EPL Talk » Kaka

Manchester United Finally Decide To Sell Ronaldo

Paul Bestall — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:11:07 +0000

So its official, Manchester United’s board have accepted a world record shattering bid of £80 million this morning from Real Madrid for Cristiano Ronaldo. I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t face another summer of every news outlet boring us to tears speculating on Ronaldo’s future as we had last season. Day after day, hour after hour, miniscule item after item of droning with ultimately no end product.

This means at last Ronaldo can get the move he claims is a dream for him, United can get £80 million for a player who is clearly nowhere near the level he was in 2007-2008 and Real Madrid can keep signing attacking players that won’t win them anything next season. I wonder if Michele Platini is about to launch a stinging attack on Florentino Perez as he clearly spends money the club don’t have. Of course not!

I’m sure some Manchester United fans will be devastated to be losing Ronaldo, there’s no doubt on his day he is a fantastic player, but last season saw his performance fall away from the level he’d set himself. Of course, Madrid’s courting of him all summer only for Ferguson to dig his heels in would have affected him and he once again failed to deliver for Portugal in a major tournament. Missing preseason with an injury didn’t help, but the Champions League final saw him completely outshone by Iniesta, Xavi and Messi.

No doubt Ferguson will be getting some criticism of some of Manchester United’s more uneducated fan base, but there’s no way you can turn down that amount of money for any player. If anything, United are probably selling him at the right time, its doubtful anything he does next season would increase his value, so Ferguson and United are right to sell him now. Ferguson has been slatted before for selling players certain fans thought were irreplaceable but three titles and two Champions League finals in the last 3 seasons answers any criticism the doom mongers may offer up.

United will now probably push on for a replacement, Franck Ribery, Antonio Valencia and Karim Benzema have all been touted as replacements, though United may take two of those with the funds they receive from Madrid. With Madrid buying Kaka and Ronaldo, it probably frees up those three to join other clubs and United will be jostling with Chelsea and Barcelona to sign them up. As for Madrid, Perez’s ill feted galactico scheme seems to have been brought back for the dead and it wouldn’t surprise me if they go after one other massive signing soon. Shame they’ve forgotten how bad the defence was at Madrid last season, so Perez would a fool to ignore strengthening the back line.

The additional aspect of this is that the transfer merry go round should begin to kick off all over Europe now, with the Kaka, Diego and Barry deals being the only 3 major transfers since the domestic season finished all over Europe. The bubble is well and truly set to continue growing in the Premiership and La Liga, and most of the major clubs in both countries yet to start spending, the silly season could be just around the corner.

As for Ronaldo, sure, it’ll be a shame to see him leave the Premiership, but Spanish football and La Liga isn’t far behind in popularity so he’ll not disappear from view. Over the time he spent at Old Trafford, he’s thrilled as many people as he’s annoyed. His performances over the years at club level have propelled him to the forefront of football fans all over the world and his superb season for United in 2007-2008 will live long in the memory. It’s been a privilege to watch him for the last 3 or 4 seasons, but the Premier League and Manchester United will survive and flourish without him.

Time For City To Get Real, Not Real Madrid.

Christopher Walker — Sat, 16 May 2009 11:53:51 +0000

When will City come back to planet Earth?

On 27 May the last meaningful game (apart from the FA Cup Final) involving an English club will take place this season. That is of course the Champions League Final between Manchester United and Barcelona – a nice little birthday present for me. It will be an even better week for me should my team prevail at Wembley on 25th May. Aside from turning another year older, the thing that will get me down is the start of the aimless transfer speculation until the start of next season.

English newspapers really excel at making the summer without league football unbearable by linking every major player in Europe, to the ‘big four’ and Manchester City. Often it seems that football journo’s must sit round a table and throw out combinations of clubs and players due to the lack of real stories. It does seem to amaze me that if we were to believe the UK tabloids Valencia’s David Villa would have signed for each of the 5 clubs mentioned above 15 times over. Speculation that appears to be pretty darn pointless when we consider how many times Villa has been quoted as stating he has no desire to leave.

Chelsea and Liverpool will no doubt have busy summers adding players to their squads to challenge United for the title. Arsenal will as per usual be linked by the red banner tabloids to players that they simply cannot afford. United you may assume, may be a tad more frugal in the summer market.

One club’s name above all others will irk me like nothing on earth this summer, Manchester City. Let me state immediately i have nothing against the Citizens, but the transfer stories that surround them are just frustrating and stupid. This is not always of the club’s own making either, it is not rocket science to link a good-size club with an astronomical budget to the best players in the world – providing they are all paid 250k a week and cost least £80 million.

