EPL, Premiership, English Premier League

Torres began the season with an excellent start by scoring his first goal of the season in a 1-0 win over Sunderland. Defender Hyypia described the goal:
“It was a good finish from Fernando. I was just behind the shot and I could see exactly where it was going. It was a great strike and it gave the keeper no chance.”

After last seasons’ performance Torres can bask in confidence and a great chance to become the highest scoring player in the EPL. Especially since Ronaldo is injured and missing out on opportunities to score. Last season Torres scored 24 goals in EPL games and 6 in Champions League.

“None of us were surprised that Fernando scored in that way because we have seen him do it before in games and he also does it in training” said Hyypia. “It is great for us that we have that kind of player in our team, and he is right back in the groove.”

“Hopefully it won’t be my last opportunity but of course every year we have high hopes that we’ll be closer to the top. This year is the same. We have strengthened the team with good quality players in the summer and hopefully we will be stronger this season.”

Newcastle recently obtained Argentinian Coloccini (Check: Newcastle signs Argentinian Coloccini) as a central defender. He played in the first game of the season for Newcastle against Manchester United. Though United was wanting offensively with Ronaldo and Tevez out, it was sure to be a difficult game for Newcastle. Newcastle tied United 1-1 and proved that a solid defense could well repel the United attacks while they have a limited offense. “Yesterday [Sunday] was the first time they have played together and there are signs today that it could be quite a good partnership which may get even better” said Keegan (Newcastle manager).

“That could be our central defensive partnership for the next five years. They are both signed for that length of time, so now it is up to them. I have told Steven to watch and learn. I am sure he will because he has such a great attitude. He got a bad knock when we scored that would have seen a lot of players come off, but not Steven. If he does what we ask, he will make another step up and go from the Under-21s to where Coloccini is. The key is he wants to learn because some young players don’t.”

“Arsenal can today confirm that Togolese forward Emmanuel Adebayor has signed a new long-term contract with the club. Everyone at Arsenal looks forward to Emmanuel’s continued contribution to the club over the coming years.”

The contract, worth about €80,000 a week should last until 2012. Speculations were raised this summer as to whether Adebayor would stay at Arsenal. Both Barcelona and AC Milan were interested in obtaining him for around €35 million. Adebayor formerly played with Monaco and transferred in 2006. Adebayor is 24 years old and scored 30 goals last season.

“We have to get behind him and support him because he is a tremendous force and (is of) tremendous importance for the team - you want your own fans to be behind him. What happened in the transfer period did not always reflect his deep desire and there was manipulation from agents on both sides, but overall I am positive he will recover. Every player needs to feel wanted. I think he is settled in his own mind. He has given a lot in the first two games.”

The increasing diversity between the Top 4 Clubs and the rest of the EPL can be easily seen in the City of Manchester.

Manchester United just procured a new lucrative deal with one of the largest cellular companies in the Middle East, Saudi Telecom. The deal was worth approximately €10 million over 5 years. It allows Saudi Telecom to utilize the United logo in marketing for Saudi Arabia. Mobile devices will also have the option of streaming live news, highlights, and goals. This deal is about as great as it gets for a club team: United gets paid money, lots of money, to advertise for Manchester United. What a great way to obtain new fans in locations which are not exposed to the EPL. United also signed a strong 13 year deal in 2000 with Nike worth €300 million, and a 4 year €56 million deal with AIG signed in 2006.

Manchester City on the other hand, just borrowed around €30 million in future TV contract revenues. Why? City owner Thaksin Shinawatra, a Thai billionaire, is now seeking asylum in the UK (see related articles on this site). City thought that they would have about €800 million in available revenues from Thaksin but all his assets have been frozen. City managers have seen the recent string of defeats for City (UEFA Cup loss against FC Midtjylland) and decided that they needed to beef up their team.
What is interesting is that the every year each EPL team receives €45 million from the 3 year Premier League deal with TV networks (the 3 years deal started in 2007/2008 season and was worth €2.7 billion for the entire Premier League). The club may have even borrowed up to €2 million from a former City chairman (John Wardle).

EPL club teams aren’t the only ones changing how their finances are working. Sky, the corporation which has a monopoly over Premier League TV subscriptions in the UK, has increased its costs for annual subscriptions to €15,000 resulting in over 20% of pubs dropping their memberships.

