen his thunder.

Scott Brown has improved a lot in recent months too, so it's hard to see much of a future there for Juarez unless someone gets a bad injury.

I suppose he could be used as a right-back, but Mark Wilson has had a good year and Hinkel is on the mend, so there's not much room there either.

[ursus arctos]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Torsten Frings has been told by Werder Bremen that his contract will not be renewed.

I think that Bubblebath was the first to observe that Frings just aren't what they used to be.

[danielmak]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:

I know folks will say that Ozil would show that I shouldn't make this claim but if Kaka had been healthy, Ozil would have rode the bench.

Hmm, Ozil was at werder bremen, a team far too chaotic to ever have a meaningful stab at the CL. And I'm not sure that ozil's move has been that much of a success. I've watched a lot of games, and he's done well in quite a few, but not as well as I would have expected because I think he's a very special player indeed. If real madrid made it more about ozil rather than ronaldo, they'd be a much more cohesive team.

I haven't watched many Real league games this year other than the matches against Valencia and Barca, but I'm guessing that Real and Barca will continue to experience some similar problems (and "problem" is a bit tricky in this context) in that Ronaldo and Messi are going to have the most freedom in their sides, which is well deserved for both. But given this freedom, other players will likely suffer. Again, I haven't watched enough of Real's games to know how Ronaldo's dominance has affected Ozil, although when I've watched Ozil in the CL, he seemed up for it. With Barca, it seems as if the strikers are paying the price for Messi's freedom. Villa was a stud at Valencia, and although he has had a decent tally (he will finish in the top 5 goal scorers?), he just seems out of place, lacking a clear role. Eto'o became dispensable when Messi was ready to be the star (and all he did was play on a treble winning side when he left). Zlatan never fit in, and I assume some of that was down to his personality but he is still a guy who has won the league almost every year for what? the past 8 years?

Of course, if I was Mourhino or Pep, I wouldn't change things given the qualities of Ronaldo and Messi; rather, I highlight this because what I saw of Ozil looked like he was no worse for playing with Ronaldo. The same might be true for Sahin, but I have a feeling he will be on the bench a lot more than Ozil, whereas with BVB he was one of three (along with Barrios and Gotze) key players every game.

[oscar mike]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

According to The Herald we've offered Danny Racchi a 2 year contract. He was released by York in April. My pulse is racing at the news.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

I suppose Daniel that villa has suffered a bit from playing on the left, but he's getting a lot of chances. He's just hasn't been playing that well lately, I think it's one goal in 12 or 13 matches. But it's not that much of a problem for barcelona, because they have the team ethos drilled into them, so why they're focussed on messi, the rest of the team also works very well.

In some ways, ronaldo's ability to terrorize every defence bar one in spain is a bit of a problem for mourinho. It's very hard to convince people to make some fundamental changes to their game, when the old way works so well 95% of the time.

Mourinho's great strength above all others is to put a definite shape on his team, and build a team that attacks and defends as a unit. As we saw at chelsea, he likes to drill his team on the field for 90 minutes, and he was able to use the upturn in results to convince the players that this way was the one to follow. It's hard to do that when ronaldo has knocked in two early goals, and the other team has given up.

As a result chelsea formed a very strong team structure very quickly, and while it might have been a bit restrictive in some ways, it made chelsea nearly impossible to beat. It is this, and not any of the other shite that makes mourinho such a successful coach.

I think Ozil's problem at the moment is that for werder and for germany he was the first person everyone looked for, but at madrid it is ronaldo. But He's a very smart player, so he'll probably work it out fairly quickly.

[ursus arctos]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

It looks like Andrea Pirlo really is leaving Milan (who refused to give him more than a one year contract). Juventus is the most likely destination.

[Etienne]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Inzaghi has signed a new one year deal though. He'll be 38 when the season starts.

[Cavalry Trouser Tips]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

oscar mike wrote:

According to The Herald we've offered Danny Racchi a 2 year contract. He was released by York in April. My pulse is racing at the news.

He thinks he's a much better player than he actually is. That's all I've got on young Danny...

[Antepli Ejderha]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Didier Zokora is being linked with a move to Trabzonspor.

Fatih Terim is expected to become Galatasaray's new manager.

Johan Elmander is being linked to Galatasaray along with Kim Källström.

Lots more gossip but this seem to be a little more official.

[oscar mike]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Cavalry Trouser Tips wrote:

oscar mike wrote:

According to The Herald we've offered Danny Racchi a 2 year contract. He was released by York in April. My pulse is racing at the news.

He thinks he's a much better player than he actually is. That's all I've got on young Danny...

Heh, that's the impression I got from a quick google this morning, especially the details of his release from York.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/y/york_city/9450428.stm

Manager Gary Mills told BBC Radio York: "Danny Racchi thought he should be in my side. I thought he shouldn't so he's no longer with us."

[Tony C]

Going, gone or just gossip - summer 2011 transfers

Go nuts;

http://www.givemefootball.com/pfa-transfer-list?name=FullName&page=1