Payment plan for Palacios?

According to Wigan boss Steve Bruce, the size of the fee has been agreed between Spurs and the Latics for holding midfielder Wilson Palacios. But as far as the payment is concerned, Bruce has stated that our dear esteemed chairman wants to pay if over something like 55 years.

Obviously a slight exaggeration. It's probably more like 48 years.

Honestly Daniel. Look for those extra pennies behind the sofa and if need be, smash that piggy bank you've got in your office and try and be a little more reasonable with the offer. Or maybe sell the Opus for a discounted price of £3,500 (bargin!).

Have we run out of those £15M reserve transfer buckets?

Still on the Palacios story, loving the piece in the Daily Mail about how Wilson will reject Spurs and stay at Wigan till the end of the season. That's not the bit I smiled at. The part that says Wigan are reluctant to do business with Spurs - much like Sunderland, West Ham, Pompey and Boro having been 'aggrieved' at the way we have gone about our business.

So let's take a look at how we've gone about it.

Who revealed to the media that a bid had been made for Palacios? Wigan.
Who revealed to the media that bids had been made for Bellamy? West Ham.
Who revealed to the media that a bid had been made for Jones? Sunderland.

As for Downing. All Redknapp did (I'm not too critical of him in this case) was answer a direct question from a journalist. Not exactly with the style of a Rafa or Sir Alex either. After that point, it's Boro who did all the 'talking' via the media.

In fact, I see no 'scatter gun' approach in the way we have gone about our (lack of) business this Jan window. We made enquiries, made bids and that is it. If clubs then want to make comments after the fact, that's their prerogative.

For now, all we can do is sit back and wait for an official word from the clubs in question. Then let the media tell everyone like they knew all along.

Hughes 1 Harry 0

The Times are apparently reporting that Man City will pull out of the deal for Palacios if Spurs end their interest in Craig Bellamy. Basically, we've both bid for the West Ham striker (our bid is surprisingly more according to reports this evening but West Ham do not want to do business with us). Bellamy might fancy a move to Spurs over City, so Hughes is obviously frustrated with our persistent bids distracting the player from joining him at Eastlands.

You following this? Reading between the lines, City don't actually want Palacios, but using the art of bluffing, are suggesting they could easily beat us to his signature, so if we want Wilson we have to end our interest in Bellmay.

So ridiculous, it just might be true.

Or maybe we're not really in for Bellamy. Hmm...

31 Days in January, 31 too many

Craig Bellamy has apparently gone on strike at West Ham to force them to accept a transfer bid from Spurs. No word on Appiah and whether his trial was successful enough to earn him a contract. Palacios has been virtually done for the past 6 hours, long enough it would seem for Utd and City to now be linked to the player. Jenas isn't going anywhere, which sounds like a description of him running around the midfield area looking for the ball. Bored of Adriano? Don't fret, because Crespo has now rejected us. Bless him. He actually thinks we were interested.

The Sunderland boss had a right old ding-dong go at us for chasing every player in the league, and using the media to do so (the old tap-dance trick), including the courting of his very own Kenwyne Jones. Even though, I'm pretty sure half the time Redknapp is reacting to questions asked after we've made a bid. So either (as 'arry has pointed out) someone within Spurs is leaking information, or agents are doing it once the player finds out a bid has been made for them. It's nothing new. Much like the over-inflated asking prices of said players. Including Jones by the way. Is £15M the new £5M? Did we learn nothing from the Darren Bent transfer? Why do we even encourage this? Keep paying it, they'll keep charging it.

Yes. It's January. And I'm uninspired. So much rumorwhoring. We've obviously bid for a number of players, and inquired for a few. Nothing unusual or unexpected in that. Not sure I agree with the likes of Jones and Bellamy, especially if I'm wearing my Future Hat™. Are these textbook Spurs player we'd sign under any other circumstance? However, if I'm sporting my Present Day Scarf™, then players of this ilk are possibly worthy of having in a relegation scrap. But how far can they take us?

See the paradox there? I seem to want to avoid relegation with the right type of player but also can't help thinking about how these signings will affect us later when we attempt to push forward to the giddy heights we lust for. But alas, gone it seems are the Berbatovesque type of sexy signings usually associated with N17. But is that a bad thing? Could you handle us signing a sublime player only to see him move on the moment Fergie gives him the wink? And sexy signings haven't ever given us the right winning mentality. Few Spurs sides over the past 10-15 years have had that element of ruthlessness. But boy, can we skip and shake our booty now and again.

