Beef Bagel

So come on then, let’s get all defensive. Yep, looks like we’re inches away from two electric, young lefties. Giovanni Dos Santos, or Johnny Two Saints as he’s be known over here, is in the mood for some Ramos tutelage for around £12.5m despite persuasion from West London and Diego Capel would seemingly be ours if we didn’t drive such a bloody hard bargain. Word has it the deals all kushte apart from the 2.5m euro tax bill that we’d like to split with Sevilla. Next thing you know, we’re going to start getting other clubs to pay for the flights and any overweight luggage too.

But enough of the forwards. The Tiago rumour looks like it might have resurfaced again although that news had some from Tribal Football and, much as I love them, they can get a little confused. According to Italian chip-paper, or possibly pasta-paper, Gazetteo delle Sport(o), Tiago’s off in a matter of days with us, City and Athletico Madrid(o) snapping at his heels. Looking for a defensive midfielder - there’s your man.

Another. Gaby Mudingayi is a Congolese-Belgian born in the town of Kinshasa (possibly the best sounding town name ever). He’s 5′11″, 12.5st and he plays in the centre of Lazio’s midfield. Here’s his head…

…with a look in his eyes that I plain wouldn’t mess with.

With no goals in most campaigns, an average of 2.5 fouls per game, the same likelihood of picking up a yellow as making an assist and one of the world’s meanest expressions, I think we can safely say that the guy is a defensive midfielder. The trouble is you can never tell how good theses geezers are until you’ve seen them and YouTube et al don’t show anything but goals.

All the same, I’ve just had a little scour and even though there’s not much to see, there are about 10 clips of the crowd cheering his name. They seem to like him…

… or it’s racism but I’ll give the more facist half of Rome the benefit of the doubt this time.

At 26 years old, Mudingayi is reassuringly not one for the future unlike John Bostock - who has just stuck another two fingers up at Chelsea in response to their last minute plea - and the story is that it’s us the ‘Pudlians and Pompey who it’s, really weird to say, have a similar pulling power to us on paper. How depressing.

Given that it’s just our friends at Tribal on this one, I wouldn’t waste your prayers until we hear from another source.

Another. Makoun, Jean Two, was the geezer I couldn’t remember yesterday. We’re still in for him but the stories are all about him and arsenal. His agent is probably making back-handed comments as we speak. Fact is, these days, it’s the Spanish speakers we need to look to rather than the French. Comolli just isn’t as persuasive as Wenger, but who needs the French when they speak Spanish in South America and sort of Spanish in Brazil?

Finally, we’re going to switch to the very back and the hot young thang who’s…er…French. Yeah, let’s just side step that last stuff I said. Hugo Lloris is the 21-year-old understudy to the French national keeper’s jersey and he’s currently blocking, shots, kicking punts and generally giving Robbo the fear in Nice.

Nice Guy Hugo is 6′1″ which isn’t giant for a keeper but with 12.2st he does seem pretty solid. Here’s his head…

…he’s the one on the right that isn’t standing on the football.

He’s only young for a keeper and his prime despite interest from Milan, Lyon and our good selves, it’s his personal development that he seeks most rather than any particular level of the game and he’s been wonderfully diplomatic at not alienating any of his suitors. He said:

“Lyon have continuity and they are in the Champions League as well. Milan are the Calcio and all that follows.”

“And Tottenham, they have a great project for the future with a very successful manager.”

“I will go where I have the feeling I can improve best until the highest level.” If he was thinking about it, it would be essentially keeperless us but I’m putting my money on Milan. Still, another goalkeeper to add to the list.

Don’t worry, Vicar. They’re only bagels. They won’t bite.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 5:06 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.