8 Sept 2014

Sign Me: 'Special' £8m star admits he's a 'LFC fan' & loves Gerrard. January deal?

Last season, Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers made a personal scouting trip to watch MK Dons starlet Dele Alli in action, and with speculation growing about LFC's interest, Alli has dropped a very strong hint that he's open to playing for LFC.

Sign Me: 'Magic' £8m star admired by BR admits he's an 'LFC fan' & loves Gerrard
'I'm an Liverpool fan': Exciting £8m star touts himself to Liverpool

In an interview with the Daily Mail today, Alli revealed his allegiance to the Mighty Reds. He enthused:

"I am actually a Liverpool fan and Gerrard is someone I look up to massively"

Alli is almost certainly aware of the ongoing speculation linking him with Liverpool, and this basically amounts to a very unsubtle 'come and get me' plea. To be fair, I'd do exactly the same thing in his shoes - I'd be dropping hints all the time making it clear I want to play for Liverpool.

The transfer story so far:

JAN 2014: The Mirror reported that Rodgers made a 'personal check' on Alli during the League One side’s FA Cup draw at Wigan.

MAR 2014: The Daily Mail claimed: "Liverpool chief scout Barry Hunter watched him [Alli] in action at the weekend. [Rodgers] instructed his colleague to run-the-rule over the 17-year-old who scored in the 3-2 victory over Shrewsbury Town".

JUN 2014: Sky Sports claimed Liverpool have lodged an official bid for Alli, in the region of £3.5m-£8m:

Dons boss Karl Robinson admitted recently that he'd spoken with Rodgers about some of the club's rising stars. He told reporters:

“I know Brendan quite well and we speak about different players all the time. He was at the game today, but you’ve seen Dele and he’s special. He did bits of magic [and] I’m very proud of his development.”

Robinson also believes that Alli is destined for great things:

"He is one of the most gifted 17-year-olds this country has ever seen. I've said from the word go, he's as good as it gets and he's the best young player I've ever worked with"

In another interview, Robinson raved:

“I’ve seen him do things in training that I’ve never seen before. I’ve seen nothing like Dele before. The kid will be one of the best. He’s on another planet compared to some other players.”

Some info about Alli:

* 6'2
* 8 goals/2 assists in 44 apps for MK Dons so far.
* Made his debut at age 16 in 2012.
* 9 apps for the England U17 side.
* Top scorer for the U18s last season with 17-goals.
* Signed a three-year professional deal in the summer of 2013.
* Personal motto: "Don't practise until you get it right. Practise until you can't get it wrong".

Like Rodgers, Robinson seems prone to effusive, overwrought praise, and he regularly heaps exaggerated praise on Alli. It may be genuine, or he may be trying to raise his eventual transfer fee, which given the fact Alli is English, will probably be massively inflated anyway.

Liverpool are bursting at the seams with young talent, and the arrival of yet another teenager seems, to me, like overkill. However, Alli seems to have great pedigree, and the club lacks - even in the youth ranks - big, tall, combative midfield players, so he would bring something different to the table.



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54 comments:

  1. i was just thinking with sturridge injured we can play borini


    ...............................................balotelli............borini
    ...........................................................sterling
    ...............................................allen......................henderson
    ...........................................................gerrard


    borini can do the sturridges and balotellis running together so balotelli wont have to run

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  2. anyone else think allen can play the anchor man role that gerrard plays and can at the lcm ?

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  3. Sterling will be our most important player this season. Only 19 and already is looking like a world beater.

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  4. Is rather play sterling as a CF/ ST position next to balotelli with lallana in the hole just behind. We could try to fit in Can in place of Allen or Henderson (because that prick hodgson played him today WITH an injured ankle.

    Btw, Jaime could you do an article on that idiot of a manager, Roy Hodgson, and how he seems to be so careless with liverpool players and causing them unnecessary injuries.

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  5. Can would be the best bet for the single pivot. Do yourself a favour, google Emre Can vs Manchester United (A) and just have a llok at the passing ability of this young player. Top class.

