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Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Victory in retreat

Losing only 5.2 million pounds on Jean-Alain Boumsong is the Dunkirk of Newcastle United.

TDH is glad that he's going to Juve. Imagine if he'd had to learn to pass to players wearing shirts that weren't black and white. That could have been too much. Yes, his transfer value was probably much less with other teams.

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TDH saw Barca take on Bayern today at the Camp Nou. Home advantage notwithstanding, it was a complete blowout. Rijkaard swapped all 11 players at halftime, and it was still no contest. It's hard to imagine that a match between teams that once probably regarded themselves as equals could have been so lopsided.

Bayern showed absolutely nothing in the first 80 minutes or so, while Barca did its usual thing. L'il Ron scored a free kick that defied belief. Xavi just isn't fair. Even Zambro got into the act with a cheeky backheel pass. Substitutes - substitutes! - Giuly and Saviola combined to make Oliver Kahn look like a dancing monkey. Poor old Carlos Alberto Parreira must be wondering where the hell that buck-toothed Brazilian dude was in June.

Barca are now 4 to 1 favorites to win the Champions League with Betfair, with Chelsea at 9 to 2 and Bayern way down at 25 to 1. The Catalans are 3 to 5 on to win the Spanish League. And who'd bet against them?

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Well, TDH is in a decidedly better mood with Martins' arrival apparently imminent and Gravesen being kept out by the Merengues. NUFC.com helpfully gives us the list of players who've been let go by Roeder: Viana, Caig, Brittain, Chopra, Bowyer, Elliott and Faye. Will TDH miss any of them? Not really, to be honest.

And who's come in? Well, Duff and Martins are simply different class from the names above. We should remember that Souness brought us Emre, Scottie P., Owen, Solano, and well, Babayaro. But he also spent 17.5 million pounds on Luque and Swansong. That's enough to buy another Owen.

1 Comments:

Blogger the Maradona of Malawi said...

tdh, think you've got it wrong - signing Boumsong is part of the sentence handed down to Juve after appeal - they had their points deduction slashed, but the judge, not wanting to make automatic promotion a certainty, decided to lumber them with a different kind of penalty.

you know the most hilarious part of the deal? part of the money is tied up in performance related clauses - that's money that the toon will certainly never see.

btw - agree on martins - he's quality, good signing if you get him. frankly, I'm incredibly surprised that inter rate him below crespo (age thing) and Ibracadabra (Martins s**ts all over him as a player).

10:19 AM  

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