With about 2 weeks left in the transfer season the amount of money spent on players seems to be much lower than last year. Last year about €570 million was spent on players; as of now €300 million has been spent. This could be caused by the consistent increase in player salaries: during the 2004/2005 season clubs spent a total of €785 million, to €1 billion during the 2007/2008 season. Reportedly, near 75% of EPL teams are establishing benchmarks for some members of first string teams to make sure they play up to standards.

Manchester City’s bid for Roque Santa Cruz has been rejected by Blackburn. The Paraguayuan International  scored 23 goals last season with the Rovers. He was signed by Rover’s manager Mark Hughes from Bayern Munchen for €3.5 million. Mark Hughes was then transferred to Manchester City after Sven-Goran Eriksson was fired. Reportedly he may have offered €12 million to lure Cruz to City. While managing for the Rovers, Hughes proved to be an astute judge of young players ability with several excellent acquisitions including David Bentley for about €500,000.

“A bid came in and it was immediately rejected. Manchester City officials have been advised that the player would not be for sale and we are very disappointed they have continued their interest.” Manchester City is having real problems with David Vassell, Benjani Mwaruwari, Valeri Bojinov, and Jo all out.

However he attempted to silence critics, “I think what the bid does show is that the club is in decent shape financially and that we were able to make a bid of that significance. Maybe the stories of the financial crisis flying around are not as substantiated as they should be.”

City have been expecting a huge influx of funds from owner Thaksin Shinawatra, unfortunately he is now seeking asylum in England after he was convicted of corruption in Thailand.

Luiz Felipe Scolari, the recently appointed Chelsea manager, has indicated that he has no plans to include Ukrainian striker Andriy Shevchenko in the starting line-up. Shevchenko has endured two miserable seasons at Chelsea since he was transferred from AC Milan. He was transferred while Jose Mourinho was still in charge.

Shevchenko was the second all time leading scorer for AC Milan. The 31 year old has won the Ballon D’or and is the 3rd highest scorer in European club competition; in 2004, he won the European Football Player of the Year. However, since he transferred to Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) he’s been struggling to perform and somehow has not clicked with the offense. In 2003 he was ranked third for FIFA World Player of the Year; by 2006 however, he was ranked 21st. Shevchenko began playing with the Dynamo Kiev under-14 team in 1990; he transferred to AC Milan in 1999 for $25 million and later transferred to Chelsea in 2006 for €30 million. Milan President Silvio Berlusconi has stated that he wishes to bring the Ukrainian Andriy Shevchenko back to Milan.

He recently played during a pre-season match (Railways Cup) against Locomotiv Moscow; he came on as a substitute, missed the deciding penalty shot and Chelsea lost. His recent disappointing performance will only enforce Scolari’s decision to not play him:

“I came here to this tournament to look at my team for the game against Portsmouth and I need to prepare my team for that game. If I have a chance to put three or four more players into the game, I will. If not, I will follow my idea for the game against Portsmouth. I’m not thinking about giving Shevchenko a game. If I need to put him or Franco Di Santo in the game, I will, but my idea is about Portsmouth. I know 75% of my team. Now, maybe 85%.”

Jo. Let’s extrapolate.  Manchester City has obtained a Brazilian player by name of Joao Alves de Assis Silva (though he goes by Jo). Hes played for the Corinthians and then for CSKA Moscow. He’s scored 44 goals in 77 matches, has won the Russian League and Couple Double in 2006, is left footed, ’s 21 years old and 6 foot 3 inches; he also has some tight celebratory dances. I’ve seen a few clips and he seems pretty good. City paid an undisclosed fee but did say the transfer fee was a ‘club record’ (reportedly over €19 million).

Jo said: “After I spoke to the manager (Hughes) I was very pleased. I was told Manchester City is a club going forward at the moment. We can go places, that is our objective. We thought about it and I decided to come to Manchester City for that reason. The club who showed interest officially was Valencia. I know from the press there were other clubs who showed interest.”

