Considering so many of the events of the last three or four years or so, yesterday was an
altogether satisfactory day for Portsmouth Football Club. A win by three goals to nil at Crawley
Town lifted the team out of the relegation places at the foot of League One, whilst supporters were
able to keep themselves entertained with rumours of another bidder to rescue the club from
administration.
People, it is probably fair to say, are troubled by the current financial imbalance in the
Premier League. That only three or four clubs can realistically end up as the champions of England
is a situation that has vexed many over the last few years, and even the thin veneer of tightness
that the end of last season brought us can mask the fact that both Manchester City and Manchester
United finished nineteen points ahead of Arsenal in third place at the end of last season.
After weeks of speculation on where the Brazilian striker would end up, the aptly named Hulk is
headed east to FC Zenit Saint Petersburg. This comes just days after his current club, FC Porto,
reportedly declined a rumored €50 million offer.
At least, we might surmise, the waves of panic might be starting to recede from lapping against
the walls of Anfield now. On Sunday afternoon, Liverpool put in about as complete a performance as
could have been hoped for considering their wretched start to the season against West Bromwich
Albion eight days previously in holding Manchester City to a two-all draw in front of the
television cameras.
This morning, we are delighted to welcome a long-time friend of this site back to 200%.
Here's Paul Grech with a preview of Liverpools hopes and challenges for the new
season.
For the third year running, Liverpool start a new season with a new manager in charge.
This morning, we are delighted to welcome a long-time friend of this site back to 200%.
Here's Paul Grech with a preview of Liverpools hopes and challenges for the new
season.
For the third year running, Liverpool start a new season with a new manager in charge.
Premier League champions Manchester City are in the midst of their preseason tour of China,
where they are launching a sudden buying spree after remembering that they have an inordinate
amount of money that they haven't been spending.
With July drawing to a close, Man City remain the only Premier League club who have not brought
in a single new player since the end of last season.
The one player people will have their focus on when the season starts will be Eden Hazard. The big
Chelsea signing of the season (so far) has alot to live up to with many of the big European clubs
taking an interest in him before he eventually signed for us for £32m.
Being only 21, and with the amount of money paid for his talent, Hazard is well aware of the
pressure of being a Chelsea player.
So farewell then, Kenny Dalglish. The Liverpool manager leaves the manager's position at Anfield
in a curious position, having reminded supporters of the club what winning trophies feels like it
seems scarcely credible but is nevertheless true that this year's League Cup final was the clubs
first at the new Wembley Stadium but having failed in the Premier League, where no amount of
white-washing could mask the fact that an eighth placed finish was unacceptably modest.
By tomorrow evening, half of Manchester a phrase that in itself provokes so much debate that it
is worth pointing out that it is being used for the purposes of simplicity alone will be
celebrating a Premier League championship victory. Either Manchester City or Manchester United will
be crowned as the champions of England.
Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish believes an 'obsession' with the Premier League has reduced the value
of winning cup competitions.
The Reds go into this Saturday's FA Cup final against Chelsea looking for a second piece of
silverware this season, having already lifted the Carling Cup in February.
But for some, Liverpool's poor league form has overshadowed these cup successes with the Anfield
club losing eight of their last 12 games in the Premier League.
Ho Hum, another home game another poor showing at Anfield.
It seems as though that can be written every week after a Liverpool home game, and that really
upsets me. Liverpool are a club with a great history and a great tradition and since 2005 I do not
get the same feeling about the club anymore.
A crowd of 329 people turned out at Treyew Road yesterday afternoon to see Truro City beat
Boreham Wood by two goals to nil in the Blue Square Bet South, but it seems unlikely that events on
the pitch made for too much of the discussion amongst the clubs supporters. As has seemed to
frequently been the case over the last year or so, goings-on in the boardroom have been hogging the
headlines at this particular club, with Fridays announcement that it is to enter into
administration throwing the future of Cornwalls most successful non-league club into doubt.
The earliest rounds of the FA Cup could, for those participating, be considered to have a small
amount of nuisance value about them. Clubs seeking to build a little rhythm to their league seasons
find that the cup interjects every two or three weeks or so, and those that are successful can find
themselves with a backlog of cancelled fixtures that can cause major headaches later on in the
season.
Given that deadline day is just around the corner, I thought I'd take a quick look at what the
ever-reliable papers are telling us about the Arsenal.
