Unless Mourinho fecks up massively, no one will challenge Chelsea. But then, English top teams fecking up transfers, ignoring their problems and failing to realise their potential kept the league interesting for quite a while now. So yeah, maybe it'll be again a best of an awful bunch season that'll make it look interesting on paper.
Kevin De Bruyne
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
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If Wolfsburg is going to sell kdB this year, there is a good chance that they´ll miss CL football. CL is worth far more than money for KdB, who they could sell for a similar amount next year.
Wolfsburg keeping their star player who was the main reason they were competitive last season is not bad news for the league. You have to twist logic/reality pretty hard to come up with anything else.
Probably just used his FM attributes
Probably just used his FM attributes
KdB plays primarily on the right for Wolfsburg. He can play wide or centrally, doesn't seem to make much difference for him. I also don't have much fear about KdB showing his skills for a big team, he always looked like a player that relished and excelled in the big games. Another thing I don't quite get is why Mata is still seen as a playmaker. I think we put that myth to bed last season. He is more of a shadow striker. He makes great runs and likes to finish chances himself much more than he actually plays the deceive passes. It's the main reason we imo don't create enough chances because we're using a wide playmaker who quite obviously isn't one. KdB is another calibre in that regard he had 21 assist last season in the Bundesliga, a new record and also played the most key passes in the league. He is basically Özil with better finishing, even though he missed the open goal against Bayern in the Super Cup.
City atm goes or exactly that kind of setup which we should go for as well. 2 creative players that create loads of chances in Silva and KdB + two fast and intelligent players in Agüero and Sterling. Add to that someone like Yaya coming through the center and offering a physical presence and you have a great attacking force.
With us atm we have like 1/2 a creative chance creator, who always displays the desire to go for goal himself, in Mata, a striker that is neither fast nor a big chance creator but something in between with Rooney, a wide player who is a hard worker and team player in Young and a very young and inexperience shadow striker that still has to adept to the league and seems to favour playing out wide. I really don't know what LvG's plan is atm but just putting players with pace into the team when there is no one playing the through balls won't fix our blunt attack. Hell atm he could probably even throw a Bale into the mix and we would still look slow and predictable.
And yet the only quick solution for the Bundesliga would be to open up towards third part ownership, which would create other problems at the same time.
I know people like to praise the EPL for their fair distribution of TV money, but the only real reason why this league has a four team race is two artificially created top clubs. Without the massive external investments neither Chelsea nor City would be anywhere near the top group right now. The title race would probably consist of United and Arsenal with Liverpool having an outsider chance.
The problem of the Bundesliga is the strength of Bayern Munich. Damn these feckers for doing their job right and not playing in the EPL, where there would be the clear favourites as well. Meanwhile "title challenger" Arsenal London was not even good enough to finish in the CL above a Dortmund, which was in the biggest slump of the last seven years. Makes you wonder how Bayerns little feeder club managed to make a bigger impact internationally in recent years than any English club bar Chelsea and grow financially big enough to be among the top 10 clubs in revenue.
Probably just used his FM attributes
That was the joke..
Anyone else get the silly chills when Sky put their FM screen up?
It depends on the offer imo. Selling KdB for €50-55 this summer would make little sense considering they can just as easily get the amount in 2016 without putting the qualification for the CL season 2016/17 in jeopardy.
However, if Man'City is willing to match the transfer fee they paid for Raheem Sterling, I can see Wolfsburg agreeing to such a deal. It would be just too much money to pass on, even with Volkswagen as their sponsor. They have to keep an eye on FFP, too.
In whose place would De Bruyne play for you. I guess that Costa will eventually replace Ribery, which makes Robben, Muller and Gotze fight for the other two positions behind the main striker. Unless Muller gets the Lewandovski position, I can't see De Bruyne starting for Bayern.
It's not the first season he has shown his class though. It was already evident during his time at Bremen and his first half season with Wolfsburg, despite him not producing the numbers he does now. I'm not quite sure how much a talent Kane was considered before his breakthrough season but some poster on here mentioned that his first loan spell and contact with professional football wasn't all that encouraging.
Who knows what happens next year. Götze might not stay, then the problem is gone anyway. Will Guardiola extend, Thiago then has only one year left on his contract, will he extend? We might see a totally different team.
Götze would be on his way. And we should be all over him I guess.
And what will they do with all that money? Buy new overpriced player (because everybody will know they have the money) late in the window? The problem with selling players of the calibre and importance as De Bruyne is that you have nearly no chance to get a replacement without a massive drop in quality. Wolfsburg lacks the pull on the transfer market to get players on that level. Getting De Bruyne in the first place was only possible because Mourinho did not rate him for whatever reason.
All the money in the world will not buy you the necessary prestige, unless you pay more than even the European elite, which is not possible for Wolfsburg.