Arguably, you could say Defoe was a superfluous signing. A sexy signing (which is anything that has Spurs fan's proclaiming the Second Coming). He's an ex-player, returning after a year gone. Cue the 'he's back home' sound-bites. But the Defoe who lost form isn't the type of player we'd want in a scrap. But then that Defoe had to contend with watching Keane and Berbatov strike up a partnership made in heaven. Anyone would suffer and want to get away from that. Way too much tongue and lingering looks between those two.

Palacios, though is one of those proper players Harry needs to help bulk up the team, but Palacios worked well for Wigan based on the fact that Wigan have structure and players who support each other and function within the tactics layed out. Wilson will have no time to bed-in, so trust is with Harry to know exactly how he plans to line-up his post-January Spurs side.

Being linked constantly to forwards rather than a left-winger is also reason to nervously crawl into a corner and sway backwards and forwards very slowly. Downing appears to be a non-starter, so who's the next lucky player to be tagged triffic by 'arry?

And am I a snob to stick my nose up at Bellamy? Or should I simply point to his general moaning attitude, injury issues and poor goal ratio as reason enough for us to keep the faith in our Russian lad?

So we are back to waiting and placing that ever so hard to part with trust in the manager and (gulp) chairman. Harry brings in the 'right' players, instils a backbone to the side, and we climb out of danger and away from the mire and settle for the comfort of 14th place. It's a nosebleed I'm sure we can all keep under control.

But then what? Levy's grand plan of buying young British players with sell-on value is non-existent. He's got a brand spanking new Stadium to think about. So having spent millions upon millions to compete for 4th spot, we are now spending millions to get out of the bottom three and if we do (which I'm sure we will) we'll have to spend millions more to relaunch the Top 4 dream, resorting back to bringing in those quintessential Tottenham flair players (because we're not happy without them). And we'll be back to where we were 3 or so years ago. Which means..............YES! WE'VE GOT OUR TOTTENHAM BACK!

I understand the masterplan now. Be patient, and we'll be back to our Barcelona shirt-wearing best in no time.

If only January never existed. Every day seems to last forever with the constant breaking news and inside information forum exclusive and yellow ticker on Sky Sports News.

15 days left. Wake me up in 16.

It's a mad mad mad mad world...

Can someone find a moment to help me define what exactly constitutes a ‘flop’? Because Gio do Santos appears to be the very personification of one according the media who, almost every other week, like to tell us that he isn’t wanted by Spurs and that he is set to be shifted out (PSG the current tabloid choice of the week).

This is the same Gio that Harry Redknapp couldn’t wait to have back from injury. Oh yes, the wee lad has been out for a while and hasn’t been able to play. Did you not know that? Regardless of his injury how dare he fail to impress chilling on the treatment table listening to his ipod. What a waste of money hey?

Honestly, get a grip.

I know it’s the Jan transfer window and it’s the time of year when journalists, sports writers and editors all over the country lobotomise each other with pencils as they conduct a symphony of monkeys on typewriters who churn out transfer story after transfer story to the theme tune of Saint and Greavise. What? You thought Jenas to Madrid wrote itself?

We all know that the stories we read whilst munching on our coco-pops are an amalgamation of half-truths, guess-work, the bleeding obvious and agent whispers. Add to the mix Harry Redknapp and his batphone and the press are practically drowning in gossip column exclusives.

Gio is a talent. He’s young and proven at all international levels he’s appeared at for Mexico. Not the finished article by a longshot. He obviously isn’t as naturally gifted or talented as Bojan or Messi – but then you’ll be hard pressed to find players of the same age who are. He left Barcelona simply because of the likes of Messi. There’s no way in for him. Joining Spurs and finding himself playing for a team with no direction, structure or confidence isn’t the ideal way to kick-start your life in the Premiership. Getting injured and being out for a lengthy period sort of puts the dampers on any type of progression.

So unless Redknapp is telling fibs (that’s unpossible) why on earth would we want to get rid of a player that hasn’t had a chance to shine? A creative player, one that tore it up in the U17 World Cup back in 2005 and again in the U20 World Cup in ’07. A player we could do with as an option once we sign some 'proper' up-for-a-relegation-battle fighters to give us the required backbone to help protect him as he dinks down the wing.

