Feb 11
Home Grown Quota Could Temporarily Shut Platini Up
Now let me not completely rubbish the Frenchman; he’s got a semblance of sense when he talks about the disproportionate spending of Citeh with respect to its revenue. But beyond that, most of his rants reveal a sense of hatred for the ascendancy of the English Premier League.
Now on to the main item, which is the proposed home grown players rule that could be imposed as early as the next season. We already know that European competitions like the UEFA Cup ensure clubs field 8 homegrown players in their matchday squads.
The idea of homegrown covers either local players that come through the academy or players who’ve spent three years at the club before the age of 21. This would of course not be a problem for the likes of Ronaldo, who signed while he was 17. Arsenal would be relieved because of the amount of French/Non-English talent brewing in their academy.
But more importantly, this rule I think is absolutely brilliant in that it’s not too difficult for clubs to fit 4 home grown players in a squad of 11+7 and simultaneously gives the Premier League the ammunition to convince the other governing bodies in the continent that they are doing their bit to nurture talent.
The league will be as it is. Squads will have the odd token academy graduate to fill in numbers — after all we now have 7 subs as against the previous five. But most clubs do already have four homegrown players in their ranks. Even Man City, criticised world over for their cash splashing exercise, have their share of youngsters in Micah Richards, Joe Hart and Ireland who’ve come through the ranks. If anything, it would give Mark Hughes more breathing space (assuming he’s still around next season). The same can be said of West Ham, Boro and Everton. With O’Shea, Fletcher, Scholes, Giggs, Ronaldo and so on, we have little to worry about on that count.
The rule does absolutely nothing to change the landscape of the English Premier League, yet does a lot to give a solid reason to Platini and his cronies to believe that the League is not as evil as is being made out to be.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Wenger Speaks Sense As Platini Loses his Mind
- Sepptic Blabbermouth Opens Gob + Roundup
- Pique, Platini, Ronaldo and Moscow Rumblings
- Gill on City and Ronaldo
- On Manchester United’s ‘Greatest Ever’ Squad
Tags: Manchester United News
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@colver: We were supposed to be much stronger than Mourinho’s Porto too but they beat us. Mourinho is the master of putting you to sleep and then beating you. I refer to him as “the Sandman”.
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@johnsom33: Zlatan who?
IbrahimoBitch is so inconsequential it’s absurd to talk about him. Like he has ever shown up for a big game. If Mourinho starts him against us it will be like we are playing against ten. The guy will go hide somewhere and cower for the entire game. He’s a gutless wimp who like Anelka only scores after a game is already won or against weak opponents. I spit on his insignificant presence. Maicon’s left testicle has more presence than all of the Bitch. I guess that should tell you that no attempt at trying to convince me is ever going to turn my feelings around about that dumb assed lazy and moody Swede. If United ever bought him or Drogba, I’d change my allegiance. Some players just rub me the wrong way. Sorry, I can’t help myself. 
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@johnsom33: My biggest wish for the game of football and especially competitions like the Champions League or the World Cup would be for managers and players to finally man up and just go for it. Too much gamesmanship, ugly politics and basic cowardice has destroyed the game at this level. The money has made it impossible for players to go out and just let it all hang out. They are pressured by the economics of the thing and by the political pressure to make sure they do not lose. So teams play to not lose as opposed to win. To many that means the same thing but their is a major difference. Cowardice and greed has tainted the game and thus the tactics and strategies being use today have destroyed what should be a spectacle.
Ask yourself one key question. Why is it when two great teams meet in a must win game, that it always ends up being a 0-0 or 1-0? 95% of the time a classic confrontation ends up being a classic bore and a battle of attrition by two teams that give nothing. Why is it always the defenses that seem to raise their game in matches like that and not the attackers?
The game really sucks the more you get closer to the trophy. I’m so tired of 0-0 and 1-0 matches that it makes me sick to even think of it.
The two games between Barcelona last season was a pure example of what Im talkinf about. Two teams with great players and the two best attackers in the world played to goalless stalemates and only an act of brilliance by Paul Scholes made the difference. Why is it in games like those, you never get Messi or a Ronaldo score two or three goals? Why does the offensive cream never ever rise to the top? The answer is politics and tactics that have so destroyed the game and have so crippled the initiative of players that it sickens me.
