spacemonkey

Seems likely, yes. Haven't read it obviously but seems at odds with the various articles documenting an argument with the Croatia manager back in March after which Lovren basically said he didn't want to go unless he was going to play. Imagine they're just trying to create some sort of far-fetched link to his football career so as to justify printing it.

When Stoke countered down the right with Peters, I was somewhat surprised that Ibe wasn't busting a gut to get back and put in a challenge. Seems that he has a problem or he doesn't yet grasp the importance to do the defensive work too. Not going to help his chances of more minutes with that sort of thing.

The German thread I just read on transfermarkt has lots of people saying he's a top centre half, great positioning, heading, one of the best at playing it out from the back. Main weakness cited as concentration but that seems to have got better with age / experience. One guy has him as the third best centre half in the Bundesliga. Certainly seems to me as though the majority are sorry to be losing him and the ones who are being more positive about his departure are simply stating their belief that one or two of the younger players have the potential to be a Matip 2.0.

He's played a lot of games for a 24 year old so I'm choosing to be optimistic that he's ready to kick on to a higher level. Besides, Bild are saying we've beaten Newcastle and Sunderland to his signature so that's... encouraging?

The Schalke manager recently slated him in public for contributing absolutely nothing in the past 18 months. He said that if the player could stay free of injury then maybe he could still prove himself but it was up to Sam to show that he could get himself back in a condition to help the team. Sounds like he has about as much injury trouble as Sturridge.

Not Adler please. Also a strong shot stopper but he's good for a lot more howlers than Mignolet.

Aguero seems to like claiming handball. He did it after Mignolet saved his shot from that Milner back-pass as well. Awkward...

Hasn't Klopp said he was approached at that time but he wasn't interested in a move at that stage? Could be wrong. Either way, pretty sure there would have been better candidates than Roy who would have been up for it. Yes, our owners were a disaster at the time and that will have been a deterrent but still.

With that first name, I reckon there could be some truth in this one.

Mad Erik was most recently director of football for Aachen. Assistant Manager before that. Might be able to take the players' cantine in a new direction too.

I'm going to try to take some encouragement from him seeming to have done pretty well as U19s manager, beating the likes of Belgium and Italy, though losing to France. Hope Pepijn knows a bit about defending anyway.

If we sign Falcao we won't sign another striker this summer. Having brought in two new strikers already, I'd imagine it's now one more at the most.

Well, Origi is also coming in so at this point we've got two strikers signed and only Aspas out the door and he was on loan anyway last year = six senior strikers on the books. Could imagine them needing to sell (or at least loan) at least two more before bringing in a third this summer. Piece of cake.

No idea. Maybe because this makes him a repeat offender in terms of violent behaviour. As I say, though, don't know whether the info is reliable. We'll find out by Thursday evening I guess.

Not sure why they would know this but these Norwegians are claiming that Markovic will be suspended for four matches - 3 matches for violent conduct and a further match due to the red card he had received in last year's semi with Juve for allegedly fighting with Vucinic (even though Vucinic later claimed that he'd been arguing with a couple of Markovic's team-mates, not Markovic with whom he is good friends). So after having been banned for two games already for that incident which arguably didn't even involve him, this would now be the third, plus another three for barely brushing his fingers against a Basel player's face. If true, that's quite a lot of games to miss for not a great deal. http://www.liverpool.no/Nyheter/Fire-kamper-for-Markovic.aspx

Seems unlikely to me given that it's not worked the previous times and each time he's ended up with a massive ban and huge media attention which must be rather unpleasant for his family as well.

Those are more rational actions as you might take a strong opposition player out of the game. You don't accomplish anything at all with a bite so there's less understanding for it. Seems more irrational. Not sure why that should make it a worse offense in terms of the punishment though. Arbitrary.

Can understand that FIFA get to ban people from FIFA events and can see how that could include league and CL games too but how do they get to ban him from going to Melwood? What gives them that authority? Do we have FIFA refs at training or something? In terms of the punishment, it just seems arbitrary every time to me. Seems to be based on individual moral perspectives of a handful of people from a very dubious organisation and it's purely punitive rather than doing anything whatsoever to stop either Suarez or another player doing something similar in the future. Saying that he has mental problems seems to be taboo so that leaves beating him with a stick as the only way forward.

Couldn't find any mention in german news. Sounds made up to me.

Sport Bild saying that Can has asked for time to think it over. Apparently Bayern's agreement with Leverkusen is that they can buy him back next summer for just €5m and Völler has spoken to Rumnenigge about it and Rummenigge apparently wants him to stay at Leverkusen for another year. No mention of wage demands being a problem, sounds more like he's having to weigh up whether he waits for a possible move to Bayern next summer or goes to Liverpool this summer. Suppose a higher salary offer might help of course. Anyway, they're saying no decision expected from the player until mid-June.

He was asked, "Can you live with being no.3?" and responds, "No, I can't. I'm not going to be no. 3". The comments about the manager presumably not thinking he is good enough (in the context of him not having been picked for the City and Chelsea games) were, according to the article, said "with a smile on his lips". He is asked whether he will stay and he says it's entirely up to the coach. I'd say these comments are pretty simar to the sort of thing he's been saying in Danish interviews for years. He doesn't seem massively keen on giving interviews at the best of times and just seems to take the view that nothing is ever certain in football so if he is asked about his future his stock reply for a while seems to have been to say that he doesn't know or that it isn't up to him. He has been quoted before saying that he doesn't really enjoy watching football, just playing it, so wouldn't expect him to be happy sitting on the bench but don't think this is him agitating for a move either.

I make it a ca. 7.5% reduction in wage costs if you project the last year's 10 month figures up to 12 months. Could be wrong though.

Another cracker against Dortmund at the weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4q6kqRYQyM And here from his time at Karlsruhe. He was being linked with Arsenal and Liverpool recently but suspect that might just have been agent talk to help the new contract negotiations along.

If that's elsewhere on the pitch and he's just made a pass rather than got a shot off, I think the defender's getting a yellow. Weird one.

Net spend over past five years as of end of this last window according to transfermarkt: Man City: £395m Real Madrid: £325m Chelsea: £315m PSG: £295m (£284.5m over last 3 years alone) Bayern: £175m Barcelona: £170m Juventus: £170m Monaco: £155m (£140m this summer) Zenit: £140m Napoli: £105m Liverpool: £99.5m Dynamo Kyiv: £76m (£65m over last two years) Man Utd: £62.5m Dortmund: £1.5m Arsenal: -£1.5m Spurs: -£1.6m Lille: -£82m Valencia: -£92.5m Udinese: -£105m FC Porto: -£145m Without doing too much analysis, seems to me that anything too much over Bayern is unlikely to be in accordance with the spirit of FFP. Real Madrid could possibly outspend them fairly but not to the extent that they are and Man City, Chelsea, PSG and Monaco are just totally taking the piss. Can't see how Man City and Chelsea could be argued to be "making an effort" when they've averaged £55m and £66.5m per season respectively over the last three years and must both be paying out sky high wages too.