Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

I had Jagielka in over Vlaar and Giroud as captain.

Beautiful.

Limey-chan said:

Boro are my favourites for promotion. I think Karanka has made some very astute signings (particularly Kike), and you're going to be a difficult team to beat. It's all about maintaining form and being able to handle the pressure when playing the other promotion favourites.

The Championship has a funny way of completely changing its complexion off the back of one or two results; like teams who have never really been in the race up until, say, March, can suddenly hit form at the right time and find themselves promoted. Sunderland benefited from the unpredictability of it all when Roy Keane took over as manager.

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Hopefully you're right and Kike certainly does look the real deal so far.

Hopefully we aren't one of the late bloomers of the season because I think we'd be in danger of losing players in January if it looked like we weren't going to get near the playoffs.

Banz said:

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Everyone is very close for now then. I can't even remember my team so I'm surprised I'm 2nd, I think I'll take a look now and try to fit someone from Newcastle in (they looked good against Man City).

I'm going to win this year

I hope all of this stuff about Malky is bs. Not looking good though.

So the busy summer continues here at Norwich. Nothing too surprising has happened yet although the Hooper rumours have started again, apparently both Hull and QPR want him. If Jerome is his replacement his signing goes from good squad signing to depressing. Good to see some much needed physical presence, pace and work rate being added throughout our squad.

Out
Snoddy - £7-8m
Pilkington - £2m
Fer - £8-10m
van Wolfswinkel - loan
Morris - loan
Fox - Released
Nash - Released

In
Grabban - £3
Lafferty - undisclosed but rumours were £3-4m
O'Neil - free
Cuéllar - free
Jerome - £1.5m

Just though I'd share this here:

https://vine.co/v/MLWYzuPZ5UB

That Carragher laugh though.

Haha I just noticed I'm still in the fantasy football league!


-dat Vine! Outstanding

I'm still in shock that United have actually signed Rojo...I was already resigned for us signing nobody after Herrera and Shaw, then giving Cleverley £100k-per-week 5-year contract on deadline day so it looked like Woody had done something :P
Apparently Di Maria asked to leave as well...I really hope he comes, he just suits the PL with his pace and work-rate.

Banz said:

I'm going to win this year

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We'll see about that. :P You probably will when I forget in two weeks.

Weeaboo Name said:

I hope all of this stuff about Malky is bs. Not looking good though.

So the busy summer continues here at Norwich. Nothing too surprising has happened yet although the Hooper rumours have started again, apparently both Hull and QPR want him. If Jerome is his replacement his signing goes from good squad signing to depressing. Good to see some much needed physical presence, pace and work rate being added throughout our squad.

Out
Snoddy - £7-8m
Pilkington - £2m
Fer - £8-10m
van Wolfswinkel - loan
Morris - loan
Fox - Released
Nash - Released

In
Grabban - £3
Lafferty - undisclosed but rumours were £3-4m
O'Neil - free
Cuéllar - free
Jerome - £1.5m

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I can't really believe any manager would come out with that, but it does seem pretty damning. The LMA chief has clearly been even dumber though. Oh well at least they'll get their just desserts soon enough.

Hopefully that will be good business for Norwich overall. I think the signings apart from Grabban all have the potential to end badly though, hopefully they won't.

Matthew said:

Just though I'd share this here:

https://vine.co/v/MLWYzuPZ5UB

That Carragher laugh though.

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Dear god, unfortunately I had to hear it numerous times before the tab closed. Carragher should come with a mute button.

Amore said:

Haha I just noticed I'm still in the fantasy football league!


-dat Vine! Outstanding

I'm still in shock that United have actually signed Rojo...I was already resigned for us signing nobody after Herrera and Shaw, then giving Cleverley £100k-per-week 5-year contract on deadline day so it looked like Woody had done something :P
Apparently Di Maria asked to leave as well...I really hope he comes, he just suits the PL with his pace and work-rate.

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I hope Di Maria moves too and then hopefully him and Ozil show Madrid not to discard top class players so easily. I suppose the same could go for Sanchez with Barcelona too.

It looks like Welbeck will be leaving now. I wonder if Sunderland would abandon trying to sign Borini in favour of him.

Balotelli to Liverpool looks definite. Surprising to see Balotelli back in England especially since he hated living in Manchester and Liverpool isn't all that better. Milan must have been a hellhole. It should be an exciting season.