The rules have to change and the emphasis in the game has got to become the idea of scoring more goals than your opponent, not who gives up the most. Again two sides of the same coin but the meanings are different in philosophy. The Champions League has become to big financially and means too much for the teams competing that teams just can’t go out there and play football. They play battle chess and trench warfare. I’m sick and tired of it. Above all, I am sick and tired of great players never manning up and showing their class in big games. When was the last time you saw a great player really put on a show in a final? I mean a real great performance? Another reason why I hate the creation of the DMF. Why do teams waste their time and ruin their game by having a talentless defensive midfielder waste time and space in a game instead of adding another attacking midfielder or forward. Fo rthe last ten years we haven’t been watching 4-4-2 or 4-3-3 or 4-1-3-2 etc. What we have watched all along is the reinvention of the sweeper position. Instead of playing behind the rest of the back 3 and sweeping, somebody invented a way to make most teams play with not four defenders but five. A sweeper in front of the back four. And it has ruined the game. We have been watching teams play 5-3-2 and 5-4-1 for years but we don’t call it that way. But what else does a Claude Maklele or the infinite number of Diaara clones do but sweep up and act as a fifth defender. Chicken shit football and the scourge of the game. Get rid of that position and turn it into an offensive position and watch the game rock. Sorry for the long rant.
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@Nino: And we’re glad to have you back mate.
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@Grognard: If I’m not mistaken, didn’t replays show Scholesy’s would-be-equalizer was incorrectly flagged offside- second leg vs Porto?
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i really dont get the fuss about inter fucking milan. They suck. wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy oooooooovvvvvvveeerrrrrratttted!!!! tell me a decent challenger in serie A, none! juve=inconsistent/out of luck. milan=cup team. that leaves inter with a clear path to the scudetto. it kills me whenever people are praising mourinho, boring one-nil’s, crappy plays. Mourinho is the luckiest bastard in the world to win the CL, a shit decision by the linesman cost us that CL, then they faced deportivo then monaco. Monaco-Porto? sounds like a UEFA cup match up not a CL matchup. in short, Mourinho is a lucky bastard who gets too much credit to what he truly deserve. Inter will bow down to us, stop ibra you kill their game.
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@Roge: scholes was clearly onside.
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@Grognard: grog, ibra is like our berba, same style of play but world apart in attitude, ibra is an arrogant little prick, while the count is a sophisticated, classy, reserved type of fellow.
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the only thing that worries me is that Nemanja is suspended in the first leg, i hope Rio or Evans are fit and get back on form.
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@Roge: God mate, it’s been so long ago I can’t even remember the games. All I know is we lost. Sure we may have been robbed but a loss is a loss nonetheless.
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@john freakin’ o’shea: I love it when they call Berba lazy. They should watch IbraBitch more often. Next to the words lazy and slug are pictures of IbraBitch. And he does it in big games.
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Does anyone know tomorrows team news.
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Anderson on his way to recovery.
Flattering picture, innit?
Bet it was intended for me… 
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@Grognard: Porto were a really good team then. They had Deco, Carvalho, McCarthy, Costinha, Ferreira, Bosingwa and Maniche in their team. Most of them were/are full Internationals. We were playing without Rio, but with Fortune, Phil Neville, Howard, Oshea, Djemba Djemba, Butt and Fletcher. 5 of those 7 players are gone now because they werent United quality. And Fletch and Oshea are still not starters(I dont consider any midfield player except for Carrick a firm starter). We werent good that year, and we sucked defensivly. Ronaldo was still more inconsistent than Nani, Scholes was a striker and that was the first year I noticed Giggs losing his speed. And we would have gone through had it not been for a blind linesman and Tim fucking Howards mistake. Oh well, I hope luck is on our side against Inter. It will need to be…
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@RedDevilEddy: Plus cheats!
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Grognard you do make a good point about the Porto side but they did end up winning the Champions League. Also our team is vastly improved from the one that lost to Porto. Eddy makes good points about some of the players representing us back then. We were only favourites back then because people didn’t know about Porto and the quality they had a team.
We know everything about the Inter team and we surmise correctly that their only good players are Maicon and Ibramovitch. Ferdinand can do a job on Ibramovitch and IM sure we’ll find a way to shut Maicon out. For example putting Ronaldo one on one against him will scare Maicon off bombing forward.
Mourinho can pull off miracles but the gap between the two teams is so large that we’d have to screw up seriously to lose the tie. If our defence maintains the high standards of the last two seasons and our strikers take their chances….we have the tie sown up.
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@Grognard: Well said mate, spot on! Although I do recall agreeing with you previously, on this very concept of encouraging more attacking football, a month or two ago as well. Sadly, I reckon the 1st leg will mirror the Barcelona tie from last year and end up as a 0-0 war of attrition at the Giuseppe Meazza, before that man SCHOLES (who else?!) settles it at Old Trafford. Anyone care to disagree with me?
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@colver: Now now colver, let’s not underestimate Inter mate. They might be thinking along the same lines about us for all we know: ‘eliminate Ronaldo from proceedings and that’s half of Utd’s attacking threat snuffed out right there.’ Then they go and nick a lucky goal on the counter and defend for their lives. Vidic, the key component and constant during the amazing 13-game (and countng) shut-out run will be missing. Rio is just back from injury…Evans is still kind of inexperienced at the highest level. Berbatov still hasn’t started firing on all cylinders in Europe yet, so I will be interested to see how it pans out for him when the business end of the CL starts. Rooney will just be back from injury, and we all know he needs a few games to get into his stride and hit a purple patch…will the Inter games be too soon for this though? I presume Tevez will be used as an impact sub if Rooney is fit. I assume these things will be what might be running through Mourinho’s mind at present and he will be quietly (did I just use that word in the same sentence as ‘Mourinho’?? lol) confident of putting one over SAF once again.
