Ok, so he’s gone. No amount of self delusion is going to change it. It’s no longer an iffy rumour. It’s past the stage of starting to look a bit likely. We’re past “my mate’s Mrs is an estate agent and she had an appointment to show a Mr C. Bellamy around a house in Manchester this afternoon". We’re past the Daily Mail informing middle England (not to be confused with Middle Earth) that “Bellamy has absolutely, definitely, unequivocally, as sure as all immigrants carry the plague and all tasty things give you cancer… decided to join Spurs”. We’re even past the stage where the Sky Sports news ticker tells us “Bellamy agrees 5 year deal at White Hart Lane” while the image above shows him shaking hands with a Sheikh welcoming him in Arabic spoken with a Mancunian twang.
We’re at the stage where Bellamy is a City player and we’re left wondering where the goals are going to come from. I won’t say I’m not disappointed; no one can argue that Bellamy isn’t a nightmare for defences and he was finally beginning to net some regular goals on the back of a partnership with Carlton Cole. But it’s not a bad bit of business.
We’ve doubled our money in a couple of years and at 29, he’s only got a couple of years left in him. Anyway, by Bellamy’s own standards he’s been a lengthy servant at Upton Park. He’s probably expecting a testimonial.
The board were always going to say that the money would go on players. It’s got a much nicer ring to it than “we’re going to hang onto the money we got for our best striker because we’re skint and may need to give Sheff Utd enough money to build a team of steel football-playing robots”.
Oddly, Bellamy’s departure seems to have awakened something in Di Michele. On Sunday he looked, for the first time, as though he was aware not only that he is the proud owner of two legs, but that by putting one in front of the other he can move around the pitch. Before that it always looked like he was just waiting for the grass to grow in a different direction to get him into the penalty area.
If he keeps this up and Carlton Cole cuts out the performances where he looks more docile than Gandhi’s pet puppy then we should be able to net a few goals. I’d still like to see someone come in, I think it’s the least we deserve, but as long as we’re not relying on Diego Tristan to fire us into Europe we should be ok. He seems to have been to the same school of greenkeeping as the Di Michele of old.
I’m feeling optimistic that Freddie Sears will get on his bike (at least until he’s old enough to drive) and emerge as a genuine contender in the next few months.
Even if we do struggle, we can still be grateful that Man City are starting to make us look like savvy employers – Lucas Neill 60 grand a week? Bargain.
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