Blog Archives
Why Andy Carroll is worth £160,000,000
It’s transfer deadline day in January. Yes, that day of the footballing year where fans look excitedly towards the BBC (or Sky if you’re that way inclined… you sexists) for their rolling online coverage of the movers and shakers in these final hours of 31st January. It’s the time where the bigger clubs gobble up the better players of the smaller clubs at over-inflated prices, where Manchester United refuse to come out and play and where panic buying takes on a whole new multi-million pound meaning.
The rise of the mediocre
Wayne Bridge completed his loan move to West Ham this week, after the Davids Gold and Sullivan agreed to cover his reported £80,000 per week wage as well as paying his parent club, Manchester City, an apparent six-figure loan fee. An astute signing many a West Ham fan will have you believe – one life-long Hammer in fact remarked earlier today when questioned about this signing, “Really? We’ve had Tal Ben Haim at left-back all season. Tal. Ben. Haim.”. If United stay in the Premier League due in some part to the input of the England International, then indeed this deal can be seen as a success. The statistics however do not bode well for a player unforgivingly stalked by a series of niggling injuries since he last played more than 30 games in a single season, in the 2003/04 season for Chelsea.Last chance saloon for Cole
Joe Cole vs Switzerland, February 2008
Subject to a medical, Roy Hodgson today secured the free transfer of England International Joe Cole. Free agent Cole becomes Liverpool’s second signing of the summer, signing a four-year deal on a reported £90,000 a week. This can be seen as a great bit of business for Hodgson, under severe financial constraints due to the necessary austerity measures in place at Liverpool and the continued search for a new owners by Tom Hicks and George Gillet. However for the England player, 28, this move represents a last chance at the greatness so often promised over the last twelve years.
