IgPig

Steve Finnan was poor in his first season, and Rafa considered selling him. Not to raise money as he wouldn't have got more than £2M and would have had to replace him or at the very least provide cover for Josemi . Don't buy that argument. Its not a slight on Finnan, he's a good player who started badly. Point is its possible to turn things around after a poor start. Hopefully Pennant can do the same.

....who was close to being sold to Spurs shortly after Rafa arrived.

I think so too, Finnan was crap for ages too wasn't he.....

Its good to aim high.

He's been sold....do keep up.

Or he wanted the best deal from the club? I know which I think is the right answer. He's been a very good chairman, backed the managers as much as possible. The one criticism I can think of is he sometimes has been too attached to the methods of the past. I don't begrudge him getting full value for his shares.

Its £8 per match. At least in England it is anyway.

I think it comes back to the point about what they could get out of the club, the main thing always suggested is individual TV rights for clubs. Not suggesting that we're so rich now that we should have our own league

Would the FA rather have no league, one with Bolton playing Watford every week, or a shiny nice new one? Presumably they'd stand to lose just as much without the likes of us, the mancs etc. I can see it happening at some point with the elite teams of the premier league forming a mini G14

So if the top 10/12 English clubs got together and said to the rest of the premier league, we're off to form our own super duper league you can either stay here & become less than worthless or come too and be a bit better off, what would they do? Genuine question.

People are doing so, in the thread where its being discussed, in another thread.

One of the books (Ballague or the biography) said Momo and Essien were the replacements being looked at if Gerrard went (1st time obviously).

I am pretty sure I saw something on TLW a while back from Dave Usher where he said Rafa had told one of the other players/someone he knows that he thought Torres was a good player but the talent was not equal to the money being asked for him. Prefer Villa myself. This thread is funny.

Isn't this the point where you usually say Rafa is a good coach but............?

Xabi, Momo, Reina, Crouch, Kuyt, Garcia and Agger may disagree.

I much prefer working than starving to death.

Because that's a valid comparison........

I would assume the transfer isn't able to be completed until 1/1 and he is still on loan.

Has anyone said "Please let this be true", yet?

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There's other speculation on TLW that he likes the clubs a little too much.

It'd not have been too many more, if any. Rafa evidently favours Zenden.

No one is talking about resting anyone for Portsmouth are they?

His career started going downhill after his accident, it was fine before it and he was on the fringes of the England squad. It has little or nothing to do with his talent being suppressed and everything to do with the accident.