The twisted tale of John Mikel Obi

In a brilliant bit of investigative journalism, Arlo White managed to track down many of the key figure in the John Obi Mikel transfer saga in a report aired on 5live yesterday.

If, like me, you've found the whole story way too complicated to care about, this report is a fantastic summary, exposing the madness of the situation. Sounds to me like Chelsea have been Grade A shits, but then all parties seem to have been acting amazingly. The story involves death threats, Alex Ferguson bizzarely turning up for a cup of Norweigan tea, fraud, Jo Tessem, and a man called Shittu. Marvelous football scandal.

My favourite bit...
Arlo White: Do you know where you're going after the Nations cup?
Mikel Obi: I dont like to make comments, but inside me i know where i want to go, I think Chelsea.

He clearly knows how to keep his cards close to his chest.

The report really is a must, click here to listen. It lasts about 20mins, and starts after 37mins, so flick through. Do it.

Oh, and you'll need the latest Realplayer.

If you are a Premiership club, whatever you do, DO NOT ATTEMPT TO SIGN BENNI MCCARTHY!

Having been widely linked in the press, it was announced today that Portsmouth’s attempts to sign Benni McCarthy have failed. According to the Independent, Porto upped the asking price in the final hours of the deal. Portsmouth should have known better.

In 2002, Middlesborough were ‘on the verge’ of snapping up the South African striker, but the deal broke down with Boro executives blaming the “outrageous demands” of McCarthy’s agent Rob Moore. Later in the year, Aston Villa seemed to have McCarthy in their pocket, but the deal again came to nothing and he ended up going to Porto.

2005 was a particularly good year for Benni McCarthy not moving to the Premiership. Rob Moore, clearly missing a bit good old-fashioned British grub, went into overdrive. The first half of the year saw McCarthy linked to Blackburn, Everton, Birmingham, Newcastle, Bolton and Chelsea, in all cases seemingly because Rob Moore had said so. McCarthy himself, presumably after old Robbo had given him a few beers, declared:

"I am tired of so much ingratitude, so much falsehood and so many accusations. I deserve to live in peace and it would be best if I could go elsewhere to seek the happiness"

In September West Ham stepped in to end poor old Benni’s misery, but the deal fell through in the last minute, when Porto upped the asking price, a trick they repeated yesterday with Portsmouth. In any case, there must have been pretty good weather in Portugal over the last four months, for in a dramatic change of heart Benni is now happily smitten with his current employers, and claimed on Wednesday “I am happy. I do not have any interest in leaving FC Porto.” Oh what a difference a fallen-through deal makes.

So, the moral of the story is: DO NOT attempt to sign Benni McCarthy if you are a Premiership club. In the last four years he has been linked to 10 Premiership teams. In crude maths: if you are a top-flight English club you have a 50% chance of being linked to Benni McCarthy, and a 0% chance of getting him. His agent is a twat, his club are bent businessmen, and the player himself is emotionally unstable.

Jason Roberts is really good you know

Just a quickie to declare that if there’s Jason Roberts Appreciation Society, I’m in. I saw Roberts play at Upton Park over xmas in a thoroughly deserved 2-0 win for the Latics, and came away with the same feeling I’m sure many have had about Alan Shearer in the past: what a cheeky fouling bastard, wouldn’t mind him at West Ham though.

In fact the Shearer comparison is a good one. Essentially, Roberts is a thug with a good touch. Having found myself marvelling at Sylvan Distan’s strength and size when I saw him play for Man City earlier in the year, when Wigan hosted City a home a few weeks ago (winning 4-3) I couldn’t help giggling to myself when Roberts shrugged him off like a little girl, twice. Roberts is one of those footballing clichés; his shear presence causes defenders problems. You’re never quite sure if he’s fouled a defender or if they’ve fouled him. Anyway, if he was English, he’d be my fourth striker. This year he has scored 14 goals in all competitions, more than Owen, Rooney, Crouch and Defoe, and is one of the main reasons Wigan are doing so well.

Hats off to the man, especially today as its hi 28th birthday, which he celebrated by scoring the goal that knocked Arsenal out of the Carling Cup last night. Anyone who pisses off Wenger is a friend of mine.

