Some big friendlies on today, Arsenal beat PSG 5-1, PSG did have a very youth heavy squad though, only four recognisable names, Emery named a strong team. Chelsea v Inter Milan is on now, currently 1-1 and Man United v Liverpool is on from 10pm.
Some big friendlies on today, Arsenal beat PSG 5-1, PSG did have a very youth heavy squad though, only four recognisable names, Emery named a strong team. Chelsea v Inter Milan is on now, currently 1-1 and Man United v Liverpool is on from 10pm.
I can't believe year after year the big teams just pretend Memo Ochoa doesn't exist. 3 straight World Cups being an elite goalkeeper and teams still prefer inferior guys or guys that just happened to have their first decent season (Alisson).
Is it because he is Mexican? Is it because he is cheap? Is it because he will not sell many jerseys? Is it because of his agent? Is it because of his age? I don't know. But to me, it's simply outrageous. He deserves a chance.
Guillermo Ochoa has always been a great keeper but he's not the only goalkeeper to have gone 'unnoticed' throughout his career. Igor Akinfeev has wasted his career at CSKA Moscow. I'm sure he's very rich and successful staying in his home market but purely in footballing terms, he should have made a big move at least 10 years ago.
Instead, he holds the ignominious record for most goals conceded in the Champions League.
Those two players have been consistently overlooked by the big teams for the same reason Enner Valencia has, and that is that they've shown nothing in particular for their clubs and have literally only played at their best for the national team.
Oddly, one of the sites (BBC, I think) mentioned an unnamed defender Mourinho wanted for lots of money and said he'd be in the top six most expensive Manchester United signings, five of which are still at the club. The article then named four of them, and it got me thinking who the other was.
So I looked it up and actually eight of the top ten are still there. They are:
1. Paul Pogba (£89.3m/€105m)
2. Romelu Lukaku (£75m/€84.7m) 3. Ángel Di María (£59.7m/€75m)
4. Fred (£47m/€59m)
5. Nemanja Matić (£40m/€44.7m)
6. Juan Mata (£37.1m/€44.7m)
7. Anthony Martial (£36m/€60m)
8. Victor Lindelöf (£31m/€35m) 9. Dimitar Berbatov (£30.75m/€38m)
10. Eric Bailly (£30m/€38m)
By Euros, the top 10 includes Rio Ferdinand in 6th, Juan Sebastien Veron in 9th and Henrikh Mhkitaryan in 10th, with Berbatov off the list in 11th and Bailly in 12th, making it 7 from 10.
For Manchester City it's 10 from 10 - de Bruyne, Mahrez, Laporte, Sterling, Mendy, Stones, Walker, Sane, Silva, Otamendi. In fact of the top 20 the only players no longer there are Toure, Robinho, Dzeko and Bony. For Liverpool it's seven from 10 (no Torres, Carroll (!) or Benteke). For Chelsea it's only five from ten, losing Torres, Shevchenko, Drogba, Essien and Costa (and Chelsea's tenth most expensive signing is Danny Drinkwater...).
Meanwhile Newcastle United's record signing, at £16m is... Michael Owen.
That record fee for Newcastle is from 2007 and it hasn't been broken in 11 years so far!, by comparison I'm sure Fulham have broken their record fee twice already in this window.
Nice 2-1 over Real Madrid for United last night though which will lighten the mood a bit, Sanchez and Fred stood out, Rashford and Lingard will cut shorts their holidays by three days to return to training, Martial will be back tomorrow after missing eight days because his wife had a difficult birth.
Martial is a practicing Catholic. Get it in whilst you're young.
I'm looking forward to Mourinho's supposed third season meltdown. The Man United fans I have here in Bratislava are collectively building a gallows. They've not known it like this before.
1-1 away draw at one of the biggest title concurrents today. Some riots where done but the keeper of the opponent was pretty sissy to fall down when a plastic cup fell on his head.
If you want to see the highlights of the proper football this year, you'll need to watch Quest. This is apparently one of the Discovery network of channels, and seems to be entirely full of grossly fat people, "reality" TV and ghosts - so not hugely different from Five, really.
AC Milan defender Leonardo Bonucci goes crawling back to Juventus in a straight swap for Mattia Caldara. Milan also pay Juve €18 million to loan Gonzalo Higuain with the option to purchase him outright at an additional €36 million next summer.
Bonucci will be taking a €2 million pay cut to rejoin Juve and play in the Champions League.
I can't believe year after year the big teams just pretend Memo Ochoa doesn't exist. 3 straight World Cups being an elite goalkeeper and teams still prefer inferior guys or guys that just happened to have their first decent season (Alisson).
Is it because he is Mexican? Is it because he is cheap? Is it because he will not sell many jerseys? Is it because of his agent? Is it because of his age? I don't know. But to me, it's simply outrageous. He deserves a chance.
Man United played Bayern Munich in a friendly tonight and lost 1-0, we were dreadful and I'm now quite worried about this season, Jose's pessimistic moaning and Woodward's inability to get transfers deals done has made for a pretty horrible pre season and I cant see us finishing in the top two.
Nice start to life in the Championship for Swansea, I was quite impressed with what I saw and am optimistic that we can get to the playoffs at least, Swansea were the only relegated PL team to win over the weekend, Leeds perhaps surprisingly won convincingly against title favourites Stoke.
I'll post my predictions up in the next couple of days.
Pogba will reportedly leave Man United within the next 4 days. Juventus are entertaining a swap deal with Man United; Pogba for Pjanic. Meanwhile, Barcelona are preparing a €112 million offer. If Pogba leaves for Barca, the Red Devils have eyed Sergej Milinkovic-Savic as the replacement.
It doesn't really matter who Man Utd sign, the defensive nature of Mourinho stops any attacking players run at an opposition for fear of losing the ball. Pogba, Lukaku, Martial, Rashford, Sanchez and quite a few more are more than capable of beating a defender but the worry of losing the ball and then your spot in the team makes them look like mid table players.
Vardy and Maguire have yet to rejoin Leicester City training following the World Cup and both will be unavailable for the opener against Man United on Friday. Here is a quick look at Leicester's summer moves:
RW Riyad Mahrez - Sold to Man City (€67.8 million)
CAM James Maddison - Purchased from Norwich (-€25 million)
RB Ricardo Pereira - Purchased from FC Porto (-€22 million)
CF Ahmed Musa - Sold to Al-Nassr (16.5 million)
RW Rachid Ghezzal - Purchased from Monaco (-€14 million)
GK Danny Ward - Purchased from Liverpool (-€14 million)
CB Jonny Evans - Purchased from West Brom (-€4 million)
Total: €5.3 million
