Beef Bagel

Oh no! It’s looking truer by the minute. It’s 2.30am at the moment and word’s filtering through that Steve Gibson & Co. are holding out for £10m for the overpriced, over-rated left foot loser and there’s a chance we might use Robbo as a sweetner. Why are we doing this? Is the new world market in football the North-East? Are we hoping to boost shirt sales by signing Downing?

I get it. The final disillusionment for the Toon army is being predicted for a few month’s time when Keegan/Shearer/whichever other poor sucker gets the boot from St. James’s and the Geordie faithful give up all hope of their club ever getting out of the hole which they’ve so carefully dug for themselves. They will then be searching for football teams to support and any team with a North-East born and bred player is a likely target for their added cash and naked white blubber on each and every match day. Apparently the market’s worth over £100m per year. The only problem is that two-thirds of this will be spent on translators for the ticket office and Spurs Store to work out what the hell they’re saying before we can take their cash.

Colourful as my theory is, I don’t hold out much hope for it and unfortunately, tragically, this time around it really does look like we’re going to land Stewart Downing. I think I’m going to be sick.

“Stewart is very flattered by Tottenham’s interest,” said Downing’s agent, Ian Elliot. I’ll bet he is.

“They play the type of football he would like to be involved in.”

What you mean, like, not shit football?

All that’s stopped this disaster from happening before is that for some inexplicable reason - most likely some kind of McClaren love - Stewpot has always wanted to stay put up on Teesside but, God help us, finally at the age of 23 he’s ready to leave and we look to be the unlucky sods who are going to get dumped with him. Surely he’s a West Ham buy; £11m transfer, £60k per week, injury on arrival, out for the rest of the season, couple of goals on his return but left out of the team until his career is resurrected on sale to Portsmouth where he forms part of a success story of overachieving mediocrity? Not this time apparently. May the Muses inspire his play in a Lillywhite shirt.

One player never short inspiration is the man, the legend, Robbie Keano. It’s been an absolute pleasure watching the Irish striker’s entire career at WHL from the comfort of my blue seat. The little wizard took a while to find his home but find it he did amongst the Spurs, where his style and skill has seem him slot 98 goals for our club, just two off the magic tonne amassed by only Gloddle and Theodore Sheringham in the last 30 years. Come on Keano, a hat-trick tonight at Reading would mark it in style, particularly as Oog and The Bagel will be there.

JJ’s back in the side after suspension but once again it’s our No.1 jersey where the eyes of the world will be focused and my money’s on Cerny to keep the spot despite the words of Juande, who said:

“Robinson will play for me again, of course, but I have not thought about Reading,”

“If players play too many games in a row they need a rest now and again. He played 14 or 15 games in a row and needed a rest in order to recuperate.”

Yeah? Bull shit. Keepers can play all season if necessary. That’s what they do. No disrespect to the profession but it’s not exactly the most physically demanding position on the pitch. “That’s the first thing he’s had to do all afternoon,” is a well used Motsonism deep into the second half of many a game and for good reason. I mean, Christ, if a man the shape of Neville Southall can become a renowned keeper then anyone can…

…the original “Fan in a Shirt”. You can actually make out the curve of his man breasts - a true sportsman.

Our scouts were said to be at a recent Eredivisie encounter with their eyes on Ajax keeper, Maarten Skeltenburg while other English based staff were at the same fixture with their eyes on Dutch striker, Klaas-Jan Huntelar. It’d be mice if we managed to get him thrown into the bargain for a new keeper, which we’re going to need, if indeed we ship Robbo off up north. What an undeserving exit for our former player of the season.

These scouts of ours must love January. Just as it’s getting to its coldest back in Blighty, they’re sent off on a European tour whether we’ve finished in the top six or not and it’s been a busy week for them as they’ve missioned from the stadia of Amsterdam, via a coffeeshop or two, a few times around the Paris one-way system and then down to Almeria in Southern Spain in their cockerel branded Smart Car complete with sugar-dusted travel sweets. Between them they seem to have got the map reading spot on as reports have it they were there in time to watch Mr Alvaro Negredo and the enigmatically titled Mane play football. I’m assuming that’s pronounced Mar-ney. Wait a minute. Didn’t we sell him to Hull a while back.

Negredo’s a centre-forward of quite some note. He was sold to Almeria by none other than Real Madrid where the 22-year-old played for Castilla, their B team, and made it to the fringes of their first after catching the eye of Fabby Caps. In fact they were so impressed that he was sold with a buy back option fitted into the deal. Should they not exercise it, he could be available at slightly more Spanish prices than the proposed move of Stewart Downthing. Here’s his head…

…having a little anti-grav snooze.

At over six feet tall, he makes a decent target and by the looks of thing he can finish as well…

…didn’t we keep trying that one for about a season and a half?

Thankfully Alvaro wouldn’t be lonely if he came to the Lane with left back/left midfielder Mane on the plane with him. Mane himself is a little older at 26 a lot shorter at around 5′8″ and comes with little or no pedigree at all.

The official lines from the struggling Spanish side are that no specific interest from any club has occured but excited Negrado himself blurted:

“For me it is good to hear that Tottenham follow me,”

“But I do not know any more details. Now in my head I am only thinking about Almeria and to play as much as I can for them.”

Almeria don’t look like throwing any kind of fits to stop the pair leaving should our interest be genuine. So all that remains is for a few murmurs from WHL but you know how we do business. These guys will be but options on a list and it’ll take a while to gather all the reconnaisance. Expect a minor flurry some time after 20th January.

Right, to bed. These night shifts are ridiculous. I pray that I don’t wake tomorrow afternoon to shots of Downthing holding up our shirt with some 20 plus squad number on the back of it; a few smiles, a flutter of camera flashes and one big mistake.

It felt wrong not to bagel.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 15th, 2008 at 6:25 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.