Not that I would not welcome such idiocy by Wolfsburg. Losing De Bruyne would be a huge blow to them and end any title chances they might have had before the season even started.
They haven't spend nothing this summer, and are in UCL after a few years which means 30m or so extra money. They are in the green for FFP.
Point is that they don't need to sell De Bruyne and it is not like his value will drop for next season. Can see them refusing a 50m pounds offer (70m euros) cause they will get as much (a bit less or mroe based on De Bruyne performances) next season and will also have the time to replace him. My bet is that they will increase his wages and have a gentleman agreement that they will leave him go next season.
But Gotze isn't a starter yet, so even if he leaves there are still Robben and Muller for those two positions. Unless Robben rapidly declines or Muller becomes a No.9 I can't see De Bruyne starting for you.?
Doesn't Thiago play further behind? He hasn't been as good as expected partially cause of injuries, but is there any reason to not extend his contract?
Hope they get him for the good of the PL, I know it sounds weird. But the PL topclubs need to get closer to Barcelona, Bayern and Real and generally need a lot more quality in their XI's if we want to compete with them again. Transfers like this will urge us and Chelsea to keep strengthening ourselfs.
The problem might actually be that Alcantara would probably follow Guardiola.
Would take them both in a heartbeat here. Pep finishing his contract in 2017 and coming here to replace LVG while also getting his prodigy son with him. Hopefully it will be on the right side of Manchester.
Let's wait how great Douglas Costa actually performs. There certainly are a variety of options to start with Lewandowski, Müller, de Bruyne and Robben (with Douglas Costa being the first rotation option) in attack. Depends also on Ribery and if he ever gets back to full fitness.
He might not want to if Guardiola leaves? That's certainly a possibility. After all, his time at Bayern so far has been a disaster, even though it was mostly down to injuries. But after so much bad luck at one club, I wouldn't hold it against him if he wants to go somewhere else.
Doubtful. His contract at Bayern goes until 2016. If he extends then for more than a single season.
The transfer fee is not the point at all. There is no transfer-fee, that could make up for the loss. Its all about the player and his decision. If KdB is happy to play another year for Wolfsburg, they should reject even a €100m bid and I am fairly certain that this is their approach. On the other hand it is difficult to keep KdB if he really wants to leave.
Wolfsburg is the definition of a one-man team. The last (top) Bundesliga team, that was equally dependent on one player was Bayern during the first two years of Ribery, but we had at least Luca Toni, who could score. Next season 5 teams are going to compete for the remaining 3 CL spots in Germany. Wolfsburg, Dortmund, Schalke, Leverkusen and Gladbach. At the moment Wolfsburg is in a good position with a settled team, but if they lose KdB they´ll struggle to finish top5.
Thought that it is until 2017. Hopefully he either extends or takes an another year off. Don't want him near City.
I am not so sure where Müller will play this season. Guardiola wants 1vs1 players on the wing. Müller has played striker and no. 8 in the preparation - and the version of striker he played against Real in the first half (I watched it again yesterday) was very interesting. I have never seen a striker who in the build up was playing next to Alonso behind Vidal and Lahm... - and it was not occasional...
(And - actually - Müller's numbers atleast if you take the transfermarket data was better than that of de Bruyne last season with 13 goals and 15 assists - per minute as de Bruyne has had more match time)
I agree. The top 4 are lacking stars and quality compared to ten years ago. I want to see the standards pushed up.
They will have a hell of attack with him in the team. Light years aead of us but still, I want to see more quality in the league so I hope it happens.
We will have to up our game eventually too.
7 games a season are shown for free. All the rest are on a subscription channel.
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2012/04/18/sky-deutschland-wins-live-bundesliga-rights/
I'm still hopeful he'll be a blue, purely on the basis that he seems to refuse to put to bed the rumours about leaving - if that was his stance then he'd surely have mentioned something by now. It will be interesting to see if he starts later on today.
Why wouldn't he start? There's really not the slightest hint in the German media that a transfer is close or that he acts unprofessionally. Allofs said in an interview printed today in Bild's Sunday newspaper that the rumours don't influence the preparation for the game at all and that the priority for them is to work with Kevin this season and then see what happens next summer.
It would be a huge surprise if he doesn't start today.
"It was brisk of me to say that Kevin is 99.9 per cent likely to stay," he told Bild.
"I also said that we are not a club which is dependent on transfer income. We want to build a good team, we are ambitious. So we need the best players.
"However, if a player has the chance to earn exceptional money elsewhere then we have to deal with that situation. Anything else would be wrong."
Allofs insists, however, there has been no official offer for the player as of yet and feels it will be impossible for the Bundesliga side to keep such an attacking talent long-term.
"According to his agent there are several clubs which show their interest. But there is no official offer.
