Home kit:
Home GK:
Away Kit:
Meh, they look slick, and they'll grow on me, but I had a better initial reaction to last year's and the year before.
Onto transfer news: Guus looks set to sign and he's asked the club to bid for Sneijder (30m) and Eriksen (no sum yet, but I'd guess around 20-25m). We've also been linked with Modric, but Spurs won't sell for less than 30m and I'd rather have Sneijder for that money. I love both of them, though, if we get either, I'll be very pleased. It seems that Sneijder would rather move to London than Manchester, and I feel like working with Guus will be more attractive for him than working with SAF or Mancini, so I'm cautiously optimistic about this. We should have bid for him back in 2008 when he was worth 13m, but whatever.
Don't know much about Eriksen, just that he's young, promising and has a contract running to 2014, which means a lot of money so I'm not a big fan of this possible deal.
The Neymar saga has run up to 41m according to some sources, and while I think he'd make a good choice for our LW position, not for that money. Doesn't look like going through.
Linked to Aguero and Godin, but having bought Luiz we don't need another CB, I'd much rather the 5th spot go to Bruma or loan him out and have another youngster get a go. Aguero will probably go to either Madrid or Barca, probably Madrid, but I'd definitely be excited to see him come in.
The Lukaku deal looks imminent, at 20m. There's also a chance that we'll sign De Bruyne for 9m, but he'd then be loaned back to Genk, or Anderlecht or Vitesse Arnhem (least likely). We've been linked to Lukaku for a long time, and if the management are willing to give him a place, and not just waste him on the bench, I'm all for it. Dunno much about De Bruyne, but he'd definitely rot on the bench for now, but if he's loaned back to Genk, he'd be getting CL football if I'm not mistaken, and he could be ready for a spot in a year or two.
There's been talks of us moving for van der Wiel, but nothing has resurfaced and we haven't been linked with another RB. I've always liked Bosingwa, and Iva has been a revelation at RB, and they offer different options. Personally, I'd stick with them, although with Ivanovic also used at CB at times, we could do with another RB. Paulo has been a good player, reliable, but he's only getting worse and I haven't heard of any good RB coming up the ranks, although Clifford might have some potential.
We were also briefly linked with Begovic, and I dunno why we aren't in the market for a back-up keeper. Hilario and Turnbull simply aren't good enough, and Delac, who is young and has potential, got no chances at Vitesse last season, and is far from ready.
According to the media, possible sales are: Anelka, Drogba, Zhirkov, Malouda, Kalou, Bosingwa.
It looks like Roman wants to overhaul the attack, and if we bring so many players in, we will have to sell some of these guys. Frankly, I love them all and would hate to see any of them go. They've all come through for us at different times, but with Sturridge, Torres and likely Lukaku coming in, we can't balance so many players.
I hope we keep Bosingwa and Zhirkov too. Zhirkov will never be a starter for us, but he's a good squad player and if Jose can regain his early 2009 form, we'd have one of the bets RBs in the world.
What I hope to see this season is:
- Sneijder or Modric come in, preferably Sneijder because we need a true playmaker and Sneijder is the better player at that. That said, Modric can play further back quite well, and I think he'd work with Lampard better than Wesley.
- Sturridge, van Aanholt/Bertrand, and McEachran getting time with the team. And by time, I mean MORE time.
- Guus
And more stuff but I'm boring myself now, maybe later.
