I don't know whether to laugh or cry!!
We've just finished an emotional rollercoaster and settle down looking forward to just getting back to the football when, before another league ball has even been kicked, the hacks in the Tabloids realise they've nothing to fill their columns with so start a new round of rumours.
Seems to have worked though. It's a slow day in work on Monday's so I've been having a look on NewsNow and a couple of blogs (similar to this actually) have people ready to commit mass murder/suicide already.
Some sites have picked up on paper quotes that Kevin Doyle has been reported that he'd like to try and resurrect his move to Spurs, potentially in January. Cue the "he's cr@p" "not good enough" "we should be getting Huntelaar/Villa/Podolski/etc"
Another site shows up with reports that "Spurs are considering a move for Morientes on a short term deal". OK so they claim he'll spend his season on the bench at Valencia and may "consider" trying the Prem one last time. HE'S 33!!! I remember a thread on this site when the rumour was he was signing for us right on the death of the transfer window, fuelled by rumours from certain other fan forums, which never happened. I also remember a seaon or two later when he signed for Liverpool being more than a little gutted. By the end of that season I was heaving a sigh of relief. It was kind of like running for a flight and missing it by seconds only to read in the papers the next day that it had crashed with no survivors!
Several sites have jumped on Dave Whelan's comments "Heskey may yet move" with the expected uproar. I don't even want to repeat any of the comments from other forums about this. They may be children reading. Now I can sort of understand the sentiment. Lose Berba & gain Heskey!!??? Doesn't seem a fair swap. Obviously the England manager sees something in him we don't, after all is is one of only 4 strikers in the England squad, but I can't recall ever seeing him have a good game either for club or country. I don't watch much Wigan football admittedly but it's very rare he pops up on the Match of the Day highlights.
Now most of us with half an ounce of common sense know we're not going to get Huntelaar or Villa, no matter how much we offer. A) They want Champions league. B) We're not going to pay high enough wages. C) The "Big 4" or Man $hitty would out bid us. Podolski may well be a possibility as may be the renewed negotiations for Arshavin but we've already got a large group saying "Russians can't play in English football" and citing Rebrov, Schevchenko and Smertin as examples before poor Pav has even kicked a ball. One guy who posts on here and is famous for his conspiracy theories reckons we've only got Pav and after Podolski and Arshavin as we're lining up a Russian sugar Daddy to take over the club.
So why are we looking for another striker? Well obviously Campbell is only here on loan and we have UEFA problems due to cup tied players but we still have 4 strikers. That's one more than we finished last season with.
"Four????" I hear some of you say, "Can't he count? Pav, Bent and that Manu kid, that makes 3 you idiot!!"
I've been amazed over recent weeks the number of people both online and in the National press that go on about us only having 3 strikers.
We currently have 4 strikers. Campbell, Bent, Pav & Giovani Dos Santos (Yes he is a striker - check his player profile on the official site!). If Ramos decides to play 4-4-2 Gio is your young-Owen-like-fox-in-the-box player. He's only been played wide in a 4-3-3 as he's the best we've got currently at going past players and delivering a final ball. Yes we could use one more unless Campbell actually players well or Bent picks up the batton and takes his chance or Pav turns out to be as much of an undiscovered talent as Berbs did.
But do we risk a foreigner or go for Doyle or Heskey? You decide.......
Doyle scored again for the Republic of Ireland again this weekend. That's 6 goals in 20 international appeances. For Reading over the past 2 seasons (promotion season and Prem League Season) he scored 6 in 34 in the Prem and 13 in 29 in their promtion year. This year he's scored 3 goals in 4 matches so far. He's 24 years old and 5ft 11ins tall.
Heskey is 29 and 6ft 2ins, In 2006-07 he scored 8 goals in 34 appearances and last year scored 4 goals in 29 matches. In fact since he left Liverpool in 2001 he's never scored more than 12 goals in all competitions in a season.
Morientes is 33 and about 6ft 1. He's made 5 appearances as sub this season (201 mins) and scored once. Last season he scored 8 goals in 35 matches.
Podolski is 22 and a shade under 6ft. For Bayern Munich in 2006-07 he played 32 matches in all competitons and scored 7 goals. Last season he played 41 matches scoring 10 (5 of which were in Europe) and so far this season he's scored 2 goals in 4 matches but one of those was in the German league cup against a first round minnow team.
Arshavin is 27 and 5ft 7ins and is listed as an attacking midfielder. In all competitons his stats are 2006-07 12 goals in 44 games (+14 assists). 2007-08 22 goals in 50 games (+25 assists) and so far this season he's played 19 matches scoring 4 goals (+4 assists).
All these stats have come from there current club's official sites.