West Brom News Archives

Deloitte consultancy firm reported that English Premier League clubs spent more than GBP 500 million during the recent summer transfer window.

Including the 2008 winter transfer window, total transfer spending was around GBP 675 million, compared to GBP 531 million in the previous year. GBP 215 million were spent between the Premier League clubs in domestic transfers, a figure which represents more than 40 percent of the transfer activity during the window.

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Following Alan Curbishley’s departure from West Ham yesterday, his transfer policy at the club has come under increased scrutiny. Soccerlens has rounded up Curbishley’s worst forays into the transfer market.

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Few noticed last week when Juande Ramos called for a shortening of the transfer window, but the nuclear fallout from Monday’s race to the finish seems to support his argument.

Prior to Monday, Robinho had been settling in nicely for another season at Real Madrid, Kevin Keegan was sorting out his first proper season in charge of Newcastle, Dimitar Berbatov was rightly benched for his self-interested transfer talk, and Manchester City were on the verge of proving they were a top-ten club under Mark Hughes.

Now, the chess pieces have been wiped off the board, and in May 2009, viewers will see season highlights from the August portion of 2008-2009 and wonder what year they’re really watching.

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The Premiership woke up this morning to a lot of excitement.

Everton fans were celebrating breaking their transfer record, West Ham fans were incredulous that they had sold half their defence without replacing them, Liverpool fans were “overjoyed” at signing two foreign 18-year-olds to add to their increasing collection of foreign 18-year-olds, Newcastle were celebrating signing a new striker by having some good old northern speculation over the manager’s future, and Arsenal were incredulous that Arsene Wenger’s new sleeping pills had made him sleep through the entire transfer window.

The most emotion was at Chelsea though, with reports that overnight their fanbase had halved. While the fans from more than about 5 years ago are generally pretty solid, there have been more and more “loyal” supporters whistling nonchalantly and sidling up to Manchester.

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As in the first two weekends of the Premier League season, there’s another two incidents that have come under the spotlight of the Right Result.

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We’re into the final weekend of the summer transfer window, and it’s sure to be a wild weekend. Well, maybe. Whatever the case may be, I’m back to give you the latest transfer news and rumors, and there is something to report on with Dimitar Berbatov, but I don’t know if it’s what Sir Alex Ferguson wants to hear.

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I’ve never really understood the need for foreign travel. It makes no sense to leave a perfectly good country for a significantly poorer one; although this is never a real problem for the Welsh.

When I have capitulated to convention, I have found the experience quite pleasurable. I particularly enjoyed my timeshare in an underground complex in Austria.

My all-time favourite holiday was an 18-30 jaunt to Magaluf. It’s true that attacks on women are a real problem at the resort - at least they were on my last trip.

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Who would win the Premier League? The Champions League? The FA Cup?

Oliver Fowler finds out….

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I’m back to give you another rundown of the latest transfer news and rumors from the world of football, and while I don’t know what Dimitar Berbatov ate for breakfast, I do have plenty else for you, including a bit about who his current club are set to sign.

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After the second weekend of the new season, there’s only one Premier League team left with a 100% record, according to the Right Result.

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It’s the weekend again, and while we sit back and take in the second round of Premier League action (or follow whatever league it is that’s your favorite), there’s still plenty to talk about on the transfer front as we move closer to the end of the transfer window.

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I hate Liverpool and I hate Liverpool fans. This isn’t to say that I don’t have a mate or two who is afflicted with Liverpool support and this isn’t to say that as a rule I believe all individual Liverpool fans are scum of the earth, but I can guarantee the image of thousands of scousers bellowing out ‘You’ll never walk alone’ is always enough to turn my stomach.

Whatever the press say about ‘the top 4′, I don’t regard Liverpool as our title rivals and haven’t done for some time. It has been eighteen years since their last league-winning season and in that time they have finished above us twice (1991, 2002). Arsenal and Chelsea have been our title rivals over the past 10 years or so, yet my feelings of dislike for them are incomparable to what I feel for Liverpool. That is proper rivalry.

