The Waiting Game

Oh God help us, roll on 16 August and the return of the footy. If I don't get me some footy soon I'm going to be chewing me own arm off. Instead of which we get a forest of tedious speculation every bleeding day and it's exhausting and contradictory and you just want them all to shut up and the season to start.

Robinho is moving to Chelsea but he's told Madrid he is desperate to stay in Spain - surely if he moved to Anfield he'd be in Spain more or less anyway? Berbatov won't stay at Spurs but he's now going to Milan if Man U don't stump up the cost, not that Levy wants to sell to the tapper-uppers. Roy Keane's buying half the Spurs first team - although only Tainio (who sounds to me like a very small man who does a magic act) - has actually put his name to paper. Andy Johnson's off to Fulham - over David Moyes's dead body, but then £10.5 million for a hard-working, goal-shy striker with a tumbler's reputation is a Darren Bent of a deal. And the arch-tumblers Drogba and Ronaldo are sadly nursing their injured leggies and staying put while moving next week if they can ever break free of them star striker manacles long enough to get out of the Premiership.

It's as comprehensible as the blinking stock market. Of course the speculation gets most feverish when it's the big clubs who are involved. There may well come a time when the likes of Berbatov, Adebayor, Keane, Barry, Arshavin, Drogba, Ronaldo, etc. are all ordered to turn up in a school yard somewhere between England and Spain.