[Deffeh]

Interesting day on the transfer front.


Im quite liking this whole center midfielder merry go round between the nearly-clubs. Its a strange one particularly because its not clear out of Barton/Parker/Reo-Coker, who is actually the better player. All three of them are troubled at their current clubs; for different reasons, and all three have question marks by their names.

Barton for 5.5m to either Newcastle/West Ham
Reo-Coker for 7m to probably Aston Villa
Parker to Wham for 7m

All three of them are gambles and im not really sure what i think of the fees. You can make cases for all of them but the issue is really that theres a ridiculous premium on English players. It would be difficult, for example, to see a player from Celtic go for the same amount of money, even if they were a more proven goalscorer, had played well in europe and on the international stage, and didnt have disciplinary/motivational issues.

Speaking of which, Villa apparentally want Nakamura.

If Celtic have any ****ing clue whatsoever they will sell; for a number of reasons;

1/ Nakamura is absurdly overrated because hes a flair player in a non flair league
2/ Nakamura is 28 or something so he's not going to get any better
3/ Nakamura lacks a little bit of pace at the top level (shown up against AC milan in particular)
4/ Nakamura has had a season full of high profile goals and skills etc that would be impossible to replicate next year, for example hes never going to score 2 amazing free kicks vs Man Utd in the same year again, so theres not going to be a better time to sell him than now.
5/ Despite all this Nakamura is still probably celtics best or second best attacking player. But our team next year is going to be so ****ing shit that theres no point hanging on to any of our assets in a desperate attempt to stem the flow of our shitness. We might as well just liquidate, asset strip, and come third or some shit because it would be less embarrassing than pretending celtic have a title worthy team.

Given all the merchandising potential that comes with the Nakamura brand i'd be suprised if we got less than 7m for him; probably more.