Saturday, August 09, 2008
Close season is almost over The Community Shield is in 36 hours, the EPL opens in another week. Who made the most of the transfer window? Will the Top 4 do anything but play musical chairs? Scolari has come to Chelsea, kept Lampard and Drogba (so far) and wants Robinho. SAF has not lost Lady Boy and not bought Berbatov. Arsenal bought teen heartthrob Aaron Ramsey and Samir Nasri. Liverpool got Keane, Dossena, Degen and Ngog.
TV Note: Fox Soccer Channel has Everton-Blackburn, Sunderland-Liverpool and West Ham-Wigan on opening day and. presumably, Aston Villa-Man City on Sunday.
My Highlights of the changes
Tottenham has made the boldest money moves and Juande Ramos will surely be under pressure to do better than last season's water treading. He cleaned house, getting a big chunk of LFC money for Robbie Keane (though not the rumored $70M+ for Berbetov) and dumped Pascal Chimbonda, Paul Robinson, Teemu Tainio, Steed Malbranque and Anthony Gardner, all players who logged significant minutes for them over the last few years.
In the positive column, the team has bought a lot of quality: John Bostock, Heurelho Gomes, Luka Modric, Giovani dos Santos and David Bentley. Defense and offense upgrades for sure, but apparently they will not get ultra-hot Russian playmaker Andrei Arshavin after his Moscow masters refused to compromise on price.
At Stamford Bridge Scolari also brought some of his Portuguese players, Bosingwa and Deco. Maybe he doesn't need to learn English after all, with all the Portuguese and Brazilians on the squad. The loss of Claude Makelele may not hit them as hard as it did Real Madrid but it will hit them.
ManUtd does have hot younger striker Frazier Campbell. Not a single purchase, though they did try to get Berbetov and, allegedly, Samuel Etoo, who is still available for the right price.
Wenger, I wonder if he's getting ready to leave the Emirates after this year. He sold Gilberto, Hleb and Flamini and may yet lose his big goalscorer Emmanuel Adebayor to Barca or Real Madrid. He lost the Bentley deal, which is a reason for my speculation on his future.
Benitez sold Robo-Crouch, my boy Riise, got a cut price for Scott Carson and waved bye to Harry 'What will I injure next?' Kewell. On odd numbered days a deal with Aston Villa for Gareth Barry is still on, on evens he's staying put.
Harry Redknapp took Crouch to pair with Jermaine Defoe, talk about opposites, and saw his best midfielder, Muntari, sold to Inter. Harry seems to get more out a team than other managers would, so who knows what Portsmouth will do this year.
Blackburn made what is at least a courageous choice in hiring Paul Ince to be their manager. I don't think Robbie Fowler is going to replace David Bentley and while Paul Robinson can probably still get the job done I do not see him as an upgrade from Brad Friedel.
Which they needed because Mark Hughes took the money and moved to City of Manchester Stadium. Hughes will have a very strong front line after getting Jo from CSKA Moscow but may have trouble after losing out on Ronaldinho to AC Milan.
This is probably the do or die year for Martin O'Neil at Villa, get to Europe or bring home the FA Cup or be gone, and I think he will be gone. He got Friedel to mentor and give Brad Guzan some runway, and young American keepers tend to do well in their first EPL season. Nickey Shorey was a value for the money acquisition and Curtis Davies improves on Patrik Berger. They will miss Luke Moore and Steve Sidwell has to re-establish himself after a year on the bench at Chelsea.
Despite strong, just outside the top four performances year after year, Everton's David Moyes is the bookies favorite to be the first manager on the chop. Selling Andy Johnson and not making a single purchase will not help his cause, unless he can turn the AJ money into a good attacking player. Still, I see O'Neill going before Moyes.
Okay, pile on and let me know how wrong I am.
