zequist

Damn right I'm enjoying being a Blue. As worried as we are about certain issues right now, at least we know that our club has a responsible owner, a very talented starting XI, a first-rate manager, first-rate training facilities, and as much as we worry about our debt levels we're still in no danger of relegation, administration, or worst of all, liquidation. All of our anxieties are over problems that can and should eventually be fixed - in fact, I think if we were only dealing with one or two of these problems right now we wouldn't be sweating much at all. If the roster's full and everyone's healthy, who really cares if Wyness quits? It's that everything seems to be happening all at once this summer that's got our nerves on edge. But for all that we've been fretting about, would anyone here seriously want to trade places with the fans from City right now, with an indicted owner and frozen assets? Or Fulham, where finishing twelfth in the league is like winning the title? Or Hull, where their biggest hope this season is that they don't break Derby's futility record? Nottingham Forest, where the club's name invokes nothing anymore except faded glories from 30 and 40 years ago? Bournemouth, coming off two straight years of administration and a very real threat of ending up in the conference? Luton, where they're struggling just to survive, never mind compete? I sure as hell wouldn't. Good times, bad times, any time, I am still Blue to the end.

While holding a black cat that once had a litter of 13 kittens, no doubt hopefully it really is only 6-8 weeks and he won't keep breaking it like Cahill keeps doing. But man, if ever we needed reinforcements, now is the time. At this point, I'm wondering if we're going to have to dress one of these injured guys anyway just to make numbers. Don't forget, the new rule allowing teams to put 7 players on the bench for EPL games goes into effect this season.

Shinawatra dodges his court date in Thailand and is seeking exile status in London instead. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...and&cc=5901

Shared stadiums can work if the people involved from both parties are willing and able to work together; it doesn't sound like they could in Bristol. There are plenty of other countries with clubs sharing stadiums. Italy is the most famous, of course, with several shared stadiums, but also Germany, Belgium, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, Russia (CSKA Moscow, Spartak Moscow, AND Torpedo Moscow all share one stadium), and Greece (Panathinaikos, Olympiakos, & AEK have all shared the Olympic Stadium at various times over the last 30 years - Pana and AEK are both playing there this season), among other countries, all have top-flight clubs who are currently sharing grounds. Russia is especially ironic because Torpedo is officially the owner of that stadium, even though they're the only club out of the three that's not in the top flight! Partly correct. San Siro was originally built in 1926 and owned by Milan, but ownership was actually taken over by the city of Milan at some point before Inter moved there in 1949, and the city still owns the stadium today, not either of the clubs. In fact, all of the major shared Italian stadiums (San Siro in Milan, Stadio Olimpico in Rome, Luigi Ferraris in Genoa, and Bentegodi in Verona) are owned by their respective cities. I don't remember hearing anything in any shared stadium proposals about the city of Liverpool wanting to own this new stadium, although it might simplify things if they did.

This is called Coach Speak, which is defined in the sports fan's dictionary as: 1. A version of English that is designed to be polite, generally vague and overly positive for the the media and fans, and to not offend anybody in public, especially their own team or a rival team. Used by all coaches when talking to the media. 2. The verbal art of making even the worst situation sound like sunshine and daisies. ex. of Coach Speak: Joe was a horse tonight. He worked hard and he made some really good plays for us. Translation: Joe had a few good plays going forward, but mostly he played like he had the brains of a horse. He wasted too much energy chasing the ball around and got caught way out of position on their second goal. Coach Speak isn't really lying and it has nothing to do with him being a prick or not (all coaches employ Coach Speak no matter if they're nice guys or complete a**holes). It's more akin to being polite and friendly to someone for the sake of civility when saying everything that's really on your mind would not be a very smart idea. Like having a mother-in-law who really gets on your nerves sometimes, but still being polite to her out of respect to your wife.

Man, League Two is looking all f'ed up before the season even starts. On top of the slamming that Luton took, now they just announced that Rotherham and Bournemouth are each going to start the season with 17-point penalties. Same reasons in both cases: not coming up with a proper CVA in a timely fashion, and two trips to administration in two years.

Well remember, this is the first year that the bench will be expanded from 5 to 7 for EPL games. At the rate things are going, we may have to put both of them on the bench just to make numbers!

It wasn't him specifically...it was this company, and he happens to be one of their executives. Here are the rest, if you're curious: http://www.profitablegroup.com/group-board.aspx

Aston Villa has been the smallest squad in the prem for the last 3 seasons, though we admittedly haven't been that much larger. But I agree with your essential point...we need more players and we need them fast. It's too bad football teams basically only trade players for money and not (as a rule) for other players; it would've been nice to be able to get a package of 3 decent players back in exchange for unloading AJ, for instance, instead of a wad of cash that will disappear under mysterious circumstances shortly after its arrival.

