Eyes for a Bargain - Sunday Times

[papereyes]

A good read.

Is this type of article typical for the Sunday Times sports pages? (Obviously not always Reading FC related)

Yes.

But, apparently, the tabloids are better for sport.

Wait a second.

[Platypuss]

Who was the 5 Million pound Championship player that preferred to stay there ?

Was thinking that myself. Nugent perhaps? Upson?

Reckon they got mixed up and it's a misreporting of the Lescott offer.

[Mr Optimist]

Dean Whitehead?

[Stranded]

Dean Whitehead?

Not at £5m.

[Mr Optimist]

Mathew Kilgallon?

I am not saying him or Whitehead are worth £5m but they are the two Championship players I can think of that we were rumoured to be interested in, that stayed with Championship clubs....

[handbags_harris]

Well we know we put a multi-million £ bid for Joleon Lescott, but as we all also know, he went to Everton...could be a journalism error on the ST part?

[SpaceCruiser]

Or it may be that the journalist is simply rounding up the transfer fee to a convenient sum of £5M.

[Focher]

indeed a good article.

A nice pair of knockers would have given it just that extra quality though.

[RoyalBlue]

It's interesting to read what he says about 'undisclosed' transfer fees - we've had quite a few of those in the past and we're still not exactly transparent.

[tom_t69]

i also heard arsenal being called a bargain team on soccer am. i dont really think this is true, they have spent some big money on their players.

[skipper]

Great artical, the more i read th more i love SC and our beloved RFC!

[Coppell's Right Footed 11]

5 million i think they were relating to Joleon Lescott but got a bit confused maybe? can't see any other championship player they would be relating too.

[E. Andrew]

Who was the 5 Million pound Championship player that preferred to stay there ?

Was thinking that myself. Nugent perhaps? Upson?

we offered upson a large amount i don't remember the precise figure

[urzzz]

Nobody in the Championship is worth 5 million!! that's just the clubs being silly, and the over hyped media shite.

5 million is quite a price for most Premierships teams and most of the Championship, haven't even had Premiership experience.

But apart from that good article!

[playoffs or layoffs]

Nobody in the Championship is worth 5 million!!

Nigel Quashie, perhaps? Anyone else remember the comments he made about much better Southampton were compared to Reading early on last season? After which he promptly buggered off to West Brom just before they were relegated.

West Ham have a bargain at 1.5M, he has plenty of experience fighting relegation battles and he'll help guide them down, no problem.

On that note:

A good read.

Is this type of article typical for the Sunday Times sports pages? (Obviously not always Reading FC related)

Absolutely.

Check out Rod Little this week, he's class:

If it’s January, it must be time to send for Ade Akinbiyi

If it’s January, it must be time to send for Ade Akinbiyi
Rod Liddle

The man for all seasons is on the move again, but Burnley shouldn’t expect too much

EVERY January, long before the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces, the ground is hard with frost and the playoffs still beckon, tantalisingly, in the middle distance, football managers sit themselves down, wracked in deep thought. What, they ask themselves, will save this season from being a complete and utter disaster? Is there a panacea, immediately at hand, which will rescue my team and thus my job? Is there something, short of divine intervention, which when visited upon my squad of petulant and underachieving monkeys will enable them to soar?

Something that will cheer up the fans?

And, bizarrely, the answer they frequently, repeatedly, arrive at is this: Ade Akinbiyi. Every January, almost without fail, some manager reaches this most unlikely of conclusions. You may think, unkindly, that this is because most football managers are extremely stupid, or blind, or perhaps somehow related to the Akinbiyi family. Maybe. But it is also evidence of good Christian virtues, such as faith in the most desolate of causes and the idea that every man is better than his worst acts, even those multitude of hilarious worst acts Ade performed for Leicester City.

And so, somehow, the club chairman is forced to dig into his pocket and the fans, when they read about it on the internet or in their morning newspapers, go out and throw themselves under a bus.