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  6. I think Liverpool should play a 4-2-2-2 similar to the one Manchester City uses.
    ----------Mignolet-----------
    ------Manquillo------------Skrtel-------------Lovren----------Moreno-----------
    ------------------------Henderson-------------Gerrard----------------------------
    -------Sterling--------------------------------------------------Coutinho----------
    ----------------------Sturridge---------------------Balotelli-----------------------
    A mobile Henderson next to Gerrard would help out defensively. We can't play Henderson, Gerrard, and Coutinho centrally if we play 2 strikers. Coutinho in a role similar to what David Silva is at Manchester City would help him reach his potential.

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  7. Coutinho is not of much use out wide and this formation just would not have the desired effect.

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  8. Brendan Rodgers is building something special with a British core so highly rated youngsters are showing their cards hoping our scouting turns into a bid.
    Will Hughes was the first to show his hand now Delle Alli.The player in question i've never seen play but our squad is looking very strong.Only exceptional talent from this point will cut the mustard.

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  9. England win away at Switzerland.Media and bookies translation... favourites for the European Championships:)

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  10. Heard a lot about this lad, only seen him play twice and he didn't blow me away...maybe one for the future or perhaps another Jonjo Shelvey! Lol

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  11. Spot on mate! Before the game the media were slating the team saying there's no aggression of passion..tomorrow they'll be saying they can go all the way in the euros! Deluded...

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  12. Our academy now only has space for the truly outstanding players in their age group. I've not seen any of this kid to form an opinion but if he's the real deal I'm all for it. The more top talent we can recognise and sign up before they cost the earth the better IMO.
    Man U have spent more than us this window and bought some big names but do you think they've done better business than us? I don't. If the Valdes deal happens we will have both cover at every position as well as a highly competitive environment with no real star player and nobody taking their place for granted.
    United have done the opposite and bought a host of "star players" for huge money and huge wages without really addressing the needs of their team which is centre midfield and central defence. Their squad is unbalanced and they could be in financial trouble soon.
    Point is if we can be the go to club for the outstanding young players in Europe as they know they'll get a chance with us then it could save us tens of millions

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  13. Well borini wanted to prove himself, nows his chance

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  14. Andy Townsend needs to keep his big trap shut.He got stuck into Sterling but had nothing negative to say about anyone else.It looks like the early stages of the media looking to engineer the latest player to pick on even though Raheem Sterling has been England's brightest spark in the last 5+ games.
    Townsend is the only one right now but it won't be long before the sheep jump on his retarded bandwagon.Typical media nitpicking to the point of eventual bashing, targeting a fall guy for the inevitable under Roy Hodgson's leadership... England crash and burn.

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  15. Looking at the way Man Utd have spent this summer has made me think what a good job Chelsea and Man City have done with the unlimited funds they've had in recent seasons.United have gone down the big name route without properly thinking how the players will fit in their system.
    The superstars bought won't be enough to change their fortunes.Last seasons top four have put more thought into their summer recruitment.

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  16. Won't work for AV if Studge isn't healthy. I'd put Sterling with Balotelli and Markovic in his place. Throw Lallana in for whoever has trouble(Marko or PC) or gets tired and put Can in for Gerrard when his legs give out...60 minute mark. The third sub is a wild card...Borini or Lambert or if someone gets a knock.

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  17. Nevergonnacrackthecode7:03 am, September 09, 2014

    sign will hughes,patrick roberts and delle alli
    they are all lfc fans and lfc have scouted them all


    we can build an English spine :
    ......................................................sturridge
    roberts............................................hughes ..................sterling
    ............................................alli..................henderson

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  18. I hope we sign both Alli and Hughes. Hughes in particular looks a classy player and I've wanted him to come to Anfield for 3/4 years

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  19. I actually don't think he does. Like, seriously. He just spouts off something, then the next minute says something completely contradictory. Probably in reply to himself as well...

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  20. Why would you want Switzerland to win the game?

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  21. When did Benitez manage Porto?

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  22. 'All you gotta do is yell at Woy, it's not that hard. You're a clown if you can't'. Okay buddy...

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  23. Wants England to loose to Switzerland. Tells Rodgers to sign future England stars.....

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  24. No, you're not right mate. The British are / were Celts. Britain is the name for the islands which make up the east Atlantic archipelago, which consists of 1000s of islands including Great Britain and Ireland or Eire. When the name Britain was given, the islands were as far as we can tell *almost* exclusively inhabited by these various Celtic people.