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@colver: well considering Phelan used to be a defender and we are currently the best defensive team in the world I would regard him as doing a very good job so far. He must be the only assistant manager in the world who would receive criticism when his team are top of the league, final of a cup competition, second round of CL and 5th round of FA cup. All in his first season no less. I mean, give the guy a break!
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@Nino: eh Europe is the one place where Berba has been firing on all cylinders so I’m not really understanding that
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@Liam: What I meant by that was that any decent striker worth his salt can score a couple of goals against Celtic at home and at Aalborg away; I wasn’t that impressed by his effectiveness in the group stages otherwise. Can he step it up a notch in the knockout rounds and turn it on against the bigger teams? I’m not saying he’s not capable of it, but he hasn’t shown otherwise in my humble opinion lol
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I think it is fairer to say that Berbatov is unproven in Europe because you cannot read a lot into the group stages. Tevez showed his quality last season in Europe with some fantastic performances.
At least Id hope we go with Tevez in the away games and Berbatov in the home games where there is going to be more onus on breaking teams down than defending.
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What’s the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen in training? Dominic Monaghan, actor (Lost, Lord of the Rings)
The most amazing thing is Paul Scholes, in the morning, when a player goes to have a pee at the side of the training pitch and he fires balls from 40 yards right on top of their head! He’s unbelievable. He got John O’Shea about two weeks ago, right on the shoulder, while he was having a pee. He got Gary Neville right in the head and Neville chased him across the pitch!
Got from the Interview with Sir Alec on Manutd.com…. i thought this bit was hilarious, might be old, but thought i would share it anyway..
30 year old boys
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Pete Kenyon mustv really fucked up, how the hell would he organize a manager’s contract with such huge payouts, and has the guts to say that they have to sell to buy, wow. if that cash is used to buy players then chelsea would not have been in this mess. hahahaha kenyon,.
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@colver: “We know everything about the Inter team and we surmise correctly that their only good players are Maicon and Ibramovitch.”
I suggest you do a little more research on Inter, if you think those are there only 2 good players. You would have to be incredibly naive to think we are just gonna walk all over them.
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@RedDevilEddy: Ronaldo was never more inconsistent than Nani. Ronaldo has been great since day one but each year up until this year he got better and better. I do not remember any period in Ronaldo’s game that he ever got the kind of criticism for his play that Nani has received. Nani is a stiff in comparison to Ronaldo’s early years. Now if that doesn’t bring Craig out of hiding, nothing will.
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@colver: Inter have a lot of great players other than Maicon and IbrahimoBitch. Talent wise they are just as good as that Porto side and have more lethal finishers. What we have going for us is that we are so much better than that United side that lost to Porto and that we have so much success and experience. We’ve been there before and succeeded. So has Mourinho but his team hasn’t. Either way. this tie will be a drag it out defensive battle. I’d be shocked if any of the two games had more than one, maybe two goals scored in them.
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Against Porto our team was shit.
Here are the two line-ups we fielded:
First leg:
Howard, P Neville, Fortune, Butt, Brown, G Neville, Scholes, Keane, RVN, Saha, Giggs
Second Leg:
Howard, P Neville, O’Shea, Butt, Brown, G Neville, Fletcher, Djemba Djemba, Scholes, RVN, Giggs
I mean bloody hell. It really tells us how far we have come in five years. With those line-ups is it really that much of a surprise we lost to Porto?
Compare us and Inter. The only player who would get into our team is Maicon and perhaps Cambiasso.
We play in a domestic league where Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool have all reached finals in the Champions League in recent years. And we have finished top the last two years and are on course for another. Inter play in a shit league and are not markedly different from the team that got nowhere in Europe the past couple of seasons.
It won’t be a walk in the park as there are no easy games in Europe and in the cup luck has a big part to play but I think we can be very confident about our chances. Mourinho is a good coach and tactically savvy. But as I pointed out when he beat us with Porto we had a shit team and when he beat us with Chelsea we were still rebuilding and Chelsea with Roman’s billions were buying up all the talent in Europe.
Roma are about the same level as Inter. We own Roma. Therefore even with the Mourinho factor I fully expect us to own Roma. Of course it will only be decided by a goal-because that is our style these days: to win 1-0 at home and draw or win 1-0 away. But while the score won’t be flattering, we’ll get through comfortably.
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@colver: Inter>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Roma
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Btw new post was up
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Liam….look at the last couple of seasons in the Champions League. Inter made a real mess out of qualifying. Roma finished ahead of Chelsea.
Inter may do well in Serie A but Champions League is another ballgame.
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