Tag Archives: sergio agüero

a dream called “merteshavin.com”

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Player websites are one of the interesting enigmas of 21st century soccer culture.

Per Mertesacker and Andrei Arshavin

per and andre could be the new schwarzenegger and devito.

Most modern footballers — in their endless efforts to market themselves to maximize potential earnings — need a personal website to serve as the face of their public personas for both fans and potential suitors alike.

But two big problems plague player websites:

  1. It’s difficult to gauge how much of one’s personal life is posted on the site so that you don’t turn off anyone who could potentially exploit your image to shell their product in exchange for baskets of money, but still make it interesting enough that fans will want to visit in the first place (which in turn helps potential sponsors determine your value).
  2. They tend to be crap.

So why do most player websites are awful?

Some players’ websites end up sucking because their “really talented nephew” designed it for them, or one of their old buddies — who learned HTML back in high school — threw it together as a favor. While cheap and a great way to keep your closest fans feeling “involved”, these types of sites end up looking like a 90′s era Geocities website with cursor-trailers and revolving soccer ball icons. While I’m not sure that Nemanja Vidić and Chautémoc Blanco let a confidant build their sites for them, I am sure that they need to pay someone to make a new one for them like yesterday.

arshavin and mertesacker

just regular pictures of these guys standing next to each other is funny enough, but a whole website full of them would be better.

Meanwhile, there are other players’ websites who are decently-designed and look clean and professional, but are still terrible because they’re never updated. Just as an a note to Rohan Ricketts and Owen Hargreaves, remember that when I visit your site, I want to learn about what you have going on right now… not what you had going on seven months ago.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some good ones out there. In typical German fashion, Bastian Shweinsteiger and Christoph Metzelder have solid, clean designs. Australia’s new Al Jazira signing Lucas Neil has a proper site. There are stars of approval for Kun. And Ronaldinho was bound to have a good site, what with all of his Nike marketing guidance.

But two of my favorites sites, hands down, have to be those of Arsenal’s Russian attacker Andrei Arshavin (arshavin.eu) and his new German teammate, Per Mertesacker (permertesacke.de). Which is odd, considering that both of them could probably be heaped into at least one of the categories above.

While Arashavin’s site won’t be winning any design awards, it is palatable. It’s also rife with poor English translations, though that actually makes for great fun when reading it with John Malkovich’s “Teddy KGB” accent from Rounders. Sure, it’s regularly updated, but the Andrei’s golden goose is the reoccurring “Ask Andrey” series of updates. In these, fans can literally ask him anything and he will literally answer with anything back. These posts are famous in the footballing blogosphere — featuring prominently on Yahoo! Sports’ Dirty Tackle blog — and are well worth the occasional read.

Per Mertesacker's Website

per website is epic-ly german.

Mertesacker’s site, on the other hand, is one of my favorites solely because it’s a visual monstrosity of such epic proportions that I can’t help but love it. It’s one of those it’s-so-bad-it’s-goodscenarios, for me at least. It’s so quintessentially German that the only thing it’s missing is a picture of Per posing with David Hasslehoff. I mean, just take a look at all of the colors puking out of the screenshot of his homescreen to the left. Unfortunately, the site’s all in German, so we don’t know if his site is as unintentionally funny as Andrei’s is. Though with all of the ridiculous poses, it’s still fair to label his site as “craptasticly awesome”.

But imagine this: what if you could combine the best of both Arshavin’s site (completely random awesomeness) and meld it together with the best of Mertesacker’s site (ridiculous design and pictures)?

You’d have the best damn footballer’s site ever… that’s what!

The world’s first two-player website, which we could call MerteShavin.com… and before you ask, yes, the domain is still available. At this point I imagine you’re probably starting to question my sanity right now, but just me hear me out.

andrei arshavin

why hello there!

Look at everything that Arshavin brings to the table:

  • Standing at just 5’7″, he’s practically a midget.
  • He’s Russian, which on it’s own, naturally causes him to be odd and peculiar.
  • His large repertoire of silly faces, such as the picture to the right.
  • He seems to be outgoing yet very opiniated, as evident in ridiculous his blog postings.
per mertesacker

AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

Now look at everything Mertesacker brings:

  • He’s stands 11 inches taller than his teammate, tallying in at 6’6″.
  • He’s German, which on it’s own, means he’s probably a bit stiff and peculiar.
  • His large repertoire of silly faces, such as the picture to the right.
  • He seems to be outgoing and open for anything, as evident by his ridiculous website.

