Mark Schwarzer has revealed Australia’s Asian Cup veterans laid down the law to their younger team-mates ahead of their Qatar campaign.The 38-year-old Fulham goalkeeper was a member of the Socceroos squad that struggled in their debut Asian Cup appearance in 2007.
Billed as one of the favourites to win the tournament after their successful 2006 World Cup campaign, Australia laboured through the group stages and were knocked out in the quarter-finals by Japan.
Four years later, Schwarzer says the Socceroos are determined not to suffer the same fate in Qatar.
“That was something very, very much at the front of our minds,” Schwarzer told the Asian Cup’s official website.
“We made it very clear that for this tournament – especially the players that were there in 2007 and are here now – that we did not want to go through the same sort of process we did then.”
“It was important that we got off to a good start and it was important that we played some decent football as a team.”
The Socceroos have been true to their word so far, defeating India 4-0 and fighting out a 1-1 draw with South Korea to top Group C with four points.
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A draw with Bahrain on Tuesday will be enough to see Australia through to the last eight, and Schwarzer says the next step will be to erase the pain of their quarter-finals loss four years ago.
“We are very united as a group and we are determined to perform better than we did four years ago,” he said.
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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It would seem that after years of being pushed around by spoilt superstars Premier League Chairmen and Managers are fighting back.
Tottenham ’s Daniel Levy has become the latest Chairman to refuse to let one of his star players tear up their contract and walk out because a richer club has come knocking for them.
If this is going to be a new trend then I say, about time, as we have come to a point in our beautiful game when players’ contracts are not worth the paper they are printed on and the thought that players may show loyalty to a club or its fans no longer even crosses the mind.
Levy is not the first boss to try and make a stand though and let’s hope he won’t be the last. Arsene Wenger is still doing an masterful job of keeping his captain and prized asset Cesc Fabregas , who has looked certain to pack his bags and return to his hometown club for 2 seasons and 3 transfer windows now.
But Wenger has dug his heels in deep and looks like he may have deflected Barcelona’s advances for yet another window, although I would suggest he doesn’t hold his breath.
Wenger’s headache does not end there though, now another one of his star players from last season, Samir Nasri has also had his head turned, this time by the newly super-rich Manchester City but Wenger has other ideas regarding this bit of business also; voicing what is or was becoming something of a cliché “not for sale at any price”. I say this has become cliché as we have all heard this very statement all too often and then when it comes down to it what they actually meant was “offer us a bit more and we will put a bow on his head and send him first post”.
So are we looking at two of the most unlikely comrades in football? Spurs’ Chairman teaming up with Arsenal ’s Manager to wage war against players not honouring contracts that they signed for 5 years just 6 months ago.
Who can blame these poor lads who wouldn’t want to change their job if someone was offering to double their wages? This is fair comment but I find it hard to feel sorry for somebody that gets paid 50k a week to do something they love and then moans because they want to leave so they can get 100k a week.
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The only reason players sign 5 year contracts in the first place is because they are greedy. Despite this it has become an unwritten rule that if a player hands in a transfer request then they are allowed to leave. We’ve all heard the cries of “if a player doesn’t want to be there then no point keeping them”, with the general conception being if the player’s heart is not in it then they will not perform and Fabregas did little to disprove this last season.
Surely the least a Chairman should be able to expect from a player that they are paying the average yearly wage for Britain every week is that they play as well as they can?
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These attempts by the two North London rivals to make a stand and tell their players that they will be staying as they are under contract and that’s that, although heart warming and ambitious I fear that it may just turn out to be money spinning bravado. Only time will tell if they are successful I for one will not be putting any money on either of them being at the same club come kick-off on the first day of the Premier League season.
Article courtesy of Shane Peters from This is Futbol
When Robbie Keane returned to Tottenham from Liverpool in 2009 it was supposed to be a hero’s return. His mission was to help keep Tottenham in the Premier League, which they did, but Keane was never the same player and he didn’t really win over the White Hart Lane faithful.
Many Spurs fans never quite forgave the Irishman when he left for Liverpool in the summer of 2008. Despite saying that he would stay at Spurs for as long as he was happy and as long as the club wanted him he sealed his move away on the 28th July. It was his departure, followed by that of Dimitar Berbatov, which signalled Tottenham’s sudden decline at the start of the 2008/09 season.
Originally many Spurs fans hailed his return as a great piece of business by new manager Harry Redknapp, but many were also unimpressed that Tottenham were prepared to offer the struggling striker an olive branch just months after he’d been so desperate to leave. Keane’s first game back for Spurs was at home against Arsenal – the perfect opportunity to regain his hero status. Even though he played fairly well and Tottenham got a creditable draw Keane missed a glorious chance to get the winner, and the remainder of his Tottenham career panned out in much the same way.
If you take away Keane’s four goal showing against Burnley he only managed to score two league goals in the 09/10 season before he was allowed to go to Celtic on loan. By this point Keane had fallen sharply down the strikers’ pecking order and his performances had become lazy and aimless, a shadow of the player he once was. His temporary move to Celtic, one of his boyhood clubs, was a resounding success but raised the question among Spurs fans as to why it took a move north of the border for Keane to refind his form.
Keane has only featured sporadically in the Tottenham first XI this season and his appearance against FC Twente seemed to be Harry Redknapp allowing him a last hurrah as much as anything else. Redknapp said earlier in the week that Keane could be sold to the highest bidder with Wolves reportedly in the frame for the player.
It is worth remembering that Keane is still only 30 years old so potentially has another five or six years of top flight football left in him, however his poor second spell at Tottenham has left people thinking that he is already over the hill.
When Keane does depart I don’t think that Spurs fans will lose much sleep. However I also feel that while a move is the right deal for all concerned, his departure will trigger feelings of ‘if only’ for a man whose return has tarnished his previously untouchable reputation at White Hart Lane.
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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.
Supporting the greatest club in the world isn’t exactly a difficult experience if we’re completely honest.
Yes, we may have lost our second Champions League final in three years and I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve heard “we always make it hard for ourselves” but by and large being part of Ferguson’s red and white army is a joyous endeavour, where the good times far outweigh the bad.
With a constant stream of trophies, goals and victories its easy for some fans to forget just how fortunate we are and how far we’ve come since the dark-ish- days of Fergie’s early reign.
In the 20 odd years I’ve spent following United I can pretty much count on one hand the times I’ve been ashamed of the behaviour of some of our fans.
In 1996 it was the booing of Lee Sharpe at Old Trafford who had something of a shocker in one of his final games in a red shirt- his substitution was met with a chorus of cheers and applause. 2008 at half time against Villa I watched with disbelief as some fans ran towards the tunnel to give Nani and Cristiano Ronaldo abuse- although I think that may have been more to do with the drugs they were on rather than just passion.
2009/10 saw one of the worst examples of ridiculous behaviour by United fans when Dimitar Berbatov was hounded in the game against Spurs. Before he’d even touched the ball, shouts of “useless, lazy Bulgarian tw*t” etc, could be heard from more than a just a small minority and let’s not forget the treatment Michael Carrick recieved against Bayern Munich.
I digress however, the point isn’t that United fans are ungrateful, in fact it’s the opposite, United fans are the best in the world of that I’m in no doubt, and next season may give us the perfect opportunity to prove it.
In David De Gea United haven’t bought the finished article, a player who’ll make Edwin Van Der Sar seem like a distant memory. What we’ve got is a 20 year-old supremely talented player who will need time to settle into not just at a far bigger club than he’s been at previously but also a whole new country, culture and way of life.
It would be easy if De Gea were to struggle during the first few weeks of his United career for some fans to get on his back, to let him know our disappointment via a few well timed shouts or maybe even chants of “Edwin, Van Der Sar, Edwin, Edwin, Van Der Sar.”
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When the fans are on a players case you can feel it in the air, the end of the 2009/10 season is a prime example, the feeling of anger aimed towards Berbatov by some fans was almost tangible.
