Are Football Players A Bit Stupid?!?

It might be obvious to some, but the way we all talk about our beloved footballing heroes makes me think that perhaps we are treating them a bit too like they are normal, rational human beings who aren't living in a high pressure environment with no time whatsoever to think!

Perhaps the reason that things have been slow around Villa Park of late is the not due to insufficient funds or MON's bumbling. Perhaps it is the same reason things have been so slow at Everton. That reason being that footballers are a bit thick.

We are all very worried about the current transfer policy at Villa. I certainly am and think that having now started our second competitive season without a right back is criminal. However, today David Moyes admitted he was finding the transfer window very frustrating which echoes thoughts from our own MON.

What if the problem is simply this: to any intelligent football fan, both Villa and Everton seem like decent prospects. Stable finances, long term manager, vision and potential. But to a footballer who may not have such a considered view it must seem like we are a bit of a boring club compared to Spurs or Pompey who are setting the window alight with activity.

In my opinion both Spurs and Pompey seem like worse prospects than Everton or Villa for a number of reasons. Pompey don't have the fan base or the long term vision and spurs just seem to have more money than sense which makes an inevitable West Ham like 'fiscal tightening' a future possibility.

But maybe what makes a club attractive to someone with time to spend posting on a message board in the middle of the night (cough, cough) is not what makes a club attractive to a professional footballer.

Perhaps the reason we didn't get Bentley is because Bentley sees Spurs as a better prospect because they are buying players with a bit of a 'buzz' about them. Spurs have a buzz. Man City have a buzz. Pompey have a buzz. All because they are buying 'name' players that also have a buzz.

But we all know that clubs that get a bunch of buzz players don't always do well. In fact, do they ever? Newcastle, West Ham and Man City are all recent examples. Man City at the start of last year looked top four and scarily like a new Chelsea. But things mellowed and it turned out that Sven did well, but not that well. Of 9 players he got Petrov that was any good. (Elano is a waste of space IMHO before anyone chimes in) Not as well as MON who's signings included Harewood and Knight.

In fact, on this site we were all commenting on how great Sven had done and how it showed up MON's transfer policy. Then we finished 6th and they 9th after a long hard season.

The point is this: its not just footballers that are being a bit thick. Perhaps we all are. Perhaps we forget that MON is a top manager because he doesn't buy buzz players like Owen and Crouch and Defoe and Geovanni and Bianchi. He buys players he sees that have something a bit different about them.

We don't need buzz players and we can let Spurs have their Modric and Bentley and Pompey have Crouch and Defoe and Man City have Jo. Because maybe we didn't go in for them for a damn good reason.

simonbigron

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