Football: Alisson Wonderland

[Mark Antony]

Yeah Kane’s gone. You could tell after the game he was saying “farewell”

[ljkeane]

He’s got 3 years left on his contract and it’s Daniel Levy. He obviously wants to leave but if they don’t get a massive offer it wouldn’t be a surprise for Levy to just say no.

ETA: Also watching the highlights Dele Alli looks like 1990s Ruud Gullitt now. I’m trying to think when the last time I saw him on tv was but it’s obviously been some time for such a drastic change in his haircut.

[baxus]

Every player has a right to leave the club but I'm not a fan of those who act this way.

Either hand in a transfer request or shut up about it, at least in public. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

23 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

River Plate will have to play a Copa Libertadores match with an outfield player in the goal due to a COVID outbreak

 

River WON! This is why I love football.

[BigFatCoward]

2 hours ago, Raja said:

Do we ask Newcastle for 35 million for Willock? Or do we keep him given that we're a shit team? decisions, decisions

Swap you for Joelinton?

[mormont]

 

2 hours ago, Raja said:

Do we ask Newcastle for 35 million for Willock? Or do we keep him given that we're a shit team? decisions, decisions

I dunno, selling to a rival club can backfire.

2 hours ago, Mark Antony said:

Yeah Kane’s gone. You could tell after the game he was saying “farewell”

Kane wishes he could go. But there's a shortage of clubs able and willing to pay the fee Spurs can reasonably ask for him and he has three years left on his contract. This is one of those occasions where the player is likely to be stuck, whether he likes it or not. I doubt he'll move this summer.

[Iskaral Pust]

2 minutes ago, mormont said:

 

Kane wishes he could go. But there's a shortage of clubs able and willing to pay the fee Spurs can reasonably ask for him and he has three years left on his contract. This is one of those occasions where the player is likely to be stuck, whether he likes it or not. I doubt he'll move this summer.

This was my thought too.  He’s looking for a move at the same time as Mbappe and Haaland, but neither of those selling clubs will want Kane.  So the number of potential buyers for Kane looks a lot smaller.  Plus football finances are in terrible shape just now, while Kane still has three years on his contract, has very little resale value (turning 28), and has had some injury problems.

I think he’ll need to go on strike to force Spurs to accept a price they won’t like.

OTOH, he could fit a team with deep pockets who feel like he’s the missing piece to add trophies now, especially if Haaland or Mbappe up the ante at their competitors.  I could imagine United making that outlay to buy goodwill with their angry supporters.  Kane’s new false 9 style would suit Liverpool very well but there’s no way they would spend on him.  Kane doesn’t really suit City’s style, and they want a younger long-term replacement for Aguero, but I bet Pep could adapt his system to Kane if City wanted to guarantee more trophies while they still have Pep.  Would Chelsea write off Werner already?  That seems unlikely.  I don’t see any of the Spanish clubs spending big money on Kane.  Possibly an Italian club, but do they have the deep pockets?  Juve, possibly.

[Corvinus85]

Seven medical professionals charged with homicide in the death of Diego Maradona. 

Quote

Audio of private conversations between doctors and people from Maradona's entourage were leaked to the media and have indicated that Maradona was not being properly looked after prior to his death.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

Every player has a right to leave the club but I'm not a fan of those who act this way.

Either hand in a transfer request or shut up about it, at least in public. 

If you’re a star player sometimes you have to make a bit of a mess to move on. Look at Harden in the NBA, for example. Player empowerment is happening for superstars regardless of the sport.

[Consigliere]

United aren't dropping their entire transfer budget on Kane. City makes the most sense since that is the only position they might look to fill as a priority with Aguero leaving and Kane suits Guardiola's style very well (better than Haaland currently would). It's the best fit for Kane as well as he will be guaranteed to win multiple league titles and a bunch of cups as well as stay in the league to break Shearer's record. The only question is whether City would spend £120-150m for one player.

