Coventry’s Rebuilding Halted Due To Transfer Embargo

Any positivity surrounding Coventry City seems to once again be disappearing. There was and still maybe every potential that we could do really well in League One next season.

However this is looking more and more unlikely as the pendulum swings back towards negativity.

A conclusion to the negotiations over the Ricoh Arena is still a long way off, a suggestion of a minimum of 60 days has been given and that is if everything goes to plan along the way. I think we all know that when SISU are involved things do not go to plan, so therefore we are realistically looking at this being resolved well into next season.

It is widely understood that the transfer embargo imposed on Coventry will not be lifted until these negotiations have come to a conclusion. SISU reportedly want to include the revenue, which owning a share in the Ricoh will bring, in their accounts before they file them to the Football League.

This is on the face of it, a sensible thing to be doing, however if it is going to be detrimental to the clubs success next season then surely it is not worth waiting for. There is also every chance that these negotiations may break down at some point as everyone knows relations between SISU and everyone else are not great at the best of times.

Any hope we had of making any signings that would truly improve us as a squad is disappearing quickly; not only based on the transfer embargo but also on the calibre of player that Andy Thorn is clearly looking at. Thorn has suggested that the players he is interested in are mainly free transfers.

Players who are available in this way usually fall into two categories. Firstly there are players who have issues and questionable aspects to their games. These players are often no longer wanted by their current clubs because they are not seen as good enough and not worthy of another contract when their current deal expires.

These players often include the ones wanting high wages, the ones who are not massively passionate about that particular football club and play mainly for the money. Obviously, these things usually become less of an issue as you get further down the leagues but I think these things are still very much an issue in League One. These are the types of players that we don’t need at the club, we need players who are passionate and hungry to chase success in helping Coventry rebuild in a very difficult division.

The second is an out of contract player who has become too good for their current club and instead of signing a new deal wants to move to a bigger club in an attempt to further their career. The problem here is that we can no longer be considered a big club with all of our off field problems. We are also not going to be able to compete with other clubs for these players in terms of wages that we can offer for them.

There are obvious exceptions to this and sometimes gems can be found that others have disregarded. This is what I am personally hoping for and in Thorn I trust in terms of his ability to determine whether a player has potential or not.

The main rumour going around at the minute is that of out of contract striker James Collins who scored 16 goals for Shrewsbury in their promotion from League Two this season. I don’t really know a lot about him other than he is 21 and a Coventry lad but he seems to have the potential to be a hit in League One. If this is the best we are going for though then maybe we won’t have too much competition for his signature, we will however definitely lose him if we don’t sign him soon.

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No player whatever level of quality is going to wait for a club and for that reason we are in trouble. Any player who is out of contract will attract at least some interest just because there is no transfer fee involved. Any decent out of contract players won’t be on the market for long and if we continue the way we are going we will miss out on these players and probably have to go with what we already have which by the end of the transfer market is not going to be much.

Our club is clearly still on the downward slope right now and I think that is clear for everyone to see. I have been one of the people who have wanted SISU out of the club for a long time but also have always been willing to give them a chance to prove themselves. Once again though it seems like they are going to fall flat on their faces and it is going to be the club and us supporters who suffer.

PUSB!!

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Juve and Inter’s transfer battle for City ace

Italian sides Juventus and Inter are thought to be in a battle to sign Manchester City left-back Aleksandar Kolarov, according to The Sun.

The Serbian defender has slipped down the pecking order at the Etihad Stadium, with Gael Clichy the preferred choice at left-back for the Premier League champions.

As such a move has been touted for Kolarov, with two of Italy’s biggest clubs fighting it out for his signature.

Both sides are initially interested in signing the eastern European full-back on a loan deal, but City are thought to be keen to recoup as much of the £18 million they splashed on him in 2010.

Kolarov is well-known in Italy as he joined City from Lazio, and the defender’s future at the Etihad Stadium looks in doubt.

Juventus have recently been crowned Serie A champions and are looking to bolster their squad ahead of playing in the Champions League next term, whilst Inter are in transition and need new players to get them back into title contention.

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By Gareth McKnight

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Real Madrid frontrunners to sign Spurs ace

Luka Modric is on the verge of making a move to Real Madrid and will switch to the Santiago Bernabeu after Euro 2012, according to The Daily Mail.

With Tottenham missing out on Champions League football for next term, the White Hart Lane side are thought to have a battle on their hands to hold onto their main players, with the Croatia international being scouted by some of Europe’s biggest teams.

