Transfer News: Thumb Twiddling...

Imagine being a player during a transfer window, sitting waiting for the phone to ring to hear Real Madrid had finally stump up the necessary funds to take you from your scouse residence to the plain of Spain. You should be imagining yourself with an ever increase amount of facial hair, face like a Moomin and think Basque accent. You should also imagine youself with Alonso 14 on your back.

After Kolo Toure becomes the John Terry that Mark Hughes always wanted, club captain Richard Dunne’s career as Eastland may parallel his surname. He’ll make a move to Sunderland in the coming weeks rather than sit on the bench watching the part Klingon, Joleon Lescott put his shirt on.

Spurs cut away the deadwood of Bent to bring in the towering oak, Crouch whose friendly plutonic relationship with both Defoe and Redknapp will delight Robbie Keane. It could be worse, as Roman Pavlychenko will find out so he will desert North London to join Roma.

Arsenal have money in the bank which is rapidly growing at Manu Eboo-ah will take his dancing antics to Florence, but this mean Patrick Vieira will be able to return home to Highbury, realise it’s now apartments and make the five minute walk around the corner to Ashburton Grove. “Sacrebleu” he will exclaim then promptly teach Alex Song the ways of a defensive midfielder.

West Ham want another striker, and being of Italian persuasion Zola will bring in hit and miss Mario Barwuah Balotelli so he can then let injury prone Ashton go to Stoke to free up space in the physio room for Kieran Dyer.

Finally with 2 weeks left till the season starts the panic buying may being as Hull realise they have done no business so far, Phil Brown will being his Churchill Dog act by saying “Oh Yes” to anything thrown at him lumbering him with a Chimbonda and a Barton because nobody else wants them.

Why Man City Cannot Challenge For The Title

Since the takeover of Man Citeh about £170m will have been spent of players after the arrival of strikers Tevez and Adebayor to Eastlands. Citeh fans seems for the most part excited that this influx of money has brought in some top name players to put a challenge in on Man Utd for the league crown, but is the Premiership truly a realistic target for the blue side of Manchester this coming season? No.

Sadly the misguided Citeh faithful will have to make do with a tight challenge for European honours with Spurs, Everton and Villa in the Europa League chase rather than heading for at seat at the premiere European table and break the top 4. The problem with signing these ‘superstar’ names for big money is that actually whatever the media will lead them to think these players are not the superstar names that they appear to be. The club is more likely to fall into disrepute with a team of mercenaries being over paid who are happy enough to collect their massive wage packets without putting in the effort needed to climb the table. There reward is given out before they step onto the pitch. Will Gareth Barry care if he doesn’t win the league? Will Adebayor be bothered is he is not in the Champions League? Do these players have the hunger to win something for Man City? Are they ready to give it all for the fans? Or are they more hunger to fill their bank balance?

Citeh need a strong backbone. They would like to sign a heroic stalwart centre-back to build a defence round. A leader of men. They would like John Terry to be that warrior but will have a hard time getting him. Terry means more to the Chelsea fans than the club because those in the club realise his ‘throw his body on the line’ tactics have left him susceptible to injury and a large offer would be difficult to turn down. JT will hope that any offer that does come with be rebuffed and his contract will be upped to the same wage as Frank Lampard. Wherever he plays his football next season, and Man City is genuinely an option, he will be lucky to play ¾ of the games without his back giving out. If Citeh don’t get Terry they should look at a proven top level defender coming into their peak like John Mensah, Naldo or Bruno Alves. That would be a better and cheaper move to make.

Mark Hughes has the 2nd toughest job in football right now. (The top position goes to Manuel Pellegrini.) Hughes has to take these new signings and mould them into a team. His job is being made increasingly difficult every time a new player joins because already his players are saying “am I going to be in the first eleven”. The amount of competition doesn’t always create increased performance, there is such a thing as too many players. The luxury of Hughes’ situation is that some of those players will happily sit on the bench for 80 minutes deciding what to spend their next pay check on. Dealing with the ego’s that come with the stars is a job Hughes must adapt to fast. His experiences last year will help him but dropping players who have cost £20m is difficult and with the fans anticipation comes a short time period to get into full flow. As I see it this time next season the money men will have a new man in charge, a foreigner manager of course, but someone use to dealing with big names. It could be Mourinho.

There is too much that could go wrong at Citeh for a race for the title this season. Too much has chopped and changed for players to settle. When the group took over they immediately said this would be a long term project, but then they tried to sign Kaka for £100m. This made them a target for every club in the world to be overcharged. Until the season transfer window is closed I’m not going to talk about positions because too much depends on who the top 4 bring in between now and then.



Arsenal fans are pinching themselves as Emmanuel Adebayor looks set to join the Citeh ‘revolution’ for a whooping £25m after he joined for just £3m in January 2006. In the 07/08 season he pulled a large haul of 30 goals in 48 games but for those close to the club who saw the games rather than the MOTD highlights they know his tally should have been double that. Then after gaining the plaudits and respect of the majority of the fans his attitude changed. Firstly forcing a doubling his wages to a reported 80k-a-week then resting on his laurels he firmly believes he is one of the top strikers in the world, deserving to be loved in the same way the supporters respect Cesc Fabregas or Robin van Persie. This could have been the case if his work rate had improved but his lack of effort teamed with his obvious lust for more money and a bigger stage left his relationship with the fans at breaking point. His statement about Milan’s advances being like Beyonce was after him and his interview on Football Focus with Garth Crooks where he referred to himself in the 3rd person ended his career at Arsenal.