    The Welsh, the Cornish, the Manx, the Scots, the Bretons, the Irish, are all versions, outgrowths, of that stock, the Insular Celts. They weren't the first human settlers of these islands, but rather a immigrants from Europe who displaced a number of largely mysterious neolithic peoples when they arrived about 1000BC. Before that people had been lurking around, building Stonehenge and so on, for ages.

    That immigration kept happening, just as it's still happening now, until the people of what is now England were from the time the Romans left ethnically a mixture of Latins, Celts, Angles, Saxons, and Norse. The Kentish and the Cornish are examples of Celtic people whose ethnicity and identity has survived to some extent in England.

    The Normans weren't French ethnically -- that is, either Teutonic Franks or Gaulish Celts -- but Norse who'd settled in northern France (in Normandy) -- some of them after being driven out from Britain. If you think of William the Conqueror and his pals as vikings, it kinda makes sense.

    So overall I don't think it's quite right to call the Brits a mix of Anglo-Saxons and French.

    Not just the extent of the Celtic history of England, but the extent of Norse settlement and the influence of Norse culture in Britain tends to get downplayed. It's worth remembering that the Irish, too, have plenty of naturalised Norse among them, who began settling that island from about 800AD. Actually a united army of pagan Irish and Norse would invade the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxons in the tenth century, causing a general ruckus. There's always been this back-and-forth among the islands, for war and trade, so by now as I say it's very difficult really to make arguments about the ethnicity of modern-day English, Welsh, Scots, Irish (... not to mention Manx, Cornish, Geordies, West-Countrymen, Cumbrians, and of course, Scouse, among so very many others...).

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  25. So these are the self contradictions you're talking about...

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  26. With him being English, even though we may pay over the odds now, should he turn into a half decent player who just maybe isn't at our level, he can be sold on at what would be a generous profit I'm sure.

    I don't mind investing in young talent for this money. I realise that we have an abundance at the academy, but in reality, maybe 1 in 10 of these players will be good enough to play at the top, some others will be sold on to lesser clubs and more still will not make it in football in this country.

    So I understand and agree with the policy of buying 14-17 year olds for a nominal fee, developing them for a few years and hoping to get a player out of them, or selling them on, usually at a profit. It's when we start laying out 10-15 mil for teenagers, sending them out on loan etc, i get annoyed.



    It is a bit unfair to the young recruits to have so much competition in the ranks. Compared to say 20 years ago, it feels like a bit of a conveyor belt system. But that is the reality of modern football. Academies are larger, squads are bigger and more talent outside the starting 11 of a team. Should a young player come through the gladiatorial arena of the academy, he will just have to do it again in the first team squad. It's preparing them for life as a top footballer, and if they can't cope with the competition in the academy, no way will they in the rest of their career.

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  27. This was discussed at length in a previous article. The deal with Lille was conditional on them getting him on loan for the season. There is a direct quote from BR confirming this which was posted by several people. Why repeat the 'signed on the basis of a couple of good games' line, when it is demonstrably (not 'arguably') inaccurate. There are multiple quotes from BR confirming we have scouted him since early teens abd the player himself confirmed that the coaching staff had videos of him going back to an u15 tournament. The world cup performances merely forced our hand as the proverbial cat was then out of the bag. We could possibly have played hardball and got him now but it would have likely been for a higher fee and we were not intending to move for him for another year into his development at least so it made sense.

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  28. There has never been a country called "Britain", let alone "Great Britain".

    Nevertheless Andy Murray is British, Brendan Rodgers is British, Roy Keane is British, Raheem Sterling is British. It really just means an inhabitant of the British Isles -- that's the only meaning that's made sense for about 1500 years.

    The confusion mainly comes in because the term "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" has been misleadingly shortened to "Britain", or appallingly in various sports "Great Britain", which is just the name of the biggest of the islands.

    There is no state representing Britain since the Irish republic was formed. Ireland is still part of Britain, though, all the same, even if it's not a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, because Britain is a geographical entity, not a political or ethnic one.