This isn’t the norm though, I remember in 1995/6 Andy Cole had started the season struggling for goals after a somewhat mixed first season at United. He’d scored a good amount of goals but the club had finished trophyless and much was made of his failure to convert one of the chances he’d had at Upton Park which would have given United the league.
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With only 2 league goals in the opening twelve games, Cole wasn’t enjoying the best of starts. Cue the United fans. In the game against Southampton at Old Trafford, the crowd chanted “Andy Cole…” throughout the entire game, almost in unison and after an hour were rewarded with a goal from the former Newcastle man who rounded off a four one win.
United fans aren’t all the prawn sandwich eating glory hunters some would have us labelled we can be among the most loyal, understanding and patient fans around people seem to forget we experienced over a quarter of a century without a title, yet still had the biggest crowds in Britain. Next season if De Gea struggles it may be just the sort of test for United fans to show we have a right to call ourselves the best in the world.
I’m not saying he will of course, but it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the young ‘keeper may take a little while to settle in.
Read more of Justin’s articles at Red Flag Flying High
Arsenal 2-3 Spurs – Hollywood has nothing on football, which is generally why all attempts to make epic ‘sawker’ films have failed so miserably. It’s not that they’re unrealistic or clichéd – football itself is unrealistic and clichéd – It’s that we see the unimaginable happen so often for real that it fails to resonate properly when we see someone pretending. “What? Sean Bean comes off the bench to score a late brace against a Man. United team made up of fat extras from The Bill? Happens every week!” Football is infinitely more ludicrous than Hollywood, even with Sylvester Stallone in goal. The best thing Hollywood could do is take their plots from real football matches. But then there’s a fair chance people wouldn’t believe them.
If they did, the script for the 165th North London derby would be hot property right now. So choc-a-bloc was it of tantalizing sub-plots, bad blood, mixed loyalties and historical back story that it could fill up a mini-series worth of running time, and that’s without even considering the possibility of a Sex and the City style spin off featuring Danielle Lloyd and Alicia Duval (with Dean Gaffney in a supporting role as comic relief.)
It had everything; Goals, drama, comebacks (in both events and personnel) flying water bottles, the obligatory Gareth Bale fawning, even a Terry/Bridge handshake moment. Except in this case rather than spousal infidelity the reason was apparently ‘sitting in the wrong seat on a bus’. You see? You couldn’t make that sh*t up! If you could, you’d be a millionaire.
Man. Utd 2-0 Wigan – Speaking of films. You know that one where the young unknown Mexican prodigy arrives in the Premier League and starts scoring last minute winners before copping off with Anna Friel? Well as if to almost cosmically prove my point, the real life version seems to be playing itself out quite happily in Manchester without anyone batting an eyelid. Except unfortunately without Anna Friel (which is a shame, she was the best thing in it.) In fact if Javier Hernandez’s story was told in celluloid it would probably be lambasted for being too cheesy and overly heroic, eventually ending up in a DVD bargain bucket bin next to Soccer Dog – World Pup and Flashdance III – All’s well that ends weld. He’s netted three late or last minute winners so far, a goal on his debut against Chelsea, seven in all for United and international strikes against Spain, Argentina and France since he signed. He hasn’t even had to go through the obligatory ‘tough period’ where he makes bad decisions/gets unlucky and has to prove himself through a succession of training montages and humbling good deeds. On Saturday he played the hero yet again as he came off the bench to overshadow returning hero/villain (depending on where you were sitting) Wayne Rooney and grab another late clinching goal. Now if only I could get hold of Anna Friel I could start filming my remake. Though my version will be a lot racier. And we don’t really need Javier in it.
