The Cutter understands that Crystal Palace’s exciting young winger Wilfried Zaha is on his way to White Hart Lane this summer with Spurs all-but-concluding a deal in the past week.
The teen flyer made his England Under 21 debut in the recent demolition of Belgium and perfectly fits within the recruitment policy set by the Tottenham hierarchy three years ago to secure the very best young domestic talent available.
A fee of £8m has been tentatively agreed which is expected to rise to £10m depending on future appearances.
The move is not dependent on whether Harry Redknapp remains in charge at the club though the man who will probably soon be England’s next manager is said to have been fully briefed on the negotiations and is wholly on board with the capture.
The Ivory Coast-born youth has been in sensational form in the Championship this term and has inevitably amassed several top flight suitors. Spurs however have long been ahead of the chasing pack for the player’s signature and their early swoop is a testimony to their keen interest.
The arrival of Zaha at the Lane – a predominantly left-footed wide man – might well spark further rumours of Bale’s departure with Barcelona amongst others reputedly circling with monstrous bids. It is our understanding however that the Palace rookie is not being groomed as anyone’s replacement but rather as additional firepower with a probable Champions League campaign next year. With a gruelling fixture list from fighting on four fronts Spurs intention is to phase Zaha in mainly with Carling Cup cameos which is entirely apt as it was a series of scintillating performances in that competition that initially attracted the top clubs.
Even so, it surely won’t be long before we witness a Zaha/Saha double-act at the Lane in the Premier League and with Lennon speeding down the right there will certainly be no shortage of pace to frighten opponents.
The relentless slew of transfer gossip that pervades the media can be perceived as harmless and fun.
Except….we probably won’t see a Zaha/Saha double act. Because all of the above was completely made up. Every word.
Yet this is precisely the sort of guff we as football fans read with the same mixture of disbelief and – if you support the team in question – deluded hope every day in the tabloids and on certain websites that specialise in such horse trading manure.
An individual with absolutely no genuine information – in this case me – simply puts one and one together and writes it up as three. And we read it in droves then, worse yet, pass the rumour on as gospel to mates down the pub.
Like former Prime Minister James Callaghan once said “A lie can be halfway around the world before the truth has got its boots on”.
The relentless slew of transfer gossip that pervades the media can be perceived as harmless and fun and it’s certainly, in the main, a victimless crime. But with the increasing introduction of more and more outlets for such garbage are we not in danger of being engulfed in childish tittle-tattle? Are we no better than those saddos who devour Celebz and Dirt (or whatever the hell they’re called) desperate to find out the latest fabricated non-story in the non-life of Jordan.
‘Katie learns to love again’….’Leandro Damiao heading to Anfield’…..both have no substance and deal in idle office speculation so really what’s the difference?
A survey conducted last year revealed that The Scotsman newspaper had the highest accuracy of any newspaper dealing with daily football transfer gossip. Their percentage barely reached 5%. Of the remaining 95% it can be assumed that some had honourable origins – a tip-off that came to nothing or real interest from a club that fell away due to the million reasons that it can. The rest was highly likely a falsified union between a club with a large following and a striker who would get that large following intrigued enough to buy the paper or click on the link.
The publication gets more readers while the player in question doesn’t mind because his stock rises. The only mug in the whole daft affair is us.
So if James Callaghan was right let’s see how far we can hurl this particular lie.
Let’s see if we can get this entirely false transfer scoop into the mainstream press or on one of the numerous sites that are renowned for peddling such untruths.
It will hardly ‘expose’ them because we already know it’s a commonplace practice. This is hardly World In Action here.
But what it will mean is that for once the joke is on them and not us.
So get tweeting folks. Zaha to Spurs this summer (#zahatospurs). Put it on fan forums. Tell your mates. Social network the shit out of it.
And let’s see who the first one to bite is and what additional nonsense they add to it.
