Beef Bagel

There’s only one way to cover over the hurt of recent loss and that’s to imagine how much better we can be with a whole new set of players and there’s nearly been enough connected with our club in the last few days to make an entire XI. Actually, there’s eight so you’ll have to imagine there’s been a bit of a scuffle and three have been sent off, most notably the goalkeeper. Thankfully, we do still have three defenders on the pitch and all centre halves in a solid 3-4-2 formation.

First up, making his debut for Tottenham Hotspur it’s Sylvain Distin. Yes, that’s right, the big Frenchman, who powered home the sort of goal defenders dream of and then wake up all sticky, may well be available for as little as £2m after contract talks with the Sky Blues have hit a wall, that wall being Sylvain himself as basically, he’s refusing to sign it. He can Bosman his way out of Manchester come the summer time but both he and the club may decide it’s best for all to get things done in January. After all, what kind of self-respecting defender/captain would screw his club over on a free transfer?

Distin’s 29 years old, or will be in about a week, and as a centre half has got plenty of years left in him. Whatsmore, he’s just the kind of experienced cover MJ would want for Ledley. Think Anthony Gardner without the feelings of panic and a different head, in fact, more like this one…

…before it was surgically removed from conjoined twin, Brian McBride…or is that Sean Penn?

Unfortunately, I can’t show you his goal because the only place I can find the full version of it is amongst clips of November’s goal of the month competition on youtube and there’s too many painful memories in there with it for me to post it here. Have a look for yourself if haven’t already seen it.

The second of our defensive line also making his Tottenham debut is Everton new boy Joleon Lescott. The 24 year old was picked up this summer by Moyes’ Boys for a £5m price tag that, apparently, we’re happy to double! (and I don’t use exclamation marks often.) It’d probably take that kind of amount to get him down to London though, as firstly, they like him very much up there and secondly Everton was one of his favourite clubs as a boy. It is possible that we were another of his favourites but it’s still an extortionate amount however you look at it.

He’s 6′2″, 88kg’s and he’s played for England at all but the senior level. Here’s his head…

…demonstrating that he’s a little teapot.

The Bagel heard a vicious rumour that Lescott is to be bought to partner Safety First, while Ledley goes into the midfield but I doubt this as much as I doubt this deal materialising at all.

Completing the back row and again making his debut for Spurs is the much wrangled over and upon Curtis Davies and what The Bagel brings you of this saga today is that over the weekend, young and useful Curtis had a falling out with Baggies manager, Tony Mowbray. According to The People, he’s a dead cert to leave in January. Got a funny feeling they may be right this time.

In the next bank of three and making his debut on the mighty Yid Army’s right flank, is long time bagel favourite and political prisoner, Shaun Phillips. Yet again, it looks like poor old Shaun is set to miss out on his get out of jail free card. Yes, Chelsea have finally reconciled it with themselves to let the neglected winger go but the only way they can stomach the sale is by recouping all but £5m of his purchase price. I’ll save you the finger counting and forgetting to carry the ‘2′. That’s a not so cool 16 million squid. He’s going to be old and grey with a beard when they finally release him. He’ll ask people what these strange things called ‘Oyster Cards’ are, he’ll be stunned when players receive yellow cards for their celebrations and he’ll wonder who the hell told school kids that we wanted to hear their rubbish, generic, R&B on London’s buses or retro R&B as it may well be when the poor kid finally sees the light of day? I believe Amnesty International have begun to take an interest in Shaun’s case.

In the middle of the middle in today’s remaining 8 and making his debut for Tottenham Hotspur is the Lampardian figure of Giles Barnes. Don’t worry he’s not fat and is as yet to let his country down but he does have something of the midfield goal scorer about him. Giles is this week’s touted wonderkid and he plays over at Prem promotion chasing side, Derby, where they simply love him. He’s an England U19 international putting him right in our zone and he’s a chunky 6 footer to boot. Here’s his head…

…getting hoofed in the knackers.

Derby are looking to extend his contract beyond 2008 and are warning off the likes of Liverpool, Newcastle and ourselves, who are all talking bids in excess of £2m but the 18 year old is as yet to sign. So either he’s holding out for a new mountain bike and scalextric set or he really wants to play with the big boys. January will tell.

Now, maybe I’m wrong and I recommend replacing the word ‘maybe’ with the word ‘definitely’ and the word ‘wrong’ with ‘right’ but isn’t £2m an awfully small price for a ‘wonderkid’. I’m sure the guy can play but if he’s that good, we’d be talking at least £5m plus. He looks like he’s got something about him from the flashes of footage I’ve seen but The Bagel’s getting the feeling we’re just looking to stockpile more young English players in case the day finally comes when the FA announces that clubs can only field 3 foreign players in any one side. Perhaps Levy & Co. know something we don’t.

On the left side, that’s right, I am talking about a left winger, is 5′9″ and 11.5 stone Englishmen by the name of Lee Cook. Lee’s making his debut here at WHL. Here’s his head…

…telling John Oster that that was not the ball bag he was talking about.

The 24 year old is a West Londoner through and through. Born in Hammersmith and playing for QPR, he’s rumoured to be wanted by both ourselves and Man City. John Gregory says that he doesn’t want to let the player go but rather stoically commented that he hopes he gets £10m in exchange. Got a feeling that this one isn’t quite good enough for us.

The final two players are where we go all foreign, starting with Samba Boy, Leonardo. The striker come lefty is in bit of a tricky one between ourselves and PSV due to a few passport issues and has asked to wait for the summer but no nonsense hard man and filth ball, that should have been sent off as the last man in that international all those years ago Ronald Koeman, is not affording the player that luxury and rightly so. The PSV coach wants the decision by this winter or he’s says he’ll go looking for other options. The quote runs a little like this…

“It’s take it or leave it.”

Sounds a little final to me. Guaranteed we’ll be finding out the end of this story very soon.

The man, on whom we pin our hopes to bang one in from all these suppliers is an Italian gent, known as Francesco Tavano. The 27 year old striker and Spurs debutant, is part of a Valencian squad, where he has made little impact since joining as top scorer and hero from Tuscany side, Empoli. He’s around 5′8″ and 71kgs and would seem to fit in the little man bracket as a replacement for Defoe or Keano should the worst happen. Here’s his head…

…posing for The Gay Times but more importantly, here’s his goals…

…looks pretty good to me. If he can do that in the Premiership, it’d certainly take the sting out of losing one of the crew.

So the $64,000 question is will we sign any of them? The Bagel’s opinion is Curtis Davies and forget the rest but I’m still holding out for Sean Phillips. That makes it more of a $64,000,000 question.

No further word on any back chat from the players to big MJ. We’ll just have to see how the land lies after the game tonight. Looking forward to seeing one live again. Enjoy lads and lasses. I feel a demolition coming on.

Who’s afraid of the big bad Bagel?

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 5th, 2006 at 5:16 pm and is filed under Transfer 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.