Spurs trying to re-sign Keane

[Rory Fitzgerald]

SPURS are trying to re-sign Liverpool’s Robbie Keane.

By CHRIS BASCOMBE, 06/12/2008

 

SPURS are trying to re-sign Liverpool’s Robbie Keane.

 

And a bid anywhere near the £20m the league leaders paid in July could see the Irishman make a January return to White Hart Lane.

 

Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp wants to test how much patience Rafa Benitez has lost with the striker, who was an unused sub during yesterday’s 3-1 win at Blackburn.

 

But even if Rafa looked to cash in, the Anfield board would need convincing of the merits, as the Merseysiders’ would inevitably have to accept a loss.

 

They agreed to pay Spurs £20m in instalments, which means Redknapp could offer part of the summer fee and waive the estimated £10m still owed.

 

Keane’s dream move to Merseyside has gone sour just five months into his Anfield career as he’s struggled with confidence and form.

 

He effectively has until the end of the month to convince his manager Spurs’ interest should be rebuffed as Rafa plots a radical shake-up of his squad in January.

Opportunity

 

Benitez wants funds to remedy summer transfer mistakes, none of whom started at Ewood Park.

 

Liverpool’s recent signings have failed to have an impact, with only Albert Riera acquitting himself reasonably well.

 

Left back Andrea Dossena, who cost £7m from Udinese, will be offloaded back to Italy at the first opportunity.

 

Right-back Phillip Degen, who was given a £2m signing on fee and £38,000-a-week salary when he joined from Borussia Dortmund, hasn’t featured in the Premier League due to a succession of injuries.

 

Rafa wants to bring Emile Heskey back to Anfield for £3m, as well as two full-backs to compete with Fabio Aurelio and Alvaro Arbeloa.

Lure

 

There are those at Anfield who still hope Rafa can be convinced into a rethink on Michael Owen at the right price, especially if Keane is sold, but the manager opposes the idea.

 

Keane grew up as a Liverpool fan and always wanted to become a idol on the Kop.

 

After starting at Wolves, he had spells at Coventry, Inter Milan and Leeds before finally settling at Spurs, where he became club captain.

 

Last season he formed one of best partnerships in the Premier League with Dimitar Berbatov but could not resist the lure of Anfield.

 

But he has only scored four goals for the Reds, has played 90 minutes just three times and been substituted 15 times.

[CarraLegend]

If we get nearish to what we bought him for then do it, he's good but I dont think he's got that top quality so get most of our money back hopefully £15m or so, and they get a "messiah" to help them in their relegation battle

 

Edit : Bascombe seems to only get about 1 in 10 stories right now so probably rubbish anyway

Edited December 7, 2008 by CarraLegend

[MFletcher]

I anticipate this story being ridiculed in the Echo later in the week.

 

Much the same way as the Owen story was last week.

[Spike]

BBC are reporting a mass break in at Fleet street and canary warf. Loads of PCs missing. Monkeys suspected.

[Rory Fitzgerald]

If we are all for mindless speculating then let me throw the name of Tuncay Sanli into the ring as an option for a cheap, good quality and under the radar option. I think the lad should be at a better club

[Tones]

What about this in regards to Defoe returning to Spurs:

A Premier League spokesman said: “It is written in section L19 of the Premier League rules that a club which transfers or cancels the registration of a player may not apply to register that player within a year.

 

“The only exception to that is if it has been made with the prior written consent of the Premier League board.”

[Hodgson for Chelsea]

I'd stick with Keane now...he's not been great but he will only get better as the pressure comes off him as the 20m man. I think leaving him out today was a great decision...give him a rest from the limelight for a week, maybe use him against Hull and hope he hits the back of the net.

Edited December 7, 2008 by stozza

[Stevie H]

bascombe's pieces are a joke these days unfotunately.