What I've read was that they had reached a deal to send Brad Friedel to Aston Villa, but it was contingent on them getting a replacement first. Looks like they've found one. So I guess the question is, if you're Blackburn, would you rather have Friedel or Robinson? All things being equal I'd rather have Friedel, but I also read in the same article that he personally requested a transfer, so they might not have had much choice.

Exhibit A: Columbus Crew supporters got into a brawl with some visiting West Ham supporters during intermission of a friendly last weekend. http://www.cbc.ca/sports/soccer/story/2008...wl-westham.html

He ain't worth that much and they know it. They just don't want to sell, and they know there's no way we're going to break our transfer record on a defensive midfielder.

An interesting article about the current economic situation in the UK and worldwide and the ways in which it could impact the Premier League, as well as some of the individual clubs. All the financial numbers are in US dollars; divide them by two and they should be close enough to their equivalent in pounds. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/writ...sion/index.html

10 points for "misconduct in the transfer market" (not "bungs" per se, but other rules violations) 20 points for not coming up with a proper CVA after entering administration (this is the same thing that got Leeds slapped with a 15-point penalty last season - the Football League says Luton is getting hit with the extra points because this is the third time they've gone into administration in ten years) The CVA thing I can understand - there's a precedent there and if they let Luton off easy after slamming Leeds it would've looked really bad. However, I disagree with them about imposing the extra penalty, especially since the current ownership had nothing to do with any of the three incidents. What I really think is BS is that they've essentially forced Luton to waive their right to appeal these sanctions. Normally I'm against appeals on the grounds of, "if you broke the rules and got caught, take your punishment like a man," but in this case the punishment seems unduly harsh and if they did appeal, I think they'd have an excellent chance of getting at least five points back, if not more. I wonder if Luton can make a case for unfair coercion on that no-appeal agreement.

If he has pace and he can score (inconsistently or not), then he'll help. This is San Jose's relaunch season after three years out of MLS, so they're in "Wimbledon AFC mode" right now trying to rebuild the roster from scratch and need all the help they can get. Especially up front, where they have only 10 goals in 15 matches and nothing that could possibly be mistaken for pace.

But we were talking about him in terms of a 12-month loan, not an outright purchase. The question is really whether he and his agent would be interested in doing that kind of deal. On the other hand, I read the article and Genoa's concern was actually with his salary, not with the transfer fee, and even in a loan deal I assume we'd still be paying his salary. That COULD be a problem, depending on what he makes - I don't have that information.

San Jose Earthquakes, my MLS team, just announced that they're signing Darren Huckerby on a free from Norwich. I've never seen him play, but I know he was a top flight player when he was younger; what sort of game does he bring to the field?

I was thinking "tool," but "twat" works just as well. Steve Bruce and Harry Redknapp have made it known what they think of Mr. Blatter's comments: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...and&cc=5901

I thought Arsene Wenger had a great quote this weekend. He said, "'If I had the power to change anything basic in football, it would be the transfer system which makes mercenaries of players. If they are bad ones, they stay, and if they are good, they think only of leaving." Unfortunately, he's absolutely right. It's why we have to put up with rumors like this one about Arteta every other week, while we can't get rid of VDM's salary for love or money. What's more, the way the system works right now it seems like the players are damned either way. The ones who change clubs are accused of being greedy or selfish, and the ones who don't change clubs are accused of "lacking ambition." Like there's something wrong with someone who's happy playing for their club and isn't interested in going somewhere else. Wasn't it Carlo Cudicini who was labeled the "least ambitious player in football" a few years ago, for the crime of wanting to stay at Chelsea even though he wasn't starting full time?

