Curse You, Sven Goran Eriksson!

By: Martha | July 12th, 2007

Freddie n the Russian The freaking Sun is gleefully reporting this morning that Manchester City are preparing to outbid Fiorentina for Calvin Klein’s favorite footballer (And yes, I will be calling him that for the foreseeable future. Get used to it.), stealing Freddie Ljungberg right out from under our eager noses. According to the article, Man City have already had talks with the player himself, and will offer Arsenal £6 million for his services, apparently enough of an improvement over the Viola offer of £5.5 million to sway the sale in their direction.

Now, The Sun has never been the most reliable source in journalism, so there is a strong possibility they’re just making thing up. It is true, though, that Eriksson has great regard for his countryman — reportedly calling him “the best Swede still playing” (Once wonders what, exactly, he calls Ibra. A Croat, perhaps?) — and surely wouldn’t mind having him in his City side. It’s also quite obvious that Ljungberg is surplus to Arsenal requirments, and despite the two years left on his contract will definitely be going somewhere this summer, assuming he wants to play. There’s no word on the salary Man City would pay him, but with their recent infusion of probably ill-gotten Thai money, one imagines they could easily pay more than the £1.5 million Fiorentina are struggling to offer. Sigh. I think Freddie might just be staying in England.

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Category: Fiorentina, Rumors & News, Serie A

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Linda

"the best Swede still playing"
Not only Ibra, but isn't Henrik Larsson (yeah, I'm biased) still playing too?
freddiegirl

Well.....as a die-hard Arsenal fan I would have preferred Freddie simply to have stayed; he's my favorite player as well...but him staying in the Premiership makes it easier for me to still watch him play; I'm in the States and the EPL gets lots more coverage than Serie A I'm afraid.. But...it's going to be a bummer watching him play agaisnt Arsenal...and a vacation to Florence was starting to become kinda attractive! We'll see how it goes. Freddie will be missed at Arsenal, he's been a great servant and gave us Gooners a lot of great memories.
chris g

Who wants to go to Man City? Wait, don't answer that.....
Martha

I may not like Juve, Mike, but you know I love pictures of footballers -- feel free to bring the Juve spam whenever the mood strikes you (don't deny you've got a hard drive full of Ale). Speaking of Ale, I must admit that he looks great there. Rogain is a wonderful thing, you know.

And, yeah, Camo is stoned out of his MIND in that picture. What do they get up to at this "training camp," exactly?
Mike

I read that Nocerino will join the team on Friday at their training facility, but of course that doesn't prove anything.

I did find proof that Camoranesi is a pot head. Check out the photo below, which has the added bonus of giving Martha another angle of Ale's full head of hair so that maybe she can stop seeing whats not there:

http://www.juventus.com/it/new...

...and please don't reverse the "seeing what's not there" argument, that was NOT a lob. Be nice.

Also on the site is a pic of Molinaro, Marchisio and Criscito just before they get hazed:

http://www.juventus.com/it/new...

...and before I get in reprimanded for "too many juve pics" or "acting like an inappropriate jackass" or "being too damn handsome for my own damn good", I'll end the photo bombs.
tmc

Yeah, I don't know what the Nocerino situation is. Apparently he wants to come to Fiorentina, and Fiorentina have met an earlier asking price that Juve put out there. Now those bianconeri bastards are probably upping the price.

It is tough to cobble together from reports, but it seems like Corvino doesn't really like to up his price once he puts an offer out there (If they really wanted Ljungberg, you'd think half a million pounds wouldn't have stood in the way), so who knows what will happen.
Martha

You and your blasted reason, tmc! I agree, it would have been a risk, but the skill is there, and the salary would have been low, considering -- if it worked, he could have been slightly magical (in addition to the naked thing). My real first choice would have been Quaresma, but he seems bound for Spain, and also strikes me a huge potential locker room problem.

Rossi is such a dominant, nose-for-goal type striker it's hard to imagine him playing well with Pazzini, but I've been wrong before (many, many times). Of course, they'd have to get him first -- the queue to sign the kid is growing by the day.

Nocerino would be fantastic (and his youth is a great bonus), if that deal actually is happening ~~-- it's not official yet, is it?~~. Sorry, just read the latest that he's not going anywhere -- wonder how true that is, or if it's just a way to push the price up.
tmc

Despite the obvious disappointment that will be felt by female Fiorentina and Serie A fans, Man City can take him. This was too big of a risk for Fiorentina and I'm glad that Man City has lots of ill-gotten cash to spend on Freddie.

This guy is already 30, has missed major portions of the last 2 seasons as a result of injuries, and Fiorentina was going to make him their highest-paid player? This makes no sense and does not really fit into the way they have been building their team.

I would like to see them accomplish 3 things before the season is up. First, get rid of Bojinov and add another striker (These Rossi rumors are encouraging, although I worry about whether Pazzini and Rossi are compatible). Second, add a bad ass holding midfielder so we can provide cover for Montolivo and not have to rely too much on Liverani (Nocerino would fit this well). And third, find a winger, just not an overly expensive, possibly washed up one (even if he does look good mostly naked).