Joey Cole comes of age

So, it seems Joe “end product” Cole got himself into a bit of trouble recently. Our favourite born again left-wing solution has recently been added to Grove Park police station’s ‘bovver’ file, currently stored on an offshore tanker having outgrown a local warehouse. Apparently Joey was getting friendly with Page 3 temptress Keeley Hazell when her boyfriend walked in and, cutting in from the left flank, perfectly timed a few blows right onto Cole’s head. Cole was forced to jump out of the window topless (pictured right) and flee with mates Anton Ferdinand and Bobby Zamora, who had presumably been playing Pro Evo in the next room.

Joey, Joey, Joey. I’ve always had a soft spot for Cole, who I saw sign his contract on the pitch at half time for West Ham, and make his debut against Swansea in the Cup (he bamboozled their left back), and eventually outgrow us and move on to Chelski. Other than his obvious ability, one of my favourite things about Joey was that he seemed to be a bit of a footballing geek. Having heard stories of a young Cole leaving training in tears as none of his mates were passing to him, and the loveable fact that his voice hadn’t even broken properly by the time he was regularly starting for West Ham, I had (and still have) Cole down as more of a Michael Owen than a Kieron Dyer. The kind of player who goes home after training to update his Merlin sticker Album instead of joining Neil Ruddock down at Chasers.

So, instead of joining in with that gleeful lot down at the Sun, tonight I will toast to Joey Cole’s coming of age. Obviously Joey had been in the middle of arranging his computer games alphabetically when Anton and Bobby knocked on the door and told him he needed to get out a bit more. Fumbling off his shinpads, Joey jumped excitedly at the prospect of going out with the cool kids, put on his best Ben Sherman and headed out. Not believing his luck, Joey managed to cop off with a Sun stunner under strict instructions to bag an England player, who in turn couldn’t believe her luck at finding one she’d hadn’t shagged yet. And the rest is tabloid history.

Poor old Joey. Caught with his pants down one his first real night out with the lads. How sweet. Never mind eh, he’ll be the most popular boy in the dressing room this week. Having developed into a consistent player with convertible flair, and having become one of the first names on the teamsheet at England’s most prestigious club, little Joey is now snogging girls. No wonder everyone is talking about how much he has matured over the last couple of years. Joe Cole is now a man.

The January Sales

The January sales are on! It seems that if you can play football you are linked to Portsmouth. Pompey rang me this morning but had to inform them that my loyalties lay with Goal Pie Town FC (2004 Manchester Power League University League Division 2 Champions). They’ve just signed Davis, Mendes and Pamorot from Spurs, reducing Spurs’ squad to 253, and confirming that ‘Arry still doesn’t really know what to do when he’s got loadsamoney. Give him a fiver and he’s fine, give him £10m and he’ll sign Don Hutchinson and Tomas Repka (see West Ham’s mercurial signings using the Rio/Lampard kitty).

I can semi-definitely assure you that another one of their signings, Emanuel Olisadebe (pictured above) will do nothing. He was good a couple of years ago when he was considered Poland’s great hope for the World Cup, but has since been injured lots and not scored many goals. I actually saw him play this summer for Panithinaikos against Wisla Krakow, he did nothing. Despite filling all of Bolton’s transfer criteria (a couple of years past his peak, great signing on CM3, available for free) they weren’t even interested: he must be really crap.

Maniche (right) is a class act, and annoyingly adds to Chelsea’s ridiculously talented squad. He’s one of Mourinho’s favourites as well, was with him at Porto. By all accounts Evra is a damn good left back, and should be pretty good for United. Much more impressively, West Ham have signed another Israeli for £100,000, we really are mixing with the big boys now.

Otherwise, transfer window has been pretty uneventful so far, nothing particularly amazing has happened. Birmingham signed Chris Sutton. Wow.
transfers so far (Footy365)

My Favourite Chairman

Over recent weeks, that old wildcard Milan Mandaric has been popping up in the press quite a bit; reunited with jilted lover ‘dirty’ Arry, selling half the club to Abramovic’s ex-business partner’s housekeeper’s mate’s cousin-in-law’s drinking buddy (I think), and sending Rupert Lowe a dead duck for xmas. Blimey, we do have some real characters in the English game, eh? No. Introducing Luciano Gaucci.

Luciano Gaucci is my favourite chairman in football, and makes old Milan look like a thoroughly sensible bloke. Chairman of Italian side Perugia, Gaucci first hit the headlines in England after he hounded Ahn Jung-Hwan (the decent South Korean striker) out of the club having scored the golden goal to knock Italy out of World Cup 2002. Essentially Spurs did the same thing with Helder Postiga after he scored against us in Euro 2004, but with a little decorum. Like Ahn himself, decorum is clearly a little too foreign for Italian football, and certainly Gaucci, who commented that Ahn had “offended me and the whole Italian nation”. But like the Murphys, he’s not bitter.

