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THE £300 ISSUE 8-8-05
Despite the sight of another trophy being won by a team prepared to put ten men behind the ball for ninety minutes, the excitement of a new season is causing me to sit less comfortably than a half-Kuwaiti Big Brother contestant with a wine bottle up their gash.
That said, the real drama this weekend came not from Chelsea's snooze-worthy victory over Arsenal or from Derek's inevitable eviction from the Big Brother house but from the most thrilling morning of international cricket this writer has ever witnessed. Why oh why have the ICC scheduled the third day of the third test to conclude the same time that Boro kick-off their season against Liverpool? Aaarrrgh!
Let's do this.....
"We hope that you choke."
With only one week to go until he can play his first pass to an opponent, George Boateng has spent the last few days on his knees in Steve McClaren's office. No, not like that. Get your minds out of the gutter. There's a perfectly good reason for such subservience from the usually bullish midfielder.
It appears that George has just realised that his current deal only runs for twelve more months and the Dutchman is just desperate for a new contract. "I want to stay at Middlesbrough, I'm happy here," he told the News of the World. "I like the players, I like the fans, the club is very good, it's run by a good manager and the chairman is backing the team and the manager with his funds."
He might be keen to stay, but Boateng won't sell himself short during negotiations. In fact, it appears he can't afford to. "I'm 29 now and I've got two kids," he bellyached, suggesting that the terms of his current £30,000 per week wage had forced him to dress his children in potato sacks with nothing but carrier bags to cover their bleeding feet and nothing but turds on sticks for playthings.
"This is what you get when you mess with us."
It must've finally come to Steve Gibson's attention that he's been paying the wages of fourteen strikers for the last 56 weeks because it seems that time is about to called on the Boro careers of two bench-warming plodders.
After four seasons of half-arsing it, Cameroonian malingerer Joseph-Desire Job has confirmed that he wants to quit Middlesbrough. A case of jumping before he's pushed, you might say. However, while Job admitted that he would be seeking an exit from La Riv, he wasn't too impressed with the idea of joining up with Crystal Palace.
"I want to move on because I want to play more and I know I won't get that here," Job squawked to The Star. "Palace are a great club with a very good manager in Iain Dowie, but I'm not prepared to drop down a league." Despite falling behind constantly crocked Malcolm Christie and 14-year-old Danny Graham in the Boro pecking order, Job declared, "I don't think I'm a Championship player." With just eighteen goals in ninety-one appearances, I'm not sure he's that good.
Even further below Joseph Job in the queue for a starting place is Szilard Nemeth whose six goals in forty appearances is only marginally better than Franck Queudrue's five in forty-three. Nemeth's most likely destination appears to be Sparta Prague and it was confirmed this week that discussions have already taken place between the two clubs.
Nemeth's advisor Karol Csonto admitted that his client has held talks with Sparta Prague. Csonto told Slovak daily Novy Cas, "Szilard is keen on a loan move until December and Sparta have the added attraction of offering Champions League football. We should find out in the next few days if both clubs can come to an agreement."
Anyway, while a deal could be finalised this week, it remains to be seen whether a player with such a poor record of finding the target will actually be able to navigate his way out of the Riverside front door without banging his head.
"Nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate."
Readers of the classified section of the Newcastle Evening Chronicle may have seen the following advert this week:
"Wanted: one permanently injured world class number nine. Will swap for one semi-permanently injured ageing midfielder who has only had one good game in the last three years."
Further investigation has proved this hopeful message to be the handiwork of one Graeme Souness who is reported to be trying to offload Nicky Butt and sign a new striker all in one fell swoop. The sour faced Newcastle boss admitted that, "Viduka, Anelka and Owen are all top strikers. That is not my opinion - the facts speak for themselves. These are 20-goal a season strikers and that's the kind of players we should be attracting to this club," he said of the three strikers who managed seven, seven and thirteen goals respectively last season.
After a day of speculation (we have 15 strikers, they have 15 midfielders - it seemed to make sense), Steve Gibson denied the whole thing. "I like Freddy Shepherd and I like speaking to him" he told the Evening Gazette, presumably with his fingers crossed behind his back. But he admitted that, "To lose Mark Viduka would seriously weaken us and we are not prepared to do that." Which is all well and good but it doesn't help poor Graeme out with his lack of strikers, does it? Altogether now, aaahhh. Sorry that should be, altogether now, ha ha ha.
"A job that slowly kills you."
Boro's shoddy pre-season form continued this week as they slumped to a 2-1 defeat against Athletico Madrid. No shame in that, you might think. Well, West Brom managed to beat them fairly easily, so I'm not too impressed. Wantaway Szilard Nemeth was on the score sheet for Boro. Later that night, a Boro XI was trounced by 3-0 by Whitby Town. Yes, Whitby Town.
However, a Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink goal was enough to see off Espanyol 1-0 in what is mercifully Boro's final pre-season match.
"The crackle of pig skin."
After being linked with almost every half-decent midfielder in Europe and Owen Hargreaves, it appears that Middlesbrough might be about to strike a deal with Sporting Lisbon for the services of Rodolph Douala and Fabio Rochemback.
For those who weren't watching when Sporting destroyed Boro in the UEFA Cup last season, Rochemback is a central midfielder with a right foot so cultured it can often be found reading the works of Marcel Proust and Eugenio Montale whilst Douala is a winger whose pace obliterated both Boro (boo!) and Newcastle (yay!) in last season's UEFA Cup.
As it stands, Sporting have reportedly turned down a £4.2 million bid from Middlesbrough for Douala but the African's agent Jorge Gama suggests that the transfer could still be completed before Saturday's game with Liverpool. "The money demanded by Sporting is very big for Boro but still the subject is not eliminated," Gama said cryptically.
The player himself told Portuguese daily Maisfutebol, "Sporting is a great club, but the English league is very desirable." Which means one of two things. Either Douala will be wearing a Boro shirt by the end of the week or in Cameroonian, 'English League' actually means 'Lindsay Lohan'.
The Skinny
Finally some good transfer news. If we sign Rochemback and Douala, then the summer will seem like a success. Not only have will we have signed fours excellent players but we'll have missed out on Phil Neville. Phew!
See you next Monday when Boro will have actually played a match and this column will seem like less of a waste of time than usual.
And with that....
BACK TO JAMES BASSETT INDEX
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