Which means that at the very least Man U need a new midfield. If they go and buy one then they will be sticking another two fingers up at any long term chance of financial survival, and against the Uefa financial rules. Maybe they reckon that with the near collapse of Fifa through the oft predicted (on this site at least) scandal of their operations, Uefa will be the next to topple, and the rules will never come in. If they don’t then that will be the surest of signs that the financial collapse (so long expected at Man U) is here. (Unless of course he goes out and replaces not the midfield but other Man U players with the money, in which case that will herald the mental collapse of Sir Alex F Word.)
Of course it is not only Man U and Barca that have financial issues. Poor old Tottenham are a trifle stuffed. The Redknapp, currently awaiting trial on fraud charges, has to sell and sell and sell again – not something that comes easy to a man for whom the last-second deal is the natural habitat.
Gomes, Pavlyuchenko, Defoe, Alnwick, Hutton, Naughton, Bassong, poor sad little David Bentley, Jenas, Palacios, Kranjcar, O’Hara, dos Santos, Keane, Cudicini, Woodgate… roll roll roll right up and take your choice.
But there are problems. Who among the Totties wants to take a pay cut? Who wants to buy a player on £60,000 a week who is clearly only worth a fraction of that? The Tinies might be stuck with more players than they can squeeze into their 25 – and that’s a problem facing all the EPL clubs that don’t have a large number of under 21s who can join the squad but not count. Too many players, all with contracts, all being paid far too much. Pressure mounts.
Poor old Bentley cost £15m. So did Defoe. What is each worth today? Pavlyuchenko, cost £13.8m from Spartak Moscow, Keane £12m, Palacios, £12m, Hutton £9m, £8m = Bassong and £7.8m for Gomes.
This looks like a loss making situation which combined with the lack of Champs League money will make the Totts next set of figures rather sad – and could even take them into the league of Manchester U and Barca.
My point here is that these players aren’t worth much any more, and Tottenham’s income is in serious decline – just when they are trying to talk up themselves so they can bugger off to East London. Barca strut the world stage, but nothing much has been done to sort out their finances as far as I can see, and Man U’s finances are utterly stuck because the Glazers need the money while they need some new players. Eventually something has to go bang.
To round it off Chelsea need a new manager which then means new players, while Man City will probably buy and buy some more to ensure they don’t do a Tot and slip out the top four. What that means is that by and large the top clubs have stuck two fingers up to Uefa and its financial arrangements. Shame, I had some hopes for that.
It also doesn’t bode well for Liverpool, who must wonder just how they a) sort out their horrible little stadium and b) boost the team to get themselves into the Champs league again. They don’t have to worry about financial fair play since they are not in the champs league, but like the totts the rebuilding has to be financed somehow.
So, here’s a prediction for next season. Something is going to explode. Of course it might be me, but it could be something of some significance in football.
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The overall performance of each individual ref this season – and is the Untold ref analysis biased?
The 10% bias – how refs fix the odds against Arsenal, and who is to blame.
Half the penalties in Arsenal games were wrongly given this season!
Untold Arsenal and Arsenal History on Twitter @UntoldArsenal
Untold Arsenal on Facebook here
History of Arsenal: a continuing review of Wenger’s reign, season by season.
Making the Arsenal - the book of Arsenal death and rebirth
It,s rather plain to see, Man .United couldn,t beat Barcelona at
Wembley because old red nose wasn,t able to influence the non -En
glish referee or visit his change room during half time with we
know what,an envelope ?
Like one of our players said yesterday when talking about the fact that almost none of us had actually looked at the CL final or just seen bits and pieces : the good thing was that MU lost the final, the bad thing was that Barcelona won the final.
I really think that the way Barcelona beated us and the way they have been behaving against Arsenal the last year(s) has cost them a lot of friends.
@Samuel:
I know I’m late on this thread, so I don’t know if anyone is actually going to read whay I say here. But if you think that ManU didn’t get favoritism from the ref in that match, you can’t have watched it. Giggs was a foot offside in the one goal they scored, and the entire ManU team was essentially allowed to play rugby for the entire match and got away with it almost entirely.
The favoritism towards ManU in that match was consistent w/ what we’ve seen in the PL this season. It’s just that Barcelona was good enough to win anyway.
@Walter:
As I mentioned above, I don’t know if you’re still checking this, but I would like to offer an alternative view of the Barca victory over ManU that’s a little bit more positive towards Arsenal.
First, as I mentioned above, I thought that the Ref was horribly biased in favor of ManU in a manner that’s consistent w/ some of the things you’ve detailed on this blog. Barca just played well enough that they beat ManU along w/ their 12th man (the ref). If you look at that from Arsenal’s perspective, it should give some perspective on what Arsenal’s capable of despite the ref bias. If you disagree w/ me about the ref’s performance, I would be interested to know why…
Secondly, the fact that ManU was thrashed so completely by Barca reflects very highly on Arsenal. In fact, even in the anti-Arsenal media, some of them have been forced to acknowledge how Arsenal was the only Club that really gave Barca difficulty this season on their road to the CL final. This is consistent w/ what I’ve been saying all along, which is that Arsenal is loads better than ManU, and the only club in the world that actually competes w/ Barca in terms of footballing skill.
In other words, if you didn’t even watch the match, it might be worth taking a look at it on replay. Compared to the Arsenal match, I’d really like for Arsenal fans to see an example of Barca playing with nothing but the true class that they usually display week in and week out on the pitch, and which was on full display against ManU. Especially compared to the rugby tactics that ManU employed.
Finally, I’m truly sorry that the relationship between Arsenal and Barca has suffered so badly in the last year. As a fan of both clubs, it is extremely difficult for me, and I sincerely hope that it is something that will improve over time. In the end, I think that the two Clubs are ultimately philosophical allies. I also think that if more Arsenal fans actually watched and followed Barca on a regular basis (instead of just looking at the bad things, or the things that are highlighted in the media as adverse to Arsenal), I think that that fact would become much more apparent than it is now.
In the end, a house united is always stronger than a house divided, and I think it would ultimately improve the positions of both Arsenal and Barca to be allies rather than enemies. Maybe Arsenal allowing Barca to use their training grounds in the run up to the final is a sign of things to come…I can only hope so.
Whatever happens, and for whatever it’s worth, I as a Barca fan would like to personally apologize to Arsenal and it’s fans for any bad behavior by Barca in the last year that has tarnished the relationships between the two clubs.
As I’ve said before, I think that a lot of it has been EXTREMELY over-dramatized by the media, to the point that it is nothing more than a rank fabrication, in substance. However, I would never claim that Barca has been completely innocent, and if I could force Barca management to apologize for certain things, I certainly would. But I can’t.
In return for my apology, I can only ask that you consider giving Barca a second chance going forward, and perhaps take a more critical eye to the media coverage in relation to some of the things that have so offended you.
I’ll leave you w/ a couple of articles about Arsenal (and transfer stuff as well) written from the persepective of Barcelona fans. I hope that this will show you that the Barcelona fanbase, at least, tends to respect Arsenal a lot more than Arsenal fans tend to respect Barcelona. Obviously, I don’t expect any of this to completely change your opinions, but it is always educational to look at things from the other perspective, I think…
Barcelona and Arsenal – Brothers in the Football World?
http://www.barcelonafootballblog.com/7141/barcelona-arsenal-brothers-football-world/
On journalistic integrity, transfer season and Barcelona
http://www.barcelonafootballblog.com/3996/journalistic-integrity-transfer-season-barcelona-2/