Beef Bagel

Kevin Keegan and Alan Shearer. Are they gluttons for punishment? How to destroy two of your club heroes in one firmly thrown stone. Passion they may have and even some experience but not a brain cell between them and I’d say the same for the Barcodes board if they actually make to appoint them. Why is it the Newcastle fans look back to Keegan’s work at their club over 15 years ago rather than his managerial career since? Sure he got Fulham and City promoted but he didn’t do much with them when they made it to the Premiership and he’s going to be going up against a very different league than when he last took the reigns of the Small Club from Scotland. Personally, what I like best about the story is that he’s still wearing the same shell suit he was when he “Loved it” back in 1996. Good luck to whoever takes role - not so much a poisoned challis as a straight bullet to the head.

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What is the point of having a second goalkeeper if you never use them? Radek Cerny must have been looking at himself every morning in the mirror wondering what else had to happen before he could actually get a game for the first team at Spurs. Robbo’s been under the microscope ever since that goal in Zagreb, with each end every mistake slowly adding up to a problem just too heavy in negatives for it to equal anything else. Should we be sad and upset that he was dropped? No. We’ve got another keeper and if he can play without carrying the ball into his own net or without his own brand of defensive howlers, then he should be used.

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January 3rd? Just three days of the transfer window gone and I’m all ready exhausted. It certainly takes its toll when your club is on the wrong end of the biggest story of the winter sales. Word today is that it’s going to cost the right suitor one whopping great bag of cash for the signature of the world’s favourite Bulgarian and I’m starting to see this picture that’s being drawn between Emil Dantchev and the Tottenham Board.

The latest update is from a press conference with Ramos who, looking rather depressed in his Italian leather jacket, said:

“It (speculation) is normal because the transfer window has just opened, but we want this footballer to stay with us.”

“He is here now and unless somebody comes along with an offer that is too good to refuse, he will stay here and we are happy to have him.”

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Spurs are victorious away at last, Pompey are beaten, the bell is silenced. Like a good football fan, I watched MOTD2 last night; the last piece of the weekend’s joy. Did Lineker muscle Chiles out of yesterday’s broadcast because of what Sky self-promotingly dubbed “Grand Slam Sunday”, and how many times each year do Sky use that three word phrase? How about “Big Four Sunday” or “Give us all your money Sunday” or simply “I am Murdoch and I own you Sunday”?

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I’ve only just landed. My first league win at the Lane this season and what a good win it was. Did we deserve it over Man City? No, but did we deserve that badly needed points of three? We certainly did. In fact by my count we’re still one down. The real justice of the last two league encounters would be a win over Boringham and draw with City, so with only three points to show instead of four we’re due another.

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Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it. I’ve always laughed at the likes of Portsmouth, West Ham and any other club with a half decent, English keeper when they’ve turned up at WHL and sung, “England’s No.1, England’s, England’s No.1″ because their goalie once came on for the second half of international friendly. There can only be one number one and for years now, he’s been ours. With Scott Carson getting the nod in tonight’s crucial game ahead of Paulo Robinsino, it feels like the end of an era. If he can’t be trusted now, will he ever be trusted again? Take one look at David James and your answer has got to be ‘no’. It doesn’t matter how good a couple of seasons the Pompey keeper has, he’ll always be Calamity James and by the same standard, Robbo will always be remembered by ‘that goal’ in Zagreb. Keepers will always be remembered for their mistakes and rarely anything else.

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It’s a curious start to the week as Punchbag Face leaps out of his Birmingham frying pan and into the licking flames of Wigan Athletic Football Club although his actions become a little easier on the aching brain when you take into consideration the £2m a year that he’s going to be earning. Personally, that’d get me about as far as Stoke-on-Trent. The Bagel would require at least double that kind of cash to reside in such northerly reaches of this isle. Does the sun ever shine up there?

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“I respect the fans, the club and the players at Sevilla and I would only show any interest in a player from Sevilla if he was a free agent.”

So says Juande. But mark those words and mark them well because The Bagel’s had a look at the Sevilla books and out of the overflowing shopping trolley of players that we’ve been linked with since the Man with the Granite Mask arrived, none of them is out of contract. In fact, the nearest has over 18 months still to go, yet at the same time Ramos has said this regarding Alves and Kanoute:

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So, I’m still slightly smarting that I opted for the worse of the two games the more I read about our performance on Sunday, although the freezing conditions on my return to Blighty do make me miss the sun and fresh fruit of the Littlest Big Country in the Middle East. Just for your info, I repeated the same trick on the flight back: three bottle of mini-red, seconds of plane food, 95% of a film and then out for the count. Incidentally, can anyone tell me what happens at the end of Transformers? I’m not quite sure the Dreamworks effects department had a 5cm x 5cm screen in mind when they brought the Hasbro classics to life but all the same it passed the time. The only problem was the damn thing just wouldn’t finish and I had to get rid of my processed fluids a good hour after I said to myself, “Just hang on in Bagel, it’ll end in a minute.”

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We’re just going to have to shit it all summer, aren’t we, or at least until Dimitar the Great puts pen to cockerel headed paper? So, today brings the latest in astronomical bids for our prized asset, with the figure at £27.5m plus the £11m rated Loius Saha. No offence Loius but somehow £39m straight sounds a lot better. Still, neither are exactly palatable and despite Berbatov’s agent, Emil Danchev’s words this morning The Bagel and hopefully Spurs are staying strong. He said:

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