Silly season is well into its stride now and a good proportion of this summer’s most coveted stars have already been exchanged for vast sums of money. But a few big names remain in the shop window, doing keepy uppys and making puppy dog eyes at passing oligarchs. Lets take a look at the top talents that still have a chance of exciting Jim White before the transfer window ‘slams shut’…
Sami Khedira
Could this be Arsenal’s year? Will Wenger finally assemble a team that has the cojones to stay the course? Or will he continue to add yet more delicate, twirling midfielders to his mantelpiece and stand back in admiration as a promising season pirouettes gracefully towards another fourth place finish? Well the signing of the irrefutably gifted Alexis Sanchez may be something of a coup but it is also quite easy to imagine the little Chilean in a ballet outfit… But what’s this? A strapping, swarthy midfield enforcer who has absolutely nothing of Rudof Nureyev about him? Yes, after a ten-year hiatus Arsenal may finally be on the brink of replacing Patrick Viera with battling German tough guy Sami Khedira. In fact the Betfair betting site currently has Arsenal as 1/2 favourites to land the World Cup star, a position enhanced, apparently, by Real Madrid’s eagerness to get rid and Bayern Munich’s disinterest.
Arturo Vidal
On the subject of little Chileans, here comes another one! Typical, you a wait for one diminutive Chilean midfielder… It seems that the highly rated midfield all-rounder Arturo Vidal will be the latest exciting but not quite top draw player to eschew Champions League football and join Louis van Gaal’s expensively assembled Man Utd Revolution. If rumours are to be believed Vidal will set United back £47 million and a salary in the region of £200,000 a week. With that sort of investment the United faithful must be increasingly confident of improving on last season’s debacle and grabbing a 6th place finish. Betfair’s odds of 1/10 leave little room for doubt that Vidal is Old Trafford bound.
Morgan Schneiderlin
Southampton’s unsung midfield water carrier arrived back from his summer holidays to find that all his mates had been shipped off to enjoy new, handsomely rewarded Champions League lifestyles, leaving him to contemplate a relegation scrap under the stewardship of a terrifying red haired Dutchman… But wait! All is not lost, good old Uncle Poch hasn’t forgotten about him! Except, just as Mauricio Pochetinno arrives to rescue young Morgan and whisk him away to the bright lights of London, Southampton’s For Sale, Everything Must Go! sign is cruelly whipped away and the plucky midfield anchorman finds himself trapped at St Mary’s!
We can hardly blame Schneiderlin for the actions that followed… Naturally he took to Twitter and proceeded to throw his proverbial toys out of his metaphorical pram, leaving the following angst-ridden missive for the world to behold: ‘6 years of an amazing journey #saintsfc DESTROYED in 1 hour!!!’ Powerful stuff. Apparently he even unfollowed Southampton. Something tells us the story doesn’t end there. In fact odds of 1/8 on Schneiderlin going to Spurs suggest it will end up at White Hart Lane after all.
