Pre-Season Part 2

Cork in a Chelsea Kit: Either Photoshopped or a Friendly

The first notable event of pre-season has happened with Jack Cork signing from Chelsea. On the face of it, this is a quality bit of business by the club as he’s a quality player who has been walking the walk in the Championship for about 3 years now, including a spell under Nigel Adkins at Scunthorpe. For the last 18 months he’s been at Burnley and their fans sound gutted that he’s not signing for them which is a good sign. It can be argued that we needed to sign a centre back and a midfielder and we’ve signed both with one player and he can also play at right back. I thought he was good when he played for us in the Championship last time as an 18 year old, under the moron of all morons, Jan Poortvliet and it was difficult to look good in a team that was coached by someone who was such utter, utter shit.

As an aside, it’s another example of one of my major bugbears with big clubs. Why do they even bother having a Youth set up as they hardly ever play any of them and they never sell them on for much money because they never play. Jack Cork has been with Chelsea since he was about 8 and has never played a competitive game for them as his route to the first team is always blocked by the latest dodgy foreigner they’ve signed for millions and have to play. Maybe we’ll get Josh McEachran in a few years when he’s reached 22 and has played 4 games in the Carling Cup. Anyway, their loss is our gain.

It’s also a good day as it bursts the bubble of the doom merchants who constantly question the club and its ambition, available money, ability to attract good players etc. Well we’ve just signed a player that Burnley wanted – Burnley who are getting parachute payments from their season in the Premier League. I’d say that proves were ok financially and are willing to back the manager. It seems like we bid over £3 million for Billy Sharp as well which in my opinion, is way too high so I’m quite pleased that one fell through for whatever the reason.... but because it fell through, the doom merchants span it as ‘Adkins can’t attract players’ and/or ‘did we actually offer that much’. Nigel gave an interview saying ‘be patient’ and ‘we only need 2 or 3’ but still people don’t get it. For the past two years, the club has been delivering on its promises .... Rupert is Dead and it’s not like it was anymore.

More incoming rumours include Lukas Jutkiewicz, a Southampton born forward who plays for Coventry. Again, their fans don’t want him to go which is nice to read. Personally, at this moment in time I’m not buying this one as the link seems to be based purely on the fact he was born in our fair city.

In Nigel’s interview he expressed frustration at Oscar Gobern going to Huddersfield but I bet that if you’d asked him a week or so ago to pick one player from the squad to lose, it would have been the Ninja with the Inner Ear Infection. Still, when it goes to a tribunal we’ll be saying he’s brilliant and the new Patrick Vieira and we should be compensated about £3 million. I have a feeling that Jack Cork may prove to be a better player than Oscar Gobern.

THE NEXT BIT IT A RUMOUR AND NO MORE THAN THAT... SO IT COULD BE SHIT!!!

I have an Alex Chamberlain rumour from an ‘in the know’ source, not the News of the World, that says that he’ll be leaving but only to a club that will loan him back for the whole of the coming season.  If this is true, I love the fact that as we don’t need to sell, we can call the shots and specify that he’s loaned back to us which would never have been the case before when we took whatever was offered. Apparently Arsenal (the assumed destination) aren’t keen on this as they want him to follow the development plan that has served Theo Walcott so well - put him in their reserves and fuck him up for 5 years so he’s no better than if he’d stayed at Saints all that time. As we all know, Arsenal’s Youth Development modus operandii is to pay relatively small fees for other clubs best young players. Still... Arsene knows best, which must be why half his first team want to leave. In his defence though, at least Arsenal’s young players get a game.

Another rumour I’m not buying is Jason Puncheon to Pompey. He’ll go somewhere but I’ll be amazed if it’s there, simply because we’re apparently asking a fair bit for him and I think Pompey could get better value for money elsewhere. Hang on... when have they ever cared about that though? If he does go there (money up front of course) and has one of his ‘cows arse with a banjo’ games then he’ll get slaughtered by their fans and then he’ll sulk and be looking for club no 23 of his career.

Pre-season just got interesting....