The English goalkeeper is threatening to go the way of the polar bear, the begonia eiromischa, the madhuca insignis, the pouteria stenophylla and the rumtum phooey, and Manchester City's Joe Hart has jolly well had enough of it!
Hart, along with the similarly splinter-addled Ben Foster, is apparently the future of English goalkeeping. So instead of sitting on a bench in Manchester waiting for a superior 32-year-old goalkeeper to hang up his gloves/sustain a freak, career-ending injury when his deputy accidentally beheads him in training, he'll join Aston Villa for £3m this summer, whereupon he'll sit on a bench in Birmingham waiting for a superior 37-year-old goalkeeper to hang up etc and so forth.
Stuart Attwell didn't sleep so good last night.
City, for their part, want a piece of David Villa, so good news comes with Valencia's admission that they are utterly, hopelessly skint . Photograph: Martin Rose/Getty Imagesand will almost certainly need to sell their best players, and Asier del Horno, in the summer. Chelsea are also reportedly in for Villa although, if we're honest, we're not quite sure how this works given that they don't even know who their manager will be next season. "Selling David Silva and Villa? Obviously we will consider that type of action," warbled a suit, coming this close to justifying his existence.
Stuart Attwell is wondering whether it's worth all the hassle.
Like Valencia, West Ham may not have a pot to do a No1 in, but that hasn't stopped them identifying summer targets: they want Heerenveen's free-scoring Croatian winger Daniel Pranjic. The bad news is that another Premier League club is after Pranjic. The good news is that it's Sunderland. "Danijel has not decided anything yet but it may be time for him to move to a league of higher quality," said his agent, thus not ruling out a move to the Blue Square Premier.
Stuart Attwell wants his mummy.
Stoke may be in danger of going under, but that won't stop Tony Pulis signing yet another 6ft player in the summer: he has been watching Benfica's French midfielder Hassan Yebda.
