july 21st
19.45 – So despite saying Rio was not for sale, despite reavealing a clause saying he couldn’t be sold to another Premiership club, and despite setting a deadline which was passed today before any deal was made, Peter Ridsdale got what he wanted all along – £30m to help pay for the debts Leeds accrued speculating with Champions League money they never got coz they didn’t qualify.
When you pay £9m for Seth Johnson – a poor man’s Grimandi – you know you’re going to have to pay a price. Leeds couldn’t afford to turn down Man Utd’s offer because they overspent on average players. It cost them Rio Ferdinand.
Still Alex Ferguson seems to be spending money like he’s playing Championship Manager. Rio @ £30m + Veron @ £28.5m + RvN @ £19m = £77.5m in the last year or so. That’s big money, and could all of those people who go on and on about Ferguson being fantastic for producing his own talent now please shut the fuck up? Since that extra-ordinary group we’ve mentioned before, he has produced Higginbothams and Wallworks and Chadwicks – today’s equivalent of Hillier, Morrow and Selley.
Anyway, nice to see United try and shore up their defence for next season – but once they keep playing Silvestre, Neville 1 & 2, Wes Brown, Laurent Blanc and the sure hands of Fabien Barthez, Rio will have his work cut out for him.
Oooh, and a little bit of Arsenal news – we’ve made a £6m bid for Gilberto Silva.
Nice to see Dennis Wise up to his old tricks. Not content with knocking the shit out of taxi drivers, he’s now progressed to his own team-mates.