Bolton 5-1 Newcastle – Owen Coyle is doing little to dampen the growing motion that he’s not a naughty boy, buy may actually be the messiah, or a the least some kind of genius man-God as he guided Boltolona into the Champions League places, (if only for a day) continued to convince Kevin Davies and Johan Elmander that they’re in some way the spiritual re-embodiment of Garrincha and George Best, all whilst bringing himself on and scoring for the reserves, beating Chris Kamara at table tennis and shattering Big Sam Allardyce’s legacy of what should be expected at Bolton. If that’s not worth worshipping I don’t know what is.
Both Davies and Newcastle’s Carroll scored and looked impressive and on current form are England two best strikers by far. Which is an incredibly depressing thing when you think about it. Hoooof!
Continued on Page TWO
Fulham 1-4 Man City – Replacing Bolton who’d in turn replaced Spurs in 4th, City recovered from their recent boo inducing goalless draws to torture former manager Marky Sparky Hughes with a performance of incredibly potent attacking vim. Carlos Tevez was again the driving force, with his sort of surrogate father and mentor Diego Maradona (who in reality would be the worst person to have as either, unless you were a self destructive drug addict) watching on in clear frozen discomfort, accompanied by a very bored looking blonde who’s sole purpose it probably was provide him with something to ‘do’ on the way home. After I’d figured out that nothing had actually happened to Gareth Barry’s face and that Aleksander Kolarov was in fact a different player all together, there was nothing left to do but admire City’s performance. If Bolton are playing like Brazil then City were playing like United, all while United were playing like City ‘were’ playing and Arsenal were bottling it like Spurs. What on earth has happened to football?
Birmingham 1-0 Chelsea – Is John Motson required by law to commentate on all of Chelsea’s games for Match of the Day? I was initially under the impression that he was limiting himself to London games so he’d never need to be too far away from his shed (or his carers) but an away at Birmingham shatters that theory. I wouldn’t mind were it not for his uniquely annoying pronunciation of Drogba, which inserts considerably more A’s than are needed (doubly so if he’s involved in something exciting) suffixed with a needless R. Drogbaaar was involved in a lot of excitement as it goes as Ben Foster consistently denied him and Chelsea heroically, helping his old club draw level on points at the top. Oh Butch where art thou?
Other Things I Noticed – David’s Gold & Sullivan’s Pimp and Cossack routine looks set to be outdone as Blackburn over take West Ham as the club with the dodgiest looking owners. Brad Friedel not actually being any good for ages now but nobody noticing it. Wayne Rooney’s street striker being the most pointless and over padded show on TV but worth it for Rooney asking a competitive BMXer “How d’you do that? D’you know?” (I think he does Wayne yes) and Colin Murray stealing my Prince William dressed as Tony Pulis gag on MOTD2. Damn you Murray. I’ll never top that!
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You can follow Oscar on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/oscarpyejeary, where he sometimes says stuff and that.
London rivals Fulham and Chelsea shared a point apiece in a 1-1 draw at Craven Cottage on Monday.
The visitors had ambitions of moving level on points with fourth placed Tottenham, and took the lead after 45 minutes when Frank Lampard converted what looked like a soft penalty after a foul by Stephen Kelly on Salomon Kalou.
However, Clint Dempsey equalised for the Cottagers with eight minutes remaining to salvage a point for Martin Jol’s side.
Blues boss Roberto Di Matteo remained upbeat despite missing out on the chance to claw back Spurs’ advantage.
“I thought we were in control of the game and maybe we didn’t pose enough of a threat for the second goal,” he told Sky Sports.
“But we were always in a leading position and the only way they could have scored was from a set-play and unfortunately for us they did.
“But we are still in there, we are hanging in there and we knew Craven Cottage was a tough place to come and we are getting closer to the teams ahead of us,” he continued.
Mark Clattenburg’s award of Chelsea’s penalty was dubious, but Di Matteo believed that it was a fair decision; he also praised Frank Lampard, whose goal made him the first midfielder to score 150 times in the Premier League.
“Come on, there was a touch on him [Kalou] from Kelly for the penalty.
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“The record just shows what a tremendous player that Frank has been for Chelsea Football Club all these years, and he continues to do so and we are very happy he is in our team,” the trainer concluded.
