Pre-Season Madness

Okay, I know I hardly use this soccer blog anymore. But there are a few things I have to say about this pre-season of EPL.

Firstly it's about Liverpool. They signed Robbie Keane as their big-name signing this year. Seriously, why? Sell Crouch and buy Keane for twice the amount? I really think Crouch was severely under-rated by Rafa. Crouch loved Liverpool, was a great professional and he gave his best in the limited games Rafa gave him. I liked him as a player. Keane, on the other hand, has never been a 20-goal-a-season striker. If you can buy Torres with 27mill pounds, I don't think Keane is worth 20mill.

If anything, Rafa should forget both Keane and Barry and sign one David Villa. Valencia are in financial crisis now, there is no better time to buy him. Him, or the David Silva dude. It seems they worked well with Torres in the Euro and Villa and Torres looked like best friends; if you remembered when Villa scored his hat-trick, he ran to the bench to celebrate with his good friend nando Torres.

Now, Barry is a good player, but to sell Xabi Alonso to finance his deal? Rafa clearly lost something there. There is no way Barry is a better player than Alonso is. If anything, we should get rid of Kuyt. That mosquito only has work-rate and nothing else. He is just there to annoying his opponents, if you remember how he forced Frank Lamps into and error to score when they played Chelsea in Europe. Barry is some-what a winger too anyway, and Kuyt really isn't. Rafa vowed to keep Kuyt today, and it really worried me. Keep Alonso too please!

Next thing I have to say is about Cris Ron. Man United should have just sold him. That ungrateful show-boater. Admittedly, he got Man United quite far, but which club got him that far? He admitted today that he wanted to go to Real Madrid because he had won everything with Manchester and yet didn't want to seem ungrateful. But lest we forget WHO MISSED THE PENALTY IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL?!? Your Manchester team-mates are the reason why you have a champs league medal round your neck, Cris. You owe them big time imo! To leave right after the club won the tournament for you, that would be ungrateful to club who did so much for you.

Now I think the club which improved the most on paper would be Tottenham. They got rid of the over-rated Robbie Keane, and would do well to symphon 30mill pounds out of Man United for Berbatov. They brought in the Luka Modric and Gomes the keeper. I was impressed with Gomes when I saw him play for PSV in the champs league. But the little known fact is that Tottenham's best buy could be Giovanni Dos Santos. I don't think he will get to play just yet, but when he proves himself on the pitch, he might have an awesome second half of the season. Mark my words. He is an awesome youngster!

I'm following closely the developments of Asharvin's potential transfer to Spurs and believe they would have gotten another world class player should they be able to land him. Yes, I did watch the UEFA Cup last season.

Chelsea are quite scary this time round too. Although they kept Lampard - who has proven to screw up the Chelsea system (and especially Ballack) - and Drogba - because he is such a cry-baby - they did very well to bring in a quality right-back in Bosingwa and a genius mid-fielder in Deco. I had been an admirer of Deco since the time he played for Porto FC, and I think Chelsea managed to pull off a great steal by signing him. Well done to them. Come on Rafa... would Torres be your only good buy?

It looks like it's getting exciting as the season is about to start. Just sad to see Liverpool signing players that would get them to 4th, not champions-quality players. I can't wait for the new FM to come out, then I'll show Rafa!