The two are probably the perfect compliments to one another, like Danny Devito and Arnold Schwarzenegger in 1998′s Twins. It’s an undeniable fact that the masses love the short-guy/tall-guy duos: in the movies with Billy Crystal and George Muresan, on the stage with comedian’s Penn & Teller, and even on TV with reality shows.

This new website could catalog the adventures of Andrei and Per as they travel around Europe, dressed in the same clothes, playing pranks on Arsene Wenger. There could be videos of the two practicing their midget toss goal celebrations, clips of the pair attempting various obstacle courses, or pictures of Per lifting Andrei up on his shoulders so they could rescue stranded kittens from trees. I would especially love to see them both dressed in adidas velour track suits, bucket hats, sunglasses and giant gold chains acting like LL Cool J while holding hands. Why I would love this, I’m not too sure, but I would like to here arguments on how it wouldn’t be awesome. Hell, even if the site just posted regular training/game pictures demonstrating their severe height gap, I would still get a huge kick out of it. The possibilities truly are endless.

So now that you’ve been fully convinced, you should join me in my efforts to convince the Gunner duo to make this dual site a reality. Since I don’t have any personal connections to either player, their agents or the club, I figure there is only one good way to approach this…

We’re going to have to ask Andrei about it on his blog every week until it become a reality.

And if nothing else, at bare minimum, we’ll at least get a silly response.

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panic attack

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I’m not having a panic attack. I swear… I think. Maybe I am having one. Well, wait… no I’m probably not having a panic attack.

luka modric during tottenham preseason training in south africa

apparently the saga over this man's signature has distracted levy and redknapp from getting any transfer work done this summer.

But with just a few days remaining until the Spurs’ delayed official start to the Premier League’s 2011-2012 season, Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy is officially making me lose sleep.

I know that last season was a bit of a mixed bag for Spurs and their fans. We were all enthralled by our magical European adventure, but also all rightly disappointed that the team couldn’t consistently put in the type of domestic performances that were earning them worthy praise on the continent.

As this post clearly points out, Tottenham were a team that could hang with the big boys. But on the flip side of the coin, they were decidedly average against team’s they should have been beating. The rigors of the Premier League, regardless of the competition faced each weekend, were too much to heap on players who were already being asked to carry heavy Champions League loads.

One thing that is certain is that the lack of activity in the January transfer window played a decently-sized part in the club’s eventual shortcomings.

The squad clearly needed reinforcements (in particular at the front end of the pitch) to continue battling on multiple fronts, and yet the only area they reinforced was the one area of the pitch that didn’t need that much help (although, a midfielder like Pienaar was a deal at the price we landed him for). Long story short, thin as the squad was, it couldn’t cope with a multi-competition battle.

So when Tottenham relinquished their short hold on a top four position back in the spring, both Levy and Redknapp admitted that big signings would be necessary to get the club back on track with their grand aspirations.

tottenham's brad friedel and michael dawson

friedel should help lift tottenham's defensive acumen, but he's not the impact signing that we had all hoped for.

Initially, long-term “dream” targets came back to the forefront. Forlán, Falcao, and Rossi were all floated in the deep pool of summer transfer rumors. But for various reasons (too old, too expensive, and too not for sale) none were realistic solutions to the Spurs’ striking woes. It appeared that Tottenham would either have to pony up and spend like the club has a super-rich foreign owner, or unearth a diamond in the rough.

Fellow Ohioan Brad Friedel was the first signing of the window, and though he was also a bargain-buy that addressed a weak spot in the team, his arrival was hardly the “big time” signing that we all wanted and the team needed.

But I remained optimistic; perhaps Friedel’s signing was the beginning of a torrid of transfer activity at White Hart Lane. After all, we don’t just need to buy at Tottenham: we also need to trim. With one of the largest squads in the Premier League last season, Levy remained (rightly) insistent that arrivals at the club would necessitate cash from sales.