Despite reports in the press indicating that Manchester United are leading the race to sign the diminutive midfielder, Madrid may well now be the team closest to sealing a deal for the playmaker.

Modric’s former team-mate at international level Mate Bilic has stated that the player wants to make a move to Spain, and this could happen in the near future.

“I’m very good friends with Modric,” said the Sporting Gijon striker.

“He wants to play in the Spanish league. He loves the Premier League but he wants to play in Spain. He’s very close to agreeing a move.”

Daniel Levy would not let Modric leave Spurs to join Chelsea last summer, and as yet Tottenham’s approach to the speculation has not been indicated.

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By Gareth McKnight

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Villas-Boas blessed with a great squad

Frank Lampard has admitted that new Tottenham manager Andre Villas Boas has a great squad to work with, but has a big job on his hands to follow in the footsteps of Harry Redknapp.

The Portuguese coach has been installed as the new White Hart Lane boss, and has been given money to spend, with Gylfi Sigurdsson and Jan Vertonghen already signed this summer.

Chelsea midfielder Lampard feels his former trainer has a big job ahead of him in north London.

“AVB has inherited an exceptional squad of players,” Lampard confessed to The Sun.

“A squad that’s good enough to bring Champions League football and contend for the Premier League title. A team that’s played some terrific, thrilling attacking football and scored goals for fun.

“So AVB is a lucky man taking over at Spurs because the players are so very good.

“Admittedly that can be a double-edged sword, though, because Harry Redknapp will be an extremely tough act to follow.

“Harry lifted Spurs to an amazing level. The way he turned that club around was remarkable. They were at absolute rock bottom when Harry came in.

“Then all of a sudden they’re playing in the Champions League and competing at the very top. So he did an incredible job there and he definitely didn’t deserve to lose his job.

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“That’s why I was really surprised when Harry left. He did wonders at Tottenham and I thought him leaving was a terrible shame,” the England international concluded.

By Gareth McKnight

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Aston Villa Suffers Another Injury Setback

New Aston Villa boss Paul Lambert is having to plan his start to the season with three key players after Marc Alrighton became the latest player to be struck off.

The born and bred Villa winger could be out for around a month after breaking a metatarsal during pre-season and will certainly miss the opening few games of the Premier League season.

Disappointment of last season has quickly turned to optimism at Villa Park after the arrival of former Norwich boss Lambert, but key injuries could put a holt to any mass transformation.

Albrighton has joined Gabriel Agbonlahor and Richard Dunne in the treatment room after the pair also suffered pre-season injuries that will definitely keep them out of the opening fixture away at West Ham a week today.

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However, all three are expected to return at some point in September and Lambert will finally have a fully sit squad to choose from.

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The 15 players set for a ‘Premier League breakthrough’ this season

The Premier League season is edging ever nearer with just a couple of days till the big kickoff, ensuring the excitement of football fans across the country is reaching almost breaking point. There’s nothing better than success on the field, but what can be even more satisfying is achieving that success using young, homegrown players.

Alan Hansen once said ‘You win nothing with kids’ but that Manchester United class of 1996 went on to prove him dramatically wrong. Those players, the likes of Giggs, Beckham and Scholes made up a vast proportion of the first team for many of the Premier League seasons and United will still rely on Giggs and Scholes this season for experience in the midfield. Hopefully other teams will start to promote talented youngsters into their first teams this season and give the youngsters a chance to show what they can do. We’ve picked out 15 talented young Premier League starlets who are ready to make their breakthroughs this season.

Click on Raheem Sterling to unveil the list

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Leighton Baines happy to play second fiddle

Everton defender Leighton Baines will make his first competitive start for England away to Moldova tomorrow night, according to The Guardian.

It is perhaps good for the 27-year-old Baines that he is a down to earth character, as his first competitive start for the Three Lions arrives two-and-a-half-years after he made his full international debut in a 3-1 victory over Egypt.

Baines has been mightily impressive for Everton over the past couple of seasons, enticing interest from Manchester United. However, Baines has to accept that when it comes to international acclaim, he is clearly number two to arguably the greatest left-back to have ever worn an England shirt, Ashley Cole.

If Cole would have been fit over the international break, then he would have been the first full-back to have won 100 caps for his country. Cole, who is currently on 98 caps, will be hoping that his injury problems heal in time to win the historic 100th cap for games against San Marino and Poland next month.

As for Baines, he accepts that because of the quality of Cole, he can’t become too disheartened with himself, “I can’t get too frustrated when the guy in front of me is such a good player. I have so much respect for him, so you just bide your time. If I had been doing it since I was 20 and eight years down the line I’d got only eight caps, then maybe the frustration would build a bit more. But I came into it later, I’m still keen to get involved and get games. Along the way you pick up caps and that keeps you going.”

