finally a defense

Kolo Toure. Finally a defender for Man City. I was thinking they were looking to play a 1-5-4 style for next season. Which *might* work if you had say, Franz Beckenbauer, back there alone- but that is about it. They still desperately need someone else back there, if not two. They have purchased a left defender and a central one. Richards is not good enough for a team competing for the champions league, so they should get another right back and another central one as well. They have they youngsters in case of injury. Speaking of which, why they are not buying the wonderkids from around the world is odd to me. They have the money, they aren't established yet so will go to any team that will pay the poor Brazilian clubs, and by the time they expect playing time Man City should have some of the current batch of money makers retiring, or at least aging. They need experienced older players and a few brilliant young ones coming through the ranks to replace them if they ever expect to not pay top top dollar for whoever had a great last season. Just a thought, back to defense. Why they are ignoring Hangeland, I am not sure. They already have the big names, now they need some consistency and height at the back, without the egos. Hence Fulham's Scandinavian. At 12 mil he is cheaper than the sheik's last car, so they can definitely afford him. And how they need him after losing two out of three games in South Africa to local competition. Any defense with Dunne in the back four belongs in the Championship, or at least being the Premiership whipping boys like Derby or West Brom. How Hughes is thinking of putting his team together is still a mystery to everyone from the pubs in Santiago to Sir Alex himself. Whom I love seeing get worked up about the posters with Tevez in Manchester. Lets be honest, Sir Alex only gets worked up when he feels threatened. Man City probably will fight for champions league this season if they can get a few more defenders and a big midfielder, but they probably won't challenge Man U much. But in the long run they are the threat and Fergie can't handle not being the top team in the city. It will be fun to watch. Especially after seeing Man U pull one last mugging from a smaller club. A 16 year old at that. That would almost be child labor in a lot of countries. New rules will be put in place to stop that nonsense finally, but I really hope the poor lad is great, and ends up wanting to switch teams in five years when he finally is old enough to play for the first team, as Man U is no longer a force. Or at least THE force. It would be very enjoyable to see it flipped, where Man U train up a lad and invest lots of money to see him switch teams. Lets be honest- when Fergie retires, unless 'the special one' takes his place, Man U are going to struggle for a few years at least. And I can't see his nose lasting another three or four seasons. Santa will want him to lead his sleigh at some point before then.

I must head to bed before the power cuts off. But let me first apologize for my delayed response. Partly due to being too busy, but mostly because I couldn't figure out how to post again. Blogger switches to Arabic when you read it in Sudan it turns out, and I forgot it is read right to left, so I couldn't figure out where to log in. Sigh. But after many false starts, I now have it figured out (at least once so I hopefully can do it again) and shall continue to post more frequently. I agree to the original scoring, it looks like a good system. I am tempted to add a signing of the season and flop of the season, but since they don't hand out awards of any sort that will be debatable. But definitely a topic for later blogs, say in a years time when Owen scores a hat-trick against his old squad Real Madrid in the final of the champions league and Ronaldo sulks in the corner after none of his superstar teammates are willing to pass the ball as they all want to pull a Messi and dribble from half themselves.