My pleasure! I used to work in the front office of a sports organization once upon a time, so I know a little bit about how sports marketing and finances work. It's an interesting topic to me. Good point - the only German club on the list that didn't host any World Cup matches was Werder Bremen. Something else I found out about the Bundesliga while I was looking through some stuff today. Bundesliga clubs on average only spent about 45% of their revenue on player wages in 06-07. In the Premier League that number was about 66%. We were even higher than that - 75% of our revenue went towards wages - and we still weren't even close to the worst offender. Exactly my point. You don't make big bucks by soaking the fans, you make big bucks by soaking the corporations. I'm not a big fan of having seats at stadiums that are overpriced to sell to corporations rather than true fans (which it sounds like is what Tottenham does), but it's the way a lot of professional sports are going, and with the player wages and other costs being what they are, and the pressure from fans to spend big and win, I can't blame the teams who choose to go that way. It's lovely that Wigan makes their ticket prices dirt cheap so that all 450 of their fans can afford to go to every game, but when Manchester United makes more money from ticket sales in two games at Old Trafford than Wigan makes in an entire season, you have to ask yourself if that kind of altruism is really practical for a club trying to compete at the Premiership level. And whether a city has one club, two clubs, or 13 clubs like London, you still have to at least try your damnedest to market yourselves. Inter Milan, Atletico Madrid, and Rangers all manage to sell plenty of merchandise in their own right despite sharing cities with wealthier neighbors, so we shouldn't be hearing any excuses. If the way we're marketing right now isn't getting results, then let's try something else.

Where do teams make their money? Local revenue, which includes ticket sales, luxury boxes and seat licenses (for teams lucky enough to have modern stadiums that can offer or demand such things), broadcasting rights fees for local TV and radio stations, merchandise sales, concession sales, and team sponsorships. Central revenues — cash generated by national TV contracts, licensing deals, and revenue distributed by the FA. The Champions League, for those select few lucky enough to get there. Fact is, local revenues are a far larger potential source of income than central, and while it's hard for me to be sure from 3000 miles away, I get a strong impression that we are not maximizing our local revenues. The shortcomings of the new stadium and that deal have been talked into the ground, and another good example is the shirt sponsorship renewal - the club was spinning it as the richest shirt sponsorship in the club's history, while many people on here were pointing out that it was chump change compared to what a lot of other clubs get. Maybe we're pointing the finger in the wrong direction - instead of firing Kenwright, maybe we should be looking to fire whoever runs the sales and marketing department. Point being, if you have a club that is maximizing its local revenue sources, you can generate plenty of money to spend even without the Champions League (see: Newcastle, Tottenham), without the owner having to bankrupt himself. If you have a club that is maximizing its local revenues AND making the Champions League every year, you have a potential juggernaut (see: ManU). Actually, ManU is a good example, because the Glazers saddled them with a huge debt service when they bought in - they're paying £60 million a year in interest payments alone - and yet they still managed to report a pre-tax profit of £60 million last fiscal year thanks to over £200 million earned in gross revenue. http://in.rediff.com/sports/2008/jan/11manu.htm breaks down their revenues pretty succinctly: £93 million in game day sales (tickets, concessions, etc.), £62 million in media revenues (including the Champions League), and £56 million in merchandise sales. Now compare that to us. The most recent numbers from Forbes list of the world's 25 most valuable clubs put ManU's revenue for the 2006-07 season at about £196 million, slightly lower than reported in the above article but still the second-highest total of any club in the world. What's eye-opening, however, is that they put our revenue for the season at about £51 million, meaning we made less from all forms of income than ManU made from merchandise sales alone. And lest you think it's all to do with the Champions League and global branding, Tottenham's revenue was reported at £103 million and Newcastle's at £87 million. Having a wealthy owner will help you spend more money to buy better players, but it won't automatically help your team make more money. For that a team needs to have a sound business model - sales, marketing, merchandising, sponsorships, and other stuff like that. And when you look at the numbers and see that we had the smallest revenues out of all 25 clubs on the list - less than the other 9 English clubs (even West Ham in a relegation battling year made more money than we did), less than all six German clubs even though the Premier League is ten times wealthier than the Bundesliga, even less than Celtic for God's sake - clearly whatever business model we have right now, if any, is not working.

This may be a good test of how desperate for money the board are right now, but if it's solely Moyes' decision to make, he's not going anywhere unless they offer a whole lot more than that.

Here's a note for folks who like to bet on (or against) trends. AC Milan have never won the UEFA Cup. They have never been to the finals of the UEFA Cup. In fact, they have only made it as far as the semifinals of the UEFA Cup twice, and those happened 30 years apart (1972 and 2002). So if we did play them in the semis like philinlondon suggested, I'd certainly like our odds! If I'm putting money down on one of our opponents right now, I'm looking at Tottenham. They have enough talent to win it, they've spent money this summer to get better, and their head coach has already won this competition twice.

Officially off the table: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id...ope&cc=3888

Fiorentina are the only Italian team that take the UEFA Cup seriously. There hasn't been an Italian squad in the finals for ten years, and this current AC team ain't even as good as last year's Bayern team that was supposedly going to run away with the competition. We all saw how that turned out.