Beef Bagel

Fascinating game, wasn’t it? I spent the first half in an East London pub with my lady friend form the morning of the Reading game and neither a Chelsea nor Man U fan in sight or certainly earshot anyway. Nicely toasted from vat of wine, it was back to the Bakery for the second half where we could make our viewing a little more entertaining. Best cup final I’ve ever seen.

 I’m not exactly thrilled that Chelsea won but then with the Big Four’s monopoly on league and cup detracting from our own achievements on a yearly basis, it’s not a bad thing that the Red Devils didn’t make it 12 times or win another double.

They’ve only got themselves to blame though and I’d say the same for Chelsea if they’d have walked out losers. If you refuse to commit to a game of football you get everything you deserve. Neither side was willing to make a move that might leave them open and frankly both deserved to leave empty handed in the cagiest most chicken shit encounter I’ve ever witnessed. The country knows who the real entertainers are and next year we’ll be there to give Wembley its proper opening. Looks like a nice stadium, bit red though.

The best part of the afternoon, The Bagel’s personal experience aside, was the parade of legends in the build up with a healthy seven Spurs and, of course, cup final day does mean one other thing. The guarantee of seeing this…

 

 

still Ricky Villa and still widely accepted as the best ever cup final goal. Tell me you’re not smiling? Go on, watch it again.

I’m not sure if my favourite bit is the way he jumps on the City players after he scores or Garth Crooks’s little kick out as Villa strikes the ball? Imagine how much it must piss both arsenal and City off each and every year.

And what of our current crop and indeed, our soon to be? Well the hard facts of the day are that the club has released a couple of youngsters who aren’t getting any younger. After the arrival of Ben Alnwick, the only hope 23-year-old goalkeeper Rob Burch had was a freak yachting accident involving Robbo and Radek Cerny and finally Spurs have done the decent thing and let him go.

The other piece of ballast, which comes as a little surprise is reserve captain, Charlie Lee. Charlie’s only 20, which is no problem for a centre half and it’s pretty odd move at a time when we’re a little thin back there. But then with both Chimbondabonda and the Man Mountain preferred as makeshift replacements, there perhaps it’s been staring him in the face for a while. Oh, and don’t forget we’ve got Dorian Dervitte to come back when his leg’s out of plaster. He looked all right that one game we got to see him.

Interestingly the footnote of the announcement on the official site said that Wyne Routledge’s loan spell at Fulham had ended. It did not say that he had returned to Spurs.

The Mirror have come out with an exclusive today that looks remarkably similar to the exclusive in the Mail. Both papers are claiming that MJ’s top targets this summer are Morten Gamst Pedersen, Darren Bent, Nigel Reo-Cola and Leighton Baines and that Ghaly, Mido and the Little Yiddo are on their way.

If just the sound of the Norwegian winger’s name is enough to get your heart to flutter, then the price will put you into full arrest. With no exit clause in a contract upon which the ink is barely dry, we’re looking at around £10m. Expensive, yes, overpriced, yes, worth it…well, probably. Sometimes you have to pay over the odds to get what you want and if he works out the way we hope, we’ll never think of the money again. Oh, and if you’ve finished wiping up the vomit on work trousers then get a bowl at the ready because Blackburn paid just £1.5m for the now 25-year-old.

The other left side position is where the Mail and the Mirror actually differed. The forma say Bale and the latter Baines. Yeah, well potato, potarto. Bale is a probably better going forward with a Beckham-esque dead ball curve and will come at close to £10m and Baines is probably more solid, marginally less stupid looking and would cost more like £5-7m and a whole lot of laughs as we steal yet another full back from Wigwam.

Dumb

Dumber

Much is made of Gareth Bale but does anyone really know if he can cut it in the Premiership a yet? I’d be tempted to go for Baines and save the cash, particularly if we really are going after £15m Darren Bent.

Now The Bagel’s read reports that we’re top of Bent’s wish list because he wants to play with Dimitar the Great, so I seriously doubt he’ll cost that much, if indeed we go for him. Even £10m is a lot to spend on a strengthen the position where we most need cover, unless that is, we do sell Defoe this time around as most Spurs fans are even now predicting.

I still don’t want to see the Little Yiddo go, purely for sentimental reasons but if we used that money to buy Darren Bent, I’m sure I could get used to the idea. It does still leave us with a problem. Who do we get as the number four striker and there’s two schools of thought here:

School One - a comprehensive:

In essence, Louis Saha. If Jan-Absolute Klass Huntelaar does end up going to Man U it’ll spell the end for the French forward who’s always impressed The Bagel at the Lane. He wont like having to sit tight at a non-CL club but that’s got to be better than never getting a look in at all.

School Two - a faith school:

Please, oh please let this be true. So here’s how it works. We sign Pedersen, Baines/Bale, Bent, Nigel Rio-Copacabana and Curtis Davies; the Little Yiddo takes a look around, makes a leap of faith and goes, “You know what, if I stay, I reckon this squad has just reached critical mass. I’ll be playing in the Champions League if I just hang on one more season,” and you know what, if we do make those signings, I think Jermain may just have a point.

The other option in the middle of the park to Nigel R.e.o. Speed wagon is Dutchman, Theo Janssen. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going to happen in the Hammers garage sale but we should be in the driving seat with the Dutch connection to land the latter of the hardmen and who knows, maybe we’ll pick up both. The obstacle, other than the money, is an interest in Janssen from Sunderland with that all important Roy Keane factor and the guarantee of first team football. If you were a defensive midfielder, you’d want to go and work under the best. Tottenham it is then.

Hope you’re having a good morning and don’t worry, it’s a bank bagel day in a week.

Big bagel in little China,

The Bagel.

 

This entry was posted on Monday, May 21st, 2007 at 1:30 am 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.