In 2003, Gaucci almost pulled off the most hilarious triumvirate of signings since Wayne Rooney spelt his name right at the third attempt when joining Manyoo. Gaucci started off with a veritable Lockerbie bombing of a transfer, by signing the son of Libya’s cute and cuddly dictator Colonel Gaddafi. Italian football has a strange relationship with ex-Italian colony Libya, and even bizarrely hosted the Super Cup (their charity shield) in the Libyan capital Tripoli in 2002. Saadi Gaddafi never even got a game for Perugia, probably because he was shit, and ended up getting caught taking nandrolone.

Perugia then announced they were looking at a Swedish played called Ljungberg. First name Hannah. Yup, exploiting a loophole in the Italian regulations, Gaucci endeavoured to make Perugia the first team ever to sign a woman footballer to play in a male team. Gaucci reasoning was faultless, explaining that

“We are in 2003, men go to discothèques and go naked on the beach, I can’t see why players would have a problem having a woman on the team”

Clearly we can see that Gaucci is not only an astute chairman, he is also an intellectual. Amazingly, Ljungburg turned down the opportunity to join Gaucci’s haven of sexual equality.

Having been thwarted by his Swedish tit interest, Gaucci swooped to pull of the most astonishing transfer of all. Having been deemed surplus to requirements at newly relegated Coventry, Jay Bothroyd became a free agent. Realising the glorious opportunity Gaucci pipped a host of European giants (Grimsby, Cardiff, Dundee) to the post and signed up the marauding attacking genius, citing that Perugia needed “quality to progress in the Inter-Toto Cup”. Not only an intellectual, Gaucci is also a mean scout. Bothroyd is currently sitting on the bench at Charlton, suffering from blackouts, and recently crashed his car.

So, when my fellow West Ham fans are next chanting ‘Brown Out!’ in fevered unison (happens approx. every 3.4 years), I will be chanting ‘Gaucci In’. If that fails, I will settle for Mandaric. Turns out that George Best’s son Callum has Milan as his middle name, as the Pompey chairman was one of our favourite alcoholic lothario’s closest friends. Now that’s what I call a chairman.

A Cup Convert

Ok, i'll admit it. I was one of those cynics who frankly didn't give much of a shit about the FA Cup. This is probably largely because i support West Ham and we do things like getting knocked out by Wrexham rather than galavanting on glorious runs. I don't think i was alone either. With the pressures and financial importance of avoiding relegation, or getting into Europe etc. the prospect of travelling to Shithouse United in the middle of the Welsh Valleys for a part-time plumber on a frozen pitch to kick lumps out of your ageing right back at a stage of the season when a teams lack of depth can be blatantly exposed by a couple of injuries, is hardy romantic. And yet today i felt the romance of the cup.

Watching Burton hang on for a nil-nil draw against united, seeing Leyton Orient and Leicester claim the first two premiership scalps (Fulham and Spurs respectively), and Nuneaton hold Middlesborough was truly thrilling stuff. I actually watched the Burton game at my local in Manchester and was bloody nervous for the last 10 minutes as Rooney and co pummelled their goal. At the end i felt exhilirated, alsmost post-coital, the romance of the cup indeed.

It makes you realise just how Greece can win the European Championships, or Porto win the Champions League, as football is simply 11 versus 11, and anything can happen. Oh crap i think i just finished my blog with a glaring cliche. The Leicester game really was a game of two halves though. Shit.

Kick Off

Hi
As a self-confessed football addict, this blog will be a bit of an indulgence for me. Anything football-related that tickles my fancy will be dealt with, probably rant-style, whenever I feel the need to let it all go.

My credentials? A worrying 'CM-life' (have wasted approx 2 years of my life buying Slovenian midfielders and letting them mature into cultured playmakers etc.), an unfortunate, irreversible love affair with West Ham United (why why why), and a silly capacity for remembering useless football-related information (I know Batistuta's child will be able to play for Qatar, but I have trouble remembering the names of all my cousins).

So, from time to time, this will be the the internet equivalent of a really good burp, gets it all out and makes you feel better afterwards. And smells a bit. Sorry in advance.