Another £15million of Roman Abramovich’s hard earned interest goes in the direction of away - from his bank account. Having spent a total of reportedly nearly 60million on their current strike force, and currently have on their books a £30million man in Andrei Shevchenko, who has actually started playing quite well, they decide they haven’t spent enough money recently and splash out on Nicolas Anelka.
The board meeting (taking place on Mr Abramovich's yacht) probably went something a little like this:
Avram Grant: "Can I have some money please?"
Roman Abramovich: "What do you need it for?"
Avram: "I want to buy a new striker..."
Roman: "No! My interest is hard earned, Jose spent enough already!"
Avram: "Ok, I suppose I could just sell Shevchenko to raise the money"
Roman: “Alright, it's yours. How much to you need?"
In all fairness to Roman though, he does not have a clue what he's doing in terms of football. He probably just thinks Shevchenko is a good player...right? Anyway, I won't criticise Avram Grant for his choices in the transfer market, because he hasn't made any before this one. We all know what Anelka is capable of from his Arsenal and Manchester City days mainly and of course from what he did at Bolton. On the other hand, it was Grant, who more than likely got Jose Mourinho the sack. For this, all the die-hard (if this applies to Chelsea) fans that I know, hate him or at least have strongly disapproved of from the start.
Let's face it; £15million is just not a huge transfer these days in term of football. It’s medium to high but not huge, and more and more clubs seem to be prepared to gamble this sort of money. For example: Arsenal paid a reported £12million for Theo Walcott and £17million for Jose Antonio Reyes. Manchester United paid between £15-20million each for Owen Hargreaves, Anderson and Nani and even Tottenham paid over £16million for Darren Bent. It is a pretty common figure now.
Even so, players cost too much and are over-paid. Another argument I could get into. Some people say that footballers have short careers and therefore have to earn more in that short space of time. Ok, so none of these players have jobs as Coaches or Managers, TV Pundits or Host or even in some other field or sport? Of course they do, so that makes that argument exempt. It's only alcoholics and wasters that don't bother getting jobs when they hang up their boots. Not naming names (Paul Gascoigne). Even Paul Merson has a job for Sky Sports, despite his utter inability to commentate or make any intelligent comment on a relevant subject. For example his neandertol-like use of Cockney rhyming slang ("Oh, he's hit the beans on toast" - post).
Interestingly, Sky Sports seem to like cockneys in Tony Cottee and Tony Gail, although their levels of intelligence are far superior to someone like Merson. As for Chris Kamara, he doesn't have a clue what to say half the time, which results in the constant repetition of "Unbelievable Jeff" and "I'm not sure what's happening Jeff". Don't get me wrong, I have absolutely nothing against any of these people, but I’m just making the point that even the thickest footballer can get a job after he retires from the game.
I haven’t yet heard Nicolas Anelka's weekly wage but I’m sure it's ridiculously high, both in amount and on his list of reasons for joining Chelsea I’m sure. Halve every Premiership first team footballer’s wage and you would have enough to double every nurse’s yearly wage in the UK. A much more worthy cause I think everyone would agree. Do they think no-one would be a footballer if they put a cap on their wages? I think not.
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