Well I suppose kids start looking forward to next Christmas as soon as the Boxing Day festivities have died down, and as it has been a week since the shutting of the transfer window (a mere 22 seconds too soon for Leicester City, but more on that later) the January Transfer Rumours are already upon us like a cheap John Lewis advert in September.
With things apparently getting worse between Chelsea (the whole club) and Diego Costa, Chelsea need to start thinking about a striker that can play back up to Alvaro Morata. Hmmm, who might be available that hasn’t already been linked and might give the world a few months of idle speculation? Step forward Thomas Muller of Bayern Munich, who wants to split from his current manager Carlo Ancelotti because the Italian “doesn’t understand him” and “is cool if I start talking to other people” and “never really loved me anyway, we were too young to get together”. You see, Carlo has always struck me as the soft, cuddly type of manager as opposed to Antonio Conte’s tough love, so maybe Thomas likes a bit of that in his relationships.
Ben Woodburn did so well for Wales last week that he must be enough of a reason for Liverpool to give into Barcelona’s overtures to Philippe Coutinho, no? Well, Jurgen Klopp is prepared to give the youngster a new bumper contract and completely contradict everything he said about Woodburn last season. What exactly did he say? Something about kids getting too much too soon and how we shouldn’t be judging people like Woodburn for another five years or something and certainly not giving them too much money too soon.
It turns out people who run Premier League football clubs are just a little bit addicted to the last minute drama of transfer deadline day. So addicted, in fact, that they want to make the window even shorter so there can be even more comical, panic stricken nonsensical nonsense on Deadline Day. It has been voted in that Jim White will need to ready his yellow tie for 5pm on the Thursday before the first match of the 2018/19 season. I am sure the managers are delighted, as that is all they need as they try to plan their first match of a new season, crazed agents and foolish directors making even more of a pig’s ear of things than normal.
Imagine how messed up Leicester City might be if they have even less time to get paper work over to FIFA? They missed the deadline by 23 seconds in their attempt to register Sporting CP’s Adrien Silva, a player they failed to sign in the last window too. He must be feeling really loved right now. Leicester are appealing the decision, but FIFA are probably going to be far too busy looking so deep into the recent work of PSG that they won’t find time to respond. Or they will, and they will tell Leicester City to get on with it.
Ronald Koeman is said to be “very disappointed” with Wayne Rooney. Ronald dear boy, welcome to the last ten years of my life. Oh, for drink driving he means. Yeah, well that’s nothing compared to failing to deliver at the last nine World Cups now, is it?
Arsene Wenger has taken aim at the Arsenal legends that have been criticising him by reminding them they were not perfect. Perfect? Probably not Arsene, but they were Premier League champions which is more than can be said for your current lot.