The ears of numerous Tottenham fans undoubtedly pricked up this week as the news emerged that Damien Duff was moving from Chelsea to Tottenham in an ?11m deal. The BBC, forever defenders of truth, even carried the story citing that he had his medical on Sunday and would move within the next few days. As Wednesday approaches and the end of a ?few days? comes around, the transfer fee ranged from ?7-?11m, his salary from ?40,000-?65,000 and the transfer was off. Was this another vicious rumour or is there no smoke without fire?

The World Cup has filled a void that must be a football writer?s nightmare, the period between the end of one season and the beginning of another. Match of the Day, Soccer AM, Jimmy Hill?s Sunday Supplement, they are all on holiday and don?t need to worry but for the football journalist, the back pages do not take a break and they are tasked with filling the space. Invariably, the space usually dedicated to match reviews et al is filled with transfer rumours. The Damien Duff story is the latest in a long line of transfer gossip that has emanated from the British tabloids and enthralled the fans. If you believe everything you read, don?t it?s dangerous, Tottenham have spent millions signing the likes of Darren Bent, Fernando Torres, Pascal Chimbonda, Lucas Neill, Micah Richards, Curtis Davies and Kevin Nolan, to name but a few. In attempting to balance the books, Michael Carrick has signed for Manchester United, Jermain Defoe has gone to Portsmouth and perhaps the best deal of all, Callum Davenport has been sold to all 24 Championship clubs for ?1.5m each, an excellent deal if ever I saw one. So it would seem that instead of taking a break, absolute rubbish fills the back pages??but it is interesting!

My all time favourite transfer gossip relates to the signing of Juan Sebastian Veron by Manchester United in 2001. A leading tabloid newspaper ran stories that he was signing for Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Juventus. When the deal was eventually signed to take him to Manchester, splashed across the back pages was the words ?World Exclusive? with an inset of the original story they had ran months before. It is perhaps because I do not get out much but it really made me laugh as they failed to mention, in their ?World Exclusive? that they had already had him signing for the five other teams. It is obvious that once Lazio were going to let Veron go, he would only go to one of the teams with the financial clout to pay c?30m for him and also, guarantee him a certain standard of football. This is why the tabloid tales this summer have intrigued me so much. In the past two season, Tottenham have been linked with players that the likes of Aston Villa, Everton and Man City would go for. Now, after a fine season under Martin Jol, we are being linked with players from the top clubs (Duff ? Chelsea), that the top clubs are after (Zakora ? Man U and Arsenal) and who the top clubs want (Carrick ? Man U, Real Madrid). Although league positions are most important, it is nice to see that even the tabloids recognised it was a good season at White Hart Lane. The problem is, while as a fan it keeps our attention for the commute to work, it can cause disruption for the squad.

Martin Jol strikes me as an honest. I have never met him but on television and in interviews, he comes across as the type of person you respect because of his honesty. Maybe he said too much or maybe he was just being honest but when he recently remarked that the squad had been affected by the numerous reports of transfer activity, you begin to see the ugly side of the gossip. Players are only human and are likely to read the papers and constant transfer rumours have to unsettle you. Although the first eleven may be comfortable, for those considered fringe players it is a different story. The likes of Andy Reid, Wayne Routledge, Reto Ziegler and various others have the potential but not if a new ?10m+ signing takes their place. It must therefore, be hard for Jol to let them know they have a chance, especially with Comolli pulling the transfer strings. This is where the transfer rumours become so destructive as players request transfers because they feel threatened. Credit to Jol, only Stephen Kelly has seemingly taken his chance and jumped ship as rumours of other Chimbonda stories circulate, thus far. I think it will be a test of character for Jol to keep the squad united over the coming months and into the start of the Premiership season.

So will Damien Duff sign or is it duff info, only time will tell!

There has been a lot of talk recently that the club would have to restructure its large debt accrued during the takeover by Malcolm Glazer and his family some 14 months ago, and today its been announced that the club have finalised a ?660 million pound debt restructuring. This now means that the clubs? annual interest charge will fall from ?90 million to ?62 million, while the overall amount borrowed could rise to ?660 million (from ?580 million).

