2015 january transfer window

yeah i could see him as a more intelligent version of gerrard in a few years, more in than period when he was playing ahead of mascherano and alonso than when he was doing the bryan robson box to box stuff

nostalgia for the prestige football the 96-04, if it weren't already clear, is probably the only viable trend in fitba right now

luiz ronaldo was the best player of all time, he was at his best when he played for inter

emerson at juventus was a better midfielder than pogba, bayer leverkusen of 2002 were better than today's bayern

paolo montero, youri djorkaeff, psg when they were borderline shit, the parmalat era, sinisa mihajlovic, creatine and bulked/doped up serie a players, jimmy floyd haisselbaink, 'defenders who like defend', john o'shea nutmegging luis figo, valeron at depor, sami kuffour, faith terim and mircea lucescu in serie a, viduka and kewell in the champions league

Really wish I'd seen riquelme play more than a dozen or so full games. Sigh, I'll always have the you tube comps I guess.

98 parma shirt (h&a) is more or less at the top of my attainable want list these days, so cosign i guess

going to save you all the bother of reading one of those awful winsome literate football blogs called JUAN ROMÁN RIQUELME: A QUIXOTIC ENIGMA and post the best bit

After initially rejecting the transfer, the story goes that the deal was finally concluded after Boca told their young enganche that without the €11 million euro fee, the club would find itself in serious financial trouble. The time had come to put the money where his heart was: if he truly loved the club, he would go. Román packed his bags.

It didn’t start well. Upon his arrival in Catalonia, Dutch coach Louis Van Gaal handed Riquelme a child’s replica shirt as a present for his newborn son, along with the words, “he will get to wear his more than you wear yours.”

speaking of 96-04 Redondo is the best player I've ever seen in that of the 4 games of his I can remember seeing he was incredible in all 4. Never saw a big enough sample size to watch him be ordinary.

Sky Sports News are banning fans from deadline day :(

hope they dont skimp on the security then

ugh gross is cuadrado for £24m to sit on the cfc bench really happening

is there a story at sampdoria, i know they sold not-marco gabbiadini but ~20m on luis muriel and joaquin correa is kinda splashy?

Their relatively new owner Massimo Ferrero is looking to make a mark.

So Chelsea buying Salah this time last year was basically just to stop someone else getting him?

liverpool, it seems. not sure why we were in such a frenzy to buy last january and this january when our need is obvious we just sneaked out a rodgers interview on new year's day saying we're not buying anyone until summer.

We bought so many players in the summer, if we then buy players now to be ahead of those then it just confirms how much we fucked up in August. I mean we've bought how many CB's since Rodgers arrived??

most expensive defence in history of english fitba, and second most expensive worldwide after psg

(lol bantz stupid trollstat)

I had completely forgotten about the existence of Scott Sinclair. Is Jack Rodwell doing anything at Sunderland?

most expensive defence in history of english fitba, and second most expensive worldwide after psg

it's a fair point, not even trollstats. i am kinda hoping we've cobbled something together that works - sahko has looked a lot better of late and the return of lucas has helped as a stopgap. still shit from setpieces though. earlier this season i reckon it was the worst defence i've ever seen in professional sport. i don't mean that as hyperbole either.

Ilori still our player officially as well I guess, even though I've never seen him in an LFC shirt iirc. Yeah Sakho has looked okay and haven't seen £20m Lovren for a while (thank God)

danny ings rumoured heavily on twitter. why are we the fucking "buy british" football charity? tho tbh fucking anyone up front would be better than our four-goal collection of butter knives

yeah Ings in August is a head scratcher. That means we'll have Sturridge, Balotelli, Lambert (I think he's on a 2 year not a one), Borini and Origi all under contract come the summer I think.

6 CF's?? Obviously the effectiveness of all but Sturridge (who's often crocked) is questionable (considering Raheem is preferred ahead of all of them) but still seems excessive.

We should be spending big money on a striker in the summer. Balotelli may be good with Sturridge back, but I doubt it and I wouldn't like to rely on it.

I know we bloated our squad up for the demands of European football (LOL) but think we kinda needed the Suarez cash to buy a striker and a central midfielder, and p expensive already CL standard ready ones at that.

yeah - should have signed bony, if we did actually have a chance of that.

sorry everyone - continue with the non-lfc chat.

