Crouch moves to Spurs

Peter Crouch has completed his move away from the south coast side Portsmouth, following his old manger Harry Redknapp to Tottenham Hotspurs. Although the full reports are still coming in the fee is believed to be around the £10-12 Million mark.

Its not a bad signing by Spurs, they do not have a player like him so he will defiantly add something different to the squad. It probably does mean that Huntelaar will not be heading to this North London club, Maybe the other one…

Finally this does leave poppy incredibly short up front: leaving just Nugent and Kanu. (poppy squad)

Summer Transfers

So the summer bazaar has been open for a few weeks, its been anything but quiet. So I’ve decided to summarise what has happened so far and try and predict what may happen in the coming weeks.

Cristino Ronaldo

So lets start of with the biggest move in history: Ronaldo decided to move from Manchester United to Real Madrid for  €80 Mill, that’s a lot of money even for Man U. They would be stupid not to sell him for that price especially, for someone who obviously did not want to stay. I have to say next seasons line-up for Real Madrid looks very scary, imagine playing against Kaka & Ronaldo!! I would not want to be a full back in La liga right now. (Although I would never say no…)

Teves, Adebayor, Santa Cruz, Barry.. More??

So on the blue side of Manchester: they continuing to spend STUPID amounts of money… Thinking that if they send Billions and pay ridiculous Wages they could become a world class team…wait a minute we have been here before, Oh yeah Chelski. I guess Man City would like to emulate the success that Chelsea have had, they have already signed a number of good signings. However I do wonder what will happened to all the other crap not so good players. I do get a sense of deja vu here.. I reckon they will sign a defender (not Terry, Toure or Lescottt).

Eto’o <–> Ibrahimovic

Barcalona have decided to let go of there prolific striker Eto’o, the Cameroon international has decided to join Inter Milan as part of an exchange deal for Ibrahimovic (+30 mill). Inter are getting a very good deal, they are getting an awesome striker as well as €30 Milll. Also the papers believe that Touchline Pundit favourite Hleb (not!) will also be going on loan to Inter. This is an interesting signing by the Catalonia side, not sure how they will line up next season but I will be interesting.

Owen

Bargain of the century, I have to say this is very good busy by Sir Alex! He has picked up a very good striker for absolutely nothing. He may be injury prone but he has always proved that he an eye for a goal, if Sir Alex and his team can keep him fit I think Owen will score at least 15 goals..(I may put some money on this)

Right, that’s enough for now. Will be back soon with more rumors and any signings…

Midnight Deals!

As most of you will know at midnight tonight the transfer window will close FOREVER (okay okay until January). Over the years there have been a number of last minute (dodgy) transfers. I reckon this year will be the same again!

So here is what I think may happen.. this list will update during the day:

So far today:

Ive move the page tohere

Nadir Belhadj [Lens - Portsmouth] Loan (WHO?)
Vedran Corluka [Manchester City - Tottenham] £8.5m (A good Signing)
Blerim Dzemaili [Bolton - Torino] Loan (Errmm…)
Vitor Flora [Botafogo - Liverpool] Free (Youngster)
Omar Garcia [Athletic Bilbao - Rotherham] Free (Errmm…)
Ignacio Gonzalez [Valencia - Newcastle] Loan (This is an interesting one)
Karleigh Osborne [Brentford - Oxford Utd] Loan (Errmm.. )
Roman Pavlyuchenko [Spartak Moscow - Tottenham] £13.8m (Awesome signing and they paid a reasonable fee too)
“Data Courtesy of BBC”

WTF Berbatov to Manchester City, now that would be a kick in the teeth!

Arsenal: The will sign a central midfielder and I have a funny feeling that Wenger might try his luck with Owen (only one year left on his contract)

Man Utd: Striker, Striker, Striker! Can they please hurry up and sign him (Berbatov) already!

Liverpool: Last minute panic buy for a winger (oh and the sale of Pennant)

Chelsea: Nothing, Robinho will not be signing for them. I reckon if this one was going to go through it would have happened last week.

Places to keep an eye on are BBC Sky Sports News Now Yahoo! Eurosports

Crouch To Pompey!

Yes, that’s right… the walking lamppost is rejoining his former club for a fee of about £11m. I think Crouchy’s made a great move as he will get first team football (possibly providing a reason for an England call-up). However, the question must be asked of the manager. Harry Redknapp has sold Crouch twice – once at Portsmouth when Redknapp was Director of Football and the second time at Southampton so why has he bought back the skinny giant?