Ok, so what exactly does this mean? Well, I should preface this my saying that I’m no economist, but it seems that the Glazer?s hold on the club has been yet further strengthened. This is because as part of the deal the club has also halved (to ?135 million) the amount it owes in PIK (payment-in-kind) notes. PIK’s have very high rates of interest, and if they were not repaid then the Glazers could have been forced to handover part of their stake in the club. Basically, now that the amount owed in PIK?s has been halved there will be less interest to repay, meaning the Glazers are less likely to have to give up part of their stake, which in turn means that they will feel much more secure in their ownership of the club.

Obviously that news isn?t exactly music to the ears of United fans, myself included, but despite my concern that the amount of money the club could end up borrowing has increased, the debt restructuring does put us on a (slightly) more solid financial footing, which can only be a good thing. We can?t control who owns our club, unfortunately, (just ask any Villa fan) and while things like debt restructuring may be alien to fans used to the club being among the richest in the world, it?s certainly something we?ll all have to get used to.

The club themselves have - at the time of writing - yet to release a statement on the matter, but a Glazer family spokesperson said that the debt restructuring deal, along with the recent increase in Old Trafford?s capacity and the new sponsorship deal with AIG, means that there will be ?sufficient funds in the transfer market? for Fergie to spend - note the word ’sufficient’ rather than, say, ‘ample’. Let?s hope he spends whatever money he’s given wisely, because if we don?t succeed on the pitch, our financial situation would leave us in deep trouble, and not having funds for transfers would be the least of our worries.

Arsenal’s pre season plans have been left in disarray with the news that centreback Phillipe Senderos will most likely miss the first two months of the season recovering from the dislocated shoulder he suffered while on World Cup duty with Switzerland.

With Sol Campbell having already left Highbury / Ashburton Grove this summer the Gunners were already looking a little light on centre back support and with Arsene Wenger confirming that both Johan Djourou and Gael Clichy have been struggling with injuries as well, things are looking decidedly grim as the new season approaches.

The expected departure of error-prone Frenchman Pascal Cygan looks to now being delayed as he could in fact find himself as a starting member of the Arsenal side alongside Kolo Toure at the heart of the Arsenal defence. With Arsenal’s transfer budget mostly spent on Czech playmaker Tomas Rosicky, Arsene Wenger now has a worrying wait to see just how many fit bodies he has to fill the gaps in his defence until Senderos returns.

We all know that for years now Manchester United have been searching for a new Roy Keane, and for many years the man Fergie considered best to fill the Irishman?s boots was Patrick Vieira. However, in his final season for Arsenal he looked a shadow of his former self, no longer the rampaging dynamic midfielder he once was, he seemed slow and lugubrious, at times almost disinterested. Like the ageing Keane it seemed that even on the occasions that the spirit was willing, the body was not, and so Arsene Wenger sold him to Juventus at the beginning of last season for around ?13m (a deal I personally felt was a shrewd piece of business, considering his form and the fact that he was originally signed for a fraction of that price).

And so as Vieira toiled away rather sluggishly in Turin (the clubs? nickname of The Old Lady seeming quite apt at times), his name was barely even mentioned when Man Utd?s midfield shortcomings were discussed. Now 30, many feel (with good reason) that he is past his best and in any case, with Juventus so dominant in Italy it seemed unlikely he would have any reason to leave.

But then, of course, came the match fixing scandal and Juve?s relegation to Serie B (as well having to begin next season with ?30 points). It seems that most ? if not all ? of Juve?s top players are up for grabs, Vieira among them, and so I?m not really surprised to see his name linked with us once again, as it seems we?re ready to offer him an escape route out of Serie B. What?s more, with Keane gone and van Nistelrooy likely to be on his way to Real Madrid very soon, the two Utd players who bear the most animosity towards Vieira (dating back to his Arsenal days) would no longer be present should he arrive at Old Trafford.