Last week, Manchester City defender Kolo Touré was banned from all football activities after being found guilty of taking a prohibited substance, contained within a dieting pill belonging to his wife. It was backdated to the date when he was initially suspended, so he will be available again in early September.
As most will be aware, it is now standard procedure for the Football Association to carry out random drug tests on players without giving clubs any notice. The actual sampling officers are independent though, and are accompanied by an FA supervising officer (a doctor or physiotherapist approved by the FA).
As a Manchester City fan, should I be outraged at such a punishment, the result of a seemingly honest mistake by a teetotal, devout Muslim? No, of course not. He deserves to be banned; in fact he HAD to be banned.
You could argue that what he took was not related to football, and not performance-enhancing. That it was an honest mistake, a stupid solitary mistake, which should not be punished so harshly. After all, everyone makes mistakes. But the fact is that he took something that is banned, and he knew what the consequences of doing this would be. All players have it drummed into them by club doctors and management that they cannot take a whole raft of medicinal products, that there is a whole swathe of ingredients that are no-go areas and that if there is any doubt with taking something they should get it checked out first. It’s part of being a professional footballer.
You could even argue that by taking something to slim down, it could be considered performance enhancing. I wouldn’t personally.
Toure was found to have taken a “specified substance”. According to the World Anti-Doping Agency’s “code”, “specified substances” are those that are “more susceptible to a credible, non-doping explanation.”
The code states: “If the athlete can prove that he or she did not intend to enhance performance by using them to the satisfaction of the results management authority, the sanction under the World Anti-Doping code can go from a warning to a two-year ban.”
It’s impossible to say what the correct ban length should be – there’s no rulebook that decides the fairness of these things, it is entirely subjective. One journalist tweeted that Rio Ferdinand and Paddy Kenny got 9 months and Touré only 6 months, so where was the consistency? Yeah, because all drug offences are the same, so it should be the same punishment for everyone.
Paddy Kenny was banned for nine months in September 2009 after testing positive for ephedrine, a prohibited substance found in cold remedies. The FA chose not to punish Paddy Kenny to the full extent of its powers (the aforementioned 2 years) after admitting that he had not deliberately sought to enhance performance when taking an over-the-counter cold remedy without consulting Sheffield United’s medical team, in a case thus very similar to Touré’s. On the other hand, Hamilton midfielder Simon Mensing was banned for just a month after testing positive for another specified substance, methylhexaneamine, in December 2010. This too appeared to be a dietary supplement, and he provided credible evidence to support his case. The Scottish Football Association took that information into account when sentencing him to an unusually short ban, using much more leniency than if he had been up before their English counterparts. There will always be inconsistencies between different FA’s, but within an FA, there will presumably be just reason for differing periods of bans for particular players.
Comment must be made too on Rio Ferdinand. It was milliseconds after the announcement of the six month ban came out that the first United fan complained about the injustice of it all. You see, in many United fans’ eyes, Ferdinand didn’t do anything wrong, and it is a miscarriage of justice that a player we know to have taken a banned substance gets a lesser punishment than a player we do not know to have taken a banned substance. But leaving Ferdinand out of this, let’s look at the general scenario, and cut to the chase – a player who misses a drug test should get the maximum punishment available. If anyone cannot work out the logic behind this, then I would be very surprised.
But perhaps it should be explained anyway – those who decide punishments must presume that someone who missed a test is guilty of taking a banned substance, and a performance-enhancing one at that, and thus pass judgement with that assumption in mind. They must do this because if they did not, any player who had taken a banned substance and was asked to take a drugs test would deliberately miss it knowing the punishment would be less that way. Players must be aware that the test must be taken – and that not taking it will not be in their interest. It is the only logical stance to take.
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As for Ferdinand, I have heard claims from United fans that the player offered to return immediately to take the test, an offer that was rejected by the drug-testers. If this is true then he has claims for unfair treatment, but I have never heard this claim mentioned in an official publication, so it’s mere speculation. I’ve also heard claims he did do the test the day after, but still got banned. Again, if so (and I have no idea if it is), then it does seem harsh on him.
