Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Morning papers are saying Boro are going to sign Dani Ayala from Norwich. Considering he's a 5th choice cb at Norwich and we are linked to the likes of Toby Alderweireld I think this is a good move.

Didn't know there was a Football thread, I'm a Man City fan. (since 2003) Hopefully we'll have some good times under Manuel Pellegrini. From what I've seen in interviews he seem's like a nice genuine guy. If rumors are to be believed we're on the verge of signing Negredo from Sevilla. :)

-Lapras- said:

Morning papers are saying Boro are going to sign Dani Ayala from Norwich. Considering he's a 5th choice cb at Norwich and we are linked to the likes of Toby Alderweireld I think this is a good move.

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I haven't had much time to keep track of Boro rumours lately, but this one sounds good. We desperately need a CB, all of our current ones are injury prone and unreliable.

Lacky said:

Didn't know there was a Football thread, I'm a Man City fan. (since 2003) Hopefully we'll have some good times under Manuel Pellegrini. From what I've seen in interviews he seem's like a nice genuine guy. If rumors are to be believed we're on the verge of signing Negredo from Sevilla. :)

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It seems like an odd signing for City. West Ham wanted him a few weeks ago which would suggest he isn't a player of the quality City should be sniffing around. Plus with Dzeko already there it seems odd to sign a similar player. Tevez was a completely different player to them both as well and therefore it's odd that Negredo is his potential 'replacement'.

Looks like Holty is off to Wigan, will miss him. I guess it means we have a good replacement lined up, be it Toivonen or someone else. As for the club I'm glad he went to Wigan and not Hull.

I'm sure Holt will go another step further to confirming the perhaps inevitable Wigan promotion. They should sweep the Championship unless the Europa League gets in their way.

There's a hope Holt's departure will spring a set of transfers that can help Boro anyway. It's unlikely but hopefully Holt -> Wigan will lead to Hooper -> Norwich so we can sell McDonald to Celtic and sign Graham from Sunderland (who have just signed Altidore).

It's a long shot, but people can dream.

None of those sound that unrealistic, could quite well happen.

Bloody hell.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23215676

So that is the end of that. Great buy for Wigan that.

Norwich only have 2 first team strikers on their books now. I can't imagine we'd move Holt on without having a replacement almost tied up, the next few days should be fun.

Atlético Madrid have signed David Villa from Barcelona. He'll be here for three years. The transfer will cost 2 € million + 2 + 1 in each year, so 5 million if he stays all three. Definitely not the best replacement for Falcao but not a too bad one.

-Lapras- said:

None of those sound that unrealistic, could quite well happen.

Bloody hell.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23215676

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My friend sent me that link a few days ago. Shocking news.

Went said:

Atlético Madrid have signed David Villa from Barcelona. He'll be here for three years. The transfer will cost 2 € million + 2 + 1 in each year, so 5 million if he stays all three. Definitely not the best replacement for Falcao but not a too bad one.

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Admittedly not the kind of striker I was expecting Atlético to sign. I wanted the next Torres/Aguero/Falcao, but I suppose Villa will do a good job for them.

I'm sure they'll be looking for one, I presume Villa is a decent quick fix. The last time I actually saw him play at club level was in his Valencia days though, so I don't know if he's still all that.

No mor signings but it seems the Olsson and Fer deals are getting closer. Also supposedly back in for Hooper with a 4 million pound bid, ad another mill on top of that and I think they'll accept. And then there's Toby Alderweireld. Our Football Manager team next season is going to be amazing if these come off.
Edit - Picture just snapped in the restaurant at Carrow Road
Fer it is then. Also the blond sitting across from him could be Ola Toivonen. lol.
Edit again - Moments later this pic hits Twitter Martin Olsson down by the ground. Good times.
Edit again - Olsson confirmed. 4 year deal. Undisclosed fee. Some great competition for Garrido.

