An Offer We Can Refuse

This week Barcelona finally opened the bidding for Cesc Fabregas with a tidy offer of £27 million. Now, call me cynical, but if a player like Jordan Henderson is worth £20 million, how on earth can El Capitan be worth only £7 million more? Cesc is a World Cup and European Championship winner, had played over 150 games in the premier league as a teenager and has become one of the worlds best players. Henderson hasn't actually achieved anything yet.

Maybe the Henderson valuation is based on the fact that he is young English talent which, as we already know, is always way over valued. Maybe we also have to admire the Barca approach here. Rather than paying way over the odds at the start, they have begun with a small bid which will no doubt increase anyway. There is no harm in testing the waters as it were. Perhaps Manchester City and Chelsea could learn a thing or two from this method rather than throwing cash around at the latest flavour of the month. £50 million for Torres and a reported £27 million for Edin Dzeko come to mind...



On a complete side note to all of this, Arsenal FC once again proved this week that they are streets ahead of other premier league clubs when it comes to staying in touch with their fans. As you will recall, I previously had a minor moan about not being sent my new home shirt on time. However, this week I received a letter from the man in charge of home shopping at Arsenal, issuing a full and frank apology for the late delivery and offering me a full refund. Needless to say, i was absolutely delighted at this unexpected gesture, so thankyou very much Arsenal FC, a club full of class.

Forget About The Price Tag

"When I heard Johnathon (Barnett) repeat the figure of £55k, I nearly swerved off the road"     Ashley Cole.

This is the quite frankly ludicrous quote from our friend 'Cashley' Cole's autobiography which really hammers home just how out of touch with the common man todays footballers are. The book was published in 2006. fast-forward 5 years to today, and we hear from Cristiano Ronaldo that, should Manchester City want his services, he would DEMAND £400,00 per week to play fottball for a couple of hours. This would of course be on top of his reputed £150 million price tag!!

Where the hell does he get off rating himself that highly? How can the gelled tumbler, the portuguese winker, or, my personal favourite, that absolute w***er who cost us the world cup, value his ability to kick a ball for 90 minutes a week at this extortionate amount?

Lets put this in to some sort of perspective. Arsenal have a wage cap (if we can call it that) of £90,000 per player per week. A very solid structure that, although restricts the players we bring in, has left us in an incredibly stable financial position. Lets go further. In the Premier league season just gone, Blackpools highest payed player earned "only" £10,000 per week. And he (Charlie Adam) looked world class almost week in, week out.

So what could be bought for the equivalent of one weeks Ronaldo? £400,000 =

• 16 nurses fully paid for a year
• 16 teachers for a year
• 20 infantry soldiers fighting for a year
• 14 police officers on the beat for a year
• 18 firefighters for a year

There are very few things that genuinely anger me. However the obscene amounts of money that footballers these days demand in return for minimal work is most definitely one of them. I think everyone would agree that the occupations that I have listed deserve the sort of financial input that football has. Maybe rather than buying up all of our clubs, A rich sheikh might like to buy a hospital and plough his money in there. Sadly, I doubt this will ever happen.

Don't forget your change Mr Wenger

Jordan Henderson          Sunderland-Liverpool          £20,000,000
Phil Jones                       Blackburn-Man Utd            £16,500,000
Carl Jenkinson (who?)    Charlton-Arsenal                 £1,000,000

What we see here ladies and gentlemen, is evidence of an Arsene Wenger spending spree, a true splashing of the cash. Having been promised that millions would be spent on world class players, we get a Finland U21 international who has only played a few times for his club. Bravo. Meanwhile, the current champions and Liverpool are both throwing notes around like Ryan Giggs throws his phone number around on a night out (sue me). Oh well, there's still the rest of the summer to look forward too :/
     
On a seperate note, a month ago I pre ordered my brand new home shirt, to be ordered first thing this morning. I slept through the delivery so had to wait even longer than originally planned but, on collection and having got it home, I unwrapped the package quicker than Ryan Giggs unwraps his sister in law (probably should lay off giggsy now). Imagine my shock, disappointment, and near tears as I discovered not my shiny new red and white shirt, but a pair of five year olds football socks and some Samir Nasri shorts. Anger and rage literally filled the air but, a breif phone call later and, fingers crossed, my shirt will be arriving tomorrow. Still, I cant help but wonder if this is what happened this week in the transfer market for Arsenal. We put in a good bid for a decent player, but there was a mix up and we ended up with a player that was meant to be headed to somewhere like Southend (no disrespect) whilst our player ends up the Premier League champions. Unlikely I know, but it's something to cling to I guess