There was extra criticism in many circles to the fact that Touré’s ban covers the summer months – should it not just cover months of the football season? Well it’s not a new rule, but the fact remains is he will miss pre-season, so even when his ban expires in early September, he will still be nowhere ready to return to the first team. Because of this he will probably end up missing five months of playing time anyway. But it is a point worth debating – depending on which time of year a player gets banned, can alter how much football he misses.
There are reports in the newspapers at the moment that Touré is looking to appeal the decision, and hopefully get the ban reduced. If this is true then I am disappointed. There’s no harm in chancing your arm I guess, but personally I would take the punishment and move on. After all, even if Touré did prove to the FA that he only ingested a prohibited substance unknowingly, his punishment according to Wada could still have been as big as a two-year ban.
Drug tests are a serious part of maintaining the integrity of the sport. Stupidity and ignorance are no excuses, and the FA’s disciplinary commission rightly refuses to accept ignorance as an excuse. The best thing Touré can do is accept this and give his all on his return. He is being fully paid during his six month absence, and I would hope this should spur him on more – he made an innocent-enough mistake, but in many aspects he has been very fortunate indeed.
The NESV are seeking to put their money where their mouth is in terms of rebuilding Liverpool and making it into a competitive force once more. It’s rumoured that NESV’s cash injection should see a projected £30 million transfer kitty for Roy Hodgson (or whoever is in charge at the time) to spend in the January transfer window and during the summer. Many Liverpool fans are uncomfortable with the prospect of Roy Hodgson being in charge of such a large amount of cash with such an important bearing on Liverpool’s future. So I open it up to you, Liverpool fans – if you were in charge, which players would you go after in the oncoming transfer windows to help make Liverpool competitive once more?
My first move would be to shore up Liverpool’s defence. For all the loyal services Jamie Carragher has given to the club, this season has seen him somewhat exposed. You can’t help but feel that Liverpool misses the likes of Sami Hyypia and that a little extra competition in the defensive positions would do the whole team good. It’s here that Roy Hodgson could come in handy as he could utilise his contacts with old club Fulham to snatch up Brege Hangeland. It’s true that Hangeland signed a new deal with Fulham last year that would see him stay at the club until 2013, but given his previous relationship with Hodgson, it shouldn’t be too difficult for Roy to tempt him to a move to Liverpool. He’s a lad with great aerial ability and good physical strength that doesn’t come at the expense of pace or passing ability. He’s calm under pressure and could be a good signing for Liverpool.
A more attacking option could be Charles N’Zogbia, who would set Liverpool back around £8-9 million. N’Zogbia’s form seems to come and go, but at the right club you can’t help but feel that he could make a name for himself. Indeed, after an impressive year at the DW Stadium, N’Zogbia has forced himself into the French international side. Another, more expensive option would be to go after Villa’s Ashley Young. It’s known that Young is seeking to have an escape-clause written into his new contract so that if Tottenham come in for him in the future, he can leave the club. Could Young be persuaded to join Liverpool instead? If not, Liverpool could make a sweep for Tottenham’s own David Bentley. Sure, he’s had problems in the past with his attitude, but he’s also displayed a great deal of talent.
I’d also seek a player in the Sissoko/Mascherano mould. This is a tricky position to fill – there simply aren’t that many players out there who are both talented enough and willing to do this kind of job. Real Madrid may be unwilling to give him up, but I’d be tempted to take a punt on Lassana Diarra. Despite it being reported in the summer that Real Madrid had transfer listed Diarra, Mourinho opted to include Diarra in his starting line-up for the season. Still, if Real Madrid could be persuaded, he would be a wonderful purchase. He has great physical strength, bundles of energy and excellent ball control. He’s also highly versatile and could be used to plug any gaps in the Liverpool team that arise as a result of injury.
If you had Roy’s £30 million transfer kitty who would you sign? Do you agree or disagree with my takes?
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