Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Chelsea have a huge problem with stockpiling assets (Courtois, Lukaku, Piazon, Bruma, van Aanholt, Piazon and Delac are all players they are currently stringing along) and it never usually works out for them anyway. Hold unto a good young player for too long and constantly sending them out on loan leads to those players eventually leaving anyway. We saw that with Sturridge who was great for Liverpool after signing and even Borini since after he left Chelsea his career blossomed and even went with Italy to the Euros something I'm sure wasn't going to happen if he stayed at Chelsea.

As a keeper Cech has at least 6 or more good years in him, barring any injury, does that mean Chelsea will be loaning Courtois out till he's 27 or so. It's just all the stupid things Chelsea do that make me can't actually rate the club.

Torres is the biggest mystery I have ever seen. He switches between being utterly useless and scoring goals left and right every once in a while. Can't he just settle?

I'm with you. I'm a huge Torres fan and he was the one that made me a huge liverpool fan. So i always am cheering for him, but sometimes it gets really hard. I know what he is capable of and if he could just find some form of consistency, he could be a huge force.

Ancelotti is announced as Mourinho's replacement at Real Madrid. Of all the managers to have been at Chelsea since Mourinho, he was probably the best and sacked rather unfairly at the time imo. He could do well there, but it will be hard to topple Barcelona again without a lot of money being thrown around.

In more local news, Boro finally signed someone. He's a loan player from Hungary by the name of Varga. Yeah... still not very excited.

I'm sure you won't be offended when I say I don't have a clue who that is. He has the right image for a defensive midfielder though.


As far as incoming transfers it is still pretty quiet down here. Supposedly had a bid of around 3m accepted for Nathan Redmond, along with Swansea. Seems to have a bright future ahead of him so I couldn't complain if this comes off. Also the competition for the position might force some consistency out of Anthony Pilkington, if so we'd have one of the best wingers in the league on our hands.

I'm surprised Redmond didn't go in January as Birmingham were desperate to sell players then. 3m sounds like a good price for him.

And I'd never heard of him either. :P To be fair the defensive mid who was just forced out (very unfairly) has the same image for a DM.

Carlos Tevez to Juventus for around 10 million. Good signing for them, gives them some power up front and any signing that can weaken Man City is a good one for me.

Eh, Villa poached one of our better young players. Jed Steer. I guess it is a pretty good move for him though, going from 4th choice at Norwich to probably 2nd at Villa.

Mirror says Norwich will win da Hooper. I've stopped caring where he'll end up, I just want him to move so the rumours can go away.

I remember Steer from an old Football Manager save, I played him over the other Norwich keepers (this was a few years back when Norwich were in L1) and he turned out great. It seems odd that he wasn't Norwich's 2nd choice if he has potential. Maybe Lambert has a preference to him that Hughton doesn't see.

Hooper will probably end up staying where he is, I can't see Celtic accepting any price that PL teams would consider 'reasonable'.

The Times reckons Leighton Baines is going to reunite with Moyes at United for £12m. It all seems likely except the fee which seems low imo.

A pretty decent fee now or nothing next summer, I'm pretty sure he'll move on soon, be it to Hull, Norwich or somebody else.

Baines to United was predictable, if they can get that fee up to 15 mill I'd say it is a pretty good move for everyone involved.

He clearly has potential but I don't think that's enough for Hughton, especially when the bottom half of the table is so tight. I also think times are tight at Villa, I'm sure having a kid in the squad is a lot cheaper than real competition. Anyway, even if he's gone I still think our other young keeper, Declan Rudd, has just as much potential.

Ah yes I forgot about Rudd. Norwich are quite covered then.

Middlesbrough are about to complete a new signing and this time you might have heard of him. Dean Whitehead is set to sign yay. :P

Also Blackpool are being run into the ground by their owners still. Tom Ince is on the way out and Paul Ince has attempted to resign which can only suggest they're taking a cut of the transfer for themselves as they have done with players before.

Whitehead is a pretty solid midfielder, decent signing.

Leroy Fer is linked to us. Now this one I would love to happen.

So...England just lost 2-0 to Egypt in the U-20 Euros...and earlier in the tournament drew 2-2 with the war children of Iraq. Now presumably the Iraqis tried about 1million% more than our players but still...the future's bleak guys, Tahiti are going to have more to celebrate about in the next 10 years or so (they'll probably still be celebrating that goal against Nigeria in 2030 xD).
Also saw a report that a Spanish newspaper claiming "Ronaldo will meet with representatives of United in Manchester, but both they, the player and Madrid will deny it as it breaches FIFA rules" - or in other words "hey guys! slow news day, so we're going to put a picture of Ronaldo on the paper coz we need the money" xD. #lol #probsbadjournalism #stillhopeitstrue

Chelsea's pursuit of John Ruddy kinda upsets me and honestly just strengthens how much I hate the organization and business which is Chelsea.

Singing Ruddy as a backup and to fill the quota of necessary home grown player. Chelsea definitely one of the reasons English football can't grow

If they were attempting to sign him as a 3rd choice keeper then I think I'd be upset. The fact is most Premier League sides have 2 good keepers, one first teamer and another good enough to push for that place. Ruddy is good enough to push Čech for his place imo.

The insulting thing is the supposed 5 million pound offer, if Mignolet with a year on his contract is worth 9 mill surely Ruddy with 3 - 4 years is worth somewhere between 10 and 15 million.

Luckily for Norwich he doesn't seem the sort of player that would put money ahead oh his career, I'm pretty certain that he'd see moving to a top 4 club as too much of a risk at this point. If he looks after himself he still has a long career at the top of the game ahead of him, there is no need to rush.

That being said he's probably got more of a chance of playing for England sitting on Chelsea's bench than he does playing regularly for Norwich.

Ruddy seems like an odd target for Chelsea because they usually like their backup keeper to be pathetically bad (Hilario, Turnbull).

There are a few rumours that Turnbull will come back to Boro as a backup keeper so that suggests how far behind Chelsea standard he is.

First of July.

[forum checking intensifies]

Edit - Looks like the Nathan Redmond deal is done. 2mill rising to 3.2mill. Potentially a very good signing that.

And for the fee I doubt anyone will cast too much judgement on Lambert if it doesn't work out. Good deal there.

I'm surprised no one posted about the Confed final. Very exciting game.

I would blame Lambert if it doesn't work out.

Well that's just mean. :P

Pleased to see Giggs will be staying in the game, hopefully he'll advance on to become a manager at some stage. I guess this is his final playing season now though.