All Action, No Plot

Robbie Keane Returns, Confused Fans Wonder Whether to Cheer or Jeer

The Tottenham transfer policy has begun to spiral beyond the realms of reason with the news of Keane’s return.  The policy of buying back players, which had seemed ironic and mildly amusing at first, now appears to be a dedicated strategy on the part of Levy and Redknapp, with predictable jokes now being made about the imminent return of Mido, Mabbut and Mullery.. However, while the return of Defoe was greeted in the wildly over-zealous manner of a human deity, Robbie Keane’s is likely to be a little harder to stomach for the N17 regulars. Opinion will, inevitably, be split between haters and slightly reluctant accepters, but there are arguments in both camps…

“Tree Cheers For The Oirish Scamp!”

He’s a very good player. He’s not the best in the world, but he’s nevertheless comfortably good enough to help us secure our Premiership status. It’s probably a safer bet to spend £12 mil on a player who is proven Premiership quality, than splash out similar amounts on some foreign unknown, or a domestic player who still has question marks hanging over his ability (for a step-by-step, illustrated explanation of this point compare Darren Bent and Jermain Defoe).

He’s a worker. Yes, he moans, wags his finger and rather tediously blames everyone but himself - but he also buzzes around with the verve of a three year-old who’s been force-fed sugar and class A drugs. Such an attitude is vastly preferable in a relegation scrap to that of a prima donna more obsessed with keeping his shirt dazzlingly white and flicking his fringe.

We made an £8 mil profit over six months. Huzzah! Admittedly this is neither here nor there for the fans – it’s not like the entire sum will be poured into ticket-price reductions. In fact, the entire sum and more might one day be spent upon Stewart One-Trick Downing, but let’s not depress ourselves. Schadenfreude is one of the most wonderful things on God’s green earth, and the opportunity to laugh at Liverpool ought not to be passed up.

“That Treacherous Scoundrel Is Not Fit To Wear The Shirt…”

Loyalty. We should all know better than to feel aggrieved at the lack of loyalty of a footballer, but the dastardly nature of Keane’s sudden exit still left us all smarting. We may not like to admit it, but there’s a 5 year-old in each of us who was secretly (or openly) hoping that he would crash and burn spectacularly at Anfield. How we all smugly chortled when events transpired precisely thus. Ah, the hilarity. Serves him right, we smirked, for messing with Spurs. This whole script of puerile mockery has now been rather ruined by the fact that we, the jilted lover, have now welcomed him back as if it were all one big misunderstanding, for which we were at fault. Frankly it’s a bit difficult to laugh at him now. Could we not have left him to rot at Anfield and bought someone else? Childish, for sure, but it was a thought that flashed through a lot of minds as the story broke. (Academic now – we’ll all be cheering him again, soon enough.)

He’s no target-man. Forgive my imbecility, but I had thought we were after a great hulking mammoth of a front-man? A Kenwyne Jones-esque beast of a striker, who eats small animals and children for his half-time snack, and who can’t be barged off the ball by a whole fleet of Soviet tanks. Robbie Keane has many, attributes, but being the long-lost twin of Emile Heskey is not one of them.  Having prioritised a big-man upfront, this concerted change of transfer policy is striking - and potentially flawed if ‘Arry remains unconvinced by Pav and Bent.

The Keane-Defoe conundrum. So how does this fit in with Jermain Defoe? Admittedly Defoe is now out for 10 weeks, so there was a very strong case for splashing the cash and bringing in another proven Premiership striker, and pronto. However, Defoe is not about to retire. He’ll be back one day, and when he is we can once again all twist our knickers and write reams and reams about the folly of trying to pair Keane and Defoe. History suggests that failure to solve this one, again, will lead to one of them throwing toys from pram and legging it out of the Lane. As a small child I would shrug and assume that someone, somewhere knew what was going on. Now I shrug and file everything that happens at the Lane under the heading “All Action, No Plot”.

And one final thought, to be mulled over at your leisure. Where the blazes is all this money coming from?