Is there a more desperately unimaginative, unambitious and uninspiring a transfer than Pards bringing Shola Ameobi to Palace?

there's some sort of ambition involved in giving an epl contract so someone who last played in the turkish second division

'At the moment he does not speak a word of English and that can cost you goals – but we are teaching him the important words...like offside,' said Wenger.

'I try to speak in Spanish with him, but he is more Portuguese-oriented because he didn’t play for a long time in Spain.'

Lennon on loan to hull now

this is fuckin bizarre

New West Brom boss Tony Pulis has given the club's 'fitness department' short shrift.

Pulis arrived the Hawthorns last month and quickly decided the players were not fit for football in the way he demands.

I am told the 'old school' boss quickly side-lined most of the complex fitness sessions and routines and instead had the squad 'running their balls off'.

I also hear that when he was confronted with some statistical data about a player from one of the backroom staff he tossed it away and then asked: 'Yeah but he can ******** head the ball.'

<3 that guy

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B8xzpg7CYAE2Ncm.png

RMDE at Pulis's apparent first move as West Brom manager being to drop their best creative outlet in Sessegnon. Luxury player, won't put a shift in I suppose.

every time i've seen sessegnon on highlights he looks p special, a sad epl waste

this season when wba same to loftus road he was an absolute terror, our young modern technical left back yun suk young was having the proverbial torrid old time until going off with injury

on comes clint hill, humiliation in store for the old warhorse, and the very first thing he does is smash sessegnon to the ground for a 30-70 and then keeps kicking him as he lays prone before striding off without a look back. it's the purest most jawdroppingly violent thing i've seen in football for years but the ref, astonishingly, gives nothing whatsoever and sessegnon while remaining on the pitch for the duration is not seen from again as we come back from two down to win

there was no moral to this story

hills and adebayors are like our gristly experimental psychology version of zidanes and pavons p much

Lennon on loan to hull now

sky are reporting that stoke are making a move for him

Christ its like watching alligators fight over yr leg

p tedious deadline day.

little old heartwarming family club charmers bournemouth whacking down £5m for demarai gray from brum, not fucking about are they

bold of brum to reject

the schurrle money is completely bonkers, do abramovich's goons run people over in volkswagens or something

meanwhile hamburg sign marcelo diaz from basle for 2m euro

how much did schurrle go for? £20m+? Find it astonishing they would get more than they paid for him since he's probably a lesser player now than when he arrived at Chelsea. Then again I was surprised how much they got for another player they didn't want, De Bruyne, who turned out to be worth every single Euro Wolfsburg paid for him.

hamburg are so strange, think they signed old man olic this january as well.

Really don't get why Wolfsburg don't play a bit more hardball with Chelsea considering there seems to beno other suitors and Chelsea seem p desperate to get Cuadrado in?

might be bollocks but

According to Bild, the basic transfer fee for the player is €32 million (a club record fee for Wolfsburg), amd all the amounts they will need to pay as add-ons total up to €66 million. This includes a salary of €6 million per year to be paid up to 2019, €5 million in bonuses and €2 million to be paid to Schurrle’s consultant.

Bizarre especially considering that I'm not sure Wolfsburg even need him. Better not take game time away from Max Arnold.

pandz have u seen much of tin jedvaj this season? was p surprised roma let him go on a permanent deal given his rep, tho they do seem to have countless other irons in the fire

Wolfsburg coach Dieter Hecking is confident the club will be able to hold on to star player Kevin De Bruyne for the foreseeable future. De Bruyne has a contract with Wolfsburg until June 2019.

"I do not have any fear that De Bruyne will leave the club," Hecking told Doppelpass. "There are only eight teams in Europe that are a step up from Wolfsburg."

Leverkusen? Still with the teenage acne? If he's the one I'm thinking of he's an attacking full back. Yeah, liked what I've seen, out of maybe half a dozen full games I've caught he's had one nightmare (although he also scored strangely enough iirc) and a couple of stormers. New Lev boss all about the high press and that suits him as he's p dynamic. Not the greatest passer but comfortable enough on the ball and happy enough to seek give and goes on the edge of the oppo box.

xp

zaha back to palace permanently... for £3m

what did fergie pay? £12m? £15m?

Just looked up Jedvaj on whoscored, didn't realise he's played some CB this season, never seen him play in the middle.