Beef Bagel

With a moment to breathe between football games and only 9 days left of the window, I’m thinking it’s a good time to catch up on the moves, the shakes and the sizzling steaks that are the January transfer rumours. Starting with the most true and likely and working our way down to the steaming piles of horse shit, it goes a little like this…

Number one and more or less a dead cert, possibly even by the time you get to the bottom of this post, is the news that we’ve missed out on MIB Ashley Young. Now, when I say ‘missed out’ I don’t think any of us are going to feel too sorry about saving the £8m, rising to a possible £13m that Villa are thought to be sending the other way for a player that no one seems to rate that highly. Thankfully, we’ve already played Villa twice and aren’t going to regret that on a personal basis. It’ll be interesting though, to see exactly how the player fares at a more competitive club, which unfortunately we won’t get to find out until he leaves Birmingham.

Now, from here on in, it gets a little hazy but the best of the bunch sounds to be the deal for Ricardo Rocha. The Benfica defender has agreed a three and a half year deal with our top brass with a bizarre price tag of £3.3m plus two obligatory friendlies in Lisbon. The sticking point for the 28 year old is whether the Benfica club president, Luis Fillipe Vieira (terrible name) can bare to part with the player. So, either he’s that good at fooball or that bad at the club’s Texas Hold ‘Em poker nights.

Since deliberations began on Friday, both Reading and Real Sociopath have made enquiries of their own but first refusal remains ours and we should find out Vieira’s decision later today.

Remember that near miss in the summer? That strange turn around, when Young-Pyo Lee appeared to have signed to Roma? Well, there at it again. The Italian club have got a penchant for our Korean full back but the sale of Tottenham Jesus freak would leave us a little bare and having to put our faith in the not so solid Benoit Who once again. But, Roma have got wise to this and reports suggest that a straight swap for ex-Everton loanee, Matteo Ferrari, could be on the cards.

I can’t say this exactly fills me with confidence. It’s rather hard to get excited about a player, who was deemed only good enough to play second fiddle to Alan Stubbs and David Weir but in many ways it is a signing that would make some sense. Ferrari (are there any better names in football?) can play at both left and centre back and with a certain degree of clout at just over 6′ and 12 stone. Fingers crossed he’s actually left footed as well. Here’s his head…

…as Hernan Crespo shows him an old Argentine move known as ‘The Viennese Finger’. Guaranteed to break down the toughest defender and great with a cup of tea.

Ferrari’s 27 years old and has been on the fringes of the Italian national team since he was a nipper in the U16’s and let’s remember that this is no mean feat given their country’s wealth of quality defenders. Also to be fair to the lad, one major reason he wasn’t kept at Goodison was the injury he sustained at the time.

This move is not one to get the pulse racing but I can’t see we wouldn’t be a whole lot worse if it happened. Besides, we can always hope that Benoit Who’s spent the last few months down the gym from noon till night. That or he’s been on a diet of steroid soup, roast steroids and steroid crumble.

BAGEL FLASH! BAGEL FLASH! BAGEL FLASH!

Just getting reports from my Portuguese counterpart, Theth Bagelo, that we’ve all but signed Ricardo Rocha. An agreement was made last night for the same facts and figures as reported above and the Benfica defender has been undergoing a medical at the Lane this morning. So, there you go. You heard it here first.

More to follow soon but thought you’d better hear this while the news is nice and fresh, just in fact, like my bagels.

Portuguese man-o-bagel.

The Bagel.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 22nd, 2007 at 1:48 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.