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  29. It's very interesting, since both sides of my family are British background, with a lot of them having dark brown hair. My hair has been getting darker and darker from dirty blonde to brown as I've gotten older. Dad was a blonde youth, now has dark brown hair.
    So you can basically say that there's no one generic type of indigenous Brit, as there is for e.g. Chinese people, Aboriginals and etc., because the ancient Brits were a combination of Basques and Germanic/Nordic people?


    You've got me confused about the Celtic and Gaelic Celtic distinction though. I thought they were the same, i.e. Celts are the people, Gaelic is the language...


    There is literally nothing to talk about with Liverpool at the moment, unless you're Jaimie and you find transfer rumours that don't mean anything just to have SOME content on the website...

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  30. I think when people say someone is British, they are meaning that they represent the United Kingdom, which is a country; England is like a country within a country. People say British because there's no good demonym for the UK...

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  31. Spirit of the Shadows11:18 am, September 09, 2014

    What happened to the will hughes kid? I thought he was going to be Stevie's successor

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  32. I think it's JK - provoking people

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  33. That would be my team. Don't mess about with the team to much and see how it gets on. If things don't work out then you have options on the bench.............. Very good options when players begin to get tired.
    Last season we dropped points against villa at home and we should of been dead and buried by half time. It was only when Lucas came on(then Allen for the injured Lucas) that we really started to get into the game. Weimann was all over Gerrard and i expect the same again. We need grafters to run and run for this game and that's why i'm going for Borini. If he wants his chance then lets give it him in a game where we need his work rate.
    Our opening 4 games this season produced only 4 points last season in the same fixtures. We have a chance to be 5 points better off and i hope they take that chance.

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  34. For Villa game------------------------Mignolet
    Manquillo--Skrtel-Lovren---Moreno
    ------------------Gerrard---------------
    ----------Henderson--Lallana
    --Sterling--Balotelli--Markovic


    Only two questions are do we give Sakho the chance and does Coutinho comes on or off the pitch in 60th minute for Lazar.

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  35. Stick with Sakho against Villa, put Coutinho in for Markovic in the 60th minute, change to a diamond with Sterling and Balotelli up top. Maybe take Balotelli off at 75 and throw Lambert in.

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  36. Yeah that's right, but they just do that from ignorance really. I think it's a shame, because when you start to think about the whole archipelago as a country, no matter how it's divided politically, a lot of its history makes better sense. If we wanted to be absolutely clear, I'd want to say that the UK is a state, rather than a country; and that Britain is a country, or a land -- and of course every country is made up of other countries... States come and go, there have been loads in Britain over the centuries, but the country is something more permanent and continuous. I'm an Anglo-Scot, I've lived in many parts of the British Isles, from Ireland to Scotland to many parts of England, so it also makes personal sense to me to think of it that way.

    I think you have counties in Australia too don't you? That word is the same word as country, it's just evolved a different meaning. When people talked about their "country" up to about 1800 in Britain they would typically mean their county, i.e. the particular bit of the islands they were from.

    It's extra interesting in England cuz a lot of the counties are the descendents of the old Kingdoms of Britain -- Sussex, Essex, Middlesex as the lands of the Saxons. Suffolk and Norfolk are the lands of the South and North Folk of the Angles, and so on. People still refer to the midlands as Mercia sometimes, and Wessex survives at least as an idea. Cumbria is named for the kingdom of the Cambric Celts which possessed that land...

    Lots of regions, especially in the north and west, never really identified with the English state that the Normans developed after the conquest. The development of Britain as a state over the course of the 1600s and 1700s was also resisted, as regions and social groups struggled to hold onto their regional and class identities and cultures against the growing dominion of the modern British state, the United Kingdom, which I think we can all agree is a pretty monstrous entity. The sense of a north-south divide, or of the London government being an enemy to the people, has a deep history, and it's not just the Scots and Irish who have historical grievances against the UK...



    Oh my god what's wrong with me, why am I writing this here. Sorry man! I should be writing something else, obviously.

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  37. By jove! You've cracked it!

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  38. The earliest known inhabitants of Britain appear to have been some dudes who dug holes in the ground and made interesting pots and then eventually for some reason massive structures of stone, earth, and wood. I don't know much about them, but I like the stuff they made. Then a bunch of early Celts came and did their thing. Then some more different kinds of Celts. Then a bunch of Romans. Then a bunch of Germanic Anglo-Saxons. Then crowds of Norse from Scandinavia. Then some more Norse from France. Then, later, loads of Protestant French. Then some Africans. And then basically everybody else piled in.

