Beef Bagel

Well, The Mirror have made themselves perfectly clear this morning. They rated Gerrard a 7, Robbo a 6 and everyone else got 4s with a few 5s thrown in for good measure. That must be an all time low for a 3-0 win. The fans in Barcelona didn’t look much more impressed and on the first half’s performance you can’t really blame them. On its own it’d be unfortunate to sack the manager after a comfortable win but when McClaren came on and said ‘We showed a lot of character out there,’ The Bagel lost all sympathy for him. How much character does it take to beat Andorra? About as much as Phil Neville, that’s how much it should take.

When Man U go out and beat Watford do we hear the Chewing Gum Machine talking about how much character United showed in beating the bottom team in the Premiership? Do you hear me boasting about how much character I show after I go kicking in small children for their lunch money, or in England’s case, asking politely and then pleading until the child takes pity on you? It’s an insult to the fans. Character. It takes character to still bother with the national side.

Enough of that, except how bloody cheeky is David Nugent? What a crap way to score your first England goal. The sad thing is he probably feels great about it. Personally, my conscience would have a little difficulty with that. Besides, I’m not convinced that the goal is his. If you look closely on the replay, just as the ball crosses the line, after Nugent has touched it, you can see there’s an ant that gets run over and who therefore got the final touch. Technically, the scoresheet should read:

Gerrard 54, 76, A.G (Ant Goal) 90

But it wasn’t just England who couldn’t manage the goal spree so hoped for by most and sundry. Even Dimitar the Great and his Bulgarian Battalion couldn’t manage to get the ball in the onion bag against Albania. Now minnows Albania are a whole 100 places better than the Andorran plankton but it still would have been nice for our big man to score big too. Good for the confidence but I’ll blame his lack of success on his ‘who’ team mates.

But back to matters more Spurs. As pointed out yesterday by our man in the north, Seville have indeed released a further 2,000 tickets to travelling Spurs on request from our wonderful club. It all seems rather strange. On the one hand they say, ‘No, no, we cannot possible cope with so many fans’ and then ‘oh, yes, yes, of course bring more than double the number you were planning to.’

Apparently, the authorities are thinking of stopping the Spurs fans from entering the city centre. Will they be turning away all people with English accents or people who look like football fans? My suggestion is to practice your Irish accents; loved all round the world, the Irish. People just can’t say no to them. It’s that, wearing a flamenco dress or just making a noise like paella.

Moving a little further west, there’s a strange law that could come into effect in Portugal that could see forward Nani bought for as little as £2m, a whole £13m or so less than his asking price. Players may be free to buy themselves out of their contracts for a price based on their current salary and at the tender age of 18 and on a Portuguese pittance that doesn’t amount a to a hill of beans - well, not in footballing terms anyway.

Domestic clubs are unlikely to take advantage of this with all of them aware that it could turn around and bite any of them on the arse but that’s not to say that us foreign devils will feel so generous. Watch this space.

No loop holes but a simple hijacking may be all it takes to score ourselves a highly rated centre half this summer. Real Madrid are in the process of coaxing Borissia Dortmund defender, Christoph Metzelder, to the Spanish capital but the 26-year-old may opt for a longer contract with our good selves at a reputed £30,000 per week.

The German born player has represented his country over 30 times. He stands at a healthy heading 6′4″ and weighs a sturdy 13 stone 4 pounds. Here’s his head…

…taking one for the team and…

…getting to know our players a little better.

I could show you a clip of the man putting in a tackle or two but much funnier is this homoerotic montage compiled with the most haunting of Westlife’s melodies. For the lucky few reading this before 7pm you wont have to see that but as soon as I get myself to a Youtube friendly terminal, you’re all in for it. Uh-Oh! It’s after 7…

I can’t make it beyond a minute and a half before I find myself booking a flight out to Germany to kill the person reponsible for that. The water cup moment comes across rather like Striker from Airplane and his drinking problem. Anyway…

Metze, as he known to his friends and admirers, is supposed to a good tackler with both feet and is a being mooted as a genuine alternative to the much sought after Curtis Davies. Davies has more potential at 22 but his £6m plus price will most likely rise to nearer £10m as arsenal, Pompey, cash happy Newcastle and ourselves all clamour for the Baggies defender.

A more local option, both younger and out of left field, figuratively speaking, is Leyton Orient’s 19-year-old Ben Saah £2m. Ben was converted from a centre mid to a centre half last season and has been developing well under the tutelage of none other than Alton Thelwell, God help him. He’s 6′3″ and just over 12 stone, making him a bit on the sticky side (not adhesive). Here’s his head…

…looking really chuffed about being a professional footballer.

His skills as a midfielder should translate to the sleek tackling cover required for long lost Ledley and a snip at £2m compared to all the other options. Worth a gamble, says I. Even if he just sits on the bench, let’s grab him and go for one of the other two as well. We’ll find two as good as Ledders and Safety First eventually.

Exclusive from The Bagel

If you applied for an away ticket for Sevilla, you’ve got one. According to the THFC Ticket Line: “All applications have been successful.” So, I’ll see you all in Spain.

Oh, and Harry Redknapp is looking to buy Danny Murphy for his squad of reformed offenders down at Fratton Park. Apparently, we still the player. Who?

Life is like a box of bagels,

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 1:18 pm and is filed under Bagel 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.