I know folks, a post on a Tuesday? What’s all that about?
Monday was a rare thing – there was some actual football news that warranted me poking my finger-of-fun in its general direction.
Shall we begin?
Massive credit to Sheffield Wednesday who are showing the kind of pettiness we can all get behind. Still smarting from Newcastle taking Steve Bruce home, Wednesday are ‘demanding’ that Newcastle loans them two or three players otherwise they are going to sue Mike Ashley for nicking Bruce in an ungentlemanly manner.
I hate to be picky, but you know I will be, but since when did Newcastle have ‘two or three’ players that were worth taking? Salomon Rondon was one but Newcastle didn’t actually own him. Ayoze Perez was another, but he’s already gone to Leicester. Oh, hang on. Wednesday are a mid-table Championship club – not in the Premier League at all! With that in mind, they can have their pick of the remaining Newcastle squad.
Celtic come in a close second yesterday, for me. Arsenal went bounding up to Glasgow, full of the joys of summer and pretty certain that the Bhoys could not fail to see that their new bid for Kieran Tierney was much, much better than their previous one.
The only problem was, Celtic do not appear to have been born yesterday. Just whacking in a promise of a million here for qualifying for the Champions League and a promise there for winning the Champions League does not, in any way, change the fact it is still a £25m bid – Arsenal may as well have offered an extra £5m for winning the World Cup in Qatar as that is as likely to happen from Celtic’s point of view. No deal, no deal at all.
Celtic would much rather be dealing with Manchester United, you’d imagine. After all, they are not very well versed on the art of negotiation as their pursuit of Harry Maguire demonstrates. They started at an Arsenal-esque £40m despite knowing Leicester wanted about £60m. Then they went back with £60m and Leicester, knowing they can play this game all summer, said ‘did we say £60m? Must have been a typo – we meant £80m!’ And guess what? Mr Ed is in the process of writing the cheque as we speak.
In better news for United, there seems to be a way they can keep David de Gea at the club after all – and boy is it simple. No, it’s not buying some actual defenders to make his life a bit easier. It’s make him captain. Yes, De Gea wants to be the captain of that sinking ship – it’s like the Armada all over again.
Their neighbours have been called ‘arrogant’ for not getting into the party spirit in China. For some bizarre reason, the Chinese state media seemed to be under the impression that Man City were in their country for reasons other than having an excuse to show off that shocking third kit – they certainly were not there to play nice with the locals or do some sight-seeing.
Young British talent and the German Bundesliga seem like a match made in heaven currently as two more players are looking at their Premier League clubs and realising there won’t be a heap of ‘minutes’ available to them this season – and, if you are Ademola Lookman and it is clear that Theo Walcott is higher in the pecking order, it’s probably a good idea to the hell out of Goodison Park.
Lookman and Chelsea’s dreadlocked defender-or-midfielder-as-nobody-is-really-sure-yet Ethan Ampadu are both off to RB Leipzig, no doubt tempted by the unlimited access to canned, sugary ‘energy’ drinks that must be a standard feature in the contracts offered out there.
One player who is almost certainly not heading to Leipzig, or the Premier League for that matter, is the most popular man at the Bernabeu – Gareth Bale. Not only is he unlikely to get that Christmas card from Zizou later in the year, it is quickly becoming apparent that not even clubs in England are stupid enough to pay him the kind of money he is on at Real, especially with those hamstrings. And if English clubs aren’t stupid enough, who does that leave?
Oh yes – step forward unknown Chinese club. Your time is now…
