americanscouser

you ever seen when Kobe Bryant met Lionel Messi? he's one of the 3 best basketball players in the world. everyone knows who he is, so it ain't like they are bowing to some no mark

there is a lot of crazy info flying around amongst american journalists that clint dempsey is going to arsenal. hence why fulham signed ruiz have no idea of its accuracy, but is flying around the "soccer" circles in america

something on twitter about Joe Cole joining Lille on loan. i'm going to go out on a limb and say that Eden Hazard is a done deal to join us next summer and letting them borrow Cole for a year is just one thing to help ease that transition. Edit: someone else already said this, therefore i'm an idiot for reading posts backwards.

it will all work out. but the key thing is that carroll hasn't been handed a place in the team, he has to earn it like everyone else. he'll either figure it out or he'll be replaced. we won't get 35 million for him, but we'd get something of value so it doesn't matter. he deserves a season in this team to prove himself. if at the end of the season he hasn't kicked on, then its worth a discussion

surprised no one has reporting that Insua signed a 5 year deal today with Sporting Lisbon. that's another one gone

He's currently still recovering from acl surgery.

not to cause more worry, but if torres has a clause, my guess is pepe has a clause in his contract too. not good if true

if he is going to go anywhere, especially in the prem, i'm kind of happy its chelsea. they are on the downward slope.

i meant a direct parallel between baseball and football, but you are spot on about the mancs.

just a quick note. the red sox picking up gonzalez is in large part related to FSW's long spoken about desire/focus on youth development. gonzalez was acquired for 3 youth players and then signed to that massive contract. it is fairly common for top teams to sacrifice youth for established players but their scouting and youth development system goes a long ways towards financing these kinds of acquisitions. i don't think a direct parallel can be drawn but i can see us selling a lot of youngsters to fund transfer dealings in the future along with the ones that make it through.

He just finished writing his memoir.

i'm certainly not fawning either but to be fair the team has gotten better consistently over the past few years. they went in one direction, didn't succeed, they fired the coach and they've had crennel for a period of time and have been getting more successful as the team grew. the other part being left out is how, as you point out, you can get good quickly, but also how if you make a few wrong decisions you can be completely screwed for an extended period of time.

i'm not a lerner fan or anything, but you can't compare NFL football to proper football for the simple reasons of drafts, trades and a salary cap. they built the team from scratch through an expansion draft. imagine if liverpool were to start tomorrow as a club and they could only take the 18th best player from every team in the prem. how good would that team be? sports in the states in a salary cap environment is like sports nowhere else in the world. the salary cap structure for sport lends itself to parity in the league. money doesn't dictate the best team because each team has roughly the same amount.

its been reported here in the states that Villa have just signed American keeper Brad Guzan (the same fella they tried to sign in the january but who couldn't get a work permit). so that shuts the window that Carson could possibly go to villa.

because 10 million cash in hand right now is different from getting it over 3 years time. it still adds up to the same amount but if for example a club wanted more money up front for a player as opposed to it being in equal installments over a numbers years (to say pay off some debt or meet a creditors time limit?) then its a much different proposition to what you are suggesting. its certainly not the be all end all, but it can be an asset in certain situations.