Beef Bagel

You just can’t really escape it. It’s all about Samuel’l Eto’o for Tottenham Hotspur right now. I’m quite impressed that the story manages to creep on day by day with enough gold uncovered for another few column inches every 24 hours.

Today’s chapter, well actually today we get two chapters. The first is that General Levy has bowled on into Barcelona and slapped 24 million footy bucks onto the table, just £3m short of what the Catalan club have been asking for. In football terms, that’s a deal and a full £8m more than Eto’o’s other suitors’s, the Milan Brothers, have offered.

What’s the hold up, one might ask? Well, that’s where chapter 2 comes in. Apparently, the People managed get hold of Sam’m’s agent, Jose Maria Mesalles, who told them that Catalonia’s least favourite Cameroonian was dead against a move our way because we have no Champions League football. Now, there’s a surprise. It seems there has been no direct contact with the player on our behalf at all. Mesalles said:

“I do not know if [Levy] met with FC Barcelona, but with Eto’o it is totally wrong.”

Personally, I don’t see this as a set back at all. Barcelona want to get rid of Eto’o and not only do they want to sell to the highest bidder but they want to sell to a club that’s not a threat, and that’s us on both counts. Hurray, I think? The club will pressurize Eto’o and once he meets the Perfect Juan and Levy gets out his scale model and plans of European domination, I have a feeling he’ll be persuaded.

Of course the £107k a week wages will be fun and I’ve figured out who these mystery sponsors are that will take care of them - us. What did you think the £3/game hike was all about? Well, that’s one week sorted anyway.

Now, I can’t go any longer without mentioning Richard “He ate all the pies” Dunne. He’s as good as signed with us. I say this with absolutely no inside information or any thought whatsoever. There are no quotes from Dunne, City, Spurs or anyone but all the papers - well, the ones that know - are saying that the Sky Blues captain is chomping at the bit to follow his Republic of Ireland captain and pull on a Lilywhite shirt and I can’t help thinking of his reasons after watching Brokeback Mountain last night.

I’ve always disliked Richard Dunne for being fat and annoying - fine humanitarian I am - but I’ve always found a begrudging respect for him because he seems to know how to do his job despite not being particularly good at football.

Apparently Dunne has had enough of Shinawatra’s circus and despite offers from all manner of Northern clubs and wage-spinners West Ham he wants to come to us. Good lad. With one year on his contract, 28 years under his belt and not being electric, the price on his head is a modest £5m but knowing that he wants to be a Spur, it looks like we’ll screw the Blues for everything we can. £3.5m spread over installments every leap year sounds about right.

Unfortunately, time runs particularly short for The Bagel today with these two giants of the game taking up all my time. All that remains is for me to bring you a typical open-gaped gorilla shot of Richard Dunne and to prepare yourself for a whole load of conceded penalties next season.

I wonder what shape he’ll be in after a summer with Senor Alvarez?

Oh no, there is one more thing. This fucking cracked me up. The Good Gilberto has been called up to Brazil’s squad for the Olympics. He joins Ronaldinho, Robinho, Adriano and Kaka as well as all their friends, friend’s sisters, dogs, and former room-mates in the preliminary 74-man squad. My invitation must have slipped under the Bakery door matt.

I wish I knew how to bagel you.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 2:16 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.