Beef Bagel

To begin with, The Bagel wasn’t too upset by the news of Younes Kaboul’s welcome to the Tottenham team. Facial injuries are usually a good thing for centre halves. Whoever saw a pretty one? In fact, I’m sure that physical attractiveness is inversely proportional to success as a central defender. Let’s take a look at some of the Premiership’s best…

…John Terry: Great Player - yes, Chelsea scum - yes, much of a looker - no…

…the kind of smile that makes small children cry.

Jaap Stam: Dream at Old Trafford…

…Nightmare on Elm Street.

And of course Punchbag Face himself, Steve Bruce…

…like a bag of spanners.

So hearing that after only 23 seconds our latest addition had to have ‘emergency dental surgery’, after receiving a kick to the face from Shaun Bartlet, didn’t really bother me too much. He didn’t get much of a run out and spent the rest of the game checking his teeth had been glued back correctly but he’ll be back.

What I didn’t realise was that we have now what the press call a ‘defensive crisis’. King Ledley, Gareth Bale, Benoit Who, Chimbondabonda, Lee and now Kaboul are all out, leaving Paul Statleri and Safety First to hold us all together with a variety of cameos from the likes of Rocha, Baby Face and the dreaded Phil Ifil. Suddenly those broken teeth feel a lot more serious than just toughening up a new boy.

On the plus side of this pre-season’s ridiculous tournament, we won, which puts us in good stead to win the whole thing seeing as the only other team in it is the Orlando Pirates. For those of you who weren’t lucky enough to be in Johannesburg at the weekend, the action went a little like this…

It may not have been a thumping victory but tell me that finish oh-so-Keano hasn’t put a big fat grin on your face? I’d almost forgotten how he looks. No one moves like Robbie and if your name’s Wesley Sneijder, you don’t move at all.

“Wesley Sneiderm has decided that he will stay in Amsterdam for at least another year,” so says a statement from Ajax, which is a shame seeing as he’s very bloody good. He’s out of contract in 2009 so crunch time will be next summer before he can go on a free but who knows how we’ll all be feeling by then. Then what of Freddy Adu?

Well, that’s not off the cards as yet but there’s reports in the air that neither ourselves or Celtic will end up with ‘The one & only American soccer phenom’. Indeed if he’s to move at all, the reports are in Salt Lake City that it will be to Benfica because of work permit difficulties. This is probably less to do with the application process and more to do with the one month long queue at the Home Office that would see Fred tapping his kicking his heels while the season began. So, instead he’ll be acquiring a Portuguese work permit through ‘more direct’ methods but at least we can watch him in the CL.

Thankfully there’s one man who just can’t wait to pull on that 125th Anniversary shirt.

“Spurs are a big club and this season play in the UEFA Cup - that is always an interest to any player,” so says left winger, Martin Petrov, as he sits like the one bright kid in the class with his hand in the air, just itching to be picked while the teacher looks elsewhere. I’m thinking he’s on the shopping list but he’s the last one on it, in fact two pints of full fat and mars bar still out rank him just now.

With no new noise from corridors of power at WHL, I’m hoping there’s a very new and most secret of deals going on as we speak.
Why don’t you pass the time with a game of bagel?

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2007 at 3:44 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.