Victor Wanyama joins Southampton after they already spent a load on that Lyon defender. Wilfried Bony set to join Da Swans. Norwich getting RVW and a few of the names I've been mentioning hopefully. West Ham trying to spend billions of pounds on everyone. Some pretty major improvements to the middle of the league this, all of the changes at the top and this should mean a pretty entertaining season is a ahead of us.

Adam Maher from AZ Alkmaar to PSV, in my opinion not a great move, but we will see. PSV hasn't won the title in a while and lost Mertens to Napoli and Lens to Dinamo Kiev. Also Ajax loaning Bojan Krikic from Barcelona seems a good move, but we will see what everyone else does.

As for my fave team Borussia Dortmund, i really like Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan (if i spelled it correct). The latter having a nice assist on Reus in the practise match versus Basel. Its certain Lewandowski leaves (if not ill eat my shoe).

Bojan's career doesn't seem to be going in the direction it was meant to.

Dortmund could still pose a threat in the CL with signings like this.

Some very positive signings for Norwich and a lot of money being thrown around by PL bottom half teams. I'm not sure Hull or Palace are going to manage anything at this rate.

I'm glad you mentioned Football Manager, I was considering doing a Let's Play of it in the Video Games forum so I figured I'd mention it here to see if anyone would follow it.

I'll be sure take a look.

Haven't been as into fm 13 recently as I lost my save when my last laptop died. I guess I'll start a new save when the transfer window closes. Or maybe just wait for 14.

Thanks. :D I haven't played it much in the past few weeks since a really long term save finished. But usually I spend ages on it, I probably have 1500 hours play time on it. My friend can usually double whatever time I spend on it though.

Just to keep this post relevant with some real football chat, it seems Santa Cruz is now a permament Malaga player. Obviously he has been at English clubs for a while until now. I'm a bit sad Hughes brought him to Man City because he could still be scoring a lot of goals for a midtable/Europa League side at the moment if it hadn't happened. I always liked him, hopefully he does well in Spain.

I was half expecting Santa Cruz to turn up at Stoke this summer. Good player to watch.

Reports in Italy saying Norwich are after Juve striker Fabio Quagliarella. Now him in behind RVW could be something special.

Still waiting on Fer and Alderweireld, holding out for bigger clubs no doubt.

Norwich seem to be sucking up all the talent the Eredivisie has to offer if they sign Alderweireld, Fer and Toivonen. Quagliarella would be something special, but it looks like Norwich will have a good year with or without him. It would be nice for Boro to be making these sort of signings again, but obviously we can't even get promotion sorted first. :P

I'm hoping Went will read this soon because I want someone with a bit of La Liga knowledge to explain R.Madrid's purchase of Illaramendi. £34m seems a bit steep given the player's lack of reputation. I was expecting him to be some 19 year old wonderkid since I hadn't heard of him, but he's actually 23 so any player growth remaining would probably be minimal.

That fee looks steep until you realise that it will be covered if the club manage to shift one shirt with his name on the back.

Haha I like it. The worst player I can think of for shirt printing would be Sinama-Pongolle. I expect the dash would cost extra as well. Hopefully no Liverpool fans ever got his name, he was terrible for them.

What are your opinions on the mixture of family and football? I ask this after hearing about Tom Ince declining the move to Cardiff, his reason being the birth of his son and yes it is a good reason but was it the only reason.

I was just wondering if he might have felt like he was betraying his father if he decided to move. Do you think he thought about that while making his decision(new baby aside) or it was all business?


Edit: On the matter of Asier Illaarramendi, spanish clubs, unless they want the player to leave or just need the money, they rarely accept anything less than the minimum fee release clause in the player's contract. It becomes worse when the player is wanted by a big club who has the money to blow. When you see a side like Madrid coming for your player, you get as much as you possible can no questions asked.

It took him long enough to realise that that Cardiff isn't anywhere near Blackpool, pretty sure it was financial reasons, or maybe he was just playing along hoping Liverpool would hijack the bid.