The world is a strange place and the world of football is even stranger. Between the Community Shield in which a team of pass-masters picked apart a lacklustre team of champions and the Scottish Premiership where St. Johnstone’s Brad McKay announced his candidacy for UKIP, it’s been a great first weekend back.
But of course the transfer window remains firmly open and it’s letting in a draft which smells vaguely of farts. Farts which linger in the air, whispering of curries past and the promise of Arsenal signing a striker. This week it’s Karim Benzema from Real Madrid. Next week it will be someone else. They’ll leave their trust in Theo Walcott.
So it is written.
Manchester City don’t think they have enough mercurial attacking midfielders in their squad so they’d like to sign Kevin de Bruyne. No-one can argue with this since he’s a pretty incredible player. The footballing world looks on with envious eyes, hoping that something goes so catastrophically wrong that their club can buy him.
Liverpool have been compared to a serial killer. Mostly by me. Not a real one, you understand. One of those serial killers on TV shows who keep leaving clues suggesting that they want to be caught and shown to the world for what they really are. Liverpool’s latest clue that they’re slaughtering their chances of winning the Premier League with a machete is their pursuit of Real Madrid’s £14million (ish) winger Denis Cheryshev.
Of course it’s worth pointing out that saying he plays for Real Madrid is like that time Kilmarnock tried to pass off Borja Perez as a former Real Madrid player. The Russian attacker has played 30 top flight games on loan at Sevilla and Villarreal and, now that I’ve taken the piss, will likely go on to become one of the best players in the world.
North of the border everyone seems to be hiding under a rock. Mark Warburton has announced that he’s happy with his squad, leading Rangers fans to stop dreaming of bringing in Charlie Miller on a free transfer. Inverness Caledonian Thistle have also decided that they’re happy with their squad despite Gary Warren’s ankle break.
Luckily Partick Thistle are set to sign Pogba! Yes, it’s that joke! Mathias Pogba, brother of Juventus midfielder Paul (just in case you hadn’t read that somewhere else) is all set to sign for the Firhill side. Of course he’s not as good as Paul… just in case you hadn’t read that somewhere else.
Sunderland are set to take a huge step toward achieving their objective of relegation by signing Harbinger of the Footballing Apocalypse Leroy Fer from QPR. Fer, who has been relegated in both of his seasons in the Premier League, is due to arrive at the Black Cats along with French petted lip merchant, Yann M’Vila.
This has had an interesting effect on our favourite rumour. Poor ol’ Virgil van Dijk has suddenly gone rocketing up the table from being linked with Dick Advocaat’s side, to being John Stones replacement at Everton, to being the subject of an £8million bid from Southampton, to being the solution to Arsenal and Manchester United’s problems at the back.
After all this he’ll probably stay at Celtic Park. We’ll find out next week.
He is the editor of this fine site and a regular on the Scottish Comedy FC Podcast despite refusing to go anywhere near Owen's house.
He supports Kilmarnock and is a comedian to no-one but himself.
