And now: the period of media induced transfer frenzy

 

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By Tony Attwood

And so seemingly inevitably the club world cup (which I didn’t stay up to watch) started with a goalless draw between  Al Ahly 0-0 Inter Miami.  Somehow it seems not only inevitable but also appropriate.  The crowd was reported as 60,000 although some reports say it didn’t really look like that.

Plus when we note that football’s “Governing body cannot avoid the dark political backdrop to its tournament opening as Trump’s authorities flex their muscles” then 60,000 seems unlikely.

Meanwhile, in the world of fantasy transfers, we are told that “Viktor Gyökeres ready to snub Manchester United for ‘dream’ Arsenal move”.   The reason is he wants to play in the Champions League.  However, it is also being said that “Mikel Arteta thought to prefer Benjamin Sesko”.

And if I tell you that this article also includes the sentence, “United are in a state of rebuild and will not play in Europe next season” you will perceive at once that it is just a filler, there is (as the police say) “nothing to see here”.

Of course this is going to be a time of media-induced panic among the more suspectable we are told that “Liverpool agree £116m deal with Bayer Leverkusen for Florian Wirtz” which is there I suspect just to make people worry that Arsenal are going to miss out on everyone.

But there is one headline that did give me a smile this morning, “Thomas Frank’s Tottenham in-tray: style, injuries, the defence and Levy,”   As they used to say, “And that sums it all up”.   For no matter how it is all dressed up, the fact remains that between 23 February and the end of the season in May, Tottenham Hots played 12 Premier League games.  They won one of them – that against Southampton (who only won two games all season), drew two, and lost nine. 

And one other interesting fact is that only four teams had a worse defence than Tottenham’s last season, and three of those were relegated.   I’d like to say I wish Frank well, but no actually I don’t and I wouldn’t.

Indeed had Tottenham let in three more in the season they would have conceded double the number of goals as Arsenal, so I guess the new manager starts there while Tottenham have announced they are suing Ineos owned by Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s Ineos over some sort of sponsorship deal to promote the Grenadier, which is apparently a car.

However, elsewhere there is an interesting development of a trend that we noted arising a year or two back: that of telling Arsenal that they are making a terrible transfer error even before the player is signed.

Now this is different from the norm since in the past Arsenal have been told that they have wasted their money after the first two or three games played by a new man, but not this time for the headline reads, “Arsenal warned over Gyokeres fee as Sporting accuse agents of ‘insults and blackmail’,”

This comes from the Telegraph and is suitably kept behind closed doors (ie you need to pay to read it) but in essence, it announces that, “The president of Sporting Lisbon has said the club will not bow down to ‘blackmail and insults’ as he denied that star striker Viktor Gyokeres …will be allowed to leave the club for £59 million.”

Apparently the Portuguese newspaper Record has announced that the manager is “furioso” at the tale that Gyokeres has refused to play for Sporting again on the grounds that he was told he would be able to leave if there was a bid of €70 million (which as it turns out is roughly £59 million), or more.

Of course, we know that big fees can work sometimes as with Declan Rice, who came in for around £100m initial fee plus a few add ons, but this is not always the case.   After all, Romelu Lukaku cost £75m which in retrospect does seem somewhat over the top.  Mind you that fee was paid by Manchester United so in that context it can be understood.   Mind you much the same could be said about Antony who went to the same club for for £82m from Ajax, and seems already to have been forgotten.  He was loaned to Real Betis six months ago, and presumably is now back with ManU.