Football 2011/2012

Brilliant stuff from bored RAWKites during off season:

The Transfer Haiku thread

Kenny builds a team
Grand in defence and attack
Mata could be key

Nothing to see here
Sky Sports News and their yellow ticker
Player in helicopter!

Three lines it has to be
it shouldn't make much sense
potato

 

Some notable transfers so far:

Ashley Young
To: Manchester United
From: Aston Villa
Value: £22m

Jordan Henderson
To: Liverpool
From: Sunderland
Value: £16 - 20m

Brad Friedel
To: Tottenham
From: Aston Villa
Value: Free

Ongoing, just waiting to dot the i's and cross the t's

Phil Jones
To: Manchester United
From: Blackburn
Value: £25m

 

How is there a shirt with blue colour on Liverpool's shirt - it's blasphemy!

 

Ah yes, before Shanks decided to go red. At least the right club is getting blamed for Everton's lack of good fortune.

 

De Gea signs for Mancs United, for a speculated value of 18.5m.

Also, one of the upcoming young managers of Europe, Andres Villa Boas joins Chelsea to replace sacked Carlo Ancelotti. Follow up to date news on him here.

 

Connor Wickham signs for Sunderland at 12m pounds, snubbing the likes of Liverpool and Arsenal.






He'll be playing for the Mancs in two years.

 

Demo would be the perfect informant-cum-colour commentator-news reader for the continental leagues although the bias is strongly on the Eredivisie.

So which top Dutch player is next on the shopping list of the European elite?

 

David Gill slates FA colleagues for Manchester United victimisation

• United's chief executive complains of raw deal for champions
• Gill claims harsh punishments not meted out to rivals

David Gill, the Manchester United chief executive, has criticised his colleagues at the Football Association, accusing the organisation of victimising his club with undue punishments that would not be meted out to its Premier League rivals.

Gill, an FA board member, cited Wayne Rooney's two-game suspension for swearing into a television camera after scoring at West Ham in April, as well as the five-game touchline ban imposed on Sir Alex Ferguson because of his castigation of the referee Martin Atkinson, to demonstrate his belief that the champions get a raw deal from the sport's governing body.

"I do genuinely believe there have been some poorish decisions that, in my opinion, wouldn't necessarily have hit other clubs," Gill said. "That's not to say I'm condoning Wayne's comments, because I don't think they were correct, or what Sir Alex said, because it wasn't helpful. But at the same time, the actual punishments were harsh.

"We're possibly being caught up in being one of the biggest clubs and the [FA's] Respect agenda being there. What better way to demonstrate the authorities are being tough than by hitting one of the biggest clubs the hardest?"

Gill's comments in Champ19ns, a book about United's record title-winning season by Steve Bartram, are a break from the norm for one of the game's political movers, and signal the strength of feeling inside Old Trafford that the FA is likely to show greater leniency to other clubs. Ferguson has long felt the FA victimises United, a view he has held for well over a decade, describing the disciplinary department as a "dysfunctional unit", whereas the club's legal adviser, Graham Bean, has accused the FA of acting "like a communist state".

Ferguson's touchline ban meant he was the first manager in history to be prohibited from entering the dugout when his team were playing at Wembley, in the FA Cup semi-final against Manchester City. Rooney's punishment also meant him missing the game, which United lost 1-0, and the ill feeling was exacerbated by Ferguson being charged with improper conduct the following month for describing Howard Webb as "the best referee in the country", contravening a rule about not talking about match officials before matches. Ferguson was so outraged he refused to acknowledge the charge and the punishment was reduced to a warning.

Gill questioned whether the FA has set a "dangerous course" by punishing Rooney and suggests it would not have happened had he played for another club.

"The club doesn't condone it [Rooney's swearing], but Wayne recognised it was wrong and apologised almost immediately. We have various issues with the ban: one being consistency. What's going to happen now? Is the referee under pressure to send everyone off?

"I think sometimes in celebration people do swear and all that means is that, to my mind, it's a dangerous course the FA has gone down, because consistent application is what's required and I'm not sure that'll necessarily happen. There are certain things you should wait until the start of the season to change.

"But it's a lesson to Wayne. He subsequently scored a great goal against Chelsea and smiled – that's what we want to see. There should be exuberance, but you look at the abuse to which he was subjected [by West Ham supporters] and I know people say you've got to rise above it, but I defy anyone being vilified to that level always to retain your cool. I don't think the media helped either, with the constant repetition of footage, with his mouth blurred out."

Gill recounted the "bolt from the blue" of Rooney informing the club he wanted to leave, starting with a telephone call from the player's agent, Paul Stretford, on 14 August.

"We already had some discussions [about a new contract] going on, then I had a call indicating Wayne didn't want to sign a new deal, [that] he had some issues and didn't want to sign a new contract.

"That was the first we'd heard of it because [before then] there had been discussions going on to a timetable that had been agreed. I was pretty shocked, to be honest. I had a good working relationship with Paul Stretford, having done deals with him over a number of years and there was never any indication that this was the call he was going to make."

Rooney changed his mind after several weeks of lobbying behind the scenes – "I wouldn't say there were discussions every day but there was regular contact," Gill said – and John O'Shea recounts in the book how the players reacted to a team-mate questioning whether the other players were good enough to challenge for trophies.

"It transpired it was just an interesting technique of getting a new deal," O'Shea said. "I think Wayne, if he could turn back the clock, might do things a bit differently, but both parties were happy in the end.

"He came [into the Carrington dressing room after signing his new deal] and apologised to everyone. He said he'd done what he had to do, basically, and he was sorry if he had offended anybody. Obviously there were a few comments that will stay in the dressing room. They were quite smart and funny, but all friendly."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2011/jun/30/david-gill-fa-manchester-united

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Lousy attempt at winding up or irony? You decide.

 

This 'victimisation' is called 'fair play' if they are interested to know. For almost 20 years has Manchester United been worshipped by the FA and the media - seeing them getting unfair advantages is so common, it's no longer interesting. It's when the such things come out and the referees board actually doing their job that people sit up and take notice. People calling this 'jealousy' need to take off the Devil (or Queen E)-tinted glasses.