"I always said it is unlikely that Kevin will stay until the end of his contract in 2019, unless we were to improve in an outstanding way and the conditions at Wolfsburg would change.
"We are not at the same level as Bayern, Real Madrid or Manchester City."
Quite right @Balu - in all likeliness he will play, he's their best player after all. Interesting that Allofs tune has really changed from last week in the rest of his quotes though. Certainly doesn't sound like a man convinced his man is staying. Fingers crossed the story has some legs.
"I also said that we are not a club which is dependent on transfer income. We want to build a good team, we are ambitious. So we need the best players.
"However, if a player has the chance to earn exceptional money elsewhere then we have to deal with that situation. Anything else would be wrong."
Allofs insists, however, there has been no official offer for the player as of yet and feels it will be impossible for the Bundesliga side to keep such an attacking talent long-term.
"According to his agent there are several clubs which show their interest. But there is no official offer.
"I always said it is unlikely that Kevin will stay until the end of his contract in 2019, unless we were to improve in an outstanding way and the conditions at Wolfsburg would change.
"We are not at the same level as Bayern, Real Madrid or Manchester City."
Quite right @Balu - in all likeliness he will play, he's their best player after all. Interesting that Allofs tune has really changed from last week in the rest of his quotes though. Certainly doesn't sound like a man convinced his man is staying. Fingers crossed the story has some legs.
I read the original interview, there's about 90% of the interview missing in your post and the quotes are taken out of context. I don't think his tone has changed one bit, he says the same meaningless stuff again that he already said the last month. Not sure why you believe his tune has changed from last week?
It's way too long to translate it all, but for example when he's quoted that he said 'It was brisk of me to say that Kevin is 99.9% likely to stay' it sounds as if he backtracked on that 99,9% comment. What he really said is that he doesn't want to give final statements, because he had bad experiences with that. But that he went out on a limb in the case of De Bruyne when he made that statement, that they're not dependent on transfer money as an income and that their plans are the exact opposite of selling key players. He goes on to talk about their goal to have a strong team and their ambition to be successful and that the best players are part of that plan. And that's just the answer to that first question.
It's not easy to translate perfectly, but he basically repeated the 99.9% comment to underline his position and didn't backtrack at all. It's probably very easy to misunderstand for foreigners though, especially if you're an English journalist trying to sell papers and therefore deliberately take that 'I went out on a limb' thing totally out of context and use 'brisk' instead in the translation to make it even worse.
Anyway, it doesn't mean that it's not going to happen. It could easily be done next week of course, but that interview today really changes nothing.
Well as long as there hasn't been a bid made he is of course not going to leave. Still think we should go for him to bring some more creativity to our team. The problem only seems to be that LvG probably isn't much into brining in another risk taking free spirit into the squad but rather someone solid and reliable but predictable like Pedro.
Staying at Wolfsburg to join Bayern next year?
He's probably waiting for a big club to put in a bid, whether Bayern or outside Germany.
Did he just delphed himself?
Fair play to him if he's decided to decline the petrodollar and join a real club, but I do think Bayern is the easy and safe option for him.
Guaranteed league medal every year in a familiar league. Step out of your comfort zone lad. Just maybe not at City.
With all the German posters always being so negative when it comes to Bundesliga players possibly leaving the Germany, it's probably time to enhance some muppetry here. It does seem like De Bruyne wants to move to a truly big club again rather sooner than later. Wolfsburg obviously doesn't have to sell and won't want to sell but I can definitely see De Bruyne being quite vocal about a move abroad if the right club comes knocking on the door. That said Wolfsburg has CL football and should have another good season ahead of them, so he can just as well stay another year. But Kevin De Bruyne is definitely doing nothing to calm the rumours about him.
Fair play to him if he's decided to decline the petrodollar and join a real club, but I do think Bayern is the easy and safe option for him.
Guaranteed league medal every year in a familiar league. Step out of your comfort zone lad. Just maybe not at City.
Don't think he turned down City. According to Allofs no club has made a bid for him. With a transfer fee in the realm of 60M € a lot of teams will probably want to wait and see if he can keep his form of last season for another.
Surely he did? If he wanted to leave City would have made the bid
Bluemoon are saying he didn't understand the question??
I don't think his announcement was really meant by him. I don't believe it's over yet. The host of the show told him to say it and it's not clear if he actually knew or at least fully understood what he said.
Also Allofs stated during the same show that Wolfsburg exects an incoming bid the next few days, so the club certainly didn't know that De Bruyne 'plans on staying', which makes it even more strange.
Also Allofs stated during the same show that Wolfsburg exects an incoming bid the next few days, so the club certainly didn't know that De Bruyne 'plans on staying', which makes it even more strange.
Delph MK.2? I have no idea what happened tonight. I just got in to see he's staying, to then get the feeling he's still leaving on twitter.
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