Beef Bagel

I tell you the Bakery smells good this morning. Been away from the ovens for a while and had forgotten about some left over sweet and sour take away that’s been happily festering away in a sun beam for the last two days. The orange gloop has actually eaten its way through the aluminium container and the pineapple chunks have flung themselves at the window in a bid for freedom. It’s like the scene of some kind of delivery food massacre. I had to out my handkerchief of my much as a baulked at the site of the corpse. Forensics are coming round in a bit. In the mean time, it’s rounds of toast, a strong cup of tea and good browse of this morning’s stories.

Weekends are always so dull this time of year, when it comes to Spurs that is. We only do business Monday to Friday and it’s all rather slow this morning. There were a couple of good bit ‘n pieces just before the weekend kicked in though. As pointed out by tj, we’ve taken on young Adel Taarabt for good now. Everyone’s been pleased and surprised with the 18-year-old’s impact so soon and none more than The Bagel who probably pours a little too much hype and expectation on the lad since his first run out at Upton Park, which as far as I’m concerned won us the game…

,,,no the easiest clip to make out but it’s the bit around 18 seconds you’re looking out for: picks up the ball, little turn, lovely pass through, runs on asks for it back, gets it sweet bit of skill around some tired Hammers and wins the free kick that Dimitar slots. Lovely. Glad to have him on board. The only thing we don’t know is how much the deal cost us.

All the same, the kid seems to be making all the right noises. You can see his Spurs training come out from the lesson that Pascal Chimbondabonda clearly deciding instead to go sniffing glue with his mates in a car park in Enfield:

“I love being in England and being with Spurs and I hope that the fans will get to see more of me next season and in years to come. I hope they like what they see.”

So do we Adel.

The other chap who came in a little lower under the radar on the same day is new Spurs Academy member, Yuri Berchiche (good name, rather like a cocktail). We pilfered the young ‘un, as is our want, from the ranks of Athletico Bibao. He is of unknown weight and height to The Bagel, I have of course tracked down his head though. Here it is…

…looking like he’s going to enjoy the change from hash to skunk.

What little information we do have is from Damien Comolli who says:

“Yuri is a very good athlete with a great left foot,” which is useful being a left back and, “he is strong in the air and particularly suited to the English game,”

…so I think we can assume he’s no midget either but what I prefer is the description on from a Spanish blogger run through a Google translator:

“Yuri Bechiche, 16 years, lateral left. Very kind to this one boy…”

As for current speculations, the new one today is Michael Owen. Interesting one, eh? Certainly cheaper than Darren Bent with a buyout clause in his Newcastle contract for £9m but we don’t need another little striker and I just get the feeling that he’s never really going to mend again. We’ll always be taking about that injury that did for him.

He’s not as old as I imagined, just 27 but frankly it’s £9m I’d rather spend elsewhere. Unfortunately, it’s not up to me and we’re said to be in contest with Liverpool little Mickey’s signature. I do like the way he’s recognised that he’ll have to play set piece football if he stays with Big Face Sam.

I could understand this deal going ahead if we were to sell the Little Yiddo but by all reports our number 18 is not interested in a move back to West Ham (ha, ha, ha) or Portsmouth either. Good on you Jermain, I hope it’s true.

One gentleman who I am looking to be rid of is Useless Danny Murphy, although I was considering the idea of cloning a few body parts of other squad members and grafting them onto Murphy’s trunk like some footballing Frankenstein, other than Frank Ribery that is. How about the left foot of Bale, the head of Dawson, the right foot of Defoe and the footballing brain of Dimitar the Great? We could give him Steed’s new and improved penis to keep him happy.

So yes Birmingham and Wigan are said to be in a ferocious tug of war over the 30-year-old’s signature and why not? I’m sure he’ll be just perfect for them and maybe even cause us some issues when he returns to the Lane. So long as we get some of that £2m back I don’t really care.

Oh, while we’re on the subject of Ribery - we were, just back there for a minute - did we all notice that the Frenchman has signed for Bayern Munich and not the scum? Nice move Frank. The only problem is Bayern Munich’s UEFA Cup squad for next season includes: Oliver Kahn, Willy Sagnol, Lucio, Roy Makaay, Luca Toni, Mark van Bommel, Ze Roberto and Ribery himself to name but a few. Surely the favourites but fear not because according to the big guy, that’s MJ, we’ll be challenging for the Premiership title in three years. We can worry about Europe then. He said:

“Hopefully, if we can get players like Dimitar Berbatov, if we can have the likes of Tom Huddlestone, Aaron Lennon, Michael Dawson develop into star players, we can go even further. My dream is to compete for the title in the next two to three years.”

Snap that’s my dream too, along with arsenal slipping into mid table mediocrity and Chelsea into administration. In fact that could be the way it happens but until that day, Chelsea are the one’s with the buying power and in the reported choice of left wing target, David Silva, it’s them or us.

The Sunday Mirror were talking figures of £12m with the…hang on….I never gave him the full bagel. God damn it, here’s his head…

…looking a little concerned about Valencian man love.

The 21-year-old is rated as the new Pablo Aimar with all manner of skills on his 5′8″ frame…

…now that’s a left foot. There’s more of him here but frankly, it’s hard to make out who’s who. You’re looking for number 21…

…the bottom line is ‘quality’. The headline is ‘probably going to Chelsea’.

The other new one to have a look at is Bordeaux striker, Marouane Chamakh (I’ll let you know how I feel about that name when I work out how to pronounce it). French seems to be the new English for us with Comolli at the helm but who cares as long as they can play. As it goes, it’s the Moroccan national team that the 23-year-old has opted for, which will no doubt be fun come African Cup of Annoyance time. He’d be a definite Mido replacement at 6′1″ but probably brisker at 11 stone. Here’s his head…

…the big cheese but more importantly, here’s what he can do…

…lovely ball control and when he’s actually trying. On second thoughts, the rest of his work isn’t much better. He can head the ball and take penalties basically. Brilliant. Already got one of those.

Here’s to a few moves and shakes and swift working week.

Where does he get all those wonderful bagels?

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 1:03 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.