Arsene Wenger:
"The strategy of the club is to sell every year and to buy less expensive players," he told the News of the World.

"We manage at Arsenal to maintain all our football ambitions - national and European - while having to free up - for 17 more years - an annual surplus of £24m to pay for our stadium.

"The club's strategy is to favour the policy of youngsters ahead of stars and to count on the collective quality of our game."

Translation:
The gunners are financially in the sh*tter and are unable to buy any players of distinction i.e. your Torres, Rooneys, Ronaldos etc. and are unable to pay star players top wages. In full they can't hold on to star players and they can't replace like for like when they leave. They will continue to fall further and further behind.

Berbatov hasn't got the right attitude to play at United, he's a sulker and a slacker when things don't go his way.

I'm hoping that's just frustration at having dodgy defence & loosing/drawing so many games after he & Robbie score,and then they let one in.Hoping also Modric & Dos Santos feed him better...but,if Ramos rectifies these areas and he still sulks...

As was mentioned in another thread by afroman (can't remember which one), those stats are misleading about Huntelaar. He has a very poor record against quality sides and seems to go missing in big games, and most of his goals have come against the smaller, no-name sides in the Dutch league. A recent example is Ajax's ECL qualifier game/s against FC Twente, he went missing in both matches. He's still a good striker, but he's been overrated by most and against the higher quality defenses in the EPL, it's highly doubtful he'll pull out statistics like that. You'd be better off signing Berbatov, whose proven himself in England.

9.00 pm aest crouch will be holding up a portsmouth jersey and his 4 year deal will have been announced

I'm absolute;y convinced that if Croatia had Eduardo than they would have made the final. Probably not have beaten Spain but still made the final. If he fully recovers from the injury then he will score far more goals as afromanGT or someone said. He is used to the Premier League now and will do better. Maybe Arsenal best bargain.

United need a new striker badly. Saha spends more time at the doctors which only leaves Rooney and tevez who can't be exepected to play every week. Santa Cruz from Blackburn would be a great signing, I have heard he wants to join United.

SOME BIG NAMES MOVING TO SOME BIG CLUBS!!!!!!!!!!!
(LIVERPOOL EVA)

So apparently the Barry saga is over. 15m + Finnan is the deal. Apparently Villa are looking at signing Sidwell as a replacement, with 5m the price tag going round.

15mil+finnan is better than 18mil. Finnan was dead wood any way. I doubt we could have sold him for 3mil anyway. Good servant and hopefully with barry weve got another. I think alonso has gone too. and crouch. We'll need to sign a striker now. Probably Keane. Keane + Barry = Crouch + Alonso + Finnan. Thats probably fair.

SWP and Malouda are supposedly on their way out of chelsea. Malouda has been linked to liverpool. To be honest id love either one of them. Id prefer Malouda cause we could get him for pretty cheap and we need a winger. Still pretty young too. Id also like to see SWP back at Man City where he started. I remember tthe days when he was there and he was ripping up the league. The club is at his level now too.

No i disagree i think Alonso will stay but yeah Liverpool almost got Malouda last season didnt they?

Yeah thats a great idea sign Malouda, a big name player who wants massive wages that was atrocious last season. Why would you suggest to sign SWP if Man City is his level??? I can see Babel and perhaps Sebastian Leto being awesome this season so there's really no need for both.

If we got the Malouda of WC06 id be happy. Hed be better in a team without the egos. A team like liverpool. I meant SWP would be in the top group of man city players. Elano, petrov, jo, richards etc. all of whom id welcome at anfield. Man city arent where they were when SWP left. They are only going forward now. Before when he left they were looking at relegation IIRC.

Malouda is a good player he is good with both feet and was a tad bit inconsistent last year but i really think regular football at Liverpool and we could see his full potential if we didnt have Nani i wouldnt mind Malouda

If we got the Robbie Fowler of 95 we'd be flying but unfortunately it doesn't work like that players lose form. Also buying a player on the back of a good tournament isn't always the best idea e.g. Salif Diao, Phil Babb etc. etc.

Man City finished 8th in the league the year SWP left hardly staring relegation in the face now was it. He's too inconsistant has no presence on the ball and is easily taken out of games by decent defending. His only real asset is his pace with very little end product and he hasn't been playing regularly for 3 years now and has done very little in that space of time apart from the occasional good performance once or twice a season. His level is Man City now.

Personally I'd take Pennant and Benayoun over these two if Ryan Babel was injured.

Edited by ronniewhelan: 9/7/2008 12:23:06 PM

IMO pennat and Benayoun arent top 4 club material. They are good squad players but not starters. So yeah itd be ok if babel had a slight injury but i wouldnt like those guys put in as long term replacements.

Benayoun is not too bad. In big games he can step up.

I think you are missing the point here a little. People wouldn't say that John O'Shea, Silvestre, Fletcher or Park are top four players but they are essential to uniteds squad as Pennant and Benayoun are to Liverpools. Liverpools starting XI is more or less set in stone for next season with one or two minor tweeks, they don't need a Malouda.

Reina
Degen, Carra, Agger, Dossena
Masch, Alonso/Barry,
Kuyt, Gerrard Babel
Torres

Basically the only place Benitez doesn't have cover is a goalscorer.
If Villa/Keane are signed take out Kuyt but Babel is a sure thing to be first choice next season, going from what Benitez says he loves him.

I agree with that except for O'Shea we can do with out him. park on the other hand is a very good player and he deserves another club so he can play regularly but United are keeping him so they can sell shirts in Asia

Same reason they signed Dong. Although whod wanna shirt with Dong on the back?

Hopefully Manucho comes back and plays well!

Thats nonsense he is a decent player. Was waiting for someone to throw in the usual stereotypes like All Asian players are singed to sell shirts, All African defenders are naive, all black goalkeepers are dodgy. United have Park there cos he's a good player to have in the squad simple as.

Hes def a good player. But hes not good enough to get a game at manc. It goes Ronaldo> tevez> giggs> nani> park in terms of attacking mids they play and they usually go with 2 plus Rooney so park is lucky to be a sub sometimes.

Park should go to Man City. He's better than SWP. I was watching Man United vs European XI ages ago and he was on fire. Park and Petrov/Geovanni.

Why should he move? He played 18 games last season, 20 the year before and 45 the year before so he does play. Plus considering he was out until Jan 2008 and missed a large chunk of the end of the 06/07 season too with knee problems that wasn't bad. He started in possibly two of Uniteds most important games against Barcelona and against Wigan on the last day.
So all in all I'd say Ferguson has a bit of faith in him and he obviously is good enough to get his game at Man United. But of course, what would Fergie know about good players??

Edited by ronniewhelan: 11/7/2008 11:02:39 AM

Cant make the bench in the most important match of mancs year the ecl final. Half of those apps would probably be off the bench. No doubting hes a good player but compared to the other AMs manc have hes not good enough to get a look in for a first team possie.

just looking at liverpool transfer page at footballtransfers.info. Weve signed two guys to the coaching staff. Sammy Lee. The ex-bolton manager has signed as an assistant. Mauricio Pellegrino - as a Coach. Played for us 2 years ago and has returned as coach.

Last season he played 17 league games, of that 17 he started 14. Just because he's not a Ronaldo or Rooney doesn't meen that he's not a vital squad member. It's sad that you can't get your head around the fact that even the most succesful teams don't need a squad of superstar big profile world class players to win. Every team has players like Park and Ferguson is the master at keeping these players content with the roles they play because he knows how vital they are to winning the league.

Lets hope Pellegrino is better as a Liverpool coach than he was as a Liverpool player.