Beef Bagel

Life moves quickly in football and although there’s a right Cockney barrell of monkeys out there still feeling the sting as if they’ve been hit by the world’s largest hornet, we must move on. For gentlemen and ladies, we have business to attend. Not only have we our league run-in to consider and consider with some great relish, but we’ve three cup ties to take care of in a matter of just 10 days. Blink and we could be on the canvass with bluebirds flying about our shaking heads, keep focused on the ball and this’ll be a season we’ll never forget.

But enougn of the drama for now. There was enough of that on Sunday to fill an amphitheatre. Before we charge ourselves once more for a UEFA clash and a second London derby in as many weeks, let’s while away the time with the less stressful pursuit of sitting back in a little glory on the comfort of some wicker as we gazing out from the veranda to see what or who may be coming to say hello. Mint dulip anyone?

The big story of the day as printed even by the London Lite before the Bagel, much to my shame, is that of French starlet (Frenchlet) Henri Saviet. Now, correct me if I’m wrong but on the one hand we’ve got Damien Comolli banging the drum as loud as Danny about English players and on the other we’re constantly linked with French ones? No matter, I suppose, as long as they’re good and as long as we do bother with the likes of Curtis Davies and…well…we’ll get to them in a minute.

Henri Saviet. So what do we know? Well, he’s 16. He’s a winger, a right one; sorry to get your hopes up. He belongs to Bordeaux, plays for France U16 and is hottly tipped for U21 side very, very soon, hopefully before he’s 22. And what don’t we know about him? Everything else. These young ‘uns are too camera shy for The Bagel’s liking. Not even a head to show you. So…er…how about this one…

..they go through a very different kind of puberty over there. He’s obviously going through that socially awkward papery phase.

The lad hasn’t made it to Bordeaux’s first team as yet but Levy & Co. want him before he does, so sure are they that his price tag can only sky rocket. Saviet has been described by some as the French Walcott. Now, I’m not sure what we want a Cup losing, Germany 2006 waste of space for but it seems this comparison works in our favour. With a Theo in Henri’s way at the arse, it’s most unlikely he’ll see the Emirates as a good move, rather like the scum fans themselves and indeed it’s looking very promising that he’ll become a Yiddo. The catch? Well, there’s two million of them but then we’ve spent far more on far worse I’m sure. Thumbs up from The Bagel on this.

Now arsenal may be content to let this one slide but it’s been a while since they’ve been blessed with centre halves. So, it should be no surprise to us when they fight tooth and nail for Curtis Davies. The West Brom captain’s in danger of being torn from limb from limb by top flight managers if he stays in the Championship for too much longer. The sums involved are academic seeing as the kid’s been quoted at everything from 2p-£12m over the years and if the Baggies don’t make it up for next season, you can bet that neither gang from North London will care too much about the price either. The question is, who wants him more? The Bagel’s prediction…hmmm….WBA stay down, Davies goes to scumland.

The other young Englander I’ve been meaning to squash under a cover slip and examine under maximum magnification is Marcus Williams. Here’s his head…

…at x300.

The 20 year old is a genuine left back with a genuine left foot and guess what, he can genuinely play on the wing as well, as his best asset is his pace. So long as he can cross, we’re laughing. At 5′8″ he’s not going to be the best in the air and possibly at the back but he sounds a fairly stocky lad, carrying 11 stones at that height. I’m think a slightly elongated Craig ‘(arse)hole in one’ Bellamy.

He’d cost us mere pocket change if we fancied our chances with a fee expected to be around 500k or were they referring to an Atari ST?

Our would be competitors come in the form of a useless Wigan with a Leighton Baines, a soon to be relegated Watford, Reading and ourselves. The Bagel’s verdict: smells like nonsense to me; some sort of made up story on the back of the Bale bids. Perhaps it’s a chain. Williams to Wigan, Baines to us? Thank you Mr Jewell for another star player.

There’s only thing to know about the next player in the spotlight. He’s big. No, he’s massive. Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it Nelson’s Coloumn? No, it’s Nikola Zigic and he’s 6′8″. Here’s his head…

…as he straddles a Jumbo Jet painted to look like another player and here’s what he can do with it…

Love the ironic choice of music; as if he ever has to? He can clearly kick the ball as well, which must have Mido’s knickers in a twist and the player himself is most keen on a move to our fair land:

“I know I have been watched by English scouts — the Premiership is like paradise for a striker like me.”

Well, I’m glad to see we’ve lost our reputation as a bunch of chip ‘n chase merchants.

The 26 year old Serb wouldn’t come cheap. He joined Racing Santander last summer as they compensated Red Star Belgrade to the tune of £4.5m. Expect a bigger tag should he move this way, whether it be to the Lane or the host of lessor clubs with whom he’s been linked. Our Bagel says…x (that’s a Family Fortunes ‘no’). Surely just another massive player (this time with a normal neck) who can potentially out play our least good striker. The Spurs scouts may have been out in Spain but I’ll bet they just wanted to break up the drive to Braga.

And it’s a time of old faces too in the transfer market. There’s a double winger wonder in the offing of Robben and Duff. Never going to happen. Duff isn’t going to leave Newcastle, particularly after giving his reasons for not coming to us as rivals of his old club or was that just a cover up for his crazy wages. Weren’t they 75 grand a week or something? Yep, like I said, never going to happen. Besides Rat Face Roeder’ll never let him go, not one of his favourite little pieces of cheese. Now, you may say that he’s an all too often injured piece of cheese and you’d be right but combined with Robben in former Chelsea styles or indeed with the back up we’ve already got in good enough makeshift wingers, I reckon he’d be worth a go but let’s not get our hopes up. Never going to happen.

We’ve a better chance with Arjen Robben but there’s a couple of issues with the Dutchman. Number 1, he’s a Dutchman, which is both good and bad. With MJ as our leader we’ll have the edge on signing his countryman should Chelsea be willing to let him go. However, being a Netherlander, he’s also prone to being a moody little shit. Talented he is but temperamnetal with it. Kluivert, van Nistelrooy, Davids, van Hooijdonk, Robben; Dutch stars, Dutch attitudes. What is it with the ego of the orange football player? The country on the whole does not seem to bare this trait, so why do their fleet feeted soccer stars? Any suggestions?

If a little fight is what we’re after and until Didier Zee and the Man Mountain start attending the Roy Keane school of anger management, we are then look no further with Thomas Gravesen. I haven’t seen the Danish meathead on any Real teamsheets lately, so this may be more than a little smoke. He’s bound to be dreaming of his Premiership days when he played hand in hand with look-a-like Lee Carsley. He’ll be sitting in his luxury villa on his cash stack deck chair, while he wipes the tears from his eyes with 100 Euro notes…in the sun…with yet another Iberian hotty by his side…maybe he doesn’t want to leave?

The oldest face of all and frankly I’m amazed he’s appeared on the same page as a Tottenham story, is Robbie Fowler. Now, I can’t see why we’d bother. Far from his best and probably not as useful as Mido, who barely gets a game himself, so why are we interested? The answer: we’re not. Utter bunkham. Not happening. Next.

Truth, falsehood it’s all too soon to tell but I’m starting to get excited about the great summer swapping once more. Now let’s finish this season on a big old high and make sure we can attract the cream cheese of the crop.

License to bagel.

The Bagel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 6:04 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.