So the Martin Skrtel story “took a twist” last night, did it? Is it still a twist if every sane, every sentient, every rational person on the planet who wasn’t looking through a blue lens, could see it coming a mile down the track?
The media can call it what it likes.
But it definitely came as no surprise to the inhabitants of what metaphysicians call “reality.”
Sevco websites have been peeing their pants over the story for almost a week. They believed that it really was viable for a Scottish club to pay a transfer fee in the millions for a 33-year-old and then to give him a three-year deal on monumental wages. Where was the cash coming from to do this piece of remarkable business? Nobody had an answer.
And still nobody has an answer, because the plain and simple truth of this situation is that the money for such a deal is not there and Sevco has no way of getting it short of selling players who, media nonsense aside, no-one wants to buy at the grossly exorbitant fees which are being bandied about as their alleged “asking prices.”
If Gerrard bought into the idea that his pot of gold was coming from player sales then he reminds me of the patsy Billy Connolly and his gang find in Peter McDougall’s superb drama Down Amongst The Big Boys, a self-loving eejit who meets a guy in a bar and accepts a job offer from him only to find out later that he was “on a using.”
The shop he’s asked to run sells nothing but stolen gear from a hijack, and the gang uses the place as their jump off point to tunnel through the wall into a vault filled with safety deposit boxes.
Here’s the kicker, as one of the cops points out. “And irony of ironies, you’re paid, by standing order, from the bank next door that’s just been tanned … I wouldn’t go borrowing money on the strength of your wages.”
Take Morelos for one; the “Chinese offer” which drew so much derision on social media and which the press pushed and pushed long after it had collapsed like a pack of cards, was like a joke without a punchline. I never understood the point of it. It was never going to “spark an auction” amongst clubs who possessed the ability to actually watch him play … the only interest expressed in him so far is, hilariously, from a Turkish team who want him on loan.
Skrtel’s agent has said there is a huge gap between the wages Sevco is willing to pay and that which his client is willing to accept; there is the first dose of truth and honesty that club’s supporters has received in a long, long while.
The agent admits that the player would enjoy hooking up with Gerrard again; old mates, getting together in a common cause.
Very nice.
Sevco fans can take some heart from that, but not too much.
Because pragmatism comes first, and anyone who gets the offer will have to weigh the positives of a mates reunion with the cold truth of what they’d be involved in; a dogfight for second place in Scotland, on vastly reduced remuneration and, not inconsiderably, the notion of having to play, at the end of their career, with more pressure than ever.
Most players don’t want that in a last pay-day. They want an easy time. They want to wind down with the minimum of fuss.
I don’t expect that this first departure from the land of make believe in which they’ve become camped will matter.
They will move on to the next fantasy signing target and embrace hope all over again.
But today should serve as advance notice on the rest of the summer; transfer deals are done in the real world, not in La La Land and players, unlike youth team coaches promoted beyond their experience, will not sign a contract based on vague promises and pie in the sky.
They won’t play for ginger bottles either.