Perez seems to have his heart set on Mbappe so if Real are able to put together 100+ million, it'll be for him, Barca have loads of financial issues and can't drop that much money this year, Bayern have Lewandowski, none of the Italian clubs can afford it either and RMC reported that PSG will try to sign Salah if Mbappe were to leave. Kane won't join Chelsea as that would be spitting in the faces of Spurs fans and I don't see Kane as the type to disrespect the fans like that plus, from what I've read, there's a poor relationship between the boards of Spurs and Chelsea and they aren't even on speaking terms. So Kane's options (at least for this year) appear to be Man City or remain at Spurs.

[baxus]

1 hour ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Possibly an Italian club, but do they have the deep pockets?  Juve, possibly.

There's no way Juve spends that much on Kane.

The only club I can see getting Kane this summer is PSG, but do they really need him?

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you’re a star player sometimes you have to make a bit of a mess to move on. Look at Harden in the NBA, for example. Player empowerment is happening for superstars regardless of the sport.

If Houston had a 100M$ fee for teams willing to sign Harden, you bet he'd still be stuck at Houston. As it was, he was able to bully the club into trading him so fuck Harden and especially fuck "NBA player empowerment". There are contract regulating these things so Kane can't refuse to train or fake injury or do any of those asshole moves Harden resorted to.

[Mark Antony]

I think City will pull it off. Arguably best ever player leaving the club and they need to replace him. Kane practically begging them to bid for him. City have the money. Just makes perfect sense to me

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, baxus said:

If Houston had a 100M$ fee for teams willing to sign Harden, you bet he'd still be stuck at Houston. As it was, he was able to bully the club into trading him so fuck Harden and especially fuck "NBA player empowerment". There are contract regulating these things so Kane can't refuse to train or fake injury or do any of those asshole moves Harden resorted to.

I’m not sure about that. If the NBA was structured like that the Clippers would have the five best players because the owner is rich enough to literally buy every team in the league.

At the end of the day the players are the most important asset and the leagues revolve around the superstars. That’s what gives them this kind of power and it’s only going to increase across all sports.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

2 hours ago, baxus said:

If Houston had a 100M$ fee for teams willing to sign Harden, you bet he'd still be stuck at Houston. As it was, he was able to bully the club into trading him so fuck Harden and especially fuck "NBA player empowerment". There are contract regulating these things so Kane can't refuse to train or fake injury or do any of those asshole moves Harden resorted to.

Did you mention Ousmane Dembele?

There are players, who resort to that. I don't see Kane pulling a stunt like that on his boyhood club, tho. But if Levy tries to force him to stay by attaching some fantasy price tag on him, and thus make Kane feel like dishonoring their agreement about being allowed to leave, he might be tempted to escalate things. But given that it's also a World Cup year, I don't see Kane going on strike for months.

5 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

River WON! This is why I love football.

Wasn't the guy in goal putting up a MOTM performance, too?

 

[Raja]

8 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

Swap you for Joelinton?

If he scores another goal on Sunday, we want 40!

7 hours ago, mormont said:

I dunno, selling to a rival club can backfire.

There was no need for this violence

My instinct is to say we should at least keep him pre-season. We don't *need* to be a team that scores from the midfield, but surely Willock will only get better. But we also have Smith Rowe & maybe odegaard. Think it's a tough choice.

[polishgenius]

52 minutes ago, Raja said:

There was no need for this violence

 

Agreed, very harsh on Newcastle.

 

In seriousness I don't think Arsenal really need to hang on to Willock - I'm fairly confident ESR is better and if you don't keep Odegaard you'll likely get someone else, who will also likely be better. Willock's good and I rate him but he's not where-Arsenal-want-to-be quality and it's only really fair to him and useful to you to keep him should Odegaard not join and you don't get Emiliano Buendia a good alternative.

[baxus]

14 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I’m not sure about that. If the NBA was structured like that the Clippers would have the five best players because the owner is rich enough to literally buy every team in the league.

At the end of the day the players are the most important asset and the leagues revolve around the superstars. That’s what gives them this kind of power and it’s only going to increase across all sports.

You really need to accept the differences between European and North American sports.

Sure, players are important but they are still nowhere near as big as the clubs are. There is a very small percentage of people who support a team and then when their favourite player moves elsewhere they switch their support to their favourite player's new club.

Players are stars, but clubs are institutions that have lasted for over a century now and have their own traditions, sets of values and supporters respect and represent that.