Yet Friedel, to this point, remains the only transfer dealing of this extremely crucial off-season. One free signing, and only two paltry sums coming in after the Lillywhites finally disposed of serial-loanees Jamie O’Hara (to Wolves for £3.5m) and Robbie Keane (to LA Galaxy for £3m)… nothing official about Jenas, Hutton, Dos Santos, Bassong and Palacios being sold off to raise the all important cash.

So while Tottenham Hotspur seem to be twiddling their thumbs, all of their direct competitors have been busy strengthening their squads.

kun aguero at manchester city

though they bid for him in january, spurs never had a realistic shot of landing kun.

Manchester City, the club that’s recently been Tottenham’s biggest rival (as far as league places are concerned) over the last few years, have continued to spend astronomical sums on players they may (Stefan Savić) or may not (Clichy) need (Agüero could be unneeded if Tévez doesn’t leave). Sadly, additional devastating signings this window seem imminent. If they’re not competing for silverware on all fronts this season with the talent in that squad, then Mancini will have proven himself a moron of a manager.

Liverpool, the club that Tottenham displaced in the Champions League last season, look to have finally gotten back on track with new owner John Henry and new (and old) manager Kenny Dalglish aiming to return to their rightful place as an English power. The signings of Stewart Downing, Jordan Henderson, and José Enrique on top of the January signings of Suarez and Carroll, mean that the Reds have dropped a reported £94 million on getting themselves back in the top four.

Manchester United, the club that doesn’t ever have a down year, also look primed to continue their run of dominance over English football after finally dolling out a big chunk of the Ronaldo-sale money. Ashley Young, David de Gea and Phil Jones have arrived on the back of £50 million, plus there is emergence of Tom Cleverly and the possible arrival of Wesley Sneijder from Inter to further bolster their ranks. When Sir Alex said Tottenham could compete for the title this season, he must have forgotten that his team were competing in England this season.

Then there’s Chelsea, the club that’s played the part of Luka Modrić-stalker all summer long. To be honest, they’ve not spent much on players so far this summer (Lukaku and Romelu)… most of their outbound cash was to pry away Mourinho-lite Andre Villas-Boas from Porto as their new temporary manager. Their lack of player spending has definitely been surprising, as the club’s senior citizen squad looked in the most need of reinforcements. However, I fret that they might not quite be finished for understandable reasons.

And then there’s our North London rivals, Arsenal, the club that… well, thank god at least one of our rivals is looking to be in worse shape than us. Serves them right, that scum.

I sit and watch world-class players arriving at those clubs, and I think to myself: “Those are the types of players we need.” But then I remember, the reality of it is, we can’t afford those players.

Stuck in an undersized stadium that’s unable to generate the necessary revenues to truly invest in a squad, Harry and Daniel have openly admitted that we can’t compete with the big boys when it comes to wages and transfer funds. So, now we’re having to make do with less ambitious targets.

fc twente's bryan ruiz

ruiz would be an ideal, (relatively) cheap signing for tottenham. but is there enough time to pull it off?

Blackburn sweeper/striker Chris Samba‘s name keeps coming up, though improving the back four isn’t and shouldn’t be near the top of the club’s priority list. There have been links to another central midfielder in Real Madrid’s Lassana Diarra, which would make some sense if Palacios leaves. I’d love to see Twente’s Costa Rican striker/shampoo-commercial model Bryan Ruiz get bought, but with so little time left in the window, a deal like that would be tough. Maybe a loan move for everyone’s favorite mercenary, Emmanuel Adebayor, seems the most likely, but do we really want a player that nobody else wants?

And that’s not even touching on the possibility of Modrić leaving and how that could blow everything to hell. Levy seems to have the kid in a vice grip at the moment, but who knows what Chelsea’s millions could persuade the chairmen to do.

Look, my club’s biggest adversaries have spent over a combined £185 million pounds to solidify and/or improve their places in the league. Tottenham have spent zero. Everyone knew that Spurs needed to improve if they wanted to achieve their dream of becoming one of the big boys, and yet the club has done practically nothing to this point to show any of that necessary transfer ambition.

