Beef Bagel

With Christmas over and January well in sight, the wheels of the transfer machine are beginning to pick up speed. In typical fashion the early rumours produced from its waking cogs are simply the recycled scraps off the workshop floor; continuations of year long will-they-wont they stories.

The first news package spewed forth as the machine coughed into life was perhaps the oldest of all. Matthew Upson is once again on our agenda as well as that of Villa and Newcastle of course, presumably because he has a pulse. Steve Bruce and his photofit face, have stated quite simply that there’s no way he’ll part with his best player with the exception, as usual, being the offer of silly money. Well, I’m sure that can be arranged. Newcastle are famous, of late, for their silly money and given the circumstances, we have a capacity for a little financial frivolity ourselves. There are some reports that a figure of around £6m could do it but that doesn’t seem nearly silly enough if you ask The Bagel. It’s barely mildly foolish. I’m sure Bruce would agree that £10m was about the right level ridiculousness for him to release the borderline international.

Upson’s got 18 months left on his contract and with Birmingham leading the Championship promotion charge, he and they may just be waiting for the guarantee of the top flight before it’s agreed as to whether the centre half is secured or sold. It’s clearly a case of Upson or Curtis Davies as far as we’re concerned. Both deals will cost about the same, both managers are reluctant to let their star players go, with both players having to worry about exactly how much football they’ll get to play. We could use some top class cover whether it be one of these new boys or a third choice Dawson and with so much speculation for so very long, The Bagel’d be surprised if we don’t land one of them. My money’s on Curtis Davies, where’s yours?

But these aren’t the only clubs, for whom we’re causing a little stress. Mark Hughes is going to be in need of a whole bunch of beta-blockers. So, if you’ve yet to give the man a xmas present, that’ll be just what the doctor orders come January 1st. Number 1 on our hit list is Morten Gamst Pedersen and seeing as The Bagel has never profiled the left winger, let’s give him the full treatment. In time honoured tradition, here’s his head…

…trying to milk a Brazilian.

Although it’s been a fairly quiet season for the Nowegian international, he is highly regarded in his position and indeed, you can regard him for yourselves here…

Getting a little sick of Song 2 being used in all these home made montages.

Obviously, looks a quality player and certainly a step or two higher in the left wing ranks than Andy Reid and mercifully thinner too. The best thing for me is that fact that he looks comfortable shooting with both feet. Nothing worse than a player looking for the opportunity to shoot with his favoured foot a wasting the one at hand, or foot as if goes.

Pedersen’s still only 25 and so worth a little investment cash. Rumour has it we offered something like £10m for him last time around but I’d wager the figure was about half that. At the time the winger made some bullshit comments insinuating that Spurs were not a bigger club than Blackburn and so why would he move. Who’s laughing now Morten? Well, you can laugh too if you jump ship the way you indicated you may in an article a few days ago. Rovers chairman, John Williams, has other ideas though,

“Morten was linked with them (us) back in the summer, but there are absolutely no plans to sell him.”

Well, there may be no plans to sell him but he didn’t say it wouldn’t happen. I heard no ‘hands off’ in that statement. We could well have him but I’ve a feeling we’ll have to shell out something in the region of £8m for the privilege.

One player they’re a little keener to part with is their very own captain Lucas Neill. The Aussie right back has refused to sign a contract to keep him in Lancashire and it’s well documented that they’re going to have to get rid of him soon or risk him bunking on a free. It’s got to the point where the fans have been booing him and I can’t think that’s helping their league form too much. Liverpool are top of the list for his services but we have dipped our oar in on this one a few times ourselves. Right back isn’t exactly a problem for us any more but I’m sure the wonderful Chimbondabonda could use a few days off every now and then.

This is not as far as the whole business goes though. In a strange love triangle of Liverpool, Blackburn, Spurs and a touch of Dinamo Kiev, involving a mix of Neill, left back Andriy Nesmachniy and a touch of Pedersen, that leaves it more of a love polygon of the trapezoid variety, it may be that Blackburn end up losing out big time.