Perhaps journalists and City themselves will learn from the Kaka episode that money really isn’t everything – even in football. Kaka is playing for one of the giants of Europe, resides in the beautiful city of Milano and is very well settled with his wife Caroline – not exactly a girl you would kick out of bed for breaking wind. Let us also take into account the high wages he is already on, his hero status at AC, and the fact that the Rossoneri will challenge for honours on all fronts. OR the Brazilian could have gone to a club that hasn’t won the league since 1967/68 and cannot offer Champions League football. Offer any kid in the street to earn 200k a week and finish tenth in the league, or earn 80k and win the title, what do you think he would choose?

Dimitar Berbatov is another example of why City won’t be challenging any time soon. City – depending on what elements of the strory you believe, offered a higher bid than United and no doubt offered about twice as much in wages for the Bulgarian. They seemed to forget why ‘Berba’ wanted to leave Spurs in the first place, win major trophies and play in the Champions League.

City did prevail in landing Robinho from under Chelsea’s noses and his strike ratio in a light-blue is impressive – 14 in 30 games. However that ‘coup’ appears to be a one off. No doubt Robinho’s presence at the club will be used as bait during transfer negotiations with Europe’s top players, it didn’t work on Kaka or Berbatov though. This in mind it appears that no matter how much City will offer to the current Superstars of the game it appears they won’t be interested. A more realistic aim of the movers and the Sheikhers (see what I did there) at Eastlands is to adopt a more sensible approach in how they build the club.

Mark Hughes made a good signing in Wayne Bridge and I personally believe that is a good model to follow. Hughes made another pair of good signings in De Jong and Kompany, players who will improve the squad without selling 100,000 shirts in the Asia. Build slowly, improve the team gradually, blending youth and experience. What City need to forget about for now is eyeing a £150 Million for Lionel Messi and selling shirts with the names of flair players and superstars on the back of them. Should the Citizens start to sign good (not sensational) players from the lesser clubs domestically and the players in Europe who want to play in the Premier League, then maybe the club could start to aim for fourth place.

I fear however that ‘Sparky’ won’t be given time to do this.

Man City Tells Credit Crunch To Get Stuffed (Again) – Will It Work This Time?

Matthew Semisch — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:42:33 +0000

If at first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh you don’t succeed, try and try again.

This seems to be Manchester City’s mantra ahead of next month’s UEFA Cup quarterfinal tie with Hamburg, made apparent by the fact that the club has slashed ticket prices through this Sunday for Apr. 16’s home leg to just £5 for adults and £1 for kids.

The temporary markdown makes for a 75% cheaper adult ticket than City’s season ticket holders purchased for the Blues’ home round-of-16 encounter with Danish side Aalborg this month. On a personal level, as a City fan living overseas, I’m wishing right about now that transatlantic flights were that cheap, but never mind.

With the cheaper ticket prices – Which, as we’ve all discovered, you can do when you’re also able to bid £100 million for one player; Hi, Garry! – the Eastlands outfit are banking on getting a much-improved atmosphere for Hamburg than there was for the Danes’ visit, when only 24,596 bothered to turn up at a stadium that seats almost twice that.

Up to now, City have yet to even reach the 30,000 plateau in this season’s UEFA Cup, but it would appear that they won’t have much trouble there this time around, with the Manchester Evening News reporting massive queues both at the City of Manchester Stadium box office as well as City’s shop in the Arndale Centre, combining with online customers for 15,000 tickets sold before the club had to temporarily suspend sales.

It’s certainly a good sign that that so many tickets have already gone with another four days and change left before the ‘sale’ expires, but getting tickets in supporters’ hands is at best only half the battle. The club is (so far) holding up its end of the bargain – The rest is going to be up to the fans, and they will need to make their voices well and truly heard.

Though I find it a bit disgraceful in a way – Of course there’s a hierarchy there, but a major trophy is a major trophy is a major trophy – the UEFA Cup is commonly seen as a sort of ‘best of the rest’ competition, as indicated a lot of the time by attendance figures, and City fans have been just as guilty as anyone this season in that regard, but City’s win over Aalborg on penalties has given Blues supporters a golden opportunity to redeem themselves.

While City are sure to pass the attendance numbers of their first seven UEFA Cup home matches this season with ease for the Hamburg game, the fans know that it will be up to them to create the kind of atmosphere that the circumstances demand. As Manchester United supporters enjoy reminding their City counterparts, the Blues have not won a major trophy since around the time that John Simm experienced Life on Mars, and rarely has the first team been this close to grabbing any silverware worth grabbing.

City have a tough road to hoe if they’re going to make it to the final in Istanbul, with Hamburg standing in their way and then presumably Werder Bremen after that should their compatriots go down, but if the fans finally prove themselves able to answer the call for the first time in this competition, what sometimes seems like the impossible dream might become that little bit less thus.