The question is would Vieira really make a good addition to our squad? I?ve said many times that we need one, if not two, top-class central midfielders (and I?ll keep saying it until we buy some) and Vieira fits that bill, at least reputation-wise, if perhaps not form-wise in these past couple of domestic seasons. I think it was probably the World Cup rather than Juve?s relegation that resulted in Vieira re-appearing on Fergie?s radar. His form for France was like a microcosm of the team as a whole, poor in the first two games but then, once his goal flew in against Togo, both player and team seemed transformed. As brilliant and mercurial as Zidane was in those games against Spain and Brazil, it was Vieira who was the real driving force behind France?s unexpected run to the final. He looked suddenly full of energy and vigour, crunching into tackles like it was 2003 again, and proving that he was still as comfortable as anyone in possession.

Despite his ties to Arsenal, if he could re-create this kind of form in a Utd shirt I would gladly welcome him into the team and he would be a great addition to the squad. My worry is, though, that he won?t be able to be as consistently good as he used to be for Arsenal in his heyday, and at 30, its highly likely he will only get worse. Age will certainly limit him, as like Keane he relies on his athleticism and energy to play his game, and as we saw, injuries and age caught up with Keane is his latter years and he was no longer the box-to-box midfielder of old, preferring instead to stay deep in what now appears to be universally known as ?the Makelele role? which limited his role ? and influence ? quite considerably.

This reminds me a little of the time we signed Laurent Blanc. He had been one of the best central defenders of his generation as was a player Fergie had coveted for many years, so when an opportunity came along to sign him, he took it. Sadly for us, we signed the great Frenchman a few years too late, and even though it was wonderful to watch him react to every single situation with almost ridiculous calm, Blanc, at the time, was no longer a great player. The same, I think, could now be said about Patrick Vieira. Already as I?m writing this I fear these words will come back to haunt me, and should he sign for Utd I hope they do, but right now I?m not convinced that this will be an astute signing for the club, and believe we?d be better off going for someone younger.

Well maybe you are but the rest of the blokes in the pub or your family are sick of listening to you spouting off about what’s going on with your club in the transfer market or how the players hate the chairman and how tightfisted he is. Maybe you read football websites or newspapers and wonder if the columnists have ever been to a football match in their lives before and deep down you know you can do better.

If that’s you then you are just the kind of football fan we need at State of the Game. We’re looking for enthusiastic football fans to become weekly columnists and keep us up to date with everything that’s happening at their club over the course of pre-season and the 2006/2007 season. Maybe you follow the club home and away every game, maybe you live on the other side of the world and make a pilgrimage every ten years, we don’t care, the only criteria is that you love your club and can handle writing at least one column a week.

It’s not difficult but when you get your thoughts on your club in front of thousands of football fans every day it becomes very worthwhile. You’ll get the adulation of your fellow fans, you’ll also get some stick and abuse because we’re all passionate about football and especially when it comes to our own teams and we’ll all fight tooth and nail for our point of view.

If you would like to contribute to making this website the best place on the internet for football news and discussion then get in touch and we’ll get you up and running with a column. Just imagine your name on the internet as a football writer, whether you are building your portfolio or just ranting about the idiots in control at your club, get in touch and get writing.

Aston Villa chairman Doug Ellis has hit back hard at yesterday’s statement reputedly from the Aston Villa squad berating him for a lack of investment in the club and for a series of petty cost cutting measures.

In a statement to the club’s official website Villa head of media and communications Phil Mepham said:

“The chairman is furious, because he has had no indication from any member of the playing or coaching staff of any dissatisfaction at the training ground. So this has come as a great surprise.”

“Once the ’story’ broke, I spoke to several senior members of the first-team squad, all of whom had no knowledge of the statement. All of them were surprised at its content. So to suggest this is a collective statement is ridiculous.”

With the season less than a month away and Villa fans becoming increasingly edgy over the lack of positive transfer activity, yesterday’s statement from the players seemed to be a direct message to the board that all was not well at the club but in true Doug Ellis style, it seems like he is ready to just bury his head in the sand and resist all calls for his departure or for adequate resources to be made available to the coaching staff.