Nicklas Bendtner, despite looking certain to leave the club after a decent season at Sunderland
and a good performance at the European Championships in June, is still on the roster.
Well, Nicklas Bendtner has walked back through the Arsenal door after his loan move to Sunderland
ended and I'm sure many Gooners would prefer it if he just strolled back out of it again.
His exit could happen too if rumours that Borussia Dortmund are set to put a £2.5m bid in for the
Dane are true, although I think that amount of money might just cover the price of his ego.
Paris Saint-Germain have beaten Inter Milan and Manchester United in the race to sign Lucas
Moura from Sao Paulo for a reported fee of €45 million.
The Brazilian teenager will move to the Parc des Princes in January because PSG currently has
filled all their non-EU positions.
It had seen that Manchester United was going to land the talented Brazilian, but PSG have the
deepest pockets in football, and they can outspend anyone.
In part two of our series on the formation and rise of AFC Wimbledon, we rejoin the story in the
summer of 2001. With the clubs owners having seen their attempt to move Premier League football to
Dublin rejected by the Football Association of Ireland and in turn by the FA, UEFA and FIFA, an
entrepreneur has turned up at Selhurst Park with a potential get-out for the loss-making clubs
owners.
Euro 2012 winner and cheerleading-loving Santi Cazorla (seen above with his
adorable unimpressed son!) is said to be on his way to a medical with Arsenal as
we speak and according to Sky Sports, will arrive in London within the next two days. His fellow
countryman, Mikel Arteta, already heaped praise on Cazorla's strengths last week
and will definitely look forward to playing alongside the highly-touted 27-year-old in the
Premiership.
As the pursuit of Christian Tiffert continues on, the Seattle Sounders have another, potentially
bigger, transfer on their minds: Espanyol's Joan Verdu. With several Spanish outlets already
reporting they are "very interested," Sounders GM Adrian Hanauer confirmed that the 29-year-old is
a player they have been tracking for some time.
New reports in the Portuguese press on Wednesday have revealed the efforts of Portuguese
Football Federation to attend to Cristiano Ronaldo's every whim and need. The
radio show, 'Fora de joc' revealed that the federation operates on a
budget of €33,000 per day and that Ronaldo is the only player to be assigned two
bodyguards (who followed him to own epic nightclub rejection show two weeks ago) and his own suite
in the hotel.
By all accounts Theo Walcott wants £100,000 a week.
That is exactly £99,999 a week more than I would pay him.
Seriously though, he is lucky I don't run the club, because if I did, and he demanded that amount
of money, I would hire Jonny Wilkinson to drop kick him and his agent out of the Emirates.
Whilst there has been bad feeling between Liverpool and United for some time, it's hard to
remember the last time there was as much hatred between us as there was last season. After Luis
Suarez was found guilty of racially abusing Patrice Evra, their club disgracefully stuck by him,
continuing to stick their head in the sand and pretending he'd done no wrong.
The Guardian has a report on the International Sports Media and Marketing aka ISL, the now
infamously bankrupt sports marketing company founded by Horst Dassler in the 1970s paying former
FIFA president, Joao Havelange and his son-in-law, Ricardo Teixeira, a FIFA executive and former
CBF president, millions of dollars in kickbacks for awarding them the 2002 and 2006 World Cup
marketing and TV rights worth billions of dollars.
Deron Williams is arguably the biggest name on the 2012 NBA free agent market. The talented
point guard will be an unrestricted free agent and just about every team in the league would love
to have him on their team. Where will Deron Williams sign? If you believe the latest reports that
have hit the wires, Williams has narrowed his list down to two teams: the Brooklyn Nets and the
Dallas Mavericks.
The Russian national team could be forgiven for treating all matches up to the 2018 World Cup
finals as a warm up for that competition. After all, the amount of money being spent on the first
tournament to be held in the country will be vast and expectations amongst the Russian public will
be accordingly high.
Undisputed king of the Europa League Ramadel Falcao again proved his dominance in the
competition by leading Atletico Madrid to a 3-0 win over Athletic Bilbao in this year's final. That
makes Falcao the only player to win the competition in consecutive years with two different clubs
(Porto last season).
It is fair to say that Russian Anzhi Makhachkala have been attention seeking since being bought by
billionaire Suleyman Kerimov. But this might take the biscuit. Rather than simply offering a
ridiculously large amount of money to world stars, they have taken a curious step by releasing
their own rap video containing members of the [.
