Mourinho: I'll Win The EPL On The Cheap.

We'll take Boula (at cut price of course)

He'd only play 5 games a season (due to suspensions)

According to wikipedia, the Serbian U21 CB SlobodanRajković is also a Chelsea player, and can join us at the end of next season.

Fucking hell, how many CB's do you need?

Target Man SSK wrote:Fucking hell, how many CB's do you need?

This guy is only 18 though. We signed him when he was 15, but had to send him away on loan.

DD wrote:

Kimbo wrote:We'll just have to sign him in a season or two when he leaves looking for first team football.

What is Ben Haim thinking?
There's no way on earth he'll see first team football. Terry and Carvalho's place are set in stone, Alex (who is better than the starters) is waiting on the bench and none of the three are africans off to the ACN.

Kimbo might indeed be getting Ben Haim for a decent price next summer.

Pigs will have to fly before Ben Haim starts.

What price would be better than free?

Anyway, I thought Mourinho was against Alex signing, and Ben Haim going there means Alex won't be signed?

kas wrote:

DD wrote:

Kimbo wrote:We'll just have to sign him in a season or two when he leaves looking for first team football.

What is Ben Haim thinking?
There's no way on earth he'll see first team football. Terry and Carvalho's place are set in stone, Alex (who is better than the starters) is waiting on the bench and none of the three are africans off to the ACN.

Kimbo might indeed be getting Ben Haim for a decent price next summer.

Pigs will have to fly before Ben Haim starts.

What price would be better than free?

Anyway, I thought Mourinho was against Alex signing, and Ben Haim going there means Alex won't be signed?

According to some reports, the Alex signing looks a foregone conclusion.

If you check wikipedia (not the most reliable source I know), it says that he is a Chelsea player now. I'm gonna wait for official confirmation though.

Nah, Wikipedia is just updated by fans of clubs. So we could take bluenine's "European Transfer Tracker" thread and go and update the various club pages on Wikipedia with it.

kas wrote:Nah, Wikipedia is just updated by fans of clubs. So we could take bluenine's "European Transfer Tracker" thread and go and update the various club pages on Wikipedia with it.

That's what I meant, but there have been other reports/articles published which suggest the deal is very close to completion.

Most english papers also think it's done and dusted.

Can't believe Mourinho is still at Chelsea, I was certain he'd go, guess it's another year of the not so special one

Haim can play anywhere in defence though. He might fill in at RB.

He's not that fast tho'

From the Guardian

"Jose Mourinho says he wants to win the Premiership without spending a penny this summer," says Saul Doyle. "Has this ever been done before?"

"I can answer Saul Doyle's question about winning the league without spending in the summer," me-sir-me-sirs Jon Cummins. "It's easy for any United fan who was around in the 90s." Which United would that be then, Jon? "United won the Double in 1995-96 while selling three of their most important players and buying nobody (although Eric Cantona came back from his kung-fu suspension in October). Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Andrei Kanchelskis all left so that the Fergie Fledglings - Nicky Butt, Gary Neville, Phil Neville, David Beckham and Paul Scholes - could make their way into the team. After United lost the first game of the season 3-1 to Aston Villa, Alan Hansen gave us his legendary "you'll never win anything with kids" quote and Kevin Keegan followed it up with his equally famous "I'll love it if we beat them" rant when United overturned a 12-point deficit to catch Newcastle and win the league."

Manchester United indeed spent no money that summer, buying only the reserve goalkeeper Nick Culkin from York City in September. The list below shows how much each Premiership-winner spent in the previous summer (up to the end of August, to include major deals such as Dwight Yorke and Michael Essien that went through in the first couple of weeks of the season). Chelsea, predictably, are miles clear at the bottom, having spent a combined £142m in the summers of 2004 and 2005, but Blackburn are not as low on the list as many people would expect. That's because the most important building blocks of The House That Jack Built - Tim Flowers, Colin Hendry, Tim Sherwood and Alan Shearer - had been purchased in previous seasons before they won the title in 1994-95.

NB: The figures are not exact, because some clubs - Arsenal in particular - often do not disclose transfer fees, so all data has been taken from soccerbase

1995-96 Manchester United, n/a
1992-93 Manchester United, £1.1m (Pat McGibbon and Dion Dublin)
1999-2000 Manchester United, £1.5m (Quinton Fortune)
2003-04 Arsenal, £2.5m (Cesc Fábregas, Phillipe Senderos, Jens Lehmann and Gaël Clichy)
1993-94 Manchester United, £3.75m (Roy Keane)
1994-95 Blackburn, £5.3m (Chris Sutton and Robbie Slater)
1996-97 Manchester United, £7.5m (Raimond van der Gouw, Ronny Johnsen, Ole Solskjaer, Karel Poborsky and Jordi Cruyff)
2000-01 Manchester United, £7.8m (Fabien Barthez)
1997-98 Arsenal, £14.55m (Alex Manninger, Manu Petit, Giles Grimandi, Luis Boa Morte, Alberto Mendez, Marc Overmars, Lee Canoville and Christopher Wreh)
2006-07 Manchester United, £18.6m (Michael Carrick)
2001-02 Arsenal, £22.25m (Francis Jeffers, Giovanni van Bronckhorst, Sol Campbell and Richard Wright)
1998-99 Manchester United, £27.75m (Jaap Stam, Jesper Blomqvist and Dwight Yorke)
2002-03 Manchester United, £30m (Rio Ferdinand)
2005-06 Chelsea, £53,4m (Asier del Horno, Scott Sinclair, Lassana Diarra, Shaun Wright-Phillips, Michael Essien)
2004-05 Chelsea, £89.05m (Petr Cech, Arjen Robben, Paulo Ferreira, Mateja Kezman, Didier Drogba, Tiago, Ricardo Carvalho)