Transfer Scramble Begins

Manchester United caught everyone a little bit cold with their sudden swoop for Anderson and Nani. Following a World Cup summer, during which all moves took place mid-July at the earliest, no-one seemed to be expecting a mad rush to complete transfers for a good few weeks yet. As Man U announced the three signings they'd promised within a week of the Champions League Final, the idea that we weren't going to see much activity yet was totally blown out of the water.

Now every f**ker's at it. Newcastle are the latest ones to go transfer-crazy, selling their club captain whilst bringing in a mentalist and a whale. It was West Ham who took Scott Parker of course, and they look set to ship out their own captain, Nigel Reo-Coker, to Aston Villa. Who may well be letting Steve Davis go to Fulham - who may be letting Collins John go to Middlesbrough to replace Mark Viduka, who is of course set to be the newest fat b*****d to attend St James' every week. It's all a crazy inbred transfer cycle that's started up, and moves are being completed all over the place.

But there are plenty more deals to be done, and some big f**king scraps look set to break out for some of Europe's most wanted. Florent Malouda looks like he can choose between Milan, Real Madrid, Arsenal, Liverpool and Juventus, whilst Dani Alves is wanted by Liverpool, Chelsea, Barca, Madrid and Milan. Samuel Eto'o is said to be wanted by Arsenal, Liverpool and Milan (three clubs who seem to want every player in Europe), whilst Bayern Munich look to have won the Europe-wide race for Franck Ribery. It doesn't stop there either, with Real Madrid today announcing negotiations with Arjen Robben. To which Darth Kenyon has objected hugely by the way, being as he is, well renowned for never tapping up an opposing player. Yeah.

So that's the state of play in the world of transfer moves at the moment - f**king mental. Who's going where? How much can Liverpool and Arsenal really spend this summer? Is a Sam Allardyce / Mark Viduka press conference the heaviest in Premiership history? Well we don't know. What we do know though, is a rumour that has yet to hit the back pages.

Yes, The Late Flag has an exclusive for you. You've read our s***e for about a month now, and you're finally getting something you didn't know already. There is a rumour, and a growing one at that, suggesting that Thierry Henry is negotiating a move to Liverpool. This one had me laughing when I first read it, until I saw these quotes, from a William Hill spokesman:

'We started to take calls asking for odds for Henry to join Liverpool a couple of days ago and initially offered 10/1, not believing it was that likely a move for the Frenchman. However, after taking increasingly more calls and bets - predominantly from the Liverpool area - we have shortened the odds significantly just in case there is something to the story, which has yet to emerge into the public domain.' said Hill's spokesman Graham Sharpe. Further information.....graham sharpe...0208 918 3731

I'm sceptical, but give the man a ring, he's put his number up in that statement on their official website! Ask him if he thinks there's anything in it, and let us know! I can't get through, writing as I am outside of office hours.

Messageboards all over the internet are even claiming many bookies have now fully suspended betting on Henry moving to Anfield. Of course, the bookies cutting the odds really means nothing, as they're just responding to the bets. The chances are a rumour has done the rounds in Liverpool and got a lot of Reds very excited, prompting a lot of bets. But Henry has stated a love for Liverpool in the past, and a desire to link up with Steven Gerrard. This is something no newspaper has reported on yet, and I reckon it's likely to hit at least the Daily Star tomorrow. Remember, you heard it here first!

Players Backing McClown Regime - For Now

England face Estonia tonight knowing only a win – and a bloody impressive one – will ease the growing pressure on McClaren and his team. There have been numerous England stars, most notably John Terry and Steven Gerrard, publicly backing Frank Lampard this week, the fat waste of space having finally been recognised as what he is by the nation. This is not surprising, as Terry’s his best mate, and Gerrard knows that if the Lampard / Gerrard partnership is broken up, there’s a chance (bearing in mind the lunacy of McClaren) that he’d be the one dropped, at least in certain games. So the backing of Lampard means precisely nothing, coming as it does from the mouths of the two players with the biggest reasons to see him in white.

