DORTMUND JOKING IF THEY THINK JADON’S WORTH £88M THESE DAYS
ONE of the continuing fascinations with top-level football is how so many, so-called big-time clubs and managers can act so small-time.
Yet again, let’s take the bold Jose. Here he is on Andre Marriner (above, with Harry Kane).
“I consider him of the best referees in the Premier League… that gives me a good position to tell you I did not like his performance.”
No, it does not. When your centre-half has just given away the match-losing penalty in amateurish fashion, that does not put you in a position to have a pop at the ref.
When you have sent your team out with the sort of negative, clueless mindset that has lost you three Premier League games on the spin, that does not put you in a position to have a pop at the ref.
Oh, and when the official has not made any sort of obvious error, that does not put you in a position to have a pop at the ref.
Meanwhile, word from Southampton is that no official request to have Mike Dean prevented from doing future
Saints games has been lodged.
But, it seems, they would rather he did not. Tough. Even allowing for the Jan Bednarek dismissal, later overturned, Southampton should not bleat about referees after the surrender at Old Trafford.
Deflecting blame to the officials has gone on for an age. But it does not make it any less small-time.
APPARENTLY, Borussia Dortmund will be happy to take £88million for Jadon Sancho this summer.
I bet they will.
Absolutely off-the-scale, Christmases-come-at-once ecstatic, I would imagine.
Three goals and nine assists, Sancho is hardly setting the Bundesliga ablaze this season.
On the bench for the past two England games, Sancho could soon find himself playing international second fiddle to the likes of Jack Grealish.
His Borussia Dortmund team-mate, Erling Haaland, who continues to take a torch to German football, would appear to have a
2022 escape clause which comes in at £68m.
Saving the pennies for him would seem a wise move. One of the problems for Dortmund and Sancho could be that market drivers Barcelona and Real Madrid appear to be the best part of two billion quid in debt.
You would not put it past those two to somehow find a way of buying big, but it seems highly unlikely.
And whether or not they would have been interested in Sancho, the market place for elite talent is now a shrunken one.
So, the prices should be – should be – shrunken. With the financial ex- cesses of the
Premier League, that might not be the case.
The Germans do not call it ‘stupid English money’ for nothing.
Only the English might not be so stupid this year, especially when it comes to a monstrous fee and salary for Sancho, who turns 21 next month.
Manchester United have been tagged as front-runners but the recruitment of the exciting Amad Diallo – and subsequent noise from inside Old Trafford – has probably changed that.
Throw Diallo into the mix and there are plenty of attacking options for Ole Gunnar Solskjaer. Manchester City can spend but a Lionel Messi project is not off the agenda and an out-and-out striker, such as Haaland, is also a priority.
They also have the likes of Raheem Sterling, Bernardo Silva, Ferran Torres and Riyad Mahrez operating in Sancho areas.
Liverpool, who have not been afraid to go large for a gamechanger, appear to be growing a little cost-conscious and Chelsea have, in basic terms, Sancho-style players coming out of their ears.
Someone might come up with big dough for Sancho but there will be no unseemly scramble to ratchet up the price.
And there is a broader picture.
The long-term economic ramifications of the pandemic might be in their infancy but they will soon be emerging.
Professional football – even at the very highest level – will not be immune. We have heard that warning from Jurgen Klopp, among others.
Even if they can continue to afford to fork out exorbitant fees and wages, it will not be a good look to be spending obscene fortunes on players when hardship threatens huge swathes of a Premier League club’s fanbase.
So far, there are very few signs this crisis is significantly tightening Premier League purse strings.
But that moment will come, make no mistake… as Borussia Dortmund and Sancho will soon find out.
Sancho’s monstrous fee and salary won’t attract a rush of ‘stupid English money’