Gio isn’t the only player ‘on his way’ according to our esteemed journo friends and their monkey companions. Bentley is also on the list. It’s fair to say he has been a titanic disappointment. Here’s a player that is basically very decent on his day. He isn’t great, but he’s very good and would grace practically all Prem clubs (apart from the top 4 who do possesses ‘great’ quality). However, our David, is too distracted by the fact that he thinks he’s great. Highlights and Beckham comparisons aside, when he isn’t star-jumping David is trying way too hard rather than simply playing for the team and doing the simple things. We’ve seen this before. We saw it with Gomes. Confidence is drained and you can’t even muster up school-boy basics. But selling him so soon after signing him is a pointless exercise (although if there is one club that is masterful at being pointless it's us). If Spurs manage to claw back some form, Bentley will most likely begin to shine.

He’s still actually the wrong type of player for Spurs. A bit superfluous at times, even when ‘on form’. Not the backbone made of steel type of team player Spurs have been crying out for 20 years. But then when have we ever gone out and signed the right type of player?

Another one who is set to leave WHL is our dear beloved Jermaine Jenas. The perpetually potentially 'great' box-2-box player. An enigma. Undroppable for so many seasons at Spurs, doesn’t do much unless it’s against the likes of Derby or a depleted Arsenal side. Yet on occasions is somehow inexplicable ‘missed’ from the team when he doesn’t play. You know what I mean? You’ve heard Spurs fans say it:

“I hate to say it, but we missed Jenas today”

You can’t explain why, but you find yourself believing it and when he does play, you’re smashing the keyboard as you punch your frustrations posting on a Spurs message board calling him 'useless'. What does Jenas do exactly? It's not an easy question to answer.

JJ has been linked with (as mentioned earlier) Madrid and also Everton and Wigan and probably one or two other clubs, with his value measured between £3.5M to £8M. If Palacios arrives at the Lane (and he plays as a DM) then is it really Jenas under threat or Zokora? Or will Harry play Palacios and Zokora together? And what of Appiah? Is he the backup plan in case we fail to bring in a bog-standard £15M (or so) signing? Palacios and Modric in centre-mid will do me just fine.

Then you have the forwards. Defoe (can he actually hold up the ball or beat the offside trap?), Pav (he's not been the country for long) and Bent (on his way to Villa?). A mish-mash of styles, none of them suited to play with each other. Otherwise, why would we be courting the ever-smiling Craig 'who took a dump in my corn flakes?' Bellamy?

Then there’s the story that has somehow fallen under the media's radar concerning Arshavin. Arsenal haven’t actually made a bid (which explains Latcher’s insistent moaning) and Spurs and Zenit have long agreed a deal, the basis being that if nobody matches it then he signs for Spurs. Yep, that’s right. Transfer fee as well as personal terms all agreed and sorted. It was all agreed and sorted back at the last deadline, till around 11:40pm when Zenit started playing silly buggers again and the deal failed to complete by midnight. But the agreement stayed in place. If nobody bids the exact same amount of more, then Zenit have to process the deal cometh the deadline. And when is the deadline? 16th January. Today. Must be true cause I read it in an internet fourm, LOLZ.

If you’re going to ask me to hold onto my hat, don’t bother. I’ll probably be eating it later on. If those pesky monkeys haven’t got a hold of it before me.

Palacios again

Palacios. What is it with every player being priced up around the £15M mark? I guess they see us mugs coming from a mile away. It's Spurs. They don't pay a penny less for a player. What is utterly insane is that we are probably going to fork out the cash for this one.

That's a player who cost Wigan £1M (actually, probably about 750,000k to be exact). But for the sake of argument, let's round it off to £1M, because it makes it easy to then say Wigan want 14 times as much money as they parted with 12 months ago.

How does that even make sense?

Over at Eastlands, incredibly, it looks like Kaka might actually join City. Regardless of whether its because his dad is going to earn a cool 35 million euros (allegedly) from the transfer (baby Jesus would approve) how exactly is it right for a player like Kaka to turn his back on AC Milan and sign for Manchester City? Football is imploding. There are some things that should never happen in football, and this is one of them.

RIP. Thoughts and prayers for the beautiful game.

Here's £10M and hold on, got another £5M in my back pocket

We've failed in a £10M bid for Wigan's Palacios. But from the sounds of it they are willing to part with the player if we bid a little more. Dave Whelan has told Spurs what they want. Probably £15M. Not sure he's worth anything more than £8M let alone £10M or £15M, but Spurs don't tend to pay true value for players anyhow.

I'm also far too distracted by Sky Sports News and their 'Inter will consider selling Adriano to Spurs if Jenas goes the other way' story.

Beautiful.