It could be a long, hard season at Villa Park for all concerned.

We all said last summer that things didn’t seem quite right at Arsenal with Ashley Cole after the whole Chelsea/tapping up furore and with Cole’s autobiography about to be published it looks like we’re about to see the England fullback finally have his say.

For a promotional teaser from a footballer’s autobiography, it looks like interesting reading:

“Arsenal hung me out to dry, using me as a scapegoat to get back at Chelsea,” he is quoted in The Sun as saying.

“The board ‘rewarded’ me with an insult and threw years of loyalty back in my face.

“I’ll reveal the shattering truth about who fed me to the sharks. It changed my view forever on the club I regarded as family.”

Seeing as Ashley Cole is still an Arsenal player (although for how long?) it’s astounding that he will burn his bridges so publically in a book while still having the cheek to pocket his sizeable paycheck every week.

The rumours of a Chelsea move have been growing all summer and with the lacklustre Del Horno and Bridge currently occupying the Russian left back berth, we won’t be too surprised to see Cole go. One thing looks certain however and it’s the fact that I don’t believe we’ll see too many copies of Ashley Cole’s autobiography floating around the new club shop at Ashburton Grove this season.

Cesc Fabregas’s agent Joseba Diaz has backed down from his previous Real Madrid courting stance and has denied that his player will be leaving Arsenal for the bright lights of La Liga this summer or anytime soon.

He told BBC Radio Five Live:

“We have one very good offer from Madrid but Cesc and Arsenal prefer he plays in London. Cesc is very grateful to Mr (Arsene) Wenger, Mr (David) Dein and the supporters of Arsenal and he just prefers playing at Arsenal next season and I think a lot of seasons in London.”

The loss of Fabregas would have been a hard blow for Arsenal to take after his meteoric rise to Arsenal first team regular and Spanish World Cup squad member this season. Having had to fill the boots of Patrick Vieira at Highbury was a hard enough task but with La Liga so full of quality Spanish players at the moment, Fabregas really had to shine in England to catch the eyes of Spain coach Luis Aragones and he did it in style.

With the signing of Tomas Rosicky and the continued rumours of Javier Saviola joining Arsenal in time for the new season, there seems to be a move towards an even more swashbuckling, adventurous Arsenal midfield style and with Fabregas in the thick of things to settle the others down and control the passing, they will be a lot more balanced in that area.

While Joseba Diaz says that Fabregas will be in London “for a lot of seasons”, I’m sure Arsenal fans will be happy just to take his continued presence one year at a time, starting with 2006/2007 and the move to Ashburton Grove.

Bolton chairman Phil Gartside has voiced his incredulity at the prospect of Sam Allardyce leaving Bolton Wanderers to take over as Sunderland manager and can’t quite see the logic being offered for anyone to take such a move.

“It is nonsense to suggest Sam would even consider leaving Bolton to go to Sunderland. How could anybody even think that?”

“Why would he consider leaving a club - one of only five clubs to finish in the top 10 of the Premiership for the last three years - to go to a club that has just been relegated and where there is no money?”

I have to say I agree with gartside. I thought this was just another nonsense summer rumour when I first read it (like the papers claiming that Marcello Lippi is the new Spurs manager!) but it seems like Niall Quinn and his consortium were very serious about appointing Allardyce and for their part, I can see why. Sam isn’t England manager material, despite what he himself may think, but at smaller clubs with limited transfer budgets he certanily knows how to get the maximum potential out of a squad and weave homegrown talent with some ageing experience from abroad.

What he would want to go to the yo-yoing Sunderland for is another matter. As Gartside says, no money and in the Championship after a dismal Premiership campaign. Hardly a “must have” job for a respected, seasoned Premiership manager who has established his club in the top part of that mid table scrum.

The Newcastle job would have been as high as Sam Allardyce could have gone in English football in my opinion and with it going to Glenn Roeder and Steve McLaren taking the England job, maybe Sam would look elsewhere for a new challenge. Personally I think he’d be mad to even consider the Sunderland job but each to their own. Maybe it’s one for Alex McLeish to consider if he decided to come down south to manage?