Fans appreciate work rate, sweat, effort, motivation, exertion over talent. Any player who will run his heart out like a fan of the club would do, will gain the respect of the crowd quicker than any solo strike will. Arsenal fans know that waiting in the wings is Nicklas Bendtner, another tall striker who likes the ball at his feet more than his head. Bendtner lacks the experience of Adebayor, but in a 10minute cameo in a game already won or lost will put in 100% effort. Even if Adebayor goes im not convinced Wenger will replace him with Chamakah. He already has Eduardo, Van Persie, Bendtner, Arshavin, Walcott and Vela as striking options. Last season the gap between Everton and Arsenal was 9 points, the gap between City and Arsenal was 22 points. The question Citeh fans need to ask is do these new players plug a gap of at least 22 points?

Now this is a Premiership blog, you probably realise that through the title so I will do my bit to cover the lower end of the league. Burnley must make an impact in the transfer window. At the moment they will go down with a points total like Sunderland and Derby. Last season in the Championship they conceded 60 goals only 6 clubs conceded more and 3 of those were relegated. I haven’t decided whether the other two have a chance, Birmingham are a bigger club than Newcastle. I’d rather see Birmingham v Villa than Newcastle v Sunderland.

That is all.

Opening Weekend TV Fixtures Released

The opening weekend fixtures of the 2009/2010 season have been released by the Premier League.

Chelsea v Hull
Saturday 15th August
12.45pm
Live on Sky Sports

Everton v Arsenal
Saturday 15th August
17.15pm
Live on ESPN

Manchester United v Birmingham
Sunday 16th August
14.00pm
Live on Sky Sports

Spurs v Liverpool
Sunday 16th August
16.00
Live on Sky Sports

A Worthy Gamble?

With much speculation on where the £80m received from the sale of Ronaldo would go, Sir Alex Ferguson moved quickly to spend just £0m to acquire Michael Owen on a free transfer. At 29, Owen’s career is moving towards its final seasons, but is he the ready-made poacher that Man Utd have lacked since the loss of Ruud van Nistelrooy?

With the rumoured £30k basic wage package with bonuses paid out on games played and goals scored, Owen has taken a massive pay cut from his £110k a week Newcastle income and turned down more regular opportunities of football for Everton, Stoke or Hull to play at Utd. Owen would not of thought twice about joining Everton if Sir Alex hadn’t called him up, because he knows his best days are gone and given the chance of playing in the UEFA Cup or being managed by a spray tan (insert any expletive here) his choice was made for him. After signing for Utd he couldn’t stop smiling in disbelief that he has another shot at the big time.

I’ve read a lot of opinions on whether Owen can be a success at Man Utd. One which made me really sit up and take notice was that of Sky Sports’ Graham Souness. Souness was an overrated manager who failed miserably at each club he joined and then went into punditry where he continues to give substandard and often ill-informed opinions on players and tactics. His opinions on players over the years have been consistently poor from his time at Southampton where he notoriously signed George Weah’s supposed cousin Ali Dia, who turned out to have the footballing brain of a duck-billed platypus married with the footballing ability of a ring-tailed lemur. He signed Jean Alain Boumsong and partnered him with Titus Bramble to create the worst centre-back partnership in Premiership history (including anyone who played alongside Craig Short) and brought to the club the wing wizardry of Albert Luque who spectacularly failed at Newcastle coming in with a hefty price tag, then a doing a sort of Abracadabra and presenting the fans with a toy from a McDonalds happy meal. At Blackburn and Newcastle his alienation of players pushed out some of the better talents and left the clubs in disrepute. After the loss of Keegan recently he put his name forward to the Newcastle job to which the club said “thanks but no thanks” by saying absolutely nothing.

I’ve lost the point of this…Owen.

Souness believes if Owen stays fit he will be top scorer in the league replacing the goals that Cristiano Ronaldo got. That is factual evidence that Owen can only fail. Souness also believes Tim Henman can still win Wimbledon, Gary Glitter’s music may have a resurgence and Gordon Brown may be in work this time next year.

Utd fans will say Fergie is not a stupid man; he is a wily cat (Thundercats hooo!) who knows the best to get out of ageing and forgotten players. He did this with Henrik Larsson. I would say wily cats get old and lose their marbles. I would say they forget Laurent Blanc. Fergie does make mistakes in the transfer market regularly but surely going into the season gambling on both Valencia and Owen to bring in goals is a dangerous game which could backfire catastrophically. My instant view is that there is more to this situation than just Fergie’s belief in Owen. Maybe the Glazers put there foot down and limited the transfer fund on old red nose taking back some of the funds to clear the titanic debts underwritten. I wouldn’t put it past another player to come out at Utd before the end of the window, unless Tosic, Nani or the new guy Obertan can step up to the plate. Remember this FACT. Man Utd lost Ronaldo and Tevez because they didn’t want to play at the club. Man Utd wanted Benzema and Ribery but neither wanted to play at the club. Man Utd got an overpriced winger from Wigan who had one good season at a club even David Batty would have stood out at, an unknown French winger who had an unremarkable season at FC Loirent who was surplus to requirements at Bordeaux and mister brand values himself, Michael Owen.

In no way am I slating Owen’s past. He just peaked at an early age and has lost his way. If Fergie can set him back on the road then he may score double figures in the Premiership and prove me wrong. But he won’t.

It will be interesting to see the reception he gets at Anfield, if he is fit.