Sure, Harry Houdini could have another late-breaking, wheeling-and-dealing transfer that he’ll pull out of his sleeve like he did with van der Vaart. Maybe he’ll deliver the striker we so desperately need at 11:59pm on August 30th. But if he’ goes that long without a signing, I’d be more willing to bet that it will be another midfielder than a striker… ‘Arry seems to love those center of the park ballers.

And if that’s the case, someone call me a doctor… I’m going to need a prescription for Xanax that will last much longer than just through the remainder of this transfer window.

trouble in the city

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manchester city's carlos tevez and roberto mancini

an unsettled tevez is the largest of mancini's problems with the city strike corps.

As we broach the halfway point of the summer signing period, it’s fair to say that the transfer docket has been a busy one already. Big money moves by the traditional powers across Europe have been popping  up on the news radar since the days immediately following the close of last season:

Let’s not forget the rumor mill either, as headlines linking power sides like Barcelona (who have all but signed the dynamic Alexis Sánchez), Chelsea (links to just about everyone), and Juventus (failing miserably so far, but still in for Kun Agüero) to star names the world over. So expecting further transfer excitement this summer is a given.

Of course, there’s one other big player in the transfer market that I haven’t mentioned thus far… everyone’s favorite oil-rich side, Manchester City. City have been, predictably, linked to every player on the planet just as they have for since Sheikh Mansour’s takeover two seasons ago. (I’m convinced that they throw their hat into every transfer discussion, even if they’re not actually interested, simply to drive up the price for their rivals).

And for those concerned that the world will continue to be flipped upside down with mega bids left and right, the Citizens picked up right where they left off in January. Already completed are the signings of Arsenal’s Gaël Clichy and Partizan’s Stefan Savić, both of whom will bolster City’s wide defensive options. Neither of those acquisitions is that surprising when you consider the style of play adopted by manager Roberto Mancini, who always seems more than content to pack it in and hold out for draws.

At the attacking end of the pitch, on the surface it also appears that they’re getting even stronger without spending an (additional) dime. Disregarding the existing strikers on staff, the sky blues will also the return of several class strikers to City of Manchester Stadium Etihad Stadium this summer from various loans. Craig Bellamy returns from the wilds of the Championship, and Adebayor returns from a decent spell at Real Madrid.

craig bellamy and roberto mancini of manchester city

something tells me that bellamy is putting on a fake smile here.

It would be foolish to think that there won’t be other signings (including what could be a retarded move for Arsenal’s Samir Nasri, who is essentially the same type of player as David Silva), so you could forgive someone for thinking that they might just be unbeatable next year.

So while all of that makes Citeh look like certain trophy challengers, I can’t shake the nagging feeling that the team’s current offensive circumstances might be a sign that their master plan to become a world power might not be going to plan.

Bellamy hates Mancini
Since it’s been a while since the Welshman has made any relevant headlines, it might be worth me hashing out a quick refresher on the Craig Bellamy-Manchester City story. Let’s just say, it could best be described as “rough”:

  • January 2009: City sign Bellamy from West Ham, their first “big” offensive signing of the Oil Era, for a reported £14 million. Craig leaves the Hammers among rumors that he was forcing his way out of the squad.
  • December 2009: Bellamy threatens to leave the Citizens over the firing of manager Mark Hughes, and is subsequently dropped by new manager Roberto Mancini.
  • August 2010: Fearing that he might not make the Mancini’s 25-man EPL roster after the arrivals of Carlos Tévez, Jô (back from his Everton loan), Roque Santa Cruz and eventually Mario Balotelli, Bellamy mulls retirement and expresses frustration with Mancini’s lack of faith in him. He eventually leaves on loan to Championship side Cardiff City, his hometown club.
  • June 2011: Hoping to make his loan to Cardiff permanent, Craig asks that City let him leave on a free transfer. The sky blue’s respond by slapping a £4m price tag on him… very unaffordable for such a small club.
The Welshman recently stated that he fully expects City to let him rot in the reserves this year unless a club meets their valuation of him, and that he and Mancini haven’t spoken since the week after the Italian arrived at the club. Old legs and a nasty injury record do give some weight to Mancini’s position, but a player of Bellamy’s… uh… pedigree festering on the bench would be equivalent to a cancer in the dressing room. And we already know how bad that can get.

