Friday, 22 August 2008

Chuckle Chuckle Barry

I'm often told that you should take 5 minutes before you write.  Usually this seems a great bit of advice, particularly to a blogger without an editor.

Sometimes however, something happens that changes your rules.  Tonight I heard a football pundit discussing the saga of Gareth Barry's potential transfer to Liverpool(again).  I felt I had to say something....so I blogged instead.

The general debate started with Liverpool's midfield.  Which was a position of fun; and interesting, particularly if you read the last blog on this site.

Apparently, Liverpool's world class  holding midfielder Javier Mascherano, £17m ish, will dedicate his (potential) olympic gold medal to Rafa Benitez.  In the meantime, said manager is/was trying to sell the European Championship winning playmaker Xabi Alonso to Juventus for £17m ish.  Which will, apparently, fund the purchase of, yep, you've guessed it, England's second choice holding midfielder, Gareth Barry, for £more than he's worth.00p.

Hands up anyone who thinks Barry (good player as he is) is a better player than Alonso!  And more to the point, less likely to give the ball away. Mascherano is a superb player in that position, so the question is...who wants Barry? Benitez or Gerrard?  Interesting.

Owen Hargreaves cost about £17m, and has played when fit, but at least Ferguson has him in mind. Michael Carrick, who I must admit I've unjustly criticised since he went to United, plays a more important role but a a similar cost.  What price Gerrard; as Fergie once said, he'd be the player he'd like to sign, but he knew he'd never go to United.

I am, however, slightly confused by the way in which value is judged,; how can we suggest that the members of England's New Glorious One Man Football Team are worth anything unless they can play together?  

I'm sure these are lessons I learned in school.

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