There Is Only One Sinnacle

I’m going to make my first prediction for 2010 with this post. Come World Cup 2010 Oscar Cardozo profile will increase 10 fold. Paraguay made it to the World Cup thanks for a solid defence which only let in 16 goals in 18 matches. The second fewest allowed in South American World Cup qualifying. (Brazil only gave up 11) What Paraguay does have however to go along with a good defence is a near world class striker in Oscar Cardozo. Aside from blazing speed which Cardozo doesn’t have everything else you’d want in a striker Cardozo can do for you. He is big enough to hold the ball up and pass it around to attacking players making a run, he can score with both feet, good with his head, natural goalscorer plus he can score from a free kick.

Paraguay has a strong chance of being the second team out of Group F which features Italy, New Zealand, Paraguay, and Slovakia. One of the reasons for this is unlike Slovakia and New Zealand, Paraguay has a player in Oscar Cardozo who can change the outcome of a game in one moment.

Manchester United’s financial problems may result in them having to sell star asset, striker Wayne Rooney. Full story: Daily Express

Manchester United are also exploring the possibility of selling their training base at Carrington. (Daily Telegraph)

The next thing you know the press will print a story saying Manchester United is considering selling Sir Sir Bobby Charlton as the team’s ambassador.

Stoke manager Tony Pulis is battling to seal a shock season-long loan move for Portsmouth and England goalkeeper David James. Daily Mirror

Again I don’t think the press get it. Portsmouth has no need to loan David James, they need to sell him.

Former Wigan striker Amr Zaki, who currently plays for Egyptian side Zamalek, is set to join Stoke in a £1m deal. The Sun

Would show what a problem child Zaki is if Zamalek are willing to get rid of him for £1 million.

Liverpool have made a shock offer for Reading goalkeeper Adam Federici, who played in the Royals’ 2-1 FA Cup victory at Anfield on Wednesday. Daily Mirror

Because Liverpool’s troubles start in goal. A new goalie would be the last place I’d look to upgrade on this team.

Brazil midfielder Sandro has claimed his £6m move to Tottenham is a “dream come true”. Sandro, 20, has agreed to move to White Hart Lane but his club Internacional want to keep him until they finish their Copa Libertadores campaign, which is South America’s equivalent of the Champions League, in the summer.
Full story: Daily Mirror

I’m sure Sandro spent many a night as a kid dreaming about playing for Tottenham.

Blackburn are leading a quartet of Premier League clubs in the chase for Aston Villa midfielder Nigel Reo-Coker. Bolton, Wigan and Hull are also interested in the 25-year-old, who could leave Villa for £5m.
Full story: The Times

But midfielder Reo-Coker is set to reject an approach from Blackburn. The Sun

You knew once Reo-Coker had his bust up with Martin O’Neill that he would at least listen to offers come the next transfer window.

Arsenal are looking for a Spanish club to loan their new Bolivian attacking midfielder Samuel Galindo to. The 17-year-old will struggle to get a work permit to start playing in England. Daily Mirror

This approach has worked wonders for Carlos Vela who spent a couple of years in Spain before being tied down to the Arsenal bench these last two years. Do still like the player however.

Chelsea will discover at a Premier League tribunal on Thursday how much they must pay Manchester City for signing Daniel Sturridge. The 20-year-old striker clinched a four-year deal with the Blues last summer, with City wanting £10m and Chelsea offering £3m. The Times

Little bit of a difference there.

Manager Roberto Mancini plans to overhaul his Manchester City players’ pre-match meal, introducing pizza and wine to the menu. “You need chicken, pizza, carbohydrates, even a glass of wine, but they are not on the table,” he said. Daily Mirror

Now that is a good menu.

Sevilla 0-1 Barcelona: Lone Xavi Strike Not Enough As Andalucians Progress On Away Goals Rule

Barcelona nabbed the only goal of the night through Xavi just past the hour mark but Sevilla denied them a winning aggregate goal despite a ruthless onslaught from the visitors. Sevilla qualified for the quarter-finals of the Copa del Rey on away goals having scored twice at the Camp Nou in the first leg.

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Barcelona being knocked out of a competition was bound to happen at some point. I’m sure Barcelona fans won’t take this defeat too personally provided they win La Liga and the Champions League. Besides there shouldn’t be any shame losing to a quality team like Sevilla. Unlike a certain Spanish giant who lost to a lower league club in this same competition.

Liverpool 1-2 Reading: Shane Long Dumps Reds Out Of FA Cup

Substitute Shane Long scored the winning goal in front of the Kop in the first half of extra time.

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Don’t even know where to begin anymore. This Liverpool team is just sad to watch. What a total lack of heart out there for those Liverpool players, many of whom don’t deserve to wear the jersey. It has little to do with talent, it’s the fact that outside of Torres, Gerrard, Reina everyone else just seems to be going through the motions out there. Ownership isn’t perfect but they can only be blamed so much. Equal part of the blame goes to Rafa and these Liverpool players. Tom Hicks jr must think his e-mail was blessing in disguised as he now longer has to deal with this mess at Anfield.

Briefly wanted give Reading some credit. Yes, they are having a terrible year in the Championship but for one day anyway those fans can be proud of their teams. Those Reading players fought til the bitter ends when most teams would of laid down and got rewarded with an extra time penalty.

Liverpool Sign Maxi Rodriguez From Atletico Madrid On Three And A Half Year Deal

Liverpool have completed the signing of Atletico Madrid midfielder Maxi Rodriguez on a free transfer, the club has confirmed on their official website.

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Can’t beat the price, plus it’s not everyday you can sign a quality player still in his prime on a free transfer. Maxi Rodriguez might be wondering what has he got himself into too after watching today’s game however but I do think he can bring certain skills to the table that can help Liverpool turn it around.

Be interesting to see what cause Atletico Madrid to cut ties with a player they could of sold for 10-15 million just 18 months ago.

Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp is keeping a close eye on Stamford Bridge following reports that Joe Cole’s contract negotiations at Chelsea are stumbling. The England midfielder is out of contract at the end of the season. Daily Star

Jole Cole is an interesting case. He’s been at Chelsea for quite awhile with a lot of success but wide players have never been Chelsea strength. It’s always been the steel up the middle from Terry, Essien, Lampard and Drogba which Chelsea has been successful with. Not signing after this long could only mean Joe Cole is thinking about a fresh start.

Tottenham forward Roman Pavlyuchenko looks set to end his White Hart Lane nightmare by joining Zenit St Petersburg, who have tabled a £10.2m bid for the Russia striker. Daily Mirror

If Zenit really has made this offer Tottenham would be foolish not to send Pavlyuchenko on his way back to Russia.

Tottenham are set to make a shock move to bring former Arsenal midfielder Mathieu Flamini, who is currently at AC Milan, back to north London. Daily Mirror

Don’t think Arsenal fans are shedding many tears over Flamini not being a regular starter in the A.C Milan setup.

Portsmouth have rejected Sunderland’s bid of £5m, plus Anton Ferdinand, for French defender Younes Kaboul. Full story: Daily Mail

Not real smart of Sunderland to offer a cash plus player swap to a team badly in need of cash.

Liverpool are set to ditch Anfield’s heritage and sell naming rights for the new stadium in Stanley Park. Daily Mail

Welcome to 2010, If I was a Liverpool fan I’d be mad if they sold the naming rights to the current Anfield stadium. Any new stadium Liverpool would be foolish not to cash in on naming rights.

While thinking some more about this whole Fox Soccer Plus/Setanta Sports deal something hit me. No, it wasn’t ways to make Windows 7 better. It was the fact Pat Dolan may not appear on American TV sets come March talking about English football.

Aside from being the winner four years in a row of the George Wendt look-a-like contest, I often find myself entertained with Pat Dolan’s commentary. When it comes to pundit’s I keep it simple when judging them. I ask myself if I’d want to have a beer with the guy at a bar to talk football or to bitch at him over his football opinions. Either reaction is good as I can understand why some people would like or hate Pat Dolan.

On the flip side while I think Sportsnet and former Ispwich/West Ham goalie Craig Forrest does bring a lot of information to the table he is very dry. He is an example of someone I wouldn’t want to have a drink with. James Sharman of the score I’d turn around and walk away in utter disgust.

Fox Soccer Plus may bring a lot to the table for American football fans but sadly it doesn’t appear Pat Dolan will be a part of it.

Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has admitted an interest in signing South American hot-shot Salvador Cabanas with number one target Kevin Kuranyi now expected to stay at Schalke. Sunderland Echo

Bruce has always had an interest in Cabanas going back to his Wigan days. Surprised Bruce hasn’t made a move for the player yet.

Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho is battling it out with former club Chelsea and Manchester United for £15m-rated Benfica winger Angel di Maria. Daily Mail

Tottenham have had a £5m bid for Benfica forward Javier Saviola turned down by the Portuguese club for “sporting reasons”. Daily Mirror

Portuguese clubs won’t sell first time players in the January transfer window. Besides if your Saviola who has to be enjoying life in Portugal are you really going to be exicted about moving to Tottenham? Saviola spent the last three plus years rotting away on the Barcelona/Real Madrid bench. At Benfica, Saviola plays every game at Tottenham he’d only be in the mix.

Manchester United could cash in on star striker Wayne Rooney to help ease the club’s debts. Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona are considering £70m bids for the England international. The Sun

What a backlash this would cause. Not that I think this will happen but with Ronaldo at the end of the day fans knew he wanted to leave, any sale of Rooney would simply be a business decision and that would set Manchester United fans off.

Manchester City have replaced city rivals Manchester United in a partnership agreement with Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon. The deal will give City first option should Sporting sell any of their players. (The Guardian)

Guess Manchester United had enough of Sporting once they sold them a bill of goods called Nani.

Sunderland manager Steve Bruce insists it will take a “mind-blowing” offer to prise striker Kenwyne Jones away from the Black Cats and doubts if the clubs who want to buy him would prove able – or willing – to meet the necessary price. The Guardian

In simple English, this means he’ll consider selling Jones.

Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks has suggested in an email to a supporter that the summer transfer market will be a “big” one for the Premier League club. “Our debt is very managable (sic) [see Man U] and we never use player sales for debt service,” said Hicks. “Our interest on £200m is about £16m. The new stadium will be the game changer. Managing director Christian [Purslow] is working very hard on it. Jan is a poor-quality market. The summer window will be big.” Daily Mirror

Hicks is right about the January transfer market. We’ll see if he backs up the rest of his words in the summer.

If you are American read on. Over the weekend rumours started to fly about that Fox was going to buy the American arm of Setanta Sports. This has proven to be incorrect as Fox will cut out Setanta Sports to launch a second soccer channel called Fox Soccer Plus.

All of this is breaking so information regarding will it be there a subscription rate like Setanta or will cable providers put it on a same tier as Fox Soccer Channel I couldn’t tell you. What I can tell you is as of March 1st 2010 Fox won’t be subleasing EPL games to Setanta which means no more EPL on Setanta Sports US. I’m all for a soccer channel showing more than EPL, Serie A, La Liga but charging 15 bucks a month for it would be a tough go. Interesting what happens to Setanta sports from here without being able to broadcast EPL games.

I’ve often been critical of Manchester City ever since they shown Sven Goran Eriksson the door and for the most part my opinion hasn’t changed but they sure picked a great time to dump Mark Hughes and replace him with Roberto Mancini.

With the January transfer about the open up it was the right time to make a move when they lost confidence in Mark Hughes. Also helping Mancini make the transition to English football easier was playing the likes of Stoke, Wolves, and Blackburn. Mancini does deserve credit for getting the back line to actually play defense even if it’s against teams without a top striker, it’s a positive start going forward. Any talk of turmoil at Manchester City has now been quieted down. Funny how winning makes for a happy clubhouse.

Portsmouth have told Manchester City and Sunderland they want £14m for defender Younes Kaboul. Daily Mail

Portsmouth is run by a ship of fools if this is correct. With the way things are going you can buy Portsmouth for £14 million in a couple of months.

Stoke City have made an approach to sign striker Ruud van Nistelrooy, who has played only 13 minutes in the league for Real Madrid this season. Times

Somebody at Stoke must like having this rumour floated in the press because that is as far as this story will go.

Birmingham have told Sunderland to drop their £14m valuation of Kenwyne Jones if they want to offload the striker. City have made it clear they will pay £10m for Jones. Daily Mirror

So basically if this were to happen they would meet in the middle and Jones would move for £12m.

Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez is trying to take defender Nedum Onuoha, 23, on loan from Manchester City. The Sun

I find it very sad reading this headline.

Stoke manager Tony Pulis is in a £10m battle with Birmingham to sign Wigan striker Hugo Rodallega. Daily Mirror

Would be a tidy profit for Wigan but can’t see Roberto Martinez being happy selling Rodallega. He is one of the few players Martinez would like to keep around as he remakes this club.

New Manchester City midfielder Patrick Vieira will have to wait to make his debut for Roberto Mancini’s outfit because of a calf injury.
Full story: The Guardian

Off to a great start.

Liverpool fans group The Spirit of Shankly are demanding Tom Hicks Jr quits over his alleged foul-mouthed email rant to a supporter who had written to express his fears for the Reds’ future. The Sun

I avoid posting about The Sun-Liverpool stories but since Tom Hicks Jr just announced this resignation as director of the club and parent company Kop Holdings figured I’d make an exception.

How dumb can you be is the first thing which comes to mind. I can understand thinking what he said but to then e-mail it baffles my mind. To read the e-mail click below.