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Everton looked favorites to land the former Charlton youngster as they had the advantage of being the only team interested that were in the Champions League. Despite offers from Spurs and the UEFA Cup with Newcastle David Moyes’ side looked to have the upper hand until the deal was announced at St. James’ Park.
So why on earth did a player with hopes of squeezing into the England squad choose Newcastle? Money. Parker is rumored to be on around £50,000 a week- something that could not be matched by any of their rivals to his signature.
The money paid to players now is unbelievable. Many players earn in a week more than many people will earn in a year. As Ken Bates said earlier this month, ''An awful lot of Premiership players are getting silly money.”
As clubs become more desperate to lure, or keep hold of, star players, the average wage has crept up and now many top flight footballers are paid over £100,000 every week.
There is not much that can be done by clubs to stop the vastly increasing wages but there is increasing pressure on FIFA to introduce a maximum wage.
Paul Jewell’s attempt to bring Scott Parker to the JJB showed what ambition the current manager has got. Lets hope that he can pull off one or two big signings like Parker to help keep us up.
Moving on and it seems that Manchester United may have finally solved their goalkeeping crisis by bringing in a solid reliable goalkeeper- or so they think…
At 35, Edwin van der Sar has not got too many years ahead of him and last season a few errors began creeping into his game.
I am sure the Dutch international will give United one or two years good service but what about after that? Will an older Tim Howard be given another chance to prove himself or will he have already followed the countless goalkeeping flops out of Old Trafford by then?
Will van der Sar catch the Man United curse that seems to fall upon all their goalkeepers?
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On hearing Alan Pardew’s comments following his signing, I could do nothing but laugh out loud.
“Roy comes to West Ham United in his prime and because of his association with Manchester United, will not be fazed by the size of this club.”
I’m sorry but a player coming from Blackpool would not be fazed by the size of the ‘little hammers’- the has-beens.
Hammers fans- you are no longer a big club. You had better enjoy your stint back in the top flight as without a few quality (and that doesn't include Carroll) signings you will most probably be going straight back down.
Look out for my predictions for the 2005/06 season in my next column!
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