Whether he is good or not is to be seen but he may well bring some really interesting gameplay to City. I am more sure though, that one reason he decided to come to City was the promise that City’s owner (Thaksin Shinawatra) will be spending a lot more in the near future.
Joao Alves de Assis Silva

Joey Barton began his football career with Manchester City in 1997 by working through the youth team. In 2004 he was almost sacked when at the Club’s Christmas party he drunkenly put a cigar out in the eye of a trainee (Jamie Tandy). While in Thailand for one of the pre-season tours with City he got into an altercation with an Everton fan (then Captain Richard Dunne was injured in the fight) and Barton was sent home for the rest of the tour.

Maybe its his background: his brother Michael Barton and his cousin Phil Taylor are serving life sentences for murdering a black student (Anthony Walker) in a racially motivated attack where Walker ended up with an ax in his back. He has had conduct issues for most of his career and only one of them is humorous (In 2006 he dropped his pants and mooned a crowd full of Everton fans).

In March of 2007 he got into another drunk altercation with a taxi driver where he reportedly smashed the taxi drivers dashboard and was again arrested.

In may of 2007 Barton got into an argument with his teammate Ousmane Dabo. He ended up punching Dabo in the face until he was on the ground unconscious and bleeding and continued even further. Dabo had to go to the hospital for treatment and brough up charges against Barton. He has been on bail until July. While Barton thought that, “People are trying to unsettle me, but I’m happy to stay here.” it would not be so. City suspended him and it seemed as if he would be forced to leave. He was transferred to Newcastle for €5.8 million.

The defensive midfielder is 25 years old and is currently in jail serving a sentence for having beaten up a teenager last December.

Let’s check out some Joey Barton gameplay:

Joey Barton punch

Another street fight…

Portugese International Deco was recently informed by Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola that he was not a part of Barcelona’s plans and he cold leave. Deco is Chelsea’s newest acquisition since they acquired Jose Bosingwa (and Scolari’s first move as the new Chelsea manager). “It is good for me to be here and first of all I am very happy to be here” said Deco.

“I am sure I have come at the right time to do great things and be able to help Chelsea go back to the way it was and come back to being the first one, not only in England but also to win the Champions League that has been their dream for so long.”

Deco left Porto in 2004; but before he did, he helped Porto win domestic league titles, the Champions League, and the UEFA Cup (under Jose Mourinho). With Barcelona he won a Champions League Title against Arsenal in 2006 and won 2 League Championships. Unfortunately, during the 2007/2008 season he was hampered by injuries and made only 14 starting appearances.

While questions could be raised about the signing (since Deco is 31 years old), I believe that with his record and consistency he will play well. The contract is for 2 years but may continued at that point. The signing also raises speculation about Frank Lampard who could leave Chelsea perhaps for Inter Milan.

“The Premier League is a great league and it is getting better and you can see that with the Champions League final, where you had two English teams.I t is great that we have so many great players here at Chelsea and it is great that there is the competition which is healthy for everybody and this just makes the team better. To have great players in any position of the club just enhances the club. I know it is a new challenge but I am looking forward to it.”

Germany versus Spain

Every four years the Euro Cup unveils new players with great potential; this year it was no different. The last Euro Cup we saw players such as young Cristiano Ronaldo and Schweinsteiger show off their abilities. The pride and responsibility that players feel while playing in the Euro Cup can often bring out the best in a player. This year we saw that certain countries have untapped talent. For example, Russia has multiple, athletic midfielders with the ability to rip shots from far off. Some of Turkeys’ striker have great technical ability. We can probably expect some new players to appear in the EPL after this Euro Cup. Not only that, but we’ve also seen how a manager can truly improve a team (such as Gus Hiddink).

We’ve also seen that Ballack has become the Captain that everyone expected of him pushing his team forward. He dominates the midfield using his size; I wonder if he could begin to wear Chelsea’s captains band more often. Schweinsteiger is formidable at this point dominating the wing; Sergio Ramos and Puyol are incredibly solid as defenders.

While Germany has the advantage in terms of how many times they’ve been in the Euro Cup finals, Spain has Torres and Guiza, two great strikers. I think that the Final will be a great game; my inclination is to say that Germany will win, possibly off of set plays like corners. Germany may try to use their height and phyical ability to overpower the Spaniards in their box. Only time will tell though.