    I get confused about the Celtic thing too. It's a vague term, that's the thing, covering several different groups which emerged at several different (pre)historical moments. Many of the accounts of the ancient Celts that have been used to construct their ethnic history are really unreliable, like Julius Caesar's memoir for example, which isn't exactly unbiased. The modern nationalist reconstructions of the Celtic have a strong element of Victorian hocus-pocus about them. But that's Britain for you.

    Anyway what defines a people as Celtic is the language they used rather than their genes. So individual Celtic groups are usually divided up by scholars according the branch of the large, old, and fading family of Celtic languages they use(d). It's a pretty ambiguous science. So there are plenty of different-looking Celtic peoples because being Celtic, or of Celtic descent, was / is primarily a cultural rather than a genetic thing. There were Celtic languages spoken in the ancient world right across from Britain to Iberia and far to the east, most of which are extinct. People spoke Celtic languages in what are now Spain, Poland, Turkey, Syria... Gaelic is a branch of what's called Goidelic Celtic still spoken in Scotland, with a related growth in Ireland.

    I've recently read Tim Clarkson's book, "The Picts, A History", about a distinct "p-Celtic" (i.e. Proto-Celtic) speaking Celtic people who inhabited parts of the British Isles, especially the highlands in the north of Great Britain, along with the "q-Celtic"-speaking Scots, with whom they eventually merged in the AD800s. It's pretty interesting stuff. Maybe your family are all Pictish...

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  39. If United goes 2-3 seasons without top 4 they'll end up like Leeds, look at their wage bill: Falcao 346k a week, Rooney 300k a week RVP 220k a week (apparently with a £10m loyalty bonus)

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  40. Nope, just journalism things.

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  41. I've been playing too much football manager, I spent 10 minutes wondering why White Hart Lane wasn't called New White Hart Lane

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  42. Or maybe Sigurdsson preferred playing in the centre rather being shunted out on the left wing, or maybe Garry Monk is letting him play with more freedom rather being tied down for defensive duties

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  43. Old Hodge copied our system... The diamond was the main reason they won yesterday... And also Welbeck had a very good game... I cannot believe I just said that... Apparently, if you leave a midtable team, you get an ability boost...

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  44. This is actually a lot more interesting than discussing the starting line up against Villa, and then there's really nothing else to talk about re: Liverpool.


    That London divide certainly is prominent. Even seems prominent in EPL between the Northern teams and London teams.


    With Australia, the monstrous UK originally split it into divided areas called States. It's very much like the US. The US was originally a land a different states, and then they all decided to form to together to form one big country. Same thing happened over here, it was called Federation. The first State was New South Wales (Where Pete and I are from), and it's geographically bigger than Great Britain probably. Captain Cook landed there in 1770 (actually not far at all from where I live..25 min drive?) and the rest is history. We're kind of just like a younger version of the US, without all the slavery and civil war...

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  45. Perish the thought!

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  46. Pieter Engelbrecht5:12 pm, September 09, 2014

    nicely said panda sterling next to balotelli and markovich on the wing. pace and more pace

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  47. Pieter Engelbrecht5:14 pm, September 09, 2014

    mind you we could do with some steel in the midfield

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  48. Robo, thats an interesting history lesson. When I refer to nationality, I dont look any further than your passport. Can someone born in Rep of Ireland get a British passport? I rest my case.....

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  49. No, he is over hyped & over priced. At 17, he is 6'2" - must be ramming around lot of U19 kids. Story of the English football - 90% physical - brilliant in friendlies when opposition players play safety first, dummy when there is something on stake.

    Had he not been English, his price would have been 0.8mn. We should spend this 8mn in Spain, Holland, France & Germany - easily 'll get 3 or 4 players much, much better in talent, skill & technique. Shaw 32mn, Zaha 15mn, Wickham 10mn, Ali 8mn.........................................my left foot $100.

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  50. I hear himself, Will Hughes and Sterling are going to win the world cup for England in 2018....

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