Can Manchester City Win The UEFA CUP?

Paul Bestall — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:13:00 +0000

Could Manchester City finally put their 33 year major trophy drought to bed this season by winning the UEFA Cup this season? Why not, what with Ajax crashing out last night at the hands of Marseille and Zenit St Petersburg and CSKA Moscow losing today, the competition for the trophy is getting into the nitty gritty stage and it seems to be opening up for City. Mark Hughes side has been wildly inconsistent, putting 6 past Portsmouth and 5 past Hull City, but dumped out of the League Cup by Brighton on penalties and were humiliated at home 3-0 by Nottingham Forest in the F.A. Cup but they’ve been impressive in the UEFA Cup both at home and abroad this season. With only one away win in the league, it’s been a strange season for the City faithful.

Tonight they travel to Northern Jutland to face Aalborg with a 2-0 lead and a chance to move into the Quarter Finals for a real crack at the trophy. Yet, Manchester City have a history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory which is unparalled in English Football that has seen their fans develop a very healthy ability to laugh at themselves. Surely this could be their season to finally put a proper smile on faces of the City faithful? It’s certainly a weaker UEFA Cup than it could have been with AC Milan, Aston Villa, Tottenham, Fiorentina, Bordeaux and Valencia all being removed from the competition before we even reached the last 16.I don’t think Mark Hughes will be upset to see any of those sides out at all. Their first 11 is certainly as good as some of the remaining teams in the competition, maybe one of the best, so it’s not impossible to imagine City lifting the trophy in Turkey on May 20th.

City though have perhaps received a little too much stick this season for me. Sure they’ve become the richest club in the world but it’s still a transitional season for them. Thankfully for us, Chief Executive Gary Cook seems to have kept a very low profile after his rather childish comments about AC Milan and Kaka in January, which is a blessing for us all. His rather acidic nature and bombastic attitude doesn’t sit well people and attracts as much criticism as it deserves, but Hughes has also had a fair amount of flak, unfairly I feel. It’s a learning curve for everyone at Manchester City, ever since the Robinho signing, they’ve suddenly moved onto a different level but they’ve got their best chance of some serious silverware for a long time in the UEFA Cup.

If they can negotiate tonight’s away leg, which knowing City, is no forgone conclusion, then the key teams to avoid are Werder Bremen and whoever wins in the tie of the round, Galatasaray v SV Hamburg. Martin Jol’s team have a lot to do and need to score in Turkey tonight to have any chance to get through but if they do, then they’ll become the favourite for the cup. If City can avoid those teams, then reaching the final becomes a realistic proposition for Mark Hughes. I hope they do get there, he’s dealt with rumour and counter rumour all season with supreme patience, fending questions about his future, transfers, ongoing issues with certain big name players and the change in expectations once Manchester City were ought by the Abu Dhabi United Group, with courtesy.He deserves a bit of luck after everything that’s been thrown at him throughout the season.

I wish them all the best in Europe and hope we get a Hamburg and Manchester City final for the last ever UEFA Cup final before we welcome the Europa League next season.

Are Manchester City Really Destroying Football?

tyduffy — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:16:28 +0000

FC Copenhagen chairman Stale Solbakken suggests that Manchester City’s spending will ruin football.

“The amounts of money that have been mentioned are incredible,” Solbakken told Ekstra-Bladet.

“I think that such incredible sums will take part in destroying football.

“They are creating too big a mental distance between what we call reality and then Manchester City.”

The idea of City’s fiscal force frightens, but its tangible affect has been negligible.

City have not upset the competitive climate in the Premier League. They sit just 9^th in the table, with 31 points from 25 matches, and that represents improvement from winning three of their last five in the league. Before they were flirting with relegation.

Aside from the odd Robinho, City have not fleeced the world’s biggest stars from their clubs. Kaka rejected triple his current salary. David Villa and Gigi Buffon turned down deals as well. The only financial flexing City have done thus far is overpaying for Craig Bellamy and Wayne Bridge.

City’s main hindrance signing players has been their perception as an unsuccessful club. This also seems to be their critics’ point of contention.

Manchester City are not deemed a threat because they distort financial reality. Clubs already do that. Nothing divides the gods from the clods in European football more than the Champions League.

There are also disparate television and merchandising deals on the continent. Barcelona and Real Madrid operate under different financial considerations than the rest of La Liga. Ditto for Bayern Munich in Germany and for AC Milan, Juventus and Inter in Serie A.

Spending obscene money disproportionately doesn’t bother football people. It’s the notion of an upstart Manchester City doing it that is the problem. Criticism of City is not censuring the rich, but the nouveau riche.

Perhaps, it’s not football that’s going to be destroyed, but a complacent aristocracy.