Džeko could be impotent.
It’s still too early to call the Bosnian a bust, but I think the Bosnian is a bust. Six goals in 21 appearances for the Citizens is under-performing when you cost 27 million and reportedly asked for 175k per week in wages, unless you’re Chelsea and think that’s a great return compared to their baby-faced flop.

City will undoubtedly really want Džeko to make a u-turn this season, and a return to the form he showed at Wolfsburg (85 goals in 135 matches) would be a gigantic boost for next season’s prospects. It’s a steep hill to climb back to that level though, and if his confidence in front of goal carries over from last season, it could be a very difficult hill to climb.

If Džeko does want to reach his lofty purchase price, someone needs to make sure he doesn’t ask this guy for advice.

emmanuel adebayor at manchester city

will adebayor be able to secure a permanent deal at real madrid to escape his city hell?

Adebayor hates City.
You have to give to Ade: the guy has the uncanny ability to always stumble up. Regardless of where he plies his trade, the Togolese striker has starts the stint wonderfully, ends it woefully, but still manages to turn his next gig into a better one (see his goals to games ratio during his career).

Manchester City quickly looked to loan off the big man after his production started to fall off, and newer shinier strikers began arriving on the regular. And when he predictably put in a decent showing while on loan at Real Madrid, you just knew that Adebayor would try to trip into a permanent deal at the most historically successful club of all time.

Unable to secure a deal before the close of last season, Emmanuel headed back to Manchester for preseason. But Roberto Mancini long ago deemed the striker surplus to requirements, and left him off the club’s preseason travel roster. Naturally, this angered Ade. Seeing that the player and club’s relationship over the last year could best be described as tepid, I can’t imagine that now he would be even close to the type of player you would want mingling amongst your squad.

Balotelli is certifiably crazy.
I don’t care if he is giving away money and providing youngsters with (shoddy) advice; I’m not going to be fooled. There’s not really any need for me to elaborate, but if you really want to hear my thoughts on the Italian wild child… let me just leave this here.

Let’s just say putting all of your chips in the crazy kid’s corner on the goal scoring front might not be the wisest decision.

Tévez needs to leave.
For the longest time now, I’ve thought Carlos Tévez has just been a whiny bitch. He complains about life in England and how he’s not found anything to do there in five years, but he’s not even bothered to learn English. Tévez has long said that he’s been considering retirement, despite having his peak years ahead of him and lot’s more earning power. He came off as mercenary punk during his exit from Manchester United, and then rubbed his previous supporters’ faces in the mud by openly mocking them after joining their biggest rivals. And for the better part of 6 months, he’s been trying to squeeze his way out of City.

But if you were to ask me whether all of the drama that comes with employing Tévez would be worth having him on my team, I would overwhelmingly tell you “yes.” There’s no arguing that the mercurial Argentine is one of the most productive strikers in the game, bagging 86 goals in 180 matches for the two Manchester clubs. He has an engine that never stops, an asset that can’t be overvalued as he does it on both sides of the ball. Simply put, his on pitch efforts outweigh all of that, and I suspect that’s why clubs puts up with him.

What I didn’t realize though, was there was another driving factor in Carlos’ hope to leave the Citizens. While it’s clear that striker is at least a little unsettled, it’s really his wife who has had it with life in England. She’s already threatened to leave her fabulously rich husband because it’s so horrible in the British Isles. I mean, her husband’s band doesn’t even have a charted pop hit in England! How is this possible?!?! And while the two temporarily patched things up, she’s already moved back to Argentina, and me thinks she’s threatened to leave him permanently if he doesn’t follow her home. You can’t blame a guy for wanting to do what it takes to keep his family together.

Whether or not Corinthians or Boca Juniors, the only clubs that Tévez says he’d go back to South America for, have the ability to shell out the funds necessary to pry one of the elite strikers on the planet away from City remains to be seen. I suspect that if Carlos does go back to one of those clubs, it will only be if his “agent” Kia Joorbachian ponies up some of the fee himself and resumes his 3rd party ownership role (which is fairly prevalent in the Argentine and Brazilian spheres).

