The Mill is never afraid to question its own existence and this morning, tiptoeing out at length through a 28 Weeks Later style scene between heartrending ephemera such as empty bottles, pizza crusts, discarded wallets and the groaning form of a man in a yellow tie slurring something about one that got away, was little different. Along we walked through this ashen wasteland, a scene sapped of life and meaning, glumly resigned to foraging for ourselves and being ushered to a new, even remoter desk in the office by a spectral figure who wouldn’t quite meet our eye. Inside we went; up the stairs we walked. Nobody there. Not a soul had passed in front of our eyes since that dead-eyed fellow in the amber ribbon, and none would until a chair swung around abruptly, a puff of dust pluming upwards and clearing to reveal Emmanuel Adebayor.
“You’ll never guess what they’ve been saying about me,” said Adebayor heavily, drawing breath as if to continue before seeing his train of thought completely ruined by a call to one of his mobiles and gathering himself to scurry out of sight, a couple of minders materialising from nowhere to join him. The Mill was alone once more but this was fodder enough; someone, somewhere, was alive and well, sputtering out a narrative that might just keep us breathing a little longer.
Without warning the sky cleared, grass started growing and a most fantastical story reached the Mill’s ears. Adebayor demanded a £5m pay-off from Tottenham Hotspur if he was to join West Ham on the eve of the deadline, it said – and rejected a move to Aston Villa earlier in the summer after a last-minute consultation with his pastor that did not result in a clear enough go-ahead from God. He had posed for photos and everything before making what was, to Tim Sherwood, an exasperating U-turn. The striker will now sit in limbo until at least January, with little hope of playing for a Spurs side for which he does not have a squad number and bearing an unmistakable resemblance to heavily damaged goods.
Then news began coming out thick and fast. Apparently another sometime striker, Dimitar Berbatov, did not need Him Upstairs to tell him not to join Villa; the free agent’s wage demands scuppered that one and the signs are that he will look to see out the rest of his career with a bigger deal somewhere less challenging. And will Saido Berahino, whose refusal to “play Jeremy Peace” seemed sensible given the lack of any clear appetite to make a biopic of the West Bromwich Albion chairman’s life, be a sometime striker soon? Tony Pulis is said to be enraged that the want-away player, who has not been involved in his last three squads, is still on his books – but West Brom can point to Spurs apparently bidding just £5m up front with the remaining £20m spread out over another five years. What will happen if Saido really does go on strike?
Arsenal do not have enough strikers to ... errrr ... strike, and they decided not to add Edinson Cavani to their ranks before deadline day after reasoning that the Uruguay striker, valued at around £50m by Paris Saint-Germain, had insufficient resale value at the age of 28. Another striker will keep on banging the goals in for his current club. Charlie Austin will remain at QPR in the Championship after spurning the late advances of Crystal Palace to secure his services.
It wasn’t much at all, but it was enough for the Mill. People started arriving to work, nodding slightly, one or two even sitting down within shouting distance. The world would keep turning and the Mill would too; and the man in the yellow tie would still be there, gurgling away among the crusts and the spilt cava, when we got home.
