Hibee - Comments

He was quite young back then wasn't he? I'd imagine it really affected his settling in at Bolton and in English football.

I can't say I remember him from his season with Torino but he was impressive for Parma and I think they paid a decent price (by their standards) to sign him fully.

Neither did I. I doubt many Sunderland fans will really care either.

Funny you should mention that, David Miliband's just resigned from whatever role he had at the club "in light of the new manager's past political statements."

Love that Dzemaili tried to show respect to his former club by not celebrating his first two goals but went nuts when he got his third.

Bit of an exaggeration to say he's 'utter shit' for them. He's stuck out wide normally and if you've watched much of Napoli, especially when things aren't going well, you'll have seen Cavani's habit of dropping very deep to help win the ball back etc rather than stay forward and do what he does best.

Hopefully with Forlan getting on a bit he'll be used centrally a bit more and do for Uruguay what he does in Serie A.

Ok, just to clear up the above:

• The wage cap looks to be €150k basic wage and €150k in performance/appearance bonuses taking it up to €300k
• The wage cap will apply to new contracts signed from this July onwards, current contracts remain the same which resolves the issue of what happens to relegated clubs - for now anyway.
• Any club that has new contracts that breach the wage cap will be fined.
• There'll be a ban on non-EU signings other than from Serie A sides.
• Serie B sides will be limited to 22 senior players (over 21 I think) which will be reduced to 20 players in time.
• Their also looking to cut Serie B down to 20 sides

A wage cap is going to be introduce in Serie B, here's the official piece for our Italian speakers: legaserieb.it

It'll be interesting to see how this works, if it's a set limit for all teams (as opposed to a wages to turnover percentage limit) and if there's going to be a bit of leeway in the first year or for newly relegated clubs. I mean, most Serie B clubs are playing to crowds of 5/6k and I can't imagine the TV money is up to much. The likes of Palermo or Genoa would have to totally gut their teams if they went down and it'll be so difficult to bounce back at the first attempt.

You also have to wonder what happens if clubs can't get under the limit, will they drop to Serie C and if so, who'll make room? I've a bad feeling this could get very very messy.

Edit: Seems it's just going to limit individual player wages to €300k a year or €6.25k per week. I'm assuming these are the after tax figures so the actual sums the clubs will play out will be a sight more.

Also, no non-EU players allowed unless they come from a larger Italian club.

Maybe Pandev filled in the wrong box, given how accurate his shots are it's possible he aimed for old Jose and got the pen in the wrong one...

Edit: He's saying that isn't his signature on the ballot...

Nah, the only way a keeper would have got a touch on that is if he'd watched a clip of the goal at half time.

http://www.leagueslider.com/leagues/serie-a-2012-13?lines=0

How much are they meant to have signed him for? Sporting only own 35% of his rights and the third party companies aren't going to give away their shares for nothing just because Sporting are struggling.

Now I think about it, if they got him on the cheap they'll have had to come up with an offer to suit the third party companies, perhaps 60/70% of the fee Norwich get when they sell him.
That's what happened when Lazio tried to sign Felipe Anderson from Santos, 30% of his right were owned by some English company and rather than lose their investment they wanted 35% of any future fee we received for him.

Aye, Italy are actually playing well, dominated the first half and really didn't deserve to go in 2-0 down. Balotelli's goal was great, one of those that gets better each time you watch it.

Credit to Prandelli, despite saying they'll be taking the game seriously he still had the balls to take off Pirlo when the side was 2-0 down to both keep him fresh for Malta and see how the side coped without him.

Hmm, Goran Pandev claims that his vote for FIFA Manager of the Year was changed, his first choice of Jose Mourinho was removed and replaced with Del Bosque. I've no idea if his second and third choices of Mancini and Klopp were originally in those places or if Del Bosque was originally in one of those spots.

Either way, Pandev isn't the first to mention stuff like this...

Milan - San Remo, yep. The weather in the north of Italy is horrible the now, Samp v Inter in Genoa has been called off due to the risk of flash floods and our game with Torino in Turin this evening was in doubt due to the amount of snow forecast.

If the transfer stories are true Inter could have an interesting front line with Icardi and Alexis Sanchez possibly arriving.

Before the draw the bookies had the last 8 in this order:

Chelsea
Spurs
Benfica
Lazio
Newcastle
Fener
Ruben
Basle

Shame we didn't draw Newcastle, their an hour or so down the road from me and I'd definitely have been there. Still, Fenerbache isn't a bad draw, our first 11 is better than theirs but if we're too focused on the league it could get tricky given our lack of depth in some places.

It also seems our lanky Czech striker Libor Kozak is now the leading Europa League scorer with 8, not bad for a guy that can't score in Serie A to save himself.

Here's what last night's practice draw came up with:

Juventus v Barcelona
PSG v Galatasaray
Real Madrid v Dortmund
Bayern Munich v Malaga

Both the German team's we've faced have been utter sh*te, rather disappointed with them actually.

Full time in Milan. Shame Inter couldn't get their 5th but after the horror show in the first leg they probably didn't deserve to win the tie as a whole.

Amazing, 9 minutes gone, empty stadium, 4 or 5 of the first 11 missing and Lazio are already 2-0 up on Stuttgart, 4-0 on aggregate.

I've a funny feeling Spurs will scrape through, Inter have been uncharacteristically sound at the back and are probably overdue a blunder, Spurs are actually making Johnathan look competent...

I do like that in Zanetti and Parker, both sides have guys with haircuts out of the 1950's.

Edit: There we go, Inter out.

He was almost a Lazio player in the summer but we tried to drag the price down too far because the chairman wasn't convinced he could make the step up to Serie A...

4-0, perhaps, but 3-0 certainly wouldn't have. As for Milan, aside from a short spell in the second half they were dreadful, so many silly little mistakes.

Edit - I feel really sorry for Niang, the kid's just 18, I don't think he's even scored in Serie A yet and with Pazzini out it was a huge ask expecting him to hold his own out there.

Given the creepy, overly nice way he was acting after the game I can't help feeling United will be his next English club, with PSG providing an interesting challenge to keep him going till Fergie retires.

It's bad enough we always seem to forget how to play when we face Hearts but to have the ref and linesman miss a clear goal is a joke.

It's not even funny, fair enough he's paying these managers till the end of the season but they've had more managers than Serie A wins this season...

It pains me to say it, but Marquinos of Roma's right up there as well. He's reminds me of Thiago Silva and at 18 he already looks a step above where Nastasic was last season.

Inter are so bad

Diving tw*t misses the second leg in Milan. Serves him right.

Inter have been dreadful for weeks, I'm sure Strama said they had to call up half a dozen Primavera players just to fill the bench tonight.