A lot needs to happen for Tévez to be reunited with his family anytime soon, and sadly for him, he may have to retire to make it happen.

The others are unproven or not good.
I’m not going to waste my breath talking about Jô, who is miraculously getting some looks from some Russian Premier League sides, as he clearly can’t cut it in England. Roque Santa Cruz was washed up when City signed him, and he’ll be lucky to trick Blackburn into taking him back again. Alex Nimely, a 20-year-old Liberian striker who’s been at the club since 2008, hasn’t sniffed the pitch during a first team match yet.

Needless to say, if two of Tévez, Adebayor and Bellamy leave, the Citizens definitely need to bolster their attacking ranks.

—————————————-

Look, I’m not trying to write Manchester City off this season. Their pockets are too deep, their playing staff too talented, and they did well enough last season with similar problems to qualify for the Champions League. To discount them, even with their strike force’s plethora of problems, would be nothing short of foolish. But if I were a City supporter (and due to their badass line with Umbro, I sometimes wish I was), I would be extremely worried about those problems.

If you’re trying to chase glory with three unsettled and unhappy strikers looking to move away, an overpriced dud, and a player who belongs in a straight jacket, even with all the talent in the rest of the squad… well, don’t expect to make it any higher than you’ve already made it.

transfer madness

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the biggest move of the window involves a soulless traitor and a russian billionaire. i'll let you figure it out from there.

let’s begin this by saying that i will not be making this post an up-to-the-minute, one-stop-shop, complete directory for all of the transfers and rumors that will be spilling out of the media outlets today. this is still a one man show, and i certainly don’t have the patience or the fortitude to undertake that kind of endeavor. we’ll leave that to the big boys. oh yeah, and i’m at work (please don’t tell my boss, ok?!).

but, i figured you might find it entertaining to read my thoughts, and those of some friends, as the news comes across the wire.