[madaboutlfc]

bascombe's pieces are a joke these days unfotunately.

fortunately id say given the paper he works for

[Magic8Ball]

I guess most people are laughing at that - but I guess it's possible. - Sadly I don't think Rafa would go for it unless he has another striker lined up. He clearly has little faith in Babel.

 

The potential of a Jan consisting of Selling Keane back to Spurs, signing Bale, selling Dossena back to Italy and potentially finding a new striker would keep us talking on here for weeks

[Benitez]

PLTBT

[David Hodgson]

bascombe's pieces are a joke these days unfotunately.

 

I think his articles to accuracy ratio is begining to match Keanes goals/games stats.

 

Perhaps the NOTW will sell him back to the Echo, on the cheap, in January.

[Stevie H]

the mirror's done well today. on the home page and the football page they have headlines about ged houllier leading the race for the sunderland job both accompanied by photos of rafa. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/

[Swagger]

Why the f*** does Rafa want Heskey back?

 

Do we really need another goal-shy striker?

[Cooger]

Why the f*** does Rafa want Heskey back?

 

Do we really need another goal-shy striker?

 

We need back up to Torres, not necessarily a partner for him as we have that in Gerrard.

 

Heskey would give us a plan b, more direct approach which we lost with Crouch.

 

Given he's a 'Rafa type of player' as he works hard, giving his all for the team and he'd cost little, I can see a lot of reasoning behind the decision.

[Redkop]

the mirror's done well today. on the home page and the football page they have headlines about ged houllier leading the race for the sunderland job both accompanied by photos of rafa. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/

Hahahaha.... what numpties

[ali]

No compensation for Robbie amid a rising tally of missed sitters

 

Sunday December 07 2008

 

Perhaps the most damning judgement on Robbie Keane's time at Liverpool is the news that Rafael Benitez is considering re-signing Emile Heskey in the summer. It is a move which, in a further indictment of Robbie's time, has been welcomed by many Liverpool fans. "I dream of the day when he comes back," one Liverpool supporter said to me last week, speaking of the man who scored a goal on average once every 187 games during his previous spell at the club.

 

There is plenty of time for Keane to transform his career at Liverpool and he has not been helped by Benitez's determination to play him in an unfamiliar role but the evidence so far suggests that if Robbie is to prolong his career at Liverpool, he will be required to make a fundamental cultural adaptation.

 

Irish supporters have, for many years, been frustrated by a certain giddiness in Robbie's play. This is most apparent in the biggest matches when Keane seems distracted sometimes to the point of apoplexy by the desire to appeal every decision to the referee or fulfil the role of mascot, more traditionally taken by a small child, by offering constant and tireless encouragement to his team-mates.

 

The second point is more simply overcome: if Robbie was to convert just one of the many chances from four yards he has missed this season instead of fresh-airing them at a ratio previously unknown in a professional footballer, his team-mates would find themselves greatly encouraged and their morale more significantly boosted than it is from his periodic bouts of ritualised hand-clapping.

 

Undoing his need to run away from the ball and appeal for everything from a penalty to a throw-in will take longer because this is a cultural phenomenon. Robbie, in his desire to win a penalty rather than simply kick the ball, is demonstrating a familiar dependency on the compensation culture which he has not lost despite now being a multi-millionaire.

 

The need to get something for nothing is now deeply ingrained in our culture and Robbie's problems at Liverpool increase as he becomes more desperate. Like many of us, as he stares into the abyss, he forgets that there may be something on offer for actually doing something, so distracted is he by the notion that he will be compensated by the referee for the negligence of his opponents.

 

So he claims and claims again, drawn by an ancient race memory that when times are bad, somebody, somewhere has always got Paddy out of a hole, even if sometimes Paddy's had to pretend to fall into the hole just to get things rolling. When he was writing about the Lisbon Treaty in the Irish Times, Frederick Forsyth commented that "behind the cheery 'Slainte', Paddy is smart as paint and sharp as a new razor".

 

Wise words indeed, but Paddy's native cunning is hindering Robbie right now as he looks for the angle, convinced as his forebears were that somebody should pay for this.

 

Just before they held his number up to substitute him last Monday, Robbie was glimpsed muttering in that self-pitying way that is also buried deep within the psyche "I bet it's me". At that moment, he appeared as beleaguered and downtrodden as Rashers Tierney, but without the perseverance and sense of hope.

 

It has been suggested by some, or by me at least, that Benitez's upbringing as the son of a hotel manager made a deep impression on his character. In a hotel, you witness all aspects of humanity, all appeals to the human spirit or at least the human spirit in the form of the night porter. For some, this might instill a deep sense of compassion and humanity; in Benitez it seems to have bred an understandable distrust and dissatisfaction with mankind.

 

He is notoriously demanding (his attention to detail might also be a product of the hotel environment where the absence of a chocolate on a pillow might send a guest into a rage) and as Robbie struggles to understand what made him a good player at Tottenham Hotspur, it may not help if his manager is also expressing his doubts as he tries to improve the player through rigorous, brutal but constructive criticism.

 

Liverpool's league position isn't helping Robbie either. At Tottenham, he could go large chunks of the season without anyone paying attention before he volleyed one to the top corner against another mid-table side. A home draw against West Ham would probably be met with cautionary words in the dressing-room afterwards warning the lads not to overdo the celebrations.

 

Spurs lost nearly every game after they won the Carling Cup last season and while the hardcore may have expressed some mild disapproval at the manner of some of those defeats, nobody seemed to be that surprised or even concerned. There was certainly no talk of a crisis or for the manager to come out and give Robbie his backing as Benitez did last week just after his side moved clear at the top of the table.

 

Liverpool fans may think that if they had not lost Fernando Torres for much of the season they would now be 12 points clear. This would, however, increase the possibility of them "doing a Newcastle" something that cannot be countenanced while their American owners appear intent on "doing a Leeds".

 

There are only so many dysfunctional clubs Liverpool can ape in one season, so while the commentators and analysts criticise Liverpool, Benitez is challenging Chelsea and Manchester United at the top of the table on a budget that would probably have Gary Megson shaking his head in despair and uttering a desperate, "Ha!"

 

But this scorn for Benitez's achievements is nothing new. It has been a constant and familiar response to the remarkable job he has done. They have always been wrong and their cries suggest once more that Benitez is on the right track.

 

dionfanning@gmail.com

 

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-spor...rs-1566393.html

[stressederic]

Perhaps the most damning judgement on Robbie Keane's time at Liverpool is the news that Rafael Benitez is considering re-signing Emile Heskey in the summer. It is a move which, in a further indictment of Robbie's time, has been welcomed by many Liverpool fans. "I dream of the day when he comes back," one Liverpool supporter said to me last week, speaking of the man who scored a goal on average once every 187 games during his previous spell at the club.

 

That'll be Kev then.

[Clay Davis]

speaking of the man who scored a goal on average once every 187 games during his previous spell at the club.

what?

[Sion]

Why the f*** does Rafa want Heskey back?

 

Do we really need another goal-shy striker?

I'd rather have Heskey + money for other players than Keane.

That said i'd rather have someone completely different.

[floyd]

what?

I know. It was once every 192 games.

[Andy @ Allerton]

Bascombe makes me laugh.

 

A more ridiculous journalist it would be difficult to find.

[Bootle Buck]

Destined to be Bascombe's next employer

 

Edited December 7, 2008 by Bootle Buck

[Kite]

A home draw against West Ham would probably be met with cautionary words in the dressing-room afterwards warning the lads not to overdo the celebrations.

Really stuck the boot into Robbie there but that line made me laugh out loud. Anyhow, good article from Fanning, bad from Bascome - he seems to just print a kind of forum opinion as fact these days, at best.

[The Hitman]

That stat must be incorrect.

Somebody figure it out,that's an absolute bolloc*s figure.