Sports The Football Discussion Thread!

Ruben Neves clearly is not right in the head. Youngest captain in a Champions League game, and for Porto too - not Partizan or someone else from out east where all their good players are gone by 19.

Ivan Cavaleiro and Helder Costa made sense in a way - in that Monaco and Benfica respectively were glad to make a profit and get rid - but not from a player's career health point of view. But Ruben Neves really doesn't make sense at all. He's clearly been taking some bad advice (unless Mendes knows something we don't and Porto are going to get relegated this year).

Ruddy is a Mendes client? Who knew?

At least our new favourite Mino seems to get his players at the very worst to move sideways for more money (Pogba to us), Mendes is acting like the conductor of the great Portuguese-youth-money-laundering-and-human-trafficking circus.

Norwich should really just put their foot down with Josh Murphy. This isn't like when Bayern signed Bastian Schweinsteiger's younger brother or Milan signed Jose Mauri's older brother, he's clearly a player who could make a go of it. Middlesborough are probably just hoping to get him on the cheap due to the family connection.

It seems like Milan are going to run afoul of FFP - even if they have the best commercial arm in Italy it's still nothing like ours or Madrid's.

I really don't like this Perisic deal - we've bought Lukaku so surely Rashford should be first choice out left? Mourinho spent a season praising his workrate and now he's apparently giving Shaw a chance, seems like an ideal combo. Martial meanwhile has had nowhere near the drop-off Memphis had, should get another year at the very least to make a go of it.
 
Two wins away from finishing the Gold Cup redemption tour.
 
Is Ryan Bennett bad? He seemed to be at Norwich for a long time for a bad player.

Looks like we're continuing to take out the trash. De Pena released (easily one of our worst ever transfers), Downing on the way to Birmingham. God bless Harry Redknapp and his terrible ability in the transfer market.

I'm sure AC Milan (nor Wolves since they'll face it too) aren't concerned about FFP, no one really gets more than a slap on the wrist and a fine. I never agreed with FFP and since it doesn't do its job anyway, I think Fifa and the EFL should get rid.
 
Length of time a player has been at Norwich is also not a fantastic gauge for footballing ability. Russell Martin just signed a new year deal the other day.

He's not awful, just never really managed to cement a first team place. Seemed to have potential when we signed him but he never really improved from there. I was surprised to see him get a move to Wolves actually, he's hardly a continental style CB. Will miss his beautiful 40 yard passes into the south stand though.
 
I always assumed Russell Martin was good as well, my perception of Norwich players is being destroyed.

Remarkable that the Neymar > PSG story seems to be gaining some credibility, I initially brushed it off as being 100% BS.
 
Wonder how much money he'd be on if he went. Ridiculous.

Martin was a great right back but never had confidence in him at CB. Constant mistakes and not good enough in the air. Might be better in a back 3 which is what I assume we'll actually play somewhat regularly next year.

Our last properly good CB partnership was Bassong and Turner under Hughton. Martin and Bassong pulled it together for a few months in our promotion season but it's basically been constant errors over the last 4 or 5 seasons. Here's hoping the Germans sort that out a bit. Only pre season but Franke looks great.
 
I think you're going to have a good season, probably very organised like Huddersfield last year. Our pre-season has had some horrible results (lost 2-0 to Rochdale, don't think we've won a game yet), but I still think we'll do fine.

£7m on a striker who has never scored above League 1 (and only has 5 goals at that level) isn't the best business I've seen us do this summer.
 
Very close to the EPL season kicking off. Exciting times!!
 
One week until the Championship returns and our old boss Karanka has a run-through of the teams for the coming season, no surprise who he picks to win the league. (Link)

I thought we played really well against Augsburg in our friendly yesterday, very exciting about our attacking potential this season. I'm actually quite excited to be in the Championship again strangely.

EvilChameleon said:
Very close to the EPL season kicking off. Exciting times!!
Click to expand...

Aye, not long now. I know you're a big MLS fan, but do you have a favourite EPL team as well?
 
Signings. Just announced our 9th (an 18 year old striker from Leyton Orient) and the 10th (some German midfielder we have on trial) probably isn't far off. Combine all of the fees paid and it wouldn't be over 7 million. Crazy how it's changed in just a year. That extra cash from the TV deal must be nice.

Our preseason has been decent, not played the highest quality opposition but we are unbeaten. I'm slightly worried that the defence haven't really been tested but tactically you can already see a much different side to the one we had last year. The injuries, particularly to Alex Pritchard (out for at least another month), have been the only real negatives. Of course we'll probably get by with Hoolahan, Maddison, Watkins and Naismith to pick from in that position.

Shame we start away at Craven Cottage really.

West Ham, not Palace? They fly an eagle at games and have cheerleaders.
 
In a way starting at Craven Cottage could be a blessing, it shows you what level you're really at early on.

Has Watkins been looking good? He seemed like a bargain when you signed him.
 
Constantly makes clever runs, tireless worker, scored a 20 yard screamer against Brighton the other day. Seems Webber and Farke see him as a striker even though he played most of last season from the right. From the right he actually scored and assisted more than the 12.5 million Jacob Murphy. I think he's a bit of a bargain.

Mario Vrancic (our Howson replacement) may well be our biggest bargain mind. About 500k from Darmstadt and he really does have a bit of everything. Great passing range, work rate, gets stuck in, consistently good set piece delivery and seems like he'll have a real goal threat at this level.

Most important thing for us this window is keeping hold of Oliveira. The ability to score from nothing is something we've not had since Dean Ashton. Did this the other day.
 
Wow, pretty good goal, reminds me of Ramirez.

I think Norwich will be the dark horse this year, most pundits aren't really looking at them, but they've quietly made some good business.
 
Haha, I assumed it would be Leeds or Sunderland who didn't pick us. No surprise there.

All of this just adds pressure, would be nice to be under the radar like Norwich.
 
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