Increasingly looks like Di Maria is moving to Manchester United. He'll be a crucial signing for them that will unlock parked buses, which they had so much trouble dealing with last season, as well as against Swansea.

Can't underestimate his contribution in Real Madrid winning the CL, either.

Lafferty has probably been our best player in the last couple of games so qhatever worries I had abotu him are gone. Grabban is a Norwich striker actually scoring goals, spooky. Carlos and O'Neil are old pros, good attitudes and probably what we needed aroudn the dressing room. Jerome is the only one that worried me, if we can get his work rate of last season everything should be ok but I'm not sure about this one.

Looking forward for seeing Lafferty actually being used up top.



lol

Aeroblast said:

Increasingly looks like Di Maria is moving to Manchester United. He'll be a crucial signing for them that will unlock parked buses, which they had so much trouble dealing with last season, as well as against Swansea.

Can't underestimate his contribution in Real Madrid winning the CL, either.

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MOTM in the CL final - Perez clearly forgot as Bale scored the equaliser and Ronaldo celebrated his penalty like it was the end of a Goal! movie...oh wait.

Gutted to hear Welbeck might be leaving. He looked good in pre-season, his link-up play with all his little flicks etc. worked well with Mata and Rooney, plus he has pace - if we get rid of him Rojo may well be our fastest player and he doesn't even have a work permit. Much as I love Chicharito I'd rather he left, he's faded and even if he gets back to his best we don't have room for 4 strikers with no European competition. Welbz makes a far better squad player, not least because he'd be happy to do it.
I honestly believed LVG would try fix his one error, which is his decision-making and finishing in front of goal (trying to chip Manuel Neuer, even Neymar wouldn't).

TOP OF THE LEAGUE
AT PORTMAN ROAD
TOP OF THE LEAGUE
AT PORTMAN ROAD

Well at least we stopped ourselves short of a really embarrassing scoreline, but losing at home to Sheff Wed is still awful. The optimism everyone had about this season seems just have just immediately disappeared, but that's nothing new with Boro fans.

Felix Magath out surely?

Nuke said:

Felix Magath out surely?

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I don't follow the championship at all, but just had a quick look at Fulham's position... wow, didn't know it was that bad.

I watched the Derby vs Fulham game yesterday and Fulham started with something like 7 players aged 21 or under, surely Magath knows you can't do that in a league like the Championship. Most of their signings have been people with no experience in England, let alone the Champs. One of their signings that does know the league is Mark Fotheringham, probably doesn't mean much to you guys but he's one of the worst midfielders we've had here at Norwich, last season he was deemed not good enough for Notts Country. Then of course the massive fee for Ross McCormack who looks like he's been on the beer this summer.

Kristof Terreur @HLNinEngeland · Aug 22

Norwich and Club Brugge have reached an agreement on Vadis Odjidja. Player and club still have to agree terms. #ncfc

I don't really buy this but I hope it happens just to hear the old Norfolk boys trying to say Vadis Odjidja-Ofoe. I think he might be this summer's Quagliarella.

It's not just the position though, 5-1 is pretty humiliating for a newly relegated side. He does seem to have some sort of youth obsession, I remember being confused when he kept fielding Cauley Woodrow when they were trying to stay up. I get the feeling he's coaching McCormack out of his physicality (he always looked fat but he was good) which will leave Fulham with no decent talent on the pitch at all, though since he keeps playing him on the wing there might as well not be already.

I think Norwich can afford to roll the dice since they have a fairly solid squad and now have had a reasonably strong start. If it doesn't pay off, I'm sure he won't doom you to a longer stay in the Championship.

He is seemingly a good passer of the ball and he also has a lot of physical presence, all of our current midfielders seem to have one or the other. Like the rest of our additions this summer it would seem this one has been pretty well thought out. I think they might be learning.

I ended up going along to see Sunderland v Man United yesterday (followed by unhealthy levels of alcohol consumption), it was a pretty entertaining game. Poyet has Sunderland playing some nice stuff, though he needs to sort the defence out; the defending (or lack thereof) for United's goal was shocking.

Still, that's two from two for Sunderland, and they're still a couple of players short of the finished article. They may actually have a decent, safe, stress-free, mid-table season this season!

Why did Manchester United sign the goblin when they clearly need players in about 5 other positions?