Why do I insist on looking at clubs I dislike?  Well, at any rate, the series continues, with a two-parter on Real Madrid.  This springs in part from an exchange with two friends who I hope to persuade to weigh in.  Because I don’t like (understatement) Real Madrid for reasons that should be obvious to all right-thinking individuals, the emphasis here is looking at the team and finding weaknesses.  In Part 2, I scout potential transfer targets to repair some of the weaknesses.  I think this is particularly timely in light of their recent El Clasico loss to Barca and dismissal from the Champions’ League at the hands of Lyon.

Pepe Loses His Rag

Brian asserted that Madrid has done a good job of assembling young cover for its first-choice squad,which I largely agree with.  However, some of that cover, young and old, are not producing the goods.  Meanwhile, some of their (admittedly few) weaknesses are a result of their ridiculous internal politics and unforeseeable things like Pepe’s ongoing descent into madness.

The tactics assumed are Madrid’s usual approximation of a 4-1-3-2 or 4-2-3-1.

This is the first in a series analyzing major football clubs and attempting to spot their needs ahead of the summer transfer window.

This time, it’s Chelsea, who one has to figure will be making some big moves to add depth to their aging team.  They also have a relatively rational management structure, unlike Real Madrid, to the degree that Abramovich can be considered rational.  This makes Chelsea a more attractive target for analysis than Liverpoo who have even more pressing needs since Benitez evidently has no regard for such concepts as squad depth or developing young talent and in any event probably won’t be around by the time the window opens anyway.

Ages players are turning before or during next season:

30:  Florent Malouda, Ashley Cole, and John Terry (although of course he already moves like he’s 35)
32:  Ricardo Carvalho, Frank Lampard, Nico Anelka, Paulo Ferreira
33:  Didier Drogba, Deco
34:  Michael Ballack, Juliano Belletti (June birthday, so will be 35 by the time his contract is up at the end of next year)
35:  Hilario

They do have a good crop of players in their primes, but old enough that it would be good to start backing them up with young long-term replacements.

Interesting note you may have seen in the news today as teams start offering pre-contract terms to poach out-of-country players whose contracts are up in the summer (such as Marouane Chamakh):  Liverpool have apparently agreed terms with Milan Jovanovic of Serbia and Standard Liege.  He looked good in the probably two Champions’ League games I’ve seen him in, which isn’t saying a whole lot.  A striker!  For Liverpool!  Who is 28 and has played in the Champions’ League!!  Actually, that sounds exactly like Andriy Voronin.

The other pre-contract signing of note is Arsenal’s signing of a defender (Montenegrin Stefan Savic).  Why they didn’t just bite the bullet and pay a fee for the guy during the window I’ll never know, since he’s evidently leaving for nothing in the summer.  They could have pulled a Liverpool/Maxi Rodriguez and offered next to nothing to get him now.  But here’s the thing:  he’s not going to help with their defensive cover problems because he’s yet another man-child.  Unsurprisingly, he’s 19 and I had to look up his club because I’d never heard of it, which is frankly pretty rare.  Here’s why:  they were just promoted, for the first time in their history, to the Serbian Superliga after winning the second division.  They’re currently 12th of 16 teams, which sounds great except that until this year the league only had 12 teams and they promoted 5 and only relegated 1 last year to expand it to 16, so the club is effectively exactly where it was last year but on pace to stay up.

Finally, apparently there is no deal in place taking Sergio Canales to Real Madrid as previously reported, but he’s going to resign with Racing so they can extort a big fee for him this summer (his contract was going to expire).

It occurs to me that signing unnecessary and not-very-good strikers was the major theme of this transfer window in addition, of course, to signing washed-up former Premiership stars.

Problem: Marcelo Moreno disappointed for Shakhtar Donetsk and on loan at Werder Bremen. Solution: loan him to the Premiership!

What follows is a brief review of the attackers signed in the Premier League’s January window, with comments.  None of them are major, exciting signings with the possible exceptions of Benjani’s loan to Sunderland, Maxi Rodriguez’s free transfer to Liverpool (yes, I know he’s a winger, bear with me), and Landon Donovan’s loan to Everton.

Rumored deals like Klaas-Jan Huntelaar on loan, Marouane Chamakh, and Ruud van Nistelrooy failed to materialize (although, of course, van Nistelrooy liked the cut of Hamburg’s jib more than West Ham’s).  Note the prevalence of bargains, as well:  the ongoing financial crisis in English football surely affected the market.  The best deal might be Fulham’s loan signing of Roma’s Stefano Okaka, who scored a blinder against Siena in his last game for Roma before moving.

