Go hard or go home. It may not be the kind of achingly hip street parlance you’d readily associate with a football administrator, but that hasn’t stopped West Brom suit Roger Garlick admitting that his employers should have “gone harder” in the transfer window earlier this summer.
He might have a point. Getting your business done early doors is to be commended, but having seen how West Brom play, one can’t help but feel that any high-profile players approached by the club during the embryonic stages of the recent transfer window would almost certainly have waited as long as possible before inking a deal to see if they got a better offer from elsewhere.
According to local paper the Express & Star, Garlick also told supporters that “only time will tell” if the Baggies were shrewd in their decision not to cash in on Saido Berahino, the 23-year-old striker and one-time flavour of the month who was courted by Tottenham Hotspur and Stoke City during the summer but increasingly looks like one of those youngsters with a great future behind him.
Tony Pulis’s ongoing feud with the West Brom board shows no sign of abating in a week when the sale of the club to the Chinese businessman Guochuan Lai is expected to be rubber-stamped, but following their 6-0 home gubbing at the hands of Newcastle on Tuesday night, Queens Park Rangers are rumoured to be monitoring the baseball cap-wearing Welshman’s state of unhappiness and could be prepared to pounce. Out of contract having been released from the Hawthorns at the end of last season, midfielder Stéphane Sessègnon is wanted by Burnley.
Having had their pants pulled down by Everton on Monday, Sunderland have decided that ramping up their efforts to sign Steven Naismith from Norwich may help them maintain their Premier League status. David Moyes tried and failed to sign his former Everton minion in August, but was unable to convince the striker, whose move to Norwich has been a disaster, to embrace life on Wearside. Having failed to impress the club’s coaching staff sufficiently while on trial at Sunderland (no, really), Charles N’Zogbia is about to sign for Nantes.
Unsuccessful in their summer bid to land Lazio defender Stefan de Vrij, Chelsea will try again in January. Their former midfielder Michael Essien is reported to be on his way Down Under to sign for Melbourne Victory. In other A League news, Teddy Sheringham is being linked with the manager’s job at Newcastle Jets.
Former Liverpool winger Ryan Babel is off to Deportivo La Coruna, while reports from Sweden suggest Swansea City have taken Osterunds central defender Sotiris Papagiannopoulos to Wales on trial before seeing if it’s worth trying to fit his surname across the shoulders of a shirt.
