Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Put a few quid on Mark Hughes getting the Stoke job, just a gut feeling. It's a win-win bet anyway. If I win I get 39 quid, if I lose Stoke probably got a better man.

Hughes odds shortened all the way down to 2s in most bookies. I bet the Stoke forums are getting restless.

It's been a slow week football wise. I mean locally the transfer news is going crazy considering the window hasn't opened, but obviously that isn't too interesting to anyone on here.

Some positive news though - "Uefa will announce on Friday whether the Europa League winners will be rewarded with a Champions League qualifying spot from 2016."

I think it's about time this measure was taken to promote the Europa League.

Edit: It's spectacularly odd that we posted within two minutes of each other after a couple of days of inactivity.

I always like checking other fans forums for their opinion actually so I might check it out. I remember the Man United forums were erupting in rage over the potential hiring of Moyes when Fergie announced his retirement.

I hate silly season on Norwich forums. Some of the names mentioned so far....Isco, Nani, Carlton Cole, Darren Bent, Dani Pacheco, Florent Malouda, Titus Bramble, Lukaku, Guidetti and Miroslav Klose. Oh, and some 35 year old league 2 player. I remember Riquelme being spotted in Morrisons evey window between 03 and 07.

As for othe teams forums I love seeing WACCOE (Leeds) go into meltdown whenever we go in for a player. That place seems to just be twats saying c**t a lot, awful place.

Anyone at Boro hoping to pick Simeon Jackson up on a free? Would be a cracking signing for most ccc clubs.

There was a bit of discussion on the Boro forum about Jackson when Norwich announced their released players, but that has been a trend when any team has released players recently.

The Middlesbrough fans are similarly unrealistic in their targets sometimes, in a recent local poll the two players that most fans wanted us to sign were Charlie Austin & Albert Adomah. I can't even start on how wrong that is. So far it looks like we'll be taking gambles on lower league players and trying to find loans for young PL players again.

Hopefully Norwich follow up their signing of Van Wolfswinkel with a few more optimistic pursuits.

The hungry lower league gem transfer policy has worked well here. The values of Pilkington, Snodgrass, Howson, Bennett and others will be increasing all the time. Pretty strong rumours say we'll continue that with the signing of Redmond(?) from Brum.

RVW and the full signing of Garrido mark the start of what should be an interesting summer. Hoping for a Bassong/RVW/Ruddy quality central midfielder next. Football Manager legend Steven Defour is the rumour. The fact we've already been shopping in Portugal and he has seemingly been replaced make me want to believe this. I don't though.

Ah, but has Defour been replaced? Monaco have just signed James Rodriguez and Joao Moutinho. At the very least this tells us they'll beat City et. al to Falcao, as I'm sure he'd rather earn millions playing with old teammates than Carlos Tevez, Nasri et. al.
Interesting to see Ricky van Wolfswinkel at Norwich. If nothing else, I hope his value goes up on SoccerManager after I bought him on about five different game worlds :P

The success rates in Championship clubs recruiting good L1/L2 players in comparison to PL clubs getting good finds in the Championship aren't similar unfortunately. Not to mention Mowbray is an idiot in the transfer market and would probably turn down Messi in favour of some injury prone lazy player if they were both available in the same L2 team.

I don't know much about Defour's abilities in the real world, but I'm sure that signing kind of player is the right direction for Norwich.

Monaco have sent a strong signal by signing those two. I'm sure they won't be the biggest signings they make this summer either. Ligue 1 will be very interesting next year.

I haven't heard of SoccerManager in years, those were the days. We should get a PC gameworld going. :P

That is true. We've been lucky signing the likes of Holt, Wessi, Russ Martin and others whilst in the ccc and l1.

Hector Herrera was the guy I thought they were getting to replace. Supposedly Defour hasn't been that good meaning they want to move him on.

French league was pretty fun back when I followed other leagues. Will watch a few (Ibra)games next season that's for sure.

SoccerManager, never played this one. Should have my laptop tomorrow so I'll be up for that. Only online game I still play is xperteleven.

A lot of news outlets on Twitter are suggesting Rafa Benitez is set to join Napoli.

I could swear he said he was making an attempt to stay in the PL.

I'm not surprised. All of the 'top' prem sides seemed to already have replacements lined up. Couldn't see him going to Everton and despite being the Stoke fan's first choice that was never going to happen. Had Pardew been given the boot it might have been interesting.

Still think Martinez will go to Everton and well, it seems I was bang on with Hughes and Stoke.

Everton are meant to be getting the current Porto manager with Martinez being a second choice, last I heard.

Pardew leaving would be interesting for me as a Boro fan too, think of the severance package from cancelling a seven year contract mwahahaha. :P

Anyway, good move for Rafa really. I'm sure if he does well this season Man City will be in for him when they sack their new guy next summer.

Still finding it a little hard to believe that Pardew is currently the second longest serving manager in the prem. Crazy.

Hopefully he'll be under a little less pressure than when he was at Inter as well.

I'm still amazed he ever got appointed in the first place. It's worth mentioning he was sacked by Southampton (at the time a League 1 club) in his previous job.

There are just some managers that will always get work, no matter how many times they screw up. My worst nightmares consist of Norwich struggling in January and appointing 'Arry to save the day.

Anyone else up for a mass Skype convo for the Champions League final? Went and I are down for it. 8)

@Lapras, it could be worse, there's always Mark Hughes.

@Razor Leaf, Unfortunately I think I won't be at home for the CL final tomorrow night, if that changes I'm up for it though. If not, there's always next year. :P

Think I'm watching it in the pub.

We could do the Confederations Cup if anyone cares about it.

I couldn't care less about the Confed, but I'd even talk about a Stalybridge Celtic match if it was on offer so I doubt that matters.

I think I could be able to participate in the Skype convo.