  • 6:26pm EST: jozy altidore on the move again (about as shocking as dos santos), this time loaned to levante. maybe this time he’ll get a chance, or not squander one.
  • 5:50pm EST: seeing that giovanni dos santos has been loaned out again by spurs; just another january for the youngster. also, harry has had a second bid for everton’s phil neville rejected and i’m just fine with that from a personal standpoint.
  • 4:14pm EST: laregly dead in the transfer market over the last year, chelsea have certainly sprung to life today! maybe abromovic is feeling fiscally  inadequate after being shown up in the last few transfer windows by man city!  despite already forking out £45+ million for torres, they have also somehow resurrected their move for benfica’s highly rated david luiz. though the £25 million-rated luiz is likely to be used as a centerback, he is more than capable of playing on the left as well. perhaps this is foreshadowing ashley cole’s departure to real madrid in the summer?
  • 3:52pm EST: again, i find myself rooting for bolton. blah. anyway, i’m actually pulling for the wanderers to nab chelsea’s daniel sturridge on loan. the young striker has huuuuge upside, and i think he’d flourish in bolton’s quasi-free flowing attack under owen coy’s tutelage.
  • 3:29pm EST: remember the nigerian midget that scored all of those goals for newcastle a few years ago? he’s coming back to england, as birmingham have opted against a pricy robbie kean and have instead picked up obafemi martins on a 6 month loan from rubin kazan. my guess is the nigerian is really looking forward to england’s comparably “tropical climate” after spending the last year and a half in russia.
  • 3:08pm EST: just noticed that stoke have sold tuncay to wolfsburg. 1) i thought that guy was like 40 years old, and feel dumb realizing he’s only 29. 2) i didn’t realize anyone was still interested in signing players that everyone thinks are 40… oh wait, it’s steve mcclaren. now i get it.
  • 2:15pm EST: another USMNT member’s move to england has been been finalized, with former real salt lake striker robbie findley finally receiving his work permit to join nottingham forest. i actually really like this move for findley, as the championship contenders are on the rise and will provide him with a great environment to test himself as the club push for promotion to the promised land.
  • 2:02pm EST: allow me to clarify my statement about hating torres. he’s played nearly this whole season completely indifferent, after the kop stood behind him when he obviously fake-pledged his commitment to the club after the world cup. then he puts in a transfer request 3 days before the end of the window. if it weren’t for the fact that liverpool will never get more for him now than they ever would again, i’d say let him rot in the reserves before selling him the summer. i like the guy before all of this, and honestly felt bad for him while he suffered through liverpool’s downward spiral. now i hope he blows his groin up again on his debut at stamford bridge.
  • 2:01pm EST: shit has hit the fan, as liverpool have accepted a bid from chelsea for torres. i now hate him.
  • 12:35pm EST: my buddy milky just skyped me from china, basically trumpeting that liverpool are on their way back to being title challengers thanks to the carroll signing. as he put it, “we’ve got the meanest strike partnership in england now: suarez bites people, and carroll beats women. with king kenny leading the way, we’ll be unstoppable!”
  • 12:31pm EST: well, the andy carroll saga has come to an end, and sadly (i think!?) it’s not going to end in north london. newcastle’s shrewd business mentality has won them an extra £5 million from liverpool, who must be looking for a replacement for a “possibly” departing striker.
  • 9:38am EST: michael bradley is definitely heading to england, and not turkey. after apparently almost boarding a plane to sign with galatasary, it appears that son of i-robot will be plying his trade with darren bent at aston villa. with fellow yanks friedel and lichaj in the ranks, hopefully he’ll adjust to life quickly. whether or not he can find a spot in the squad, i have my concerns.
  • 9:19am EST: charlie adam would be a great signing for liverpool, as it would finally give them someone to replace xabi alonso with. whether or not the red’s fork out enough to convince holloway to let his most vital cog go, that’s another question all together. two bids already rejected make me think no.
  • 9:13am EST: tottenham have been linked with every striker in europe today, at least that’s what it feels like. in order, here’s how i rank all of the prospects, in order. take this all with a grain of salt though: i’m definitely expecting the same three strikers to be at the club tomorrow that are here today.
    • luis fabiano: speed, strength, and creative. dynamic finisher. i want him most of all of them.
    • diego forlán: my second choice by a narrow margin, but behind fabiano due to his old age (31) and poor strike rate while at manchester united a few years back. however, his goal tallies at the world cup and in spain the last few years make him an ideal spot.
    • fernando llorente: strength and size, with the ability to play some tiki taka. would be ideal for bale crosses, but would require lennon to learn how to do that. too bad athletic bilbao won’t sell until the summer, when madrid will likely snatch him up.
    • andy carroll: a sllightly more brute and less skilled version of llorente, but with premier league experience. i’m also concerned he could be a flash in the pan.
    • giuseppe rossi: a younger, more creative defoe. though i don’t think he gives us another dimension.
    • sergio agüero: i think he’s overrated, and his height is concerning. i feel like he doesn’t bring enough to the table for a team that likes to play down the flanks. plus he signed a new contract with atlético today.
  • 8:51am EST: in my opinion, newcastle are playing an interesting game with andy carroll. they saw how much dzeko went for (£32 million at age of 24), and they saw how much bent went for (£22 million at age of 26), so the precedent has already been set for strikers this window. carroll is 22, a physical freak, and has some experience plundering goals in the premier league… so his upside is pretty big. now, are any of these players really worth this much money… no. but i think the geordies are being fairly shrewd businessmen. whether or not he goes to liverpool is another issue altogether.

ten words or less #13

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Damn the holidays. Traveling to and from to get to all of my family Christmas celebrations, meeting with old friends who are back in town to see their families, and late night alcohol consumption have made it difficult for me to sit in front of a computer, let alone quit being lazy and start posting some new content for your reading enjoyment. (That was a horrendously long run-on sentence. Sorry about that.) So to further my quest to remain eternally lazy, here’s a short Ten Words or Less to tide you over.

Why getting old sucks (and is awesome): Reason #893. – therunofplay.com

Divine blood runs through this child’s veins. – vimeo.com

I’d rather have Akron’s Caleb Porter running an academy. – foxsports.com

There’s still hope that I could land a Premiership job. – telegraph.co.uk

CD9 recovery not quite as far as long as reported? – soccerbyives.com

Can I get this delivered in the US?! – thegreensoccerjounal.com

This really makes me want to play futsal. – studs-up.com

The French make me LOL. – tomwfootball.com