It's The Beginning Of A New Age ?
Hopefully Rangers can now put the last couple of weeks behind them and push on. There has been a lot of speculation in the papers since the takeover, and I can't help wondering whether some of them (the Mail/Evening Standard in particular) still have issues with the club and/or the manager. I don't expect an immediate change of manager. However, there's an interesting interview with Gianni Paladini on this site, which is worth checking out if you're interested. It's not fair to completely steal the guy's thunder, he's gone to the effort of setting the site up, so check it out if you're interested. It does include some very pointed comments about players who have left the club.
Various loan targets have been mooted, the most exciting being that Scott Sinclair could be arriving from Chelsea after their League Cup tie when they're going to give him a runout. I saw Sinclair play for Plymouth against Barnet last year in the cup and he looked really good, scored a terrific goal. It seems to be difficult to bring in loanees from certain clubs who are trying to take the piss now we have some money, but there's a suggestion that we might bring in up to three young players from Arsenal. We'll have to wait and see.
Possibly a new beginning for England as well. I'm expecting the FA to return the £20 I laid England to qualify with at the weekend, with interest. Top bokking. It will be very interesting to see what McLaren does with Barry and Heskey once the "big guns" are fit again (pop guns more like in the case of Lampard). Gerrard did a great interview where, reading between the lines, he more or less said that he can't play with Lampard and Barry is a million times better. I get the impression that maybe McLaren has finally thought "Oh fuck this, whatever I do I get a bunch of crap off everybody. I'm just going to do whatever I like", which would be a big step forward. Hats off to Scotland while I'm at it too, that was a brilliant result for them, the awful thing for the fans is, they must be dreading fucking it up against Ukraine and Georgia (Northern Ireland style).
Update : The full Paladini interview has been reprinted here (with permission) if you don't want to sign up to the other site.
Various loan targets have been mooted, the most exciting being that Scott Sinclair could be arriving from Chelsea after their League Cup tie when they're going to give him a runout. I saw Sinclair play for Plymouth against Barnet last year in the cup and he looked really good, scored a terrific goal. It seems to be difficult to bring in loanees from certain clubs who are trying to take the piss now we have some money, but there's a suggestion that we might bring in up to three young players from Arsenal. We'll have to wait and see.
Possibly a new beginning for England as well. I'm expecting the FA to return the £20 I laid England to qualify with at the weekend, with interest. Top bokking. It will be very interesting to see what McLaren does with Barry and Heskey once the "big guns" are fit again (pop guns more like in the case of Lampard). Gerrard did a great interview where, reading between the lines, he more or less said that he can't play with Lampard and Barry is a million times better. I get the impression that maybe McLaren has finally thought "Oh fuck this, whatever I do I get a bunch of crap off everybody. I'm just going to do whatever I like", which would be a big step forward. Hats off to Scotland while I'm at it too, that was a brilliant result for them, the awful thing for the fans is, they must be dreading fucking it up against Ukraine and Georgia (Northern Ireland style).
Update : The full Paladini interview has been reprinted here (with permission) if you don't want to sign up to the other site.
posted by Andy_Ward @ 11:31 AM
3 Comments:
At 11:39 PM,
Anonymous said…
Have you heard which of our kids you may be after?
I suspect that Mark Randall may be one, a very useful midfield player can play central or wide. Very skilful and easy on the eye.
I would of thought others in the frame could be England youth internationals Kieran Gibbs, Henri Lansbury or Gavin Hoyte. Yes the latter is 'his' younger brother but fortunately all the early signs point to him being a far better prospect than his idiot brother.
Another could be Francisco Merida Perez, or Fran Merida as he is known. Star of the Spanish youth team and an amazing left foot. He seems to be a player of which we hold very high hopes. We actually 'nicked him' from Barca in much the same way...err loophole...that we got Cesc.
I suppose Lukasz Fabianski, our 3rd choice keeper might be in the frame too but I am still thinking (hoping?)that the German Dodgepot may be on his way in January. If that were the case he would be needed.
If you do sign a few of our kids I may be inclined to come and join you for a game or two.
Stevie Bennett
At 9:12 AM,
Anonymous said…
Hi Stevie,
Merida is one yes ; the other two were Armand Traore and a Norwegian centre-half, but we'll have to wait and see. Definitely not the keeper, that's the one position on the pitch where we're not going to be making changes, Lee Camp is the business.
I will probably be at the Sevilla game on Wednesday, let me know if you're going we could catch up beforehand.
Andy.
At 9:21 PM,
Anonymous said…
Hi Andy
The Norwegian would be Havard Nordtveit. We signed him for £2 million in the summer, beating off a host of clubs for his signature. I have not seen him play yet but I read a very glowing testimonial to him by Le Boss last week. Also, despite being 17, and only at the club for a month, he has been made reserve team captain. If you do get him I would have thought it would only be until January, given our dearth of central defenders...and Senderos. You can have HIM...please!
As for Armand Traore I would be amazed if we were to send him on loan. Although he is only 18, I consider him a very valuable member of our 1st team squad. As well as that, and I do not wish for you to take this the wrong way, if he was to go on loan I would certainly want it to be a Premiership club. I think he is way too good for the Championship to be honest.
If you do get him however you will have a very serious player. He is a superb athlete with a maturity way beyond his years and can play in a number of positions, although we use him primarily as a left back. A real star of the future and, in my opinion, every bit as good as Clichy was at the same age, if not better!
Won’t be there Wednesday but it should be a cracking game. Sevilla for me are one of the top 5 sides in Europe.
Stevie B
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