Man in black or yellow or is it white?
Every morning this week as I brush the breadcrumbs form my eyes, I switch on the news and my rumour machine, just waiting for the announcement that we’ve signed Ashley Young. I’ll see head line after headline:
“Young joins Spurs”
“Young at Hart, White Hart”
“Tottenham go Young to solve the left wing problem”
“Young’s a Yiddo”
etc, etc.
Yet instead, all that happens is that West Ham offer more and more and the winger’s price goes up and up. The latest bid from the cockney wide boys was £9.65m but the Watford player refused to even speak to them despite the offer of £50k a week to boot. All that money at their disposal but the fact is no one wants to play for West Ham. Why switch from one relegation cert to another?
On top of this, there’s no way Aidy Boothroyd’s going to want to help the Hammers out any in their bid for Premiership survival, which can only help our chances. But with a transfer package of around £10m with Good Old Calum included, we’ve got to ask if Young’s really worth all that and that’s a question that no one, it seems can answer. Whenever I ask this question of any football fan, I get the same reply,
‘I dunno, I haven’t seen that much of him.’
It’s as if he plays his game with one of those memory pens from Men in Black in his pockets. At the end of every ninety minutes, it’s one big red flash and no one’s the wiser. It must even work through TV because I can’t recall a single second of him on Match of the Day either but then I do tend to avoid the show any time we lose; a red flash in my own face if you will.
My guess is Levy & Co. have gone as far as they’re going to go with this one, particularly as they too have no memory of the winger’s ability and Watford are not the only club being bribed with Davenport. Our centre half could be travelling to Derby with his pockets a lot lighter (only £2m in transfer cash) if we can convince the promising Giles Barnes to move in the other direction. Apparently, it’s reached a first come first serve scenario between the two clubs for Calum’s services. Instead, we should put the player right between the two clubs and shout, ‘go.’ The first one to touch him can get the deal. That would mean putting our man somewhere on the M1 just south of Northampton. Newport Pagnell services will do but perhaps on the east side. I’d rather Derby got the deal. £8m less for a very good player seems a far better option. We’ll find our winger elsewhere, Holland I hope.
As it goes, Ashley Young is said to be keen on a move that’ll bring him to the Lane but funnily enough, neither Davenport, Routledge or any other make weight in the deal wants to move the other way or more to the point they just don’t want to stop being Spurs. They’d simply be crying into their Robbie Keane pillows, on their Berbatov beds, in their rooms of MJ wallpaper. They may well also be sick into their Danny Murphy toilets. So, it could mean that a deal for Young would have to be just cold hard cash, unless we get the Pitbull to ‘persuade’ Calum that his services would be best spent elsewhere.
£10m feels like a hell of a hit and nearly a club record for a man who’s game is unknown.
The international bagel of mystery.
The Bagel.