Transfer twaddle

Throughout the summer, we were besieged with constant talk and rumour about Striker A moving here, Midfield B moving there, Defender C declaring his interest in an approach from everywhere; and yet most of it turned out to be agent fuelled speculation. Look at the main stories of the summer, after all; Yakubu to Middlesbrough (which didn’t happen), LuaLua to West Brom (which didn’t happen), Linvoy to Norwich (which didn’t happen), and Taylor to Spurs (which didn’t happen. Noticing a theme yet)? Worryingly, the press can still churn out articles at a rate of knots and claim, “its ok, we thought it was true at the time”.

The perfect example of this journalism came from the BBC on Wednesday. At 14:20, they featured an interview with Everton’s Joseph Yobo, declaring, “I'm very upset with what has been said. I'm happy here. I've always said I'm happy at Everton.” This came in the wake of a report at 7:50 that morning, with a quote from Yobo saying, “I will leave here as soon as my contract expires.” This particular article featured on… err, the BBC.

This brings us back to Pompey. In particular, poor old Milan, who was innocently enough caught talking up the talents of Yakubu. “We are ambitious and we want Yakubu here”, said the Chairman, “he would not go anywhere for less than £12m.” The next day, the papers were full of “£12M PRICE TAG” stories, all because of one off-the-cuff comment taken completely out of context. To clarify the situation, Milan spoke out again – “Everyone has a price, though Yakubu's would be a particularly high one". So rather than pick on the “we want Yakubu here” section of the interview, what do you think the media focused on? The fact that Yakubu does actually “have a price”, of course!

Yawn.

And then comes the tale of Matt Taylor. A Spurs fan as a boy, when he left Luton he had the choice to come to Fratton Park or White Hart Lane. Of course, we know which one he went for, but given how he’s not in the first team at the moment, and there was talk of a London move for the left winger in the summer; suddenly the rumour mill has gone into overdrive. Taylor gave an interview to “The News” last Thursday, declaring that although, “it's not been an ideal start for me, and I'm obviously not very happy about the situation”, even so, “I just have to wait for my chance and then take it when it comes.” Positive talk from a young player, desperate to get in the team and prove himself? Especially given his follow-up interview a week later; “I want to play football and I want to play here”. Clearly no-one told the news wires that, who rushed out stories featuring the comment “I’m obviously not very happy about the situation”, and declaring an imminent move to London.

I say again, yawn.

I have no doubt that if Yakubu scores 20 goals again this season, he will move on. Hopefully not to clubs like Boro or Chalrton as was rumoured last season, but a club - all disrespect intended - “higher up” the scale, rather than one pretty much on a similar level of aspirations to us. As for Taylor, he knows that Unsworth and Berger aren’t going to play on for ever, and that sooner or later his chance will come. The Palace game was the perfect example, as due to injury he came into the team after just twelve minutes. He’s only 22, Yak only 21, and it’s a patience game. They could stay here for another two years and still have their careers in front of them. Let’s hope the media realise this, rather than constantly building them up, just so when they get to the biggest stage they can knock them down.