Monthly Archives: July 2011
The summer so far: Wigan Athletic
by Nick Taylor
Movement at the DW Stadium has been somewhat long and drawn out this summer. There have been stand offs with rival clubs, a so-called player strike and of course a flurry of transfer rumours. There has, however, been one decision that was made rather more swiftly. Manager Roberto Martinez has improved his reputation so much since coming to Wigan that Aston Villa lined him up as their next manager. Following the formal approach by the midlands club, the loyal Spaniard chose to remain at the Latics for the foreseeable future, agreeing terms on a new three-year contract. The only thing he wanted was some extra cash to develop the club’s Christopher Park training ground.
The summer so far: Manchester United
Being a United fan has become a confusing business in recent years. For all the green and yellow venom of the anti-Glazer brigade, it’s hard to feel overly insurrectionary when your team have wrapped up a record-breaking nineteenth league title and reached the Champions League final. Yes, the Glazers have loaded the club with more debt than a shoal of IMF loan sharks, but to take the glass half-full approach, well, we very nearly ended up with Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee favourite Rupert Murdoch, who came within a gnat’s crotchet of taking ownership of the club in 1998. Sometimes you just have to be thankful for small mercies.
The summer so far: Everton
Supporting Everton lately is a bit like owning a slightly battered, royal blue Quattro.
On certain days, after a blast of rain, it can look and run as fine as any car in the street – taking on and trouncing machines twice its size. It can be a credit to you and a fine piece of workmanship. Let it gather dust in the dry English summer days however and it seems more a curious relic. It needs a disgraceful amount of cash pumped into it, if it’s going to go any kind of distance in the next 12 months and pay back anything like the love you’ve shown it. And besides, where do you get those parts without being ripped off these days?
The summer so far: Blackburn Rovers
Frustration. Impatience. Anger. These are the present feelings of most Blackburn Rovers supporters. Departures have been plentiful, yet promised squad additions have yet to arrive. When the sale of starlet Phil Jones was completed, it was a bitter blow to lose a local player and fan, to one of Blackburn’s most hated rivals, but every Rover knew there was a certain inevitability that the gifted defender would one day compete at the highest of levels. The money from this transfer, in addition to an already “sizeable budget”, was declared ready for Steve Kean to search the four corners of the globe to secure new recruits for the “exciting future” under the Venky’s Group. At the time of writing however, not a single penny has been spent to obtain a new squad member. Still though, it gets worse.
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The summer so far: West Bromwich Albion
By Jon Reeve
It’s been a typical summer in many ways for Albion. We’ve been relatively quiet in the transfer window as we take our usual place near the bottom of the Premiership food chain. Most of us are now used to the way the club carries out its business in the summer months. It’s become a necessary by-product of having one of the more prudent chairmen in the Premiership. The club tends to secure most of our targets towards the end of the window when most other Premiership clubs have blinked first and players are forced to make definitive choices.
The summer so far: Queens Park Rangers
by Edar Mullan
You’d think that promotion to the Premier League, especially as Champions and after a wait of fully 15 years, would lead to a summer of unbridled joy and anticipation for any football club and its fans. Not so QPR. The West London team has a knack of doing things differently.
The summer so far: Aston Villa
by Liam Barnes
The English summer is, at the best of times, a mixed bag: any brief break in the clouds leads to clogged-up roads, masses of people heading for the same place and hysterical news. Other than that, it rains. A lot.
Such a summary encapsulates the summer for most Aston Villa fans quite nicely, as any time a spell of good news has appeared over the horizon, it meets a bank of high pressure and big money blowing in and, before you know it, it’s pissing down once again. For many Villans, having so nearly made the great getaway to the sunny climes of the Champions’ League under Martin O’Neill 12 months ago, the future forecasts look decidedly grim.
The summer so far: Swansea City
by Mark Pitman
Mark Pitman takes an in-depth look at events from the Liberty Stadium as Swansea City prepare to bring some Welsh hwyl to the Premier League. Visit www.markpitman1.com for links to all blogs, news stories, features, reports and opinion as the big Welsh football news stories break. You can also follow Mark Pitman at www.facebook.com/1markpitman and www.twitter.com/markpitman1.
The club with the least amount of time to prepare for the new season, and the least amount of cash, have still managed an eventful couple of summer months in the transfer market and in the rumour pages of the national press. Swansea City will become the first Welsh club to compete in the money-generating product that Sky brought to the world in 1992 and have already learned a few valuable lessons on how things are run when football becomes a serious business ahead of its previous primary identity of sport. Like their new high-profile opponents, Swansea City have also been busy trading their shares in the stock market this summer, as manager Brendan Rodgers builds a team to stay up playing the sexy way.
The summer so far: Newcastle United
by Richard Pye
Productive. Efficient. Value. Promising. All words which, it would be fair to say, have not been associated too freely with Newcastle United Football Club in recent years. The Calamity Club, The Toon Barmy; I’ve had accusations of mental health deficiencies levied in my direction because I’m one of a group of “the most unrealistic fans in the country”. This Summer, our comic-book villain of an owner Mike Ashley, his Wormtongue assistant Derek Llambias and their blunt instrument Alan Pardew, have presided over a most uncharacteristic display of good governance with regard our transfer acquisitions.
The summer so far: Tottenham Hotspur
by James McManus
Much has been made, and perhaps rightly so, of the importance of Spurs ‘keeping their top players this summer’. I have heard this phrase so many times since May that it now has a permanent residence in my mind, similar to the infamous Ray Wilkins catchphrase ‘stay on your feet’.