Players have asked to leave their clubs before and they will do it again, clubs sold their most important players they weren't to keen on selling but if players tried to pull the level of shithousery Harden pulled they'd face a huge backlash not only from their club and supporters but from the whole football public. Also, they would open themselves up to a whole mess of fines, lawsuits for breach of contract, and it wouldn't be unlikely some of their personal sponsors would reconsider their relationship for all the bad PR.

13 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Did you mention Ousmane Dembele?

There are players, who resort to that. I don't see Kane pulling a stunt like that on his boyhood club, tho. But if Levy tries to force him to stay by attaching some fantasy price tag on him, and thus make Kane feel like dishonoring their agreement about being allowed to leave, he might be tempted to escalate things. But given that it's also a World Cup year, I don't see Kane going on strike for months.

Barca still had to pay what Dortmund was asking for to sign Dembele. It's not as if Dembele threw a fit and Dortmund cut 30% of what they were asking for, is it? I don't remember a single club refusing an offer that matched (or was close enough to) the asking price for the player who is unhappy at the club. And Barca really struck gold with that transfer, didn't they? Based on that example, any club would do well to give up on signing a player who would resort to such actions.

If Kane wanted to act that way, I can only see him moving out of the PL. Staying in the PL would open him up to all kinds of abuse from Spurs fans on a weekly basis. He'd definitely not be welcomed the way Lampard was by Chelsea fans when playing for City.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

3 hours ago, baxus said:

You really need to accept the differences between European and North American sports.

Sure, players are important but they are still nowhere near as big as the clubs are. There is a very small percentage of people who support a team and then when their favourite player moves elsewhere they switch their support to their favourite player's new club.

Players are stars, but clubs are institutions that have lasted for over a century now and have their own traditions, sets of values and supporters respect and represent that.

Players have asked to leave their clubs before and they will do it again, clubs sold their most important players they weren't to keen on selling but if players tried to pull the level of shithousery Harden pulled they'd face a huge backlash not only from their club and supporters but from the whole football public. Also, they would open themselves up to a whole mess of fines, lawsuits for breach of contract, and it wouldn't be unlikely some of their personal sponsors would reconsider their relationship for all the bad PR.

I'd suggest you listen to the words of this guy my grandmother babysat a few times:
 

This isn't an America/European divide. This is a completely new dynamic in sports. The mega star players can now dictate their paths outside of their team or club's concerns because they're secondary employers in a lot of ways. And all the negatives you mentioned are short term problems. If Kane made a mess of things to get himself to City, it wouldn't matter the year after if they won the EPL and the CL. It's only going to become more common.

I'm surprised there's even a debate about this. It seems like a regular headline that player x is not happy with their club and are trying to force their way out. It's not like the sport's biggest star tried that last summer, but didn't want to take his club of two decades to court. 

[baxus]

23 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

This isn't an America/European divide. This is a completely new dynamic in sports. The mega star players can now dictate their paths outside of their team or club's concerns because they're secondary employers in a lot of ways. And all the negatives you mentioned are short term problems. If Kane made a mess of things to get himself to City, it wouldn't matter the year after if they won the EPL and the CL. It's only going to become more common.

I'm surprised there's even a debate about this. It seems like a regular headline that player x is not happy with their club and are trying to force their way out. It's not like the sport's biggest star tried that last summer, but didn't want to take his club of two decades to court. 

As I said, no one denied that players are dropping hints about being unhappy and getting sold after that. Clubs still get paid the asking price for those players, though.

If Kane "made a mess of things" and went to City (City would still have to pay well over 100M£ for his services) and they won the EPL and CL, that move would still put a rather big stain on his legacy and he'd be seen as traitors by Spurs fans. Something like what happened to Durant when leaving OKC. Sure, he won titles with Warriors but before joining them he was seen as one of top two players in the league and that all just went away once he joined what was already undoubtedly one of the best teams to ever play the game. I mean, City is not that likely to sign him so this is all just theoretic.

Regarding the sport's biggest star trying that last summer, could you please remind me who he's playing for at the moment? And he did take the issue up with the League and was shut down. I doubt he'd fare any better in court even if he took it that far.

[Mark Antony]