More Money Than Sense

Well, the transfer window has rolled down to let some hot air out once more. It's amazing to me how the people with their fingers round the purse strings release frivolous amounts of money to managers who they will sack in a few months time.

I can imagine that Al Fayed is pretty pissed off right now (not to mention Chris Coleman). For an outlay of about £25m on transfers in the summer, including £6m for Diomansy Kamara, Lawrie Sanchez left them second bottom of the table, and got a nice payoff for being sacked.
We went through some possible transfers on last week's podcast and while doing some research for this week's show, I came across some further examples of managerial genius.

Roy Keane has vowed not to pay over the odds for player, in direct opposition to his policy last summer when he spunked over £30m on generally average players, such as Chopra for £6m. Leroy Lita (1 goal this season) is expected to join shortly.

After Sven's excellent £40m spree last summer, we expected more top quality is on the way, but not according to reports - Manchester City have had an enquiry rejected by Marseille for 'striker' Djibril Cisse. I would have thought their squad was complete with strikers who don't score any goals - they already have Samaras and Vassell, while Bianchi has hardly set the world alight. Lyon's talentless, Brazilian, no hoper Fred, is also heavily rumoured to join, about whom only one thing needs to be said - Gerard Houllier thought he was worth £10m.

Alan Curbishley and West Ham are so far keeping a low profile - with good reason too. Last summer, despite a good recoup in player sales, good oul Curbs managed to waste money on Bellamy (injured), Dyer (injured), Ljungberg (injured) and Flaubert (injured) so I would imagine the Icelandic bosses aren't too keen for another dip into the market with the Boring One at the helm. My bet for the latest washed up, injury prone player to make his way there? I'll have a punt on Mickey Owen....

At Birmingham, you'd imagine things would be better now that Bruce has left, but McLeish seems intent in following his predecessor - another talentless Lyon player, Milan Baros could be on the way to provide the, ahem, firepower up front, along with Georgios Samaras.

And at Villa, despite O'Neill's generally good transfer record, they want to add a 'prolific goalscorer' to the squad - what, Harewood and Carew can't do it? Serial under-achiever Jermain Defoe could be on his way....

And Newcastle, I won't even get started on the catalog of transfer disasters that have befallen on the club, while another basket case, Spurs want Tal Ben Haim for £8m, and Tiago for £9m. It's no fun to blame Ramos or Jol though, mysterious fool Damien Comolli is the man who also thought Kevin-Prince Boateng was a good bet.

So, in a roundabout way, that's the transfer gossip, my hatred of having to write anything to do with the Carling Cup led me here....

Mark,
Okey Doke Football Podcast is available every Friday morning, subscribe here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/OkeyDokeFootball