Baines refuted a journalist’s leading question when asked whether the Moldova game was an opportunity for him to stamp his authority on the left-back position for England. The Everton man philosophically conceded that the Moldova game probably won’t make a difference;

“It’s difficult because of what Ash brings to the table. For me it’s just going to be one or two games really. It’s difficult but my mentality has always been to do as I well as I can for Everton first. I’ve done enough now to be second choice left-back for England for a while but not been able to push on that next level. Ash is just so good and there are other things that play a part, like not playing at the top level – in terms of the Champions League.”

This answer evoked a successive question about Baines’ future at Everton. Baines said in response to his rumoured transfer to Manchester United: “I pretty much ignored it but it was getting to the point where people were asking me and yet I didn’t know anything. It was getting mentioned so often I was getting puzzled by it. As far as I know, there was not a great deal in it, so there was no point worrying about it.”

Are football fans being taken for a ride?

After receiving my weekly email from the Real Madrid store, they kindly informed me that not only could I spend a fair few euros on the Super Copa victory T-shirt, I could also purchase the new third kit –which looks suspiciously like the away kit from last season, and the realisation of just how much money a club gets from its fans each season began to set in.

It’s not just the tickets and travel to matches – which if your team is in Europe can become more than a little bit expensive. If you have a season ticket to a top club it also means that you can be tempted to buy tickets to competitions such as the Capital One Cup – making that amount of money even higher.

All fans want to go to the maximum amount of games that is possible to support their team, but especially in the current economic climate it is not possible to attend every game, buy all the merchandise and still afford to live, eat and support a family.

Uefa and Fifa do not exactly make the process any easier, with the Euros now looking to be spread over a few countries and the Spanish Super Cup set to move to China – how are fans expected to pay for all of this?.

Clubs clearly need to get money from somewhere, and deals for sponsorship are one of the main sources, not to mention the income from TV, but the revenue gained at games and through sales of club merchandise is also a profitable source, and fans do understand this and will happily buy the shirt and spend money on tickets – to a point.

It does seem slightly ludicrous that clubs such as Manchester City and Chelsea are willing to do what can only be described as extorting fans with the prices they charge for said things, and basically put fans in the situation where they have to choose between the away kit or a trip to see the team away from home.

Asking a fan to pay £45 for the shirt, not to mention the badges and a name on the back is bad enough, but then double this for the away and third kit, not to mention any special merchandise for the club winning trophies, then the calendar they try to sell every January and various other pieces of crest related merchandise and you are looking at a pretty steep price for a fan to pay.

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Yes clubs have to face up to the FFP rules now, but is it so unreasonable to ask them to keep the home shirt for a couple of seasons instead of changing it each and every year? Fans are happy to contribute to the club they love, but there becomes a point where they are being exploited by the club and football’s governing bodies – and this is where we have to draw the line.

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Villas-Boas delighted with second-half fightback

Tottenham manager Andre Villas-Boas has praised his team after they fought back from a goal down to beat London rivals QPR 2-1 at White Hart Lane on Sunday.

Former Spurs striker Bobby Zamora had given the Loftus Road outfit the lead in the first 45, but two goals in quick succession secured the Portuguese manager’s first victory on home soil.

Firstly, Alejandro Faurlin converted into his own net, before in-form striker Jermain Defoe scored the winner 60 seconds later.

Villas-Boas has stated that he was pleased with the way his team fought their way back into the game.

“It was a good, important win for the players who put all the effort in. All credit to them,” Villas-Boas told reporters, published in FourFourTwo.

“We believed and the players showed great commitment. We pushed them further forward at half- time and closed the gaps. The players showed great desire and commitment today to win for the fans. All credit to them.”

Spurs attacker Gareth Bale also commented that the win was crucial for the home faithful.

“It is a massive win. Vital to get our first home win for us and the fans. We have quick players on the counter-attack. That’s the kind of team we can be,” the Wales international stated.

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Spurs now face Carlisle in the Capital One Cup on Wednesday, before facing a trip to Old Trafford to go head-to-head with Manchester United next weekend.

By Gareth McKnight

Why Tottenham players must buy into his Vision

Despite eventually cruising to a 2-0 victory over Aston Villa yesterday, it took Tottenham Hotspur a good chunk of 45 minutes before they really found the desired flow and rhythm to their game. Andre Villas-Boas’ side are continuing to grow as a unit, but there were more than one or two within White Hart Lane whom suggested that Thursday’s European exploits, might have proved more hindrance than help.

