Premier League 2011/12 general thread

[toythatkills]

It's absolutely ok for Arsenal to get ridiculous money for Fabregas and Nasri, but when Bolton want ?15-17 for one of the best English centre backs, who is at a great age, we're the bad guys?

You genuinely think ?35m for the best midfielder in the world is ridiculous? And that's a player that had four years left on his contract. He should have gone for double that, and I'm not even exaggerating.

Nasri hardly counts because any transfer Man City are involved in is automatically ridiculous and has no relation whatsoever to a player's actual worth.

If you think it's fine for Cahill to go on a free, that's fair enough, and for footballing reasons it's obviously preferable. Unfortunately, your club is as much a business as it is a football club and that ?10m is a lot of money to lose just because you're trying to skank a few million more. Coyle might have an extra year to find a replacement, but he's also got ?10m less to do it with.

I've never said you were the bad guys, either. Well, you're not the bad guys for not accepting the offer, anyway, you're perfectly within your right not to accept it. It's kind of a dick move to then go to the press moaning about the offer though, and not really the kind of behaviour you'd expect from respectable businessmen.

[Neil]

Best midfielder in the world?

[toythatkills]

Absolutely

If not the best, easily in the top three or four, and he's got his whole career ahead of him. He's certainly worth more than Andy ****ing Carroll.

[prinnysquad]

SMB is going into meltdown at the latest journo rumour tweets!

We have Gyan being flogged for a cut price IF incoming deals come through.

Bruce, Bruce! He knows how to build a team does our Steve.

[toythatkills]

I really thought Gyan would destroy the Premier League, he looked to have the same kind of strength and presence as Drogba does.

[Neil]

Absolutely

If not the best, easily in the top three or four, and he's got his whole career ahead of him. He's certainly worth more than Andy ****ing Carroll.

I'll give you that

Bruce has a plan btw don't worry!

I've just read he's trying to get Carlton Palmer out of retirement (he doesn't smoke marijuana anymore and he would love to link up with Peter Crouch).

[prinnysquad]

We've got a higher turnover of players than a 1930s newsagents.

Every year it's a rebuild job. The man can't construct a team, only buy and sell one.

[Adrock]

Gyan hasn't been spectacular in his career so I'd cash in on him if possible. I've never rated him highly.

Now, anymore than 8m for Crouch is crazy mad, he is old and not exactly prolific.

Seb Coates looks to have signed for Liverpool. That looks like an excellent purchase, talk of all these English center backs and Liverpool have seemingly procured one of the better young center backs in the world and all for 6-8mil.

[On The Edge of Insanity]

It seems to me Bruce goes through phases with player transfers. There was the South American phase: Paulo Da Silva, Cristian Riveros, Marcos Angeleri; the African phase: Asamoah Gyan, Stephane Sessegnon, Sulley Muntari; and now the solid but unspectacular players with English league experience phase.

At the end of each phase Sunderland are no better off that when they started, but Bruce is again backed to turn things around, so sells off all the duds from the previous phase and embarks on another ill-advised spending spree with no real plan on how players will fit into a system or style of play.

I find it amusing when teams outside the top four, and I'll include my own club Tottenham in this, complain about the riches of Chelsea and both Manchester teams but do nothing but waste the money that is available to them. With a clear plan and strategy in respect of transfers and development of young players it would be possible to compete for a top four finish. Just throwing money at players willy nilly certainly isn't the answer.

[nakamura]

Gyan hasn't been spectacular in his career so I'd cash in on him if possible. I've never rated him highly.

Gyan is the perfect example of a player signed off the back of a half decent summer tournament.

[toythatkills]

Tottenham have emerged as favourites to sign Bolton centre-back Gary Cahill after Arsenal pulled out of the running, and the Lilywhites are planning to offer cash plus Sebastien Bassong and David Bentley, although the Trotters are thought to want a cash-only deal.

I love this. "NO TOTTENHAM. WE DON'T WANT YOUR CRAP!"

[PaTaito]

Nasri hardly counts because any transfer Man City are involved in is automatically ridiculous and has no relation whatsoever to a player's actual worth.

I'm sorry but if cahill is worth ?10m+ with a year left, then nasri is EASILY worth ?22m with a year remaining.

Cahill is a pretty good defender, but nasri is imo easily as good as fabregas....different, but as good.

As for fabregas yeah he went for far too little.....although any more than ?35m would have made it "automatically ridiculous" right? In all honesty i would value him at more like ?45m-?50m....ONLY because thats what other silly transfers have dictated. Torres/Carroll/Ronaldo/Kaka etc

The only players which have proved not worth their transfer fees at city are Adebayor(though i still would have kept him and given him more chances), Lescott(good but no way worth ?24m), and Santa Cruz. There are others that havent done well like Wayne bride for example....but their transfer fees were hardly big.

Having said that many have proved easily worth their transfer fees: Tevez, dzeko, silva, barry, de jong, Yaya Toure, Aguero, Adam Johnson.......amongst others.

[Plough Boy]

How on earth can you say Aguero has easily proved to be worth his transfer fee?
He's only played 3 games!
Sure, he looks great but he's hardly proved to be worth it. A tad premature.
The same could be said for Dzeko - what 3 good games?

[abigsmurf]

It's early season, theres all sorts of hyperbole like you get from journalists who've been starved of decent stories over the break.

To twist a common cliche. 3 games is form, it'll be another 3 months before we can see which teams are displaying true class rather than being made to look better than they are by having a particularly good game against a team having a particularly bad game.

[Plough Boy]

So it'll be 3 months before I realise Norwich are flattering to deceive? Damn. 3 months of soon to be dashed hope.