I agree, except that even at 16million he'd be cheap for a class striker, considering the silly money changing hands these days.

I can't believe L*******L let him go for such a small amount.

Liverpool had to let him go for £8million plus Nunez, so about £8.1million, because he was into the last year of his contract and £8million suited them better than letting him walk for free at the end of the season.

Plus it was pretty obvious Benitez prefers big boys up front, like our friend Peter.

what's with all the chelsea hateing, i was really glad they won the premiership, just because i wanted abramovich to get something back for all the money he put into it, and for that exact reason i hope they win the champions league, and it also seemed to me they were buying players that were not superstars ( like real did ) and all of them turned out to be class players....

ok seeing as i despise chelsea with an unparalleled passion- im going to reply with vigour to your post adidasss. firstly- buying players that arent superstars.......eh?
crespo- one of the top strikers in serie A- cost lazio £32 million to buy him from parma. superstar? i think so
drogba- top striker in france- £24 million shelled out to buy him. (oh yeah, top scorer in uefa cup aswell)
shaun wright-phillips- has been the talk of english football for the last year, the "english pele" has ive heard him described. £21 million.
robben the best young talent in european football at PSV- real madrid, barcelona, inter, juventus, arsenal nd man united all wanted him before chelsea got him.
mackelele real madrids vieria- a main stay and key fixture in "los galacticos". £16 million for a defensive midefielder kinda suggests hes not merely a star.

i wont go on at that. but why do i hate chelsea? hmm, well first of all they use their financial might to bully smaller clubs into selling their best talent- west ham for example- robbed of their stars. they have no respect for the rules and regulations of the league and just waltz around believing a cheque will get em anywhere. what they did with ashley cole, rio ferdinand and frank arnesen is just arrogant, conceited and disgraceful.
peter kenyon is also an arrogant Dr Evil wannabe or knows sweet FA about football and just wants to make himself rich and succesful- "the title race is going to a close battle between a group of one"- bit disrespectful dont you think?
before abramovich swept into stamford bridge with £8 billion chelsea were the newcastle of the premiership- struggling to break the top 4 and languishing in the uefa cup. they were on a level pegging with everybody else and simply were not good enough. now of course they have an unlimited transfer budget they can do what they want cant they! knicking all the best footballing talent because they can offer £10 million more than say united or arsenal. they take all the best talent from the lower teams and we're forced to feed on the scraps- all because of one bloody russian. i truely believe they hve bought the title and to the people that say "oh yeah its alright getting the players- but you need to make the team work"...cant be too difficult making a team full of the worlds best players worth over £190 million collectively to work can it?! **** even i could do it.

Cisse scored more goals for Auxerre in the French league that season.

Wright-Phillips isn't even a starting international, has never played Champions League football and has barelt registered any sort of impact abroad apart from for looking a bit like Gary Coleman.

Same as Arsenal, United, Liverpool, Real Madrid, Barca, Milan, Juve, Bayern etc etc etc.

They qualified for the Champions League the season before Abramovich turned up and even earlier than that they had gone further in the competition than Arsenal had ever managed to go.

Inter Milan have spent nearly half a billion in the last decade. Haven't come close to winning Serie A. It takes a lot more than money to be successful. You're just coming across as a jealous Arsenal fan because there's another team joined in the United-Arsenal two horse race, IMO.

look at Real.....nuff said....and i'm glad Chelsea have made the Premiership a bit more interesting, now it wont be the same old tired battle between Arsenal and Man. united and they've raised the bar for other clubs, now don't tell me other clubs can't make the same buys, as far as i know Man. united is STILL the richest club in the world, it's not Chelsea's fault they were buying shyte players.....( or at least not as good as the ones Chelsea was buying ), and you cannot deny the fact that Mourinho IS the best football coach in the world, another football coach was smart to notice that every single player that has trained under Mourinho has improved on his game supstantially.....GOOOOO CHELSEAAAAAA!!!!!!!AAAAAARGHHHHHHHH!!!!

chelsea have spent over a quarter of a billion in 3 bloody years!
you'd have to be an absolute mug to not have any success with £50+ million being spent on new players each year.
and league wise before mr abramovich came along chelsea hadnt got near the title for over 10 years.

*cough*Leeds*cough*

So you're upset because they went from third to first quickly? They did it by buying in, exactly the same way Arsenal win the league. Both sides have as many home-grown youngsters playing for them, so as far as I can see they're as bad as one another.

except for the fact arsenal spend on average 5-10 million every pre season while chelsea spend around 50-60 million. not much of a difference i know..

The only reason Arsenal are relying so much on home grown talent is because they`ve no money because of the stadium they`re building.

And why are they building a new bigger stadium ?
To create more revenue to have more money to spend.

YES exactly- their doing it from their own expenses and they do not have some russian bloke there to slip them a check for £30 million every time they want a player. a new stadium to chelsea would be loose change for abramovich- yet we have to cut our transfer budget to a pittance just to afford it. can you not see how chelsea have an automatic (and unfair) advantage over us and united even before we get on the pitch!!!

(yes i am embittered)

i think you would be singing a different tune if abramovich chose(sp?) to buy arsenal...

Things could be worse for you Stu.

I remember a few years back when you had an ageing squad , Bruce Rioch in charge & your big summer signing was a 3 years past his best David Platt.

