Greenlizard0 Weekend Football Thread ** spoilers ** [22nd - 26th April 2016]

I see the signings they made this year (Gray and Amartey) as direct replacements for Mahrez and Kante. Clearly they are not at the same level at the moment, but they are both young with potential to grow. Gray in particular looks exciting from what I've seen so far.

The thing in Leicester's favour is that they will still not be under any pressure to win the league next year, so hopefully they just continue with a similar strategy of buying younger/cheaper players and building a team, rather than spending big money on 'names'.
 
dannyjo22 said:
Lescott I imagine.

Unless they pay £150k per week they won't get any big names, not that they needed them this season but still, the couple of decent players will be taken and can leave as heroes and they have to hope whoever comes in for similar money can reproduce the form.

They will do well to finish in the top 10 next year. The best thing they can do is just keep recruiting like they have been, I hope they don't chuck money at it because the club cannot sustain that. Take the massive bonus this has been and keep doing what they have been. They don't need big names.
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Where do you get that they can't sustain it exactly? THeir wage bill last year was 48million, they have a rich owner, they will pull in over 90mil this year from league earnings, tv and league position. The difference between coming 1st and 10th is like 10million, so even if they do badly next year they'll pull in another 90mil. They 'only' had 14 games on tv this year compared to 20 for most top teams, being champions they will both get more tv games next year so more money(likely to offset and league position drop) and they will have group stage CL money, so another call it 20mil, maybe more if they make it through a knock out stage or two which in the style they play is more than possible. In fact their style is likely to be fairly successful in europe up to a point. Arsenal try this possession crap against better teams and it leaves them defensively exposed with mentally weak players who collapse under pressure. Leicester have a solid defence that plays hard throughout games, isn't mentally weak and they invite pressure and catch you on the break. Like Spurs I can see them doing very well in the group stage and depending on the draw beating even fairly decent teams in the rd of 16.

So in what way does their currently small wage bill, large resources backing the club and massively increased earnings that will be sustained mean they can't support significant growth in wage and transfer spending besides you thinking of them like a small team?

The tv/league money has meant smaller stadium and sponsorship income is significantly offset. They won't be matching Arsenal in earnings any time soon but they can quite easily sustain likely double their current spending including a few higher wage players. On top of all this they have an owner who has publicly said he wants to sustain a top 5 team and build them into a top club.

There is zero indication they can't spend dramatically more than they are spending today and sustain it easily. I hadn't even mentioned the likely significantly higher sponsorship deal they'll be able to get for next year or the near future.
 
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dannyjo22 said:
Lescott I imagine.

Unless they pay £150k per week they won't get any big names, not that they needed them this season but still, the couple of decent players will be taken and can leave as heroes and they have to hope whoever comes in for similar money can reproduce the form.
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Spurs managed to get Van der Vaart for £8mil off the back of Champions League qualification.

Hopefully Leicester will sign Zlatan. :p
 
I was watching an interview with Wenger the other day where he was basically preaching that Leicester will need to adapt their play to a possession style to have any success in the UCL, now correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Bayern Munich thrash Barcelona 7-0 over 2 legs a few years ago playing basically the same way? I personally think that if you have a good solid defence you don't need to deprive the opposition of the ball, Leicester have two classical big centre backs (Huth/Morgan) but the big teams today seem to think they can away with more technical players there by hogging the ball a lot and the type of style that Barcelona and United play passing it around in the middle third with little penetration/risk bores me to tears.
 
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Mourinho also proved you don't need to play possession football with Inter. Let's be honest here, since when has possession football got Arsenal anywhere in europe? When we got to the final in 06, we were playing a more direct, counter attacking system than our usual possession game.
 
mmj_uk said:
I was watching an interview with Wenger the other day where he was basically preaching that Leicester will need to adapt their play to a possession style to have any success in the UCL, now correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Bayern Munich thrash Barcelona 7-0 over 2 legs a few years ago playing basically the same way? I personally think that if you have a good solid defence you don't need to deprive the opposition of the ball, Leicester have two classical big centre backs (Huth/Morgan) but the big teams today seem to think they can away with more technical players there by hogging the ball a lot and the type of style that Barcelona and United play passing it around in the middle third with little penetration/risk bores me to tears.
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What does Wenger know? Half his club's fans have wanted him out for years now, nuff said.
 

Swansea Atmosphere recorded by my mum, effin flu made me miss this :(!! My Dad looks like a kid in a sweet shop! :D
 
Made me laugh when they kept cutting to one of the cameras in the gantry, it was bobbing up and down so much they had trouble zooming in :p
 
Pigeon_Killer said:
Imagine it'll be Christmas until we see Sakho again :(
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Starting off with a provisional 30 day ban from UEFA:

Disciplinary proceedings have been instigated against Liverpool FC player Mamadou Sakho, following the UEFA Europa League round of 16 second-leg match between Manchester United FC and Liverpool FC (1-1), played on 17 March.

The proceedings relate to a violation of the UEFA Anti-Doping Regulations, after the player failed a doping test at the above-mentioned match.

The player did not request the analysis of the B sample. UEFA has now suspended the player provisionally for 30 days until a final decision is taken by the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body.

The date of the disciplinary hearing will be announced at a later stage.
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http://www.uefa.org/disciplinary/index.html#post_185057
 
Love that the BBC preview image for the suspension story has a spaced out image of Sakho, looks like he's been smoking something he shouldn't :p

1z6oep.jpg
 
I presume he will be able to play friendlies during pre-season - whether that does him any good if the ban runs until November (most articles suggest a 6 month ban is max he is likely to get) is another matter of course.
 
I'd be very surprised if he gets 6 months. I'd imagine it will be much longer, he'll be sacked and we'll sue him.

It wouldn't have surprised me had he been sold in the summer anyway but he'll be a loss for the semi and potential EL final.
 
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