Transfer Tittle Tattle

Hoorah - the transfer window is in full swing and the race is on to be the first journalist to make up a story that actually comes true! Yes folks, you guessed it - Spurs are officially selling all their strikers except Keano and buying at least 8 defenders, and not a moment too soon!

Unfortunately, life outside of the Red Tops is a little more dull and so once again it my duty to bear the weight of the window on my Atlas like shoulders, set the record straight on a few things, and maybe even throw the odd poser out there for discussion...

First and foremost let's get the Berbatov Going Nowhere story done. Spurs have quite rightly slapped a £30-35m price tag on the fellas bonce - a move that will either delight or infuriate his agent depending on how he looks at it. Let's face it, the Bulgarian is worth every penny to a club chasing a Champions League medal and if someone comes up with the cash then that snake Emil Dantchev will never have to work again. For 10% even I'd be dragging him up the M6 kicking and screaming.

But recently I wrote a story predicting that Berba would still be a Spurs player in February and I stand by that. To sell our most potent weapon with a semi-final against the Goons and the latter stages of the very winnable UEFA Cup still on our plate would be a surrender like no other I've ever seen.

Many Spurs fans are starting to feel that maybe we should take the money - I'd like to remind them that if they are not shareholders they will not see a penny of it so what's the point? You don't think for one second that we'll see anywhere near that amount spent on a world class centre half shortly after do you? Most of that cash will be used to line certain pockets, and for me I'd rather keep watching The Great Man weave his magic every week. However, I am a realist and whilst I refuse to entertain thoughts that he will go inside the next few weeks, I can reluctantly envisage him departing this summer.

In other matters don't you find an £8.5m bid for Rangers Alan Hutton a strange one? Of course, judged by that old yard stick of other-clubs-he-is-linked-to then he is probably quite good, but I didn't think Chimbonda was that shit that we needed to splash that kind of cash to replace him/provide cover for him. Let's not forget that if we bought a proper left back then YP Lee would be an able deputy on his proper side (note to self: delete "able"). Maybe it's just a case of if quality is available then get it while you can.

Talking of left backs, I reckon a cheeky £3m bid for Portsmouth's Matt Taylor would be a stonking bit of business. A life long yid with a decent left foot, Premiership experience by the bucket load, bags of end product and an eye for goal he is a ready made solution to our Gareth Bale problems. 'Arry has already stated that he can go if someone comes in with the right bid, so come on Damien, pick up the phone.

I doubt it will happen, but I do expect some kind of activity in that position as YP is consistently the weakest link. If something happened to him then Lord only knows who'd play there. Seeing as Steed's continuing form puts the need for a left winger on the backburner we come nicely round the the numero uno problemo at Tottenham Hotspur - central defence.

Dawson and Kaboul appear to be developing an understanding that makes Keane and Defoe, or Lampard and Gerrard look good together, but in my opinion there seems little point of going out and picking someone up on the cheap just because they are available. They may be currently injured but in the long term we have an abundance of CB's that, to turn a wonderful phrase, can "do a job". No my friends, what we need is to break the bank for someone with experience, power, presence and consistency. We need to do business at upwards of £10m to get our man and that only leaves....

Well actually it doesn't really leave anyone that I can think of that is available right now so we are back to Plan B. Personally I think our best option for Plan B is Wes Brown for similar reasons to my Matt Taylor argument, but Fergie would rather cut off his big red konk before he sells a single of his own players to another Premiership team so don't hold your breath. No Spurs fans, my rather miserable prediction is that we will end up with nobody - or worse, a nobody - to shore up our leaky centre.

So there you have it. Sorry to piss on your parade but while the media love the transfer window for all it's paper-selling, hit-generating glory, history tells us that they are rather an anti-climax. As for Spurs, unless they have something extremely big up their sleeves for centre half then I suspect it will be very uneventful indeed and serve only to deliver us our usual fill of European gambles and lower league kids. Buying for the future has been good for the club, but dear Damien, there comes a time when rules must be broken...