This January, Burnley are reportedly paying £750,000 for Ade. Now, this gives you an insight into the crazy world of football economics. You or I might pay Ade £7.50 to take the dog for a walk or do some light chores around the house. But you would not swap your home and your second home and your car and your plasma TV and your youngest daughter for the benefit of his services.

Christmas is a time for packing in the Akinbiyi household. Last January he moved from Burnley to Sheffield United (for £1,750,000 — good business, then, Mr Warnock). This month he’s making the reverse journey. I make it that he’s at Burnley for the second time, but it could be three, who knows? Who’s keeping count? Perhaps he will spend the rest of his life shuffling disconsolately between Burnley and Sheffield, like the ghost of one of those trans-Pennine trains axed by Dr Beeching.

But he has also played for Hereford United, Norwich City, Gillingham, Bristol City, Leicester City, Brighton, Wolves, Crystal Palace and Stoke City. As I say, sooner or later almost every football league manager reaches the conclusion that everything will be put right by the presence of Ade Akinbiyi in his starting line-up. And almost every time, that conclusion is proved to be terribly misplaced.

Akinbiyi is, at least, a good professional — he tries hard, he gives his all, as they say, no matter which strange town he has fetched up in. He is apparently a very likeable chap and so it is probably these qualities that endeared him to the plethora of managers who have forked out for his services.

Which gives him the edge over most of the rest of those who will be on the move between now and the end of the month (and pocketing a fairly useful wedge for the sake of being so inconvenienced). The figures who appear before us in the January sales are almost always the failed, the miserable, the miscreant, the crushed and the despondent. Players devoid of hope or those who couldn’t give a toss.

Mark Viduka may well be on the move from Middlesbrough, for example, to any club that will honour the clause in his contract that stipulates that he will play only when he can be arsed and that running is totally out of the question.

Shaun Wright-Phillips wishes to re-activate his career as a decapitated whippet on Benzedrine, but his value and reputation can scarcely have sunk lower, more quickly, than during his year and a half at Chelsea. Tottenham manager Martin Jol, who presumably missed the highlights of West Ham’s capitulation to Reading last weekend, has reportedly made a bid of four million quid for the benefit of seeing the serially under-achieving Anton Ferdinand in his starting line-up.

The clubs towards the bottom of the various leagues look abroad for succour in the hope that foreign players won’t notice just how dire is the plight of the team that seeks to employ them. Or, more likely, won’t care. And so Charlton are courting Alexei Smertin at Dinamo Moscow and West Ham are said to be after Fabrice Pancrate from Paris Saint-Germain. In most of these cases, the players will insist upon an escape clause so that when they have shepherded their new teams into the safety of the Championship, they can get the hell out and pocket another wodge of dosh for doing so.

Watford, meanwhile, have invested in Moses Ashikodi, whom I well remember from his days at Millwall. He left the club under a cloud after a disagreement with our then centre-forward, Mark McCammon, in the canteen. Good luck Moses; put it all behind you, mate. Glad to see you scored yesterday.

The wheeling and dealing of January rarely has a real impact upon the comparative fortunes of the teams in question, much as we supporters might lick our lips in anticipation. Poor players go to poor clubs; average players to average clubs. The best players end up at Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool. And somebody, somewhere, gets Ade Akinbiyi.

[Jackson Corner]

Enjoyed that thanks for the link.

[glass half full]

On Talk Sport, a listener phoned in to ask if any players that Arsene Wenger had let go had made a success of it at other clubs. Errr, Sidwell, Harper????

[Lieutenant Pigeon]

Great Panikbuyi peice - made me laugh out loud...


C.

[Ian Royal]

poor Adie Akinbadbuy, no one likes him for more than a fortnight.

[Joe]

On Talk Sport, a listener phoned in to ask if any players that Arsene Wenger had let go had made a success of it at other clubs. Errr, Sidwell, Harper????

upson?