I go through the Premiership’s attacking signings in alphabetical order after the jump.  Note that not all clubs are represented, because not every club is wasting precious wages or transfer fees on strikers who add little to the team.

This January has been interesting largely for the lack of big-money moves, especially on the part of Chelsea, who will be embargoed in the summer.  The financial problems that have rocked European football generally and several English clubs specifically are a major part of it, of course.  Of course, the fact that January fees are traditionally jacked up since no one wants to lose a player performing well in mid-season doesn’t help when most clubs are feeling pinched.  I don’t know if it’s the emphasis on doing deals cheaply or just the nature of clubs’ needs right now, but there have been some weird ones and some risky moves; it will be very interesting to see how some of these pan out.

Football365 reports that Roy Keane will take the reins at Ipswich Town, currently 9th in the Championship (and mathematically out of the playoff race). I’m glad he’s back in the game, and I think Ipswich is a good place for him: this is a good, young team. Ipswich for promotion next season?

Also, check out the youtube videos of Real Madrid’s Pepe losing his mind and kicking Getafe’s captain Casquero on the ground before punching another Getafe player and being sent off.

Finally, there’s this. I give the Professor a lot of stick, mostly because many of his decisions this season have been bewildering at best. But I respect him, wish him no harm, and hope to see more sideline dance stylings.

A Gunner friend of mine, disappointed with Arsenal’s foibles this year–represented, perhaps, by their absolutely awful performance against Roma in the Champions’ League this week, regardless of the fact that they’ve stumbled into the quarterfinals–threw the name of Frank Rijkaard into the ring of potential successors to the increasingly myopic Professor Wenger. Nevermind that they’ve stumbled into the next round, and if they face Villarreal or Porto one suspects they might just stumble on into the semis, they were dire, and have been, but for certain lucky breaks, for much of the season. One of these lucky breaks is the surprising health of Robin van Persie, who, for the first time in his career, has shown some durability. Back to the Champions’ League, they’re moving on because, and this truly is shocking, Abou Diaby is apparently a cooler head than Max Tonetto. Anyway, this got me thinking: all of the Big Four face possible managerial successions in the near future, as does, almost certainly, Manchester City, which merits inclusion because they’ll likely be competing on a similar footing for the world’s managerial talent.

In looking at the possible candidates for these jobs, I’ll cover the Big Four before hitting City and concluding. Major caveat: Manchester United’s win in the Champions’ League has me in a partisan mood, which comes out in my analysis, so I’m more biased today than usual, which if nothing else might make this a little more entertaining.

Today witnessed two Big Four Premiership managers spouting off with excuses that would be surprising in their facility, if not outright inaccuracy, if the men in question were not so prone to whining and excuse-making. A quick debunking is in order. This is not to say that there is not some truth to both claims, but rather that the excuses attempt to distract from the fact that the problems to be excused are squarely the respective managers’ faults.

First, and less laughable on its face, is Rafa Benitez’s assertion that the wheels have come off at Liverpool solely because of Fernando Torres’s injuries. Now, I’m not doubting the import the loss of Torres has on this team. He’s played in only 15 league games, and is undoubtedly their best striker if not their most dangerous player–the Torres-Gerrard axis is a formidable one. However, the fact is that during Torres’ earlier absences the Pool did alright without him, staying top of the table in part due to Dirk Kuyt’s brilliance. Well, brilliance is an overstatement–he still plays like a chicken with his head cut off, albeit a hardworking chicken–but he has registered some absolutely key goals and assists this season. It is only now that the wheels have well and truly fell off in the league that Torres’ absence has become such a problem.

Harry Redknapp wins my respect with another of my occasional quotes of the week, this time with a dose of perspective. “It looks worse than it is. I get brilliantly paid for a good job, it’s easy to get up each morning. Pressure? People in this game don’t know what the word means. Pressure is driving a lorry up and down the motorway 12 hours a day. Pressure is a surgeon performing an operation to save someone’s life. Pressure is losing your job and doing your head in trying to think of ways to pay the mortgage.”

As I see it, there are four remotely plausible rationales that could underlie Harry Redknapp’s purchase of Robbie Keane: 1. Redknapp is trying to reverse the Keano Curse; 2. Redknapp’s wheeler-dealer side couldn’t resist the bargain; 3. Redknapp didn’t know quite what to do with Tottenham’s budget and so is merely turning back the clock; and/or 4., perhaps least appealing, Redknapp actually believes Keane can solve some of Spurs’ problems. I’ll take a (tongue firmly in cheek, of course) look at each of these scenarios and the evidence for and against them before throwing out a new and equally scurrilous theory on the selling side of this deal.