If I remember correctly you spent most of the first half of the season in the bottom half of the league & managed to crawl up to 8th.

But Arsenal have one home grown player, same as Chelsea. And I do find it difficult to have any sympathy with a side who whines that they can't compete in the transfer market when they've spent £16m on a twenty year old kid.

Well when I say home grown I use the term loosely.

I mean all the kids Wenger bought from across europe for little or next to nothing.

That's mainly down to him tapping them up or just outright stealing them in some cases though.

Kinda similar to what they got miffed at Chelsea for doing with Ashley Cole. Some of Arsenal's recent transfer activity, Flamini, Fabregas, some 16 year old from Monaco who's name escapes me, Baptista, Edu, has been incredibly shady.

Well they can probably get away with it better what with David Dein in the FA & everything

Indeed. And make sure they get convenient home games after Champions League weeks. Although one of those is against the mighty Birmingham City, so it looks like D.D. has dropped a bollock on that one. Possibly.

Was having a chat with a few mates talking about the most underrated players in the Premiership , Kenny Cunningham`s name cropped up a few times.

You think?

Always does the simple things, his reading of the game is exemplary. I don't recall ever seeing a striker give him the run around at St Andrews apart from one game where little Zola was just incredible.

Fantastic defender. Bargain at twice the price we paid for him.

Oh happy day!

United 3 Debrecen 0
Job done, 2nd leg is now a formality.

Ferdinand signs a new contract...finally!

And whats this I hear adidasss...Debrecen slaughtered your beloved Hajduk 8 - 0 on aggregate...you were'nt kidding about the state of Croatian football were you!!! :)

no i wasn't.....what can i say, we're a small country, anyone who was of any worth has long left the national league....

at the moment thats.......robert kovac

You were playing a small Hungarian team who have never qualified for the champions league in their history , not bloody Brasil.

well i don't know, this is our national squad and where they play:
Tomislav Butina (Club Brugge), Stipe Pletikosa (Shakhtar Donetsk), Joey Didulica (Austria Vienna); Robert Kovac (Juventus), Josip Simunic (Hertha Berlin), Igor Tudor (Juventus), Stjepan Tomas (Galatasaray), Mario Tokic (Austria Vienna), Darijo Srna (Shakhtar Donetsk), Anthony Seric (Panathinaikos), Dario Simic (AC Milan); Jurica Vranjes (Stuttgart), Marko Babic (Bayer Leverkusen), Niko Kovac (Hertha Berlin), Ivan Leko (Club Brugge), Niko Kranjcar (Hajduk Split), Jerko Leko (Dynamo Kiev), Ivan Bosnjak (Dinamo Zagreb); Ivan Klasnic (Werder Bremen), Dado Prso (Rangers), Bosko Balaban (Club Brugge), Eduardo Alves da Silva (Dinamo Zagreb), Ivica Olic (CSKA Moscow).
i think only 3 of the 21 play in the national league....

im sorry, i'll correct my previous statement- olic aint a bad player- shame he's in the russian league.

that's funny you said that, i never thought he could play, he can run fast, that's it, he can't dribble to save his life, he looses the ball in 2 seconds, our best striker is by far prso, the ball sticks to his feet ,and Klasnic ain't too bad either, when he plays for Hertha, he plays like s-hit in the national squad....

olic is the only player you have who has the ability to play off defenders shoulders with his pace, and he aint a bad finisher. prso scored 4 goals in the champions league once- in my opinion he aint anything special.

I remember actually seeing him in the flesh play for Villa. He was utterly woeful.

Jerko Leko is a decent player though, and Klasnic looked good in last season's CL, see how he does this season or whether he's a one season wonder.

balaban is such a laughable caracter, i think he may be the dumbest person that ever existed or played football, but hey, who needs brains when you have a supermodel wife and a couple of milions in the bank.....

i thought england had rugby?

We used to, but after winning the world cup we've become utter crap, so we're all back to loving football again.

We have cricket now

Oh look Micheal Vaughn just got his century.

I wish there were Australians here ,

Bin Dippers 0 United 2

scorers;Rooney,Ruud.

Great start to the season for the reds!
Actually thought United would find it harder going at Goodison Pk. given Evershite's performances last season.

By the way, who supports who on here?

Franscar(Birmingham City)
LedZepStu(Arse)
Adidasss(Hajduk Split)
Urban ?

Swindon Town (Don`t ask ;))

Just got our first win of the season against Forest :D

What would you give now, for the return of the glory days at the County Ground, under Glenn (I am God) Hoddle?

So what are Swindon's chances of promotion this season Urban...

Yes please

:laughing:

Since we got to the play offs the season before last (we were knocked out by Brighton by a goal in the last minute of extra time :mad: )we`ve lost our 5 best players. We had James Milner on a 6 month loan who went when Leeds sold him to Newcastle , our top scorer Tommy Mooney fell out with the manager & went to Oxford on a free. This season we`ve lost 2 players to higher league teams , Godlike Sammy Parkin is at Ipswich & Sammy Igoe went to Millwall , we also lost our best Midfielder , Grant Smith to Bristol City.

So basically we`re in the ****. Although we do have some good young players coming through i`m told and we do still have Rhys Evens the England under 21 keeper.

A 0-0 draw with Fulham that could quite easily have been a defeat. Wow.

God (or should I say Hod) the 2-1 win at home v Forest sounds like a bleeding miracle!! :)