Yet for anyone that endured all 90 minutes of Spurs’ little midweek soiree against Panathinaikos, you can debunk that myth right away.

Because although the amount of physical output within the Europa League will inevitably increase and potentially take its toll, the efforts of Villas-Boas’ starting XI in Athens, suggested that no one can realistically hide behind the stigma of burn-out. How can you, if you quite evidently don’t give a flying fig about the competition whatsoever?

Of course, it is very easy to read too much into the efforts of one, off-key and in some elements, bizarre, game of football. Very rarely will Spurs come up against a side with such a disparagingly poor attacking outlet as what Panathinaikos offered last Thursday. But that’s what makes the result all the more difficult to accept.

Playing in sweltering heat against a side who were so seemingly impotent it was rubbing off onto their opponents, must have offered more than a slight motivational issue. When it took such little effort to dominate proceedings, naturally, taking things up to the next level can’t be easy.

But there was something very macabre in watching the likes of Aaron Lennon, Tom Huddlestone et al dwindle about the pitch with such an alarming lack of urgency in the last 20 minutes. A period that not only saw Spurs throw away what seemed like a guaranteed three points in the group, but nearly loose the game altogether. This is hardly meant in the way of the alarmist propaganda we’ve seen aimed at AVB of late, but you couldn’t help but feel that the team’s effort on Thursday completely undermined the vision of the Portuguese.

This is a competition that the manager has gone out on record in public, as one that he has every intention of winning. His victory in the competition with Porto in 2010 represents perhaps his finest managerial achievement in the game and hence, there is a school of though that it is within his best interests to talk up the Europa League’s prospects. But more importantly, it’s within the club’s, too.

Villas-Boas has been on the charm offensive to disarm the proportion of volatile Europa League based opinions in White Hart Lane, and generally speaking, he’s catalyzed a groundswell of optimism for a shot at winning it. The heroes of the 1984 Uefa Cup win are still spoke about today in North London and although the competition now has a very different outlook, the prospect of lifting some genuine European silverware has captured the imaginations of fans.

Yet consequently, Villas-Boas knows he is taking an educated risk by backing the competition to such a hilt. As he did in the home tie against Lazio, the Portuguese fielded a very strong team indeed and one that evidently had more than enough to beat Panathinaikos. So when the players turn up and churn out a performance like that, they’re leaving Villas-Boas in the lurch. Had Spurs been unable to make a breakthrough against Villa yesterday, how many people would have turned to Thursday’s game as a scapegoat?

Considering how pedestrian several of the side were strutting about in Athens, it wouldn’t have half been some excuse. Of course, the likes of Michael Dawson and in particular Tom Huddlestone, have come in for pelters given their performances. The skipper might have chipped in with a goal but he looked generally uncomfortable and for a player that already has a fight to get back into the team, Huddlestone’s attitude was laughably half-hearted.

But let’s not shirk responsibility from others, here – Clint Dempsey hardly churned out much better and the fact that Jan Vertonghen has looked near on faultless in the two adjacent fixtures to the Panathinaikos game, tells a story in itself. Every player has bad days, but there were far too many last Thursday for it to be passed off as coincidence.

Furthermore, the aforementioned performances of say, Jan Vertonghen, against Aston Villa, suggest that at this stage of the season anyway, Spurs’ European travels can’t be used as stick of which to hit Villas-Boas with. As the season progresses, particularly over the next four weeks, Villas-Boas must be mindful of the rigors the congested fixture list will take upon his team.

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But Andre Villas-Boas’ and Tottenham Hotspur’s European vision is nothing more than a pipedream, if the players seem unable to buy into it. Maybe the prospect of a trip to play an Atletico Madrid or a departed Champions League team in the next round will be more appealing, but they won’t get that opportunity if they turf out more of what we saw against Panathinaikos in the group stage. It simply wasn’t good enough.

There is a growing culture of optimism around White Hart Lane and the three points gained against Paul Lambert’s men, served almost to erase the Europa League woes from memory. But if Villas-Boas plumps with a similar starting XI for the tie against Maribor in Slovenia later on this month, he will surely expect to see a massive improvement on the performance he was dished up in Greece. There’s no point in the players turning up in body for this competition, if they’ve left their spirit at home.

Am I reading too much into this or were you similarly disillusioned with Spurs’ Europa League efforts last week? Let me know what side of the fence you fall on, on Twitter: follow @samuel_antrobus and talk Tottenham. 

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