Mark Hughes needs to sell Lucas Neill before he can buy Nesmachniy but while Liverpool um and er, what’s to stop us from buying the Ukranian from under their noses? He’s definitely the beefy version of a full back, which would present a genuine option for us with both Lee and Benoit Who similar players just dependent on form. But the removal of Nesmachniy from the equation would not alter Neill’s desire to leave the club. Liverpool may not bother in the end and Blackburn could be forced to sell him to us all the same. If you add a big offer for Pedersen to all this, we could finish up with three new players, a big smile and Mark Hughes left wondering what the hell hit him. The winger’s the one we’re really after but you never know how these things can work out. Just ask Michael Dawson.

Just in case that wasn’t enough full backs for you, there is of course the prospect of signing wonderkid, Gareth Bale. If you haven’t heard of the latest hot shot from Southampton’s FA Youth Cup Winning side of a few years ago, you really should have by now. He scores goals like this…

…a lot.

He’s only 17 but has bagged 5 in just 22 Championship appearances. That’s a lot for a left back, even if you’re Roberto Carlos. Sources say we were the first to get an offer in but there’s a good chance of a guzumping from the likes of the top four, with all but Liverpool reported to have made enquiries.

I can’t tell you much about his open play but with 4 international caps for Wales already under his belt, he’s probably no slouch. Oh, and he scored for them as well. Just before we say goodbye, here’s his head…

…as the woodland nymph-a-like tells us what to do with all the talk.

Well, that’s the in’s. As for the rumoured out’s, there’s no need to be suffering any strokes just yet. According to the Daily ‘We’re so desperate for a story that we’ll print anything, even a rumour based on the solid grounds of pissed up Chinaman in the corner of a pub and his Cantonese mumblings into his own pint of Guinness about Henry signing for Accrington Stanley’, sorry, I mean, Mirror, MJ’s ready to let Danny Murphy and Edgar Davids go. To be fair to the tabloid, both of these moves seem quite likely, with Murphy barely making an impact and Davids barely making the bench but again, both could be a little premature.

It was a genuine relief to see Murphy take the place of Ghaly on Boxing Day and he didn’t look too bad either and indeed according to the radio, Danny was our best player up at Newcastle. Let me know if that’s true, if you managed to catch the game.

If he is beginning to blossom, it would be shame to lose him just now but I certainly wont sleep too bad at all if he goes to Fulham or Everton at a cut price rate and I may well do my impression of Rip Van Winkle if we offload Davids and save the extra £50,000 a week that the Dutchman demands. Start him away at Portsmouth. If he can provide the fight we need away from home, then keep him on the books, if he can’t, then it’s goodnight Vienna.

Whether or not Fulham score a 29 midfielder with one of the loveliest wives around or not Bagel favourite, Chris Coleman’s hoping to hang on to our estranged right winger, Wayne Routledge a little longer. Wayne’s loan term expires in January but it’s unlikely we’ll take him back just yet. A run of Premiership games will do the player a power of good, so let him stay say I. Not time to sell him yet but not time to bring him back either. Gone but not forgotten.

In good solid real news, you should all know by now that we’ve secured the serves for man of the moment and mountain of it too, Tom Huddlestone and if you don’t, shame on you and shame on me for not telling you sooner. If you could get as high as his eyeballs, you’d see that he’s contracted up to them. He’s penned for four and a half years, so no worries on the future of Spurs until 2011. Christ, I could even have kids by then. Baglets. How would I go about getting season tickets for them?

Big game tomorrow against Liverpool; a real six pointer with them just three clear of us in 6th. Bit of a striker problem though, with Berbatov facing a fitness test but with comments like,

“Dimitar has felt a bit ill and we will wait and see,”

…it sounds rather like a cold/flu to me. Not what we need right now. Defoe’s on form but if he’s seeing far it’s because he’s on the shoulder of a giant, a giant Bulgarian that is so, fingers crossed he gets some quality service from whoever ends up playing alongside him.

Little Aaron and Mido are still on the fringes of getting back and if they don’t make the squad for tomorrow, I’d expect to see them on New Year’s Day.

The Merseysiders are going to make a tough nut to crack but I doubt they’re looking forward to playing at a ground where we’ve won what, 12, 13 games in a row now? Stop us if you dare. Really looking forward to watching this one. See y’all there.

Sign on, sign on with a bagel in your hand,

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 29th, 2006 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Bagel News, Transfer News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.