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The Olympic Games have been a real disappointment. The only event that I was desperate to watch was the diving, but it turned out to be a few lunatics jumping into a pool.

My tissues did come in handy when Paula Radcliffe limped over the line in the marathon - that was pure comedy gold.

Britain has tasted success in the fringe ‘sports’, but we never even competed in the sprinting. We should have told Rio Ferdinand that a drug test was imminent.

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It’s a pretty short day in transfer tidbits, since most of the focus today is on the international action going on everywhere, but there is still a decent amount of news to report on, so let’s hop to it, shall we?

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The Premier League has confirmed the first transfer deadline of the season has been extended until 1 September.

The window is scheduled to close 24 hours earlier but, following normal league guidelines, it has been put back because August 31 falls on a Sunday.

The move has been agreed between the Premier League, Football League and Football Association.

Once the deadline passes, teams will then have to wait until January 2009 to sign players from other clubs.

As a child, the summer holidays brought about a family trip to a campsite in Europe. We’d get in the car to travel down to Dover and I would always be wearing my United shirt. After hours and hours of driving, we’d pull in at our designated tin can and the holiday had begun.

It wouldn’t be long before I started mixing with other kids, mainly English, who I’d bump in to at the pool or the kids club. These times were my first insights to what a hugely popular and unpopular club Manchester United were.

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The first weekend of the 08/09 season saw Tottenham lose away to Middlesbrough, Manchester United held to a draw at home to Newcastle, Portsmouth destroyed in a game that will be as remembered for Chelsea’s tactical superiority as the lack of effort from Pompey players and Everton lose at home to a Blackburn side that has lost 2 of its best players over the summer (see all results here).

Shocking, shocking results. United have thrown away the title, Pompey will join Everton in a relegation scrap and Tottenham will probably join them once Berbatov refuses to come back from Bulgaria. It’s the end of the world as we know it….

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There’s not a lot to report on in today’s transfer roundup, and nothing in the way of major rumors, but given early results in England and elsewhere, several clubs could be looking to move quickly to make some vital reinforcements before it gets too late.

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Where will the next generation of home grown Premier League stars come from? Nextsoccerstar.com predicts who will be the winners and losers in the ‘youth’ stakes this season….

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A look at the average attendance figures for the current 20 Premier League clubs for the 07/08 season:

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Gerry McDonnell returned from his holidays on Thursday - he missed preseason, but we have no hesitation in sticking him straight in the starting lineup for the opening weekend of the Premier League. Let’s hope his ‘re-entry’ into society goes better than Joey Barton’s rehabilitation (or lack thereof).

Everybody tells the occasional white lie. In a drunken bid to appear cool, I once claimed to have slept with over fifty women. My friends are now suspicious about a revised figure of five: luckily, the police can back me up on three cases.

I guess my habit of bending the truth is a result of my parents lying to me from an early age. On one of my frequent early forays into self discovery, my mother warned me that I could go blind - and judging by the state of my bint she may have had a point.

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Last season the manager sack race got a bit ridiculous with many managers under severe pressure and some getting fired despite being backed in the transfer window and a few dismissed without being given a full season to show what they could do at the club.

New owners and heightened expectations (both a product of more money pouring into football) make it more likely for a manager to be fired - which is why the likes of Ferguson and Wenger are rare exceptions.

The 08/09 season will see a few managers get sacked before May 09 and many others come under pressure (we’re seeing it start right now with Curbs, Ince, Hughes, Hodgson and Moyes already under speculation). To paint an accurate picture (and part of our season preview) we’ve rated the 20 Premier League managers on how likely they are to get the sack this season.

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Well, it’s the start of a new week, and this week carries a great deal of excitement, as we’re only a week away from the start of the Premier League season.

Today’s transfer roundup isn’t as packed as I would have expected, but there’s plenty to run through, so you certainly won’t go lacking.

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Who’d want to be a ref anyway? All that stomping around, shouting and getting angry – and that’s from the players and supporters.

So what happens when an amateur star-studded football team tries to play 11-a-side without a ref? About the same as what happens to any football game played without a ref – chaos and farce.

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