What is perhaps surprising though, is the strength of support from the dressing room for McClaren. Players are always going to come out in support of an under-pressure manager, but the extent to which they do this hints at the real picture. You’ll often see players say “yeah, we’re right behind the manager, obviously we’ve heard all the speculation, but he’s not done a bad job, and we’re hoping he doesn’t get the sack”. Notice in a statement like that the player actually mentions the sack (and so admitting it’s a possibility), and stops short of saying the manager is doing a good job, saying something like “not bad”, or “bearing in mind the injuries…” Glenn Roeder can tell you all about these sort of statements. They really mean “he’s crap, he’s going, and we’re glad”.

But Gerrard, Terry et al have this week given McClaren real words of support. John Terry is claiming he’ll take full responsibility if England fail to qualify for Euro 2008, inviting the kind of stick that Beckham, Lampard, Graham Taylor and Sven Goran Eriksson will tell you really isn’t what you’d want. He could easily be pinning this on the manager, saying something along the lines of “the team is good enough, and we just have to trust that Steve will get us there, we believe in him” which would show support for McClaren whilst still saying it’s his fault if we don’t qualify.

It’s easy to suggest that a new Captain and Vice-captain would naturally come out in favour of the man who gave them their roles in the squad, but trying to take blame for failure upon themselves and a reluctance to use language that would increase pressure on the manager seems to suggest that McClaren still has friends and supporters inside the England dressing room. Things haven’t been bad enough for long enough for him to have lost the players. Yet.

We’ll have to see whether another couple of poor performances would tip them over the edge. The Late Flag is eagerly awaiting the first quote from an England player that sounds like the sack for McClaren is inevitable - a poor performance tonight and we might not have to wait too long at all.


Barton In At Toon

In a move that has placed the RVI, the North-East Ambulance Service and Northumbria Police on red-alert, Sam Allardyce seems to have concluded a deal to bring Joey Barton to St James’. More unhinged than a combination of Lee Bowyer and an actual door with no hinges, Barton nevertheless comes with quality. This though, is clearly his last chance. He’ll bring passion and energy to the Newcastle midfield, and perhaps crucially, 10 goals a season.

The Geordies have missed a Gary Speed-like character in the last few years, someone to anchor the midfield whilst chipping in with vital goals. Parker has brought a cultured right foot and an impressive work-ethic, but has neither the bite nor the eye for goal that Barton brings to a side. Parker out, Barton in plus a small profit is, on the playing side of things, an excellent deal.

But questions have still to be answered. Whilst replacing a one-paced hard worker with an all-action player like Barton seems to make perfect sense, on the other hand replacing your club captain with a bloke on remand for destroying a team-mate’s face, seems psychotic. With the likes of Dyer, N’Zogbia, and Owen around, there are plenty of ego’s still at St James’, and the question is whether the Toon is big enough for all of them. “You’re not as good as you think you are” were apparently the words that cost Ousmane Dabo a good hiding, and there’ll certainly be more than one Newcastle player prepared to testify that Barton isn’t the best he’s ever seen. How Barton will react to not being the biggest fish in the pond will ultimately decide whether this move is a success.


Hicks Gets Reds Onside and Excited, Whilst Platini Takes it Back

A bizarre week for Liverpool fans. UEFA, from nowhere, accused the club of having the worst fans in Europe, following publication of a report into European games since 2003. According to the report there were more reported incidents involving Liverpool fans than any other club, leading UEFA spokesman William Gaillard to label the clubs fans “the worst in Europe”.

What this report seemingly failed to mention was that Liverpool have probably played more games in Europe than any other side since 2003. 2 finals and a hell of a lot of qualifying rounds – the likes of Milan and Barca have gotten as far in Europe as the Reds, but not had to play as many games to get there, thanks to their league positions. Liverpool also take twice as many travelling fans to games than any other side in Europe, except Celtic, who never get past the quarter finals anyway.

So more fans, at more games, you’re probably going to get more incidents of trouble. But that doesn’t mean that a higher percentage of Liverpool fans are troublemakers at all. Every club has a hooligan or troublesome element in their support, and Liverpool's have had more chances to kick off than any other club. Even then, trouble has been on a remarkably small scale. We've not seen Man Utd or Spurs-like incidents, with riot police battling with chair-throwing fans. In fact, when you consider Spurs have played only about 8 European games since 2003, and have had trouble during at least one game, surely a 15% trouble ratio would make THEM the worst fans? Or Feyenoord, who were thrown out of Europe due to serious crowd incidents. Just because there have been more incidents of Liverpool fans causing trouble proves nothing when you consider that the percentage of Liverpool games in Europe involving crowd trouble (including games away to Galatasary, for f**ks sake!) has been tiny.

