Howaya folks,
Well yes indeed myself and Mark have been a pair of pretty lazy gits these past few weeks. Well in podcast and blog sense anyway, though I can assure you we have been contributing to society no end in other ways. I can't think of these ways right now but I'm sure we did somehow.
In the past few weeks we've seen… oh fuck that you know what we've seen. We've seen uninspiring transfers in the main; sagas rumble on and okay, the odd smattering of decent transfer news.
The latter is obviously in reference to the last three days, as Robbie Keane and David Bentley made big money moves. I think the more interesting thing here is to look at Spurs and how they're going to shape up for next year. Whizzing through the Liverpool angle, I think Keane will do very well for them and we'll discuss it more on the pod, which we’re recording tonight. Before you ask, yes I will refrain from any 'this could be our year' statements, or at least try to anyway.
The Spurs thing then… the pick of their present squad list looks like this:
Gomes (GK), Defenders: Lee, Bale, Dawson, King, Hutton, Woodgate. Midfielders: Zokora, Jenas, Ghaly, Modric, Giovanni, Boateng, Taarabt, O'Hara, Lennon, Huddlestone (defence in emergencies). Strikers: Berbatov, Bent
There’s rumours of the Russian duo of Arshavin and Pavlyuchenko heading their way and with Smokey Berbatov looking like he’s heading elsewhere they bloody need them the way that squad looks. From what’s there already, I don’t see them as a team that can break into the top four instantly. Lots of fresh faces could see a ‘Citeh 07/08’ effect where they get a great start but fade off midway through the season perhaps.
Spurs, it seems have spent the last four seasons threatening to break the dominance of the top four only to be foiled by bad patches, stupid managerial shenanigans or, most unfortunate of all, dodgy lasagnes. Ramos’ Sevilla were an excellent attacking side from what most of us saw every week in Spain, but they looked pretty timid at times during the Champions League both before and after his departure for North London.
Considering his defence centres around two injury prone England stars (Woodgate and King) and generally falls apart when he brings in the lumbering Michael Dawson, they do look fairly threadbare when it comes to stopping other quality teams knocking a few past them.
My guess is that, like many other years, they’ll entertain for large periods against Arsenal, United and Chelsea only to lose or draw. They have a jammy, jammy record against the Pool so those games I won’t predict. With Everton struggling to get new people in and Moyes a bad start away from a fan backlash (a lot of Everton fans think he’s taken them as far as he can), maybe it’ll only be Man City with a realistic chance of breaking the top four’s hegemony.
Bloody hell, two weeks before the season even begins and I’m being pessimistic, talking about the big four monotonously stamping over the league again. Maybe it’s the fact that like many other idiots I predicted Arsenal would drop out of the Champions League spots last year only to look like prize fool as they spent the majority of the season at the apex of the league.
Spurs for fifth then eh… viva la revolution indeed.
Right, time to grab some cans and the mic, podding afoot
Later, JJ
Well yes indeed myself and Mark have been a pair of pretty lazy gits these past few weeks. Well in podcast and blog sense anyway, though I can assure you we have been contributing to society no end in other ways. I can't think of these ways right now but I'm sure we did somehow.
In the past few weeks we've seen… oh fuck that you know what we've seen. We've seen uninspiring transfers in the main; sagas rumble on and okay, the odd smattering of decent transfer news.
The latter is obviously in reference to the last three days, as Robbie Keane and David Bentley made big money moves. I think the more interesting thing here is to look at Spurs and how they're going to shape up for next year. Whizzing through the Liverpool angle, I think Keane will do very well for them and we'll discuss it more on the pod, which we’re recording tonight. Before you ask, yes I will refrain from any 'this could be our year' statements, or at least try to anyway.
The Spurs thing then… the pick of their present squad list looks like this:
Gomes (GK), Defenders: Lee, Bale, Dawson, King, Hutton, Woodgate. Midfielders: Zokora, Jenas, Ghaly, Modric, Giovanni, Boateng, Taarabt, O'Hara, Lennon, Huddlestone (defence in emergencies). Strikers: Berbatov, Bent
There’s rumours of the Russian duo of Arshavin and Pavlyuchenko heading their way and with Smokey Berbatov looking like he’s heading elsewhere they bloody need them the way that squad looks. From what’s there already, I don’t see them as a team that can break into the top four instantly. Lots of fresh faces could see a ‘Citeh 07/08’ effect where they get a great start but fade off midway through the season perhaps.
Spurs, it seems have spent the last four seasons threatening to break the dominance of the top four only to be foiled by bad patches, stupid managerial shenanigans or, most unfortunate of all, dodgy lasagnes. Ramos’ Sevilla were an excellent attacking side from what most of us saw every week in Spain, but they looked pretty timid at times during the Champions League both before and after his departure for North London.
Considering his defence centres around two injury prone England stars (Woodgate and King) and generally falls apart when he brings in the lumbering Michael Dawson, they do look fairly threadbare when it comes to stopping other quality teams knocking a few past them.
My guess is that, like many other years, they’ll entertain for large periods against Arsenal, United and Chelsea only to lose or draw. They have a jammy, jammy record against the Pool so those games I won’t predict. With Everton struggling to get new people in and Moyes a bad start away from a fan backlash (a lot of Everton fans think he’s taken them as far as he can), maybe it’ll only be Man City with a realistic chance of breaking the top four’s hegemony.
Bloody hell, two weeks before the season even begins and I’m being pessimistic, talking about the big four monotonously stamping over the league again. Maybe it’s the fact that like many other idiots I predicted Arsenal would drop out of the Champions League spots last year only to look like prize fool as they spent the majority of the season at the apex of the league.
Spurs for fifth then eh… viva la revolution indeed.
Right, time to grab some cans and the mic, podding afoot
Later, JJ
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