With friendly fixtures with Wrexham, Crewe and Lincoln City to whet my appetite before Liverpool?s forthcoming Premiership campaign, and a largely disappointing World Cup still a very clear memory, I?ve yet to get that warm glow that normally pervades the prospect of nine months of domestic football.

The Arrivals

Aurelio, Fabio-less?

Still, I know little about Liverpool?s signings for the season ahead (aside from Craig Bellamy, who I covered in an earlier article), and the prospect of a 26-year-old Brazilian left-back (Fabio Aurelio) fills me with nothing but fear, and the 20-year-old Gabriel Paletta smacks of Carling Cup third round player only. Although the idea of Mark Gonzales offering wing-play that hasn?t been seen in a Liverpool shirt since McManaman departed these shores excites me no end, I?ve never actually seen him play!

So Long and Good Riddance?

Bruno Chey-who?

Some of the dead wood has been cleared out too; the disappointing Nando Morientes was sold to Valencia at a ?3million loss and Bruno Cheyrou is finally off our books, along with the youngsters Conal Platt, Zak Whitbread, Daniel Raven, Ramon Calliste and Paul Willis (amongst others) cleared from the reserves, and ?promising Spanish full-back? Antonio Barragan likely on his way to Deportivo La Coruna. July has also seen the perennially injured Chris Kirkland sign another long-term loan deal with another ?lesser? Premiership club (this time Wigan), and Djibril Cisse seems likely to make his comeback from the broken leg he suffered prior to the World Cup as a Marseille player (again on a loan basis).

Please Mind the Gap

With the only other deal on the horizon being the signing of full-back Daniel Alves from Sevilla (pending the agreement of a fee in the region of ?10-?12 million ? he?d better be good), Liverpool still seem short in two key areas ? centre-back (Rafa seemed unwilling to trust anyone in the squad outside of Hyypia-Carragher last season, even the multi-million Agger) and striker (with Bellamy, Fowler and Crouch the main options, I think we need a fourth unless Pongolle or Mellor are to finally be given a real chance). I guess we’ll have to wait and see how Rafa takes advantage of any Italian divident.

Didi-n’t He Do Well?

Didi Departed

Another gaping hole in the squad has been left by the departure Dietmar “the Kaiser” Hamann, who today completed his free transfer to Manchester City (unlucky Bolton). Now Didi was seldom a spectacular player for Liverpool, but in my eyes he was certainly one of the most influential in our recent history.

Since his arrival from Newcastle seven years ago Hamann has been the backbone of the Liverpool midfield (playing in a similar role to that of Carrick at Spurs for those who need a reference point), holding steady whilst the likes of Gerrard, Murphy and McAllister did the ?glory work? for the ?Treble? winning side of 2001, and more recently rising from the bench to offer the same services in the 2005 Champions [sic] League and 2006 FA Cup wins. His performance against Kaka in Istanbul being particularly noteworthy. Although Alonso has been a more than useful replacement in terms of passing and even shooting, I feel he isn?t quite the steadying influence that our great German was. Sadly even the great footballers get old.

Also, who can forget Hamann?s career with Germany, a stunning goal against Northern Ireland in 1999 grinds me still, and his was the final strike at the old Wembley (what was Spunky doing?) in 2000. In 2002 he also became the first Liverpool player to feature in a World Cup Final since Roger Hunt in 1966.

Hamann leaves Anfield as our most successful European import ever with a total of nine winner?s medals (Champions [sic] League, UEFA Cup, 2 FA Cup, 2 League Cup, 2 European Super Cup and a Charity Shield) and four runners-up (Premiership, League Cup, World Club Championship and Community Shield) ? a worthy haul in addition to those he won in his native Germany with Bayern Munich.

Auf Wiedersehn Didi, and best of luck at Eastlands (except for when the Reds come marching in!).

Back to the Future

Anyway, onwards to the 2006/07 season, I might warm to it when I finally see the new Adidas Liverpool kit, I ?m hoping for something retro to go with the title!

Our last Title Winning Shirt!