It’s hard to answer that question as we’ve seen so little of Peter Crouch recently but we know he’ll link up play with his good ball control and will probably partner former Tottenham striker Jermaine Defoe. That brings about another question: where does this leave Kanu? Well he is getting slightly old now but still has great ability as he does not rely on pace.

Crouch represented Liverpool a surprising 127 times in his three seasons at the club but is now overshadowed (not literally) by Fernando Torres who scored more in his first season at the club that Crouch did in the last two. Although I’m not a big fan, Dirk Kuyt has also made some impact on the team along with Andriy Voronin. But for Liverpool fans, lets hope that Gerrard is played off of Torres.

Let’s face it. Crouch isn’t worth £11m so Rafa has certainly struck a deal but will it come to haunt him? Will Crouch prove his worth to Pompey and England in the coming season?

Leave your thoughts!

Goodbye – Adebayor, Lampard, Hleb and Ronaldo?

I’m probably jumping the gun here, but I wanted to talk about a number of players that look likely to leave the English Premiership. All the these players have made some sort of impact last season. So how much of a gap will these players leave? Will the premiership be the same without them? Will the respective clubs be able to replace these players? Or will they struggle in the coming season?

Hleb - it all started with an innocent excursion in Milan with the Inter representative, while deciding what flavour of Italian gelato to have, the Italian journalist put two and two together and quickly deduced that this meeting was more then a social excursion. Hleb has amazing ball control, my colleague Ash-sta rates him extremely highly. His ability on the ball, his passing and movement is awesome, he is a typical Wenger player, who loves to pass. However his goal return is shocking!

In recent weeks Hleb has also since been linked with a move to Barcelona. Personally, I don’t see him as a traditional Jose Mourinho player so I reckon he’s off to the Spanish giants. The question remains… will Arsenal miss him? They have Walcott, Rosicky, Nasri (according to everyone) and Eboue (does he really count)? They have plenty of cover, however there are questions marks over these players, especially over fitness and ability (Eboue).

Lampard – After a difficult season both personally and professionally, Lampard looks set to join his old manager at Inter. J-lee mentioned with the bargain signing of Deco. This one is defiantly going to happen. Looks like J-lee’s post has pretty much covered this one:

Deco’s arrival however seems to signify Frank Lampard’s exit from Stamford Bridge, meaning both he (Deco) and Michael Ballack must add to the goal tally.

Adebayor – Another Arsenal player linked with Barcelona! The 30+ goal’s he scored last season has gone to his head and a number of Arsenal fans are wondering if Mr Wenger should cash in ‘Greedy Adebayor‘. Its always hard to tell what Wenger is thinking, so if Adebayor goes, Arsenal will need to sign a new striker to replace him. Villa, Santa Cruz and Arshavin have all been mentioned as possible replacements for the Big Togoan. Any of these would be a great replacement but he will need replacing!

Finally Cristiano Ronaldo – The first player to win all three player of the year awards in England, there is no doubt he will be (or is) world player of year. But is the Portuguese starlet destined for Real Madrid? During the Euro 2008 all reports suggested that he has already agreed personal terms, and that all that was required is for both clubs to decide a price! Read all about the saga here. Out of all the players mentioned in this post I believe if Ronaldo was to leave he will be the most missed. A player who is regarded by most if not all as the best player in the world is no small title. Who will score the goals? Who will Sir Alex look to when a game needs changing? Did I mentioned who will score the goals?

Chelsea’s Hunt for the Title

After recently signing Deco, Chelsea look a strong side for next seasons Premiership as well as Champions League. The play-maker will bring a lot to the team with both technical ability and experience as he still has about four years left in him. The Portuguese midfielder only cost the club £8m which seems like a bargain especially after Man Utd payed £18m for Michael Carrick. Deco’s arrival however seems to signify Frank Lampard’s exit from Stamford Bridge, meaning both he (Deco) and Michael Ballack must add to the goal tally.

All eyes now turn to Scolari who has been given £250m to spend on transfers (yes you read it right, two hundred and fifty million pounds). So where does he look next? With Drogba remaining very quiet, it seems as though he will stay at the club. Whether Scolari would like to replace Hernan Crespo after he was released is another matter.

Robinho reportedly remains the number one target and the Brazillian was recently classed ‘as good as Cristiano Ronaldo’ by his agent. You are probaly aware that the statement is complete nonsense as I would like to see Robinho score 42 goals in a season playing in the Spanish league let alone Premier league.

There’s no doubt that Roman Abramovich is attempting to buy all the trophies next season when to be honest, Scolari does not need to spend that much money on new players. I reckon he’ll just buy big named players rather than players who will play in a team and wouldn’t be surprised if next season has a similar outcome to lasts.