Bloody hell, I leave the country for about a day, and suddenly we’re into transfer confusions on a JH scale. Here’s what it seems to break down to : Maggie is wanted by Spurz for between £5m to £6.5m, depending on who you read. We think it’s bad business not to sell him, so we let him go and speak to Spurz. Kerb crawler Bleat decides to tell the world that Maggie had a medical on the Thursday, even though Maggie was training with us on the Thursday. Maggie DOES go to Spurz on the Friday, where he presumably genuinely has a medical. Now this is where it gets real complex : Maggie reportedly fails it, thanks to his ankle injury.
This gets reported on the WFC OS and an unoffical Spurz line. However, Spurz officially claim it’s not true, and the delay is actually due to Maggie not sorting out personal terms with them. And the whole thing looks very stupid indeed.
Frankly, I don’t actually know what to make of the situation : Maggie is very close to going now, but there is talk that Maggie would actually prefer Sunderland (bet Nicky Summerbie won’t like that). So, is this a ploy by Maggie to get more money out of Spurz? Is this a ploy by Spurz to get us to lower our price? Or is this a rather messy way of Sunderland just so “happening” to get him. Or there is another option not yet considered : the whole thing could fall through and we’ll be left with yet another expensive cripple in our ranks. Whatever, I’m not too sure we actually need this at the moment.
Some people are getting on TB’s back because he hasn’t signed anyone yet. TB’s response is that he doesn’t want to panic buy, which is probably fair enough. However, he’s got a couple of people on trial with us, namely Michael “92nd minute at Anfield 1989” Thomas, and Ian Selley, a 25 year old midfielder whose last club was Fulham.
Now, these two are both ex-Arsenil men, and indeed Thomas was a prodigy of TB. In fact, he asked Tezza for a trial after leaving Benfica, TB told him “OK, providing you aren’t late for training” and Thomas was one of the first there. And he’s actually still “young” enough at 32 to keep playing for us for a couple of years at least. Now, Thomas was always a good player in my book, and it’s a good idea to keep him there if he impresses enough. Think about it – OGEM’s best purchase was Mick Harford (OK, his coaching is shit, but…) and as they say, class is permanent. Plus, his attitude is far better than some I could mention….
According to It Must Be Dons, they’re training twice a day, which didn’t exactly go down well this time last year. We also train on Saturdays during pre-season : one certain partying drug taking stroppy git of a player who goes on holiday to Cyprus is reported to have said “let’s get this shit over with so we can go home early. It’s Saturday”. I think said player didn’t perform on Saturdays in general.
Found out where the new club shop will be, and I have to admit to being a bit surprised : it’s actually by Blockbuster Video on Wimbledon Broadway (see, Yellow Coat, I got that right at last 🙂 ), next door to the big nightclub in Wimbledon, opposite Wimbledon Theatre and diametrically opposite to KFC.
So although it’s not in my ideal area, it’s still near enough to the town centre not to worry. I assume that it’s there because it’s the cheapest outlet available that’s nearest to the town centre – though I’m not too sure of the wisdom of putting the shop next to a nightclub. Glass fronts and drunk Celsi fans under the influence of E never were a good combination. Parking may not be that bad as it goes : I guess you can drop your car directly outside. It’s not a vacant shop unit we’re taking over either : the current inhabitants are Scope. Or the charity formerly known as the Spastics Society. I am NOT making any correlation between the current owners and the new owners……..
From the Nice To Know It’s Not Just Us file : Fulham are buggered with redeveloping Craven Cottage. So they may well end up groundsharing with Celsi if they’re not careful. Also, as we all know, Palace are safe and I think they’ve bought the freehold of SP from Uncle Ron. So they’re guaranteed to play at SP for the next 10 years. Where this leaves us I have no idea whatsoever. I guess the fact that at this moment in time the only presence WFC has there is a) the offices and b) the occasional advert for Tiny and the WFC badge on the Arthur Waite roof shows where our long term priorities are. And it ain’t in SE25.
Anders Lund and Dry Martini must be wondering whose cat they ran over : according to SW19’s Norwegian correspondent, Claes :
“Andreas and Martin have not been played from start which has been very discussed in the press. Molde is a club who has a huge reservoir of good young players and they were in a position to take any injuries or suspensions. It is now said that the sudden import of two star players in mid-season has had a bad impact on the climate in the club.
These two should be stars on the first team but the manager obviously don´t find them fit enough to play from start …. Andreas was their top scorer last season and Martin has been scoring for Stabæk almost every game for years…. After receiving proffessional training they are not good enough for the first team – hmmmmm”.
Molde have been playing awful since AL and Dry Martini returned. Just what the hell has happened to them? Unless they started developing Jason Euell’s habits…….
One more thing for tonight : check out Regulars and a nice bit from one Mr D. Challinor.