Tag Archives: She Wore

Spend / Net spend of top 7 clubs over last 5 years

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Was just doing a bit of research into the spend and net spend of the current top 7, thought I would share it with all.Spend

Few interesting points:

1) Manchester City have spent a hell of a money for just 1 league title. Infact, they have spent £80m more in 5 years than Arsenal have during the entire Premier League era.

2) Alex Ferguson spent his last 3 years at Manchester United spending the Cristiano Ronaldo money. Very shrewd. Moyes has spent 67.7m taking the team backwards,

3) Liverpool have a net spend similar to Manchester United, is 1 (potential) title really a success then?

4) Arsenal have pretty much broken even over the period, showing just how much we had to tighten our belt.

5) Spurs have had to sell to buy over the last 5 years as they plan the new stadium. Previous years, they have always had a commodity to sell (Bent, Modric, Van Der Vaart, Bale). Do they have the players to sell this summer to enable themselves to rebuild?

Just some thoughts really. Proper blog to come later.

Keenos

All figures taken from http://www.transferleague.co.uk/

 

The Arsenal – We can win all of our last 5 games.

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We kind of limped to this position we are in through a mix of bad injuries, lack of signings and a manager whose tactics these days can often amaze, but I do honestly feel the tide is turning and we can go on and finish this season on a high.

Hull – We travel to Hull on Sunday and whilst they are sitting in 13th they are still 4/5 points away from staying up this season. It’s clear the problem with them this season has been not enough goals and having Steve Bruce as a manager. in the Prem this season we have scored 25 more than them. When we played them at home back in December we had a much changed team due to starting a run of 4 games in 10 days and Hull were that bad even Bendtner scored. This has comfortable away win all over it.

Newcastle – They don’t like coming to ours almost as much as we don’t like going to theirs. Newcastle is one of the few clubs whose season is over, they wont get relegated, they wont get into the Spursday Cup next season. The players have nothing to play for, apart from pride and to try and stitch us up, they will do neither and roll over much the same way West Ham did last week. We had a 2nd half backs to wall 1-0 win at Newcastle, a game we finished with about 7 defenders on the pitch, George Graham would of enjoyed that.

WBA – Currently fighting relegation and rightly so after only winning 6 Prem games all season, only bottom placed Sunderland can match them on winning so few. The only thing keeping them out of the bottom 3 is draws, all 15 (fifteen) which must be a record (?) the next nearest is Stoke on 10 draws. They even managed to get a 1-1 draw when we played them earlier in the season. They will be fighting for their life’s, but will think a point is a good result, we will roll all over them at ours.

Norwich – Hopefully by the time this game comes up we have either secured the 4th place cup or Norwich have already been relegated and hopefully both. The last thing we need a week before the FA CUP Final is a battle the game before. If Norwich can still mathematically stay up and we have nothing to play for then it put’s Le Boss in a position were he will be heavily criticized if he plays anything but our best team. We smashed them at our place this season 4-1 with Wilshere scoring the goal of the season, hopefully this will be a nothing game for both clubs. With cup final places at stake maybe a few players will trying to impress that day.

FA CUP Final – Now I hate being over optimistic about any final our history is littered with cup upsets and losing finals to teams well below us, but it’s Hull and its Hull without Jelavic and Long who are cup tied. Hopefully by then we should have a fully firing Ramsey, Ozil, Ox and Wilshere and that will prove to be too much for them. This is the first season in a long time we have been able to win ugly, the first time in a long while that the side have showed real ‘Character’ and i’d take a winning ugly with character all day long to see us win the cup.

WHAT DID SHE WEAR ???

GC

wecandoit

 

 

The FA trying to destroy the magic of The FA Cup

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For a long time, the press have speculated that the magic of the FA Cup is dying. With dwindling attendances across the country, sides putting out weakened teams and it being low on the list for teams chasing titles, teams chasing Champions League spots, teams trying to avoid relegation and teams trying to win promotion to the Premier League, it certainly does not have the razzmatazz that it had in yesteryear.

The FA Cup is a victim of modern football. As teams chase money rather than success, it becomes more important to be in the Champions League, or in the Premier League, than win the FA Cup.

Fans, however, think different. Ask Portsmouth fans, would they rather be in the Premier League still, or be where they are – League Two – with an FA Cup win in recent years. Ask the same to Wigan fans, would they prefer to have stayed up last year, and lost the FA Cup Final, or get relegated but be winners? I think the answers are obvious. When it comes to the fans, the magic is still there. The dream is still alive. Which is why the behaviour of the FA shockens me.

Whilst clubs do not care too much for the FA Cup anymore, and the media see it as an inconvenience – hence their continual writing down of the FA Cup – the fans still love it. It is still the brilliant old competition it always has been. It is still silverware. A chance for a party on the streets. The FA seem to be doing their best to destroy their own competition with their behaviour around the FA Cup Final.

Kick-off Time

Saturday 3pm, that is when the FA Cup should kick off. This gives enough time in the morning for fans throughout the country to get to the game, whilst time after the game to get home. However, in 2012, the FA decided to change the kick-off time to 5pm. The reasoning behind, as always, was to satisfy TV companies, who felt that a 5pm kick-off time would garner more viewers, both in the UK and abroad.

This shows a blatant disregard for the fans who are important, those in the stadium. The FA Cup is possibly a 3 hour event. Normal time, extra time, penalties and the trophy ceremony. With the 5pm kick-off time, fans have got to be prepared to still be in the stadium up until 8pm. It can then take over an hour to get back to Wembley Station, back to Kings Cross, to catch a train home to where the fans live.

If you were looking at train times, you would be crazy to book anything earlier than 9pm. The last train out of Kings Cross back to Hull is 9.35pm. This leaves little time for anything after the game. Fans of Hull will have to rush back to the station. No pint after the game. No celebrating too long in the stadium if they win. Rather then the FA Cup being an event, the FA, in a chase for TV revenue, are ruining it for the travelling fans.

Even at the semi-final, the Wigan fan pubs were empty as Wigan fans had to rush home to ensure they got a train. This is not right. A 3pm gives everyone enough time to relax after a game, go to a pub for a beer or 6, have a bite to eat, and still get home before Match of the Day starts.

Allocation

A lot has already been made about the ticketing allocation. For clubs to only get 25,000 each, whilst 17,000 go’s to ‘Club Wembley’ members and the rest to ‘the footballing family’ means a little over half of the stadium will be from clubs of both teams.

The problem here is that the tickets for the ‘football family’ will likely end up in touts hands. Tickets are already been sold by ‘legal touts’ such as holiday companies for twice their face value. Whilst I understand that the FA wants to share the final, the fact is that the tickets that do not go direct to the clubs will end up in the hands of fans, at considerably higher than face value. The FA are basically supporting touting.

Pricing

Tell me what is wrong with this picture:

untitled

The FA are greedy. Whilst everyone agreed that the prices for the semi-final were reasonably priced, the prices for the final are not. I understand that it is a final, and prices will go up, but for them to increase by nearly 100% is disgraceful.

The FA are killing their own competition with greed. They have become part of the problem. Any romance still in the FA Cup is with the fans who go. It seems the FA want to erode this.

The FA, fuck you.

Keenos