BAYERN BID FOR JENNINGS.
Tranmere manager Les Parry has confirmed Bayern Munich have made an undisclosed offer for teenage striker Dale Jennings.
Liverpool-born Jennings stepped off the bench to make his first-team debut last September in the home draw against Charlton and made his first start the following Saturday at Colchester. He made a total of 32 appearances last season for Rovers, scoring six goals.
The deal was even stranger considering that Bayern Munich have no scouting network whatsoever in England. It is thought that Dietmar Hamann, himself a surprise mover this summer to Stockport as manager, alerted Bayern Munich to Jenning’s talent when he played against him last season for MK Dons.
Absolutely crazy talk, that could never….oh hang on, they signed him.
Into July, and Arsenal were now linked with John O’ Shea, which will have stirred the loins of the Emirates faithful.
On the 7th July, came news that Manchester City were ready to send Roque Santa Cruz to the Middle East – with owner Sheikh Mansour’s Al Jazira and Qatari’s Al Sadd keen to sign him. He went to Real Betis in the end.
The next day came the biggest story of all –Skysports.com understands that Marlon Harewood has joined Chinese club Shenzhen Phoenix.
And he had, on a six-month deal.
Manchester City were soon linked to Aquilani. The Daily Mirror then announced that ‘Blackburn are making a remarkable move for Spanish legend Raul – and hope to talk him into a final move to the Premier League.’
There was better to come though, on the 24th July. The Sunday Times gambled (and lost) its credibility by publishing the bombshell claim that Manchester United were considering buying Joey Barton from Newcastle.
Into August, and the Mirror reported that Everton were willing to swap Jack Rodwell for Peter Crouch. On the 11th August, the Daily Mail ran a story linking Joey Barton to Zenit St Petersburg
Benjani was amazingly linked to non-league Stockport – he was training with them after all, but ended up signing for Portsmouth (again).
On the 15th August, reports resurfaced linking Raul to Blackburn again. If you want a spurious reason for the link, read on:
‘After scoring a brilliant solo goal against Cologne on Saturday, Raul made a point of not celebrating. It was being seen as a sign he could be on his way. Steve Kean is interested but has a limited budget while Malaga and Russian side Anzhi have also shown interest.’
And as for transfer deadline the day – well where would you start? The holy grail of baseless rumour-mongering, the stories flew about like confetti in the wind. The usual stuff of course of people, with people seeing Christiano Ronaldo in Manchester Airport, Raul in a chippy in Darwen, and Xavi entering in the back door of Goodison (all football stadiums have a little back door that few know about). The most ridiculous rumour on twitter was that Manchester City had bid £100m + Mario Balotelli for Lionel Messi – and that Barcelona were considering the deal. Amazingly, it never happened – I can’t think why.
And at the end of it all, Samuel Eto’o is playing in Dagestan, Owen Hargreaves in the blue half of Manchester, Scott Carson is in Turkey, and Carlos Tevez is still flitting between the two restaurants of Manchester. You couldn’t make it up.
Written by howard Hockin for FootballFanCast.com
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