What is even more bizarre is that Gaillard himself, on the eve of the Champions League final hailed the Liverpool and Milan crowds as “two great sets of supporters, and we anticipate no trouble tomorrow”. Cue one great UEFA cock-up with the ticketing, and all of a sudden Liverpool fans are all a bunch of boozed-up Joey Bartons. Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks put it best: “The guy from UEFA is a clown, he doesn’t know what he’s talking about”. This prompted gratitude from genuine Liverpool fans, agreement from Sports Minister Richard Caborn, and an apology from Michel Platini. “Liverpool fans are not the worst, that is official”, he said.

AC Milan players testify that at the end of the Champions League final, when about to leave the pitch, they became aware of the applause coming from the Liverpool end of the ground. They then spent longer applauding the Liverpool fans than they did their own, which tells its own story about the quality of football fan that was in Athens.

Hicks has also excited Liverpool fans by assuring them that a lot is going on in the background at Anfield. Re-design of the new stadium is complete, and about to be unveiled amidst much fanfare. Hicks also half-promised a new signing next week, and has indicated that the players coming in this summer will be of impressive calibre, going above and beyond the bracket of player Liverpool can normally afford to target. The message from Anfield this week is that the future is bright, despite what the clowns at UEFA might have to say.

Wigan Sign Bramble, Will Go Down

In what can only be seen as some sort of obscene joke, Wigan will disgrace the Premiership next season by naming a Laurel & Hardy-like line up including Titus Bramble and Emile Heskey. New manager Chris Hutchings has, surely, only turned to the ex-Newcastle man after failing with bids for every other player in the world, including this correspondent.

This was a problem for Wigan that The Late Flag saw coming, and predicted in earlier posts. Whilst it’s all well and good for Dave Whelan to pledge £20m to strengthen the squad, the free transfer capture of the worst defender in the Premiership proves how few players actually want to sign for Wigan and get beat week-in, week-out, in front of about 15,000 rugby fans. A look at their ins and outs from last summer clearly shows an exodus of quality in the likes of Bullard and Roberts, and an influx of Scandinavian nobodies and Emile Heskey. Should a similar trend develop this summer, expect Baines and Camara to leave, and Wigan to beat Sunderland’s record for lowest Premiership points tally.

Interestingly, Portsmouth seem quite happy to have allowed Bramble to head for the North-West, suggesting (at least to me) that Sol Campbell will be staying on the South Coast. In a similar “we’ve plenty of cash but no-one wants to come here” position to Wigan, it was widely assumed that Pompey would be part of the bidding for Bramble, as Campbell was off to Newcastle. As it happens, Dirty Harry Redknapp seems quite content with the signing of Sylvain Distin, who will surely be a replacement for Primus, rather than Campbell. A Portsmouth bid for Bramble would have signified the end of Campbell’s stay at the club, but the lack of a fight for the fat-arsed one’s services suggest Pompey won’t be selling their best defender this summer.

Which all means further headaches for Newcastle and Sam Allardyce. Rumours abound that a predicted move for Tal Ben-Haim may flounder due to the breakdown in relations between defender and manager during Allardyce’s last few months at the Reebok. Bearing in mind that situation involved a player refusing to sign a contract and a manager refusing to let him become a millionaire at Chelsea, I’d be guessing there was a fair amount of animosity there, and I’d be surprised to see the Israeli captain wearing black & white next season. In fact he may well end up at Liverpool.

This may well be why Fat Sam has been in Cardiff all weekend, negotiating with PSG & Czech Republic defender David Rozehnal about a possible move to St James’. I don’t know much about this lad, except that I signed him for Rangers on Football Manager and he was bloody brilliant. So he’s probably a decent player, but until this weekend was expected to move to Borussia Dortmund, so Newcastle may still have a fight on their hands to land him.

I’ll be back tomorrow or Wednesday to discuss the rest of the transfer news, and to preview England’s latest must win game for McClaren.