Monday 11 May 2015

Transfer speculation goes barmy for Cherries

In the last few weeks you could already have built an entire new Cherries side from the linked players that are supposed to be on the club's radar for summer signings. How many of them are in Eddie Howe's sights is probably very few, but it is intriguing to see how agents feed stories to get their players to the front of the headlines to try and get them a lucrative move and who wouldn't like the challenge of joining Eddie Howe's squad in its first season in the Premier League?

The kind of players that have already been linked range from the young untried strikers to the elderly centre backs that have a Premier league sell-buy date hanging around their necks. So who do you want out of the list of rumours so far - Micah Richards, Obafemi Martins, Sylvian Distin, Kenwyne Jones, Jota, Demarai Gray, Charlie Mulgrew, Eder, Andre Gray, Charlie Austin, Dimitar Berbatov, Jermain Defoe and Artur Boruc - I have probably missed a few more but you get the feeling that just about anyone is being dangled in front of AFCB as they look at the windfall payment that the club now has in its pocket.
 I have not been following every lead as more than half will just be pure speculation I am afraid.
If AFCB start spending in the region of £5m for
players in the Premier League they have to play more games
 than signings like TK.
Berbatov is now 34 and is likely to require a salary of £100,000 a week according to The Independent which does not fit the profile of the squad, so I would say such a move is somewhat wide of the mark. Berbatov is also not known for his high work rate and at Fulham he may have been a quality player, but he could not roll his sleeves up to save them from relegation. I am hoping that AFCB are much keener on young talent who want to prove themselves in the Premier League.

Promotion has also cost the club in more ways than you might imagine. Tokelo Rantie has just bagged Malmo FF £0.5m although how much of a help TK was in getting the Cherries up is perhaps more than a little questionable. Meanwhile, Stephane Zubar has cheekily seen a clause in his contract come into being with a year's extension because the club has reached the Premier League, so if you wondered why he was not among the seven released players you now know why.

The Football League Manager's Association is to honour Eddie Howe for the last week of the Championship season and the 3-0 win over Bolton Wanderers. This is the second time that Eddie has won the League Performance of the week award.

No comments:

Post a Comment

tag: