Henderson, Young and Jones. All English, all hideously over-priced. Just another day in the transfer market. Meanwhile, Jay Bothroyd signs for Everton and Chris Burke for Birmingham. I can only assume he likes McLeish, why else would he go there?
I don't mind the Young £14-16 million price were hearing though of course thats mainly due to 1 year left on his contract. The other two are not worth that sort of money and I doubt Henderson ever will be though I have high hopes for Phil Jones.
It looks more and more that Nasri may end up joining Utd, I scoffed at the idea when I first heard but they may just pull the dam thing off I would take Nasri over Sneijder for the simple reason he's younger, far cheaper but in the centre he can create and score goals. £10-15 million due to last year of his contract and he seems pretty intent to leave Arsenal for a better club.
United could do worse than sign the pair of them. Scholes is retiring, Carrick isn't good enough, that's reason enough, but bottom line, Nasri and Sneijder are both better than any of the current Man Utd midfield IMO. Edit: According to the BBC, Sneijder has pledged his future to Inter Milan.
Surprising with Villa's continuing search for a manager... Houllier may not have been a fan favourite there but he did cull the large squad and a significant wage bill (82% of turnover?) as was his remit. 3 managers have now turned it down after talks with the club, they may be losing Young and Downing soon - but there's some quality prospects coming through, decent players already there, and should be money in the kitty for the new man. A more professional and fitter squad too, apparantly...
I don't think Villa are relegation candidates but they are set to have a poor season. I think Randy wants to bring through more players from the academy like Kenny has done at Liverpool but the problem is there academy is nowhere near as good. You also have to say Wigan will be relegation candidates again next season but I guess even if they go down he will keep his job, such a hard task at the JJB stadium.
More worrying still for Wigan is that Dave Whelan's said on a couple of occasions now that he's looking to step back from football in the next few years. Without a similar benefactor behind them, they're fooked.
Well busy day or two ahead, McLeish has left Brum, anyone think he might not be moving very far? Or maybe Billy Davies can get the Villa job Yeah forest have finally come to their senses...obviously this isn't Billy's fault. Only downside is that McClaren seems a possibility for the Nottingham job. Shame, I mean I'd like to see McClaren do well but...
Abd apparently Cardiff are 48 hours away from naming their new manager as Malky Mackay. Sounds good to me - he might bring some of their players with him!
Bye Bye Billy D and apparantly it came down to transfers that sealed the deal. Nigel wants to sell and Billy wants to keep his 7 strikers I have zero problem with McClaren being the manager, his CLUB record has seen him do well at 3 out of 4 clubs including the Carling Cup, Dutch League title and runner up in the UEFA Cup. I would prefer Chris Houghton or Di Matteo but Steve will do if we must.
Nathan Tyson signs for Derby. Says he could have stayed at Forest, but once he knew that Derby were interested he just wanted to go to the bigger club......
He's flying the flag for Derby now I think Watford are going to tumble now if Mackay is leaving as well as Danny Graham. I wonder where Billy will go now? Scotland maybe? Sure he's off sulking somewhere! I think McClaren will do at least as good a job with Forest, but I hope Dougherty is going to give him funds as I'm not sure McClaren's any good on a shoe string.
^^ Indeed - If you were being overly critical then you'd say that it was Gibson's millions at 'Boro and the disintegration of Ajax/PSV at Twente that helped him out. I think, in reality, he's somewhere between what the two polar extemes of opinion appear to be. The real test is how good he'll be at CCC level. Having a reputation at a higher level or abroad is no guarantee of success in the Championship. Watford - I think if we nip in now and get Eustace as well then they'll really struggle next year.
Yeah, I think you're right. Are we still interested in Eustace though? We seem to be focussing all our efforts on Shacknell now, still think we need some cover at both full back position! At the end of the day, Derby's decline coincided with two things; McLaren leaving, and Igor leaving, and I've never been sure which was more telling. He really never should have taken the England job. I think you're right about his level, and it will be interesting to see how he manages at CCC level.
Eustace I believe we have or had, an offer in. I heard that we'd put offers in for Eustace, Shackell and Waghorn. We also watched Danny Bujis again a month or so ago, so that may be back on the cards again once the Dutch transfer window opens. Glick and Clough have both said that they won't be doing their transfer dealings in public - thus far we've only been finding out because of the media guessing, or the selling clubs making bids public. If we're interested in Bujis, it doesn't surprise me that we haven't heard much about it.