Dear reader, the Pink has made a move in the transfer market and I am bringing my inane dismay-filled ramblings about the modern-game to this forum. Some might say it’s a classic Ron Noades move of “own the club, manage the club” and to be fair, it’s hard to argue against that.
But hey, it’s my ball and having scribbled down columns like this for the last few years I’d love to share them with you.
Typically, it’ll be a look back at the stories from the last 24 hours or so with a slightly jaded, sarcastic and, frankly, bored commentary of the circus that football has become.
Join me, if you will.
Daniel Levy has been running Tottenham for 20 years, apparently. Doesn’t time fly when you are not winning trophies. It would be unfair to say that Levy hasn’t moved Tottenham forward in his time at the club, but given they were in utter inertia when he arrived and the amount of money floating around it would have been pretty hard not to make some kind of progress.
Levy is best known for his hard-nosed transfer dealings, forcing many clubs to overpay for players that were not really that good – until he completely lost his way and fell into the Mourinho trap which then saw him bring back Gareth Bale on crazy money.
Still, they might still qualify for the new Europa Conference at the expense of Liverpool, eh?
Speaking of the soon-to-be-forgotten Premier League champions, Jurgen Klopp has assured the world that he is not going to replace Jogi Low as the manager of Germany – he’s going to see his Liverpool contract out and sort out this mess they find themselves in.
He has the backing of the board and also of many people’s favourites to replace him eventually – Stevie G, a man who finally knows what it feels like to win a league title.
Given that the transfer window has been shut for some time now, the rumour mill is starting to gather pace – unhappy players are being linked to pastures new and clubs who are in dire need of reinforcements are having their top-secret plans thrust into the public eye.
According to the Metro, King Klopp’s defensive rebuild could well include Aissa Mendi of La Liga side Real Betis – he’s available on a free in the summer, which is exactly the kind of big-spending let’s get our title back tom-foolery the Anfield faithful want to see at this difficult time.
Brunaldo is refusing to extend his Manchester United contract until he gets assurance about the club’s future transfer plans – and I think we can explain them to him pretty quickly now. United will aim for Jadon Sancho (again), talk about Erling Haaland (again), completely ignore the fact they need a central defender or two and probably extend David de Gea’s contract once again. Now, will you sign?
One player who was quick to dampen down talks of an exit without actually saying he was staying was Edinson Cavani. Cavani’s old man was chatting away in South America to anyone that would listen, suggesting Cavani was that annoyed with the FA banning him over his Instagram post that he was going to do one to Boca Juniors this summer.
Cavani distanced himself from his father’s comments yesterday, saying that old boy was a bit crazy, bored and needs to get out more.
Christian Pulisic and Timo Werner are not overly happy at Chelsea since the arrival of Thomas Tuchel. Pulisic has barely featured and wants to leave if that doesn’t change – alerting Liverpool and, are you watching Bruno?, Manchester United. Werner’s nose has been put a little out of joint by Tuchel screaming at him from the sidelines, enquiring as to why the German “doesn’t understand” his tactical instructions. If his instructions have been “SCORE DAMMIT” then we can all agree that Werner does not understand.
Robin Olsen, Everton’s number two goalkeeper, was burgled by masked robbers according to many news outlets. Is he completely sure it wasn’t just some over-enthusiastic Liverpool fans looking to improve their backup goalkeeper situation? Mind you, if it was that, they should have probably gone for Richarlison and Ben Godfrey, two players that would walk into Liverpool’s team right now.
