Luckily the ref was on hand to gift us an early penalty. Lots of debate about this on the Monaco forums, but I think we were very lucky to get that call. Nene just managed to score, the keeper pawed at it but couldn’t stop it.

If you read this blog regularly or keep up with French football, you know that Monaco recently made a huge signing that will no doubt make us a much better team, and of course that man is Mathieu Coutadeur. His precise passes are elevating the entire team, liberating players like Alonso and Park (both of whom were outstanding). Witness the final pass in this video…

it’s not all good news, though. i’m starting to worry about Gudjohnsen. He has followed a frankly terrible performance against PSG with another poor showing after which he was subbed off at halftime. He looks old, slow, and unfit. Many fans have sprung to his defense, saying he’s simply not in shape yet and he’ll come good, but I don’t know. He’s reminding me of when Kluivert played in Ligue 1, just a knackered player…

Also, Puygrenier struggled mightily with Remy for most of the match and new signing Eduardo Costa was invisible. Still, these are minor concerns–we are in 5th and dreaming of Europe this season.

Even though the market closed 6 days ago, there are still rumours of players coming to Monaco. Except for this rumours will first happen in one year from now.

David Trezeguet our former starlet, have made up his mind after 8 year at Juventus. He wants to leave the club after this season. But he does not want to play for another one of Europes top flight clubs. He wants to return to where it all started! That’s right, Monaco! According to sources as Skysport, Corriero Dello Sport and Goal. Trezeguet said in an interview that he wants to end his career in the ‘club of his heart’. Think of our strikers in one year, with Gudjohnsen and Trezeguet! He will take the paycut that will be necessary for a move to Monaco, but he wants to help Monaco return to Europe once again! This is seriously awesome. One of the best strikers will propably play for Monaco as of next season just because he loves the club so much. How sweet! And great for the team. Hopefully he stands by what he said and returns next year.

So after a horrible mercato with signings of unknown players, then suddenly we manage to bring in two big names on the last day of the market.

After we were given the news by Richard that Gudjohnsen could be very close to the club, it was announced that he had signed a two year contract with Monaco, with an option for one more. That is indeed the most exciting Monaco transfer in a long time! But when we all thought the transfer market was over, then suddenly Monaco also announces the signing of Le Mans midfielder Mathieu Coutadeur for 4€ million. Even though it was reported just last week that the negotiations broke down. So suddenly in one day we got our new ‘number 9′ and a midfield general. How great is that?!
That was the main target for the whole summer window and just when we gave up this happened. I cannot tell you how excited I am, cause theese two players are really quality players and they will be here for a long time! Gudjohnsen is a teamplayer, a goal scorer and plays with great passion. Coutadeur is well known for his passing and he should create nice oppourtunities for players like Nenê and Pino on the wings. This is seriously the best to happen for Monaco in a shitload of time!! Can’t wait to see us in action next time when those two have gelled with the squad

The season starts for real against Paris on the 13th!

MONACO DROPS TRANSFER BOMB!

Monaco have just made it official that they have signed Mathieu Coutadeur for 4€ million and Gudjohnsen will come for free! Djamel Bakar will go to Nancy for 2,5€ million.

Report to follow

i’ll start with the good news. ASM may have finally found the number 9 it has been searching for. various media sources are reporting that Eidur Gudjohnsen is spurning a chance to return to England for Monaco. at just 3 million euros, that’s not bad business. however, it won’t be made official until Monday. this has me a bit nervous–seems like just enough time for a Premiership club to up their offer and steal him away. after the Dindane fiasco, i’m not going to get excited until i see Eidur in our shirt.

the bad news? it was another abject away performance in the Ligue, losing 1-0 to Sochaux. the Jekyll and Hyde theme from last season has not changed under Lacombe. we are undefeated and haven’t conceded a goal at the Stade Louis II, but we are winless and haven’t scored on our travels.

New recruit Puygrenier struggled horribly, giving up the penalty that led to the only score of the game and nearly scoring an own goal. In fact, none of the new players brought in the summer did very well. Our man of the match was Ruffier, who prevented this from becoming a repeat of the 4-0 defeat to Nancy.

While I hate seeing Monaco lose, there was some small consolation in seeing Charlie Davies perform so well for Sochaux. He was the man dragged down for the penalty that won the game, and he seemed like a real livewire out there. His combination with Sverkos up front seems pretty dangerous, so that should be inspiring news for any fellow Americans out there.

Next week, we host PSG. Can we keep our streak of home invincibility going? Let’s hope Eidur signs and Lacombe makes some lineup changes. So far, he seems to be relying on the other team to be mesmerized by the power of this mustache:

So finally Monaco have started to make moves on the transfer market. We have been active in outgoing transfers as well as incoming transfers and we are still active. We actually managed to finally complete a transfer, which was a thrill for me after all the “so-close transfers” we have had this year. We brought in the brazillian international Eduardo Costa. Our CEO Mark Keller said that Eduardo Costa had everything that we were looking for. Athleticism, physical ability and knowledge of Ligue 1. Eduardo Costas knowledge of the Ligue 1 comes from 4 years in the league, playing for Bordeaux in 3 of them and Marseille in his last. That was before he moved to Espanyol. Now we picked him up for around 2,5€ million from Sao Paulo. A great signing in IMO as he is a great midfielder who will bring a lot to the team. Well done Monaco, you actually completed a transfer. And actually a good one!
Then there are some sad news. The last starting link from our 03-04 Monaco team has left the Riviera. After beeing benched for Ruffier to shine, Flavio Roma felt that it was time to leave Monaco. But he said that it was with a bleeding heart he was leaving Monaco for AC Milan with, because of his strong feelings for the club and it’s fans. He thanked all the people in Monaco for 8 great years with the club and now he hopes to finish of his career in Milan. He was sold for an undisclosed fee. This is a good thing for the club IMO, as he took a lot of money, and he was the second string anyways. Yohann Thuram is now our 2nd string permanently, and I am very comfortable with him as our back-up as he showed last year, that he is a good keeper(That was especially in the Auxerre game in 08).
Now Monaco only needs an attacker to complete the team for Guy Lacombe and right now we aren’t close to getting anyone. There have been numorours rumours about getting Dindane but hopefully that is not true, and we will sign someone else who isn’t past his prime. But I will get back to that in the next post.

Tonight we play our second game in the league against Nancy. Hopefully our offence will the show the same skill tonight as they did last week against Toulouse, and if they do that I think that a win is highly possible! The game can be watched on the website: www.myp2p.eu
That is all for this time. See ya!