It is getting increasingly obvious that it’s just me. Not that long ago it looked likely that we’d be spending the summer reading about which clubs were about to put bids in for Valencia and Palacios. Both players have their qualities and it’s fairly easy to see why someone might want to buy them, maybe not Man Utd, but most clubs would benefit from having a couple of players like that.
Any way, that’s not the point. The point is that the press haven’t lived up to my expectations and instead of regaling us with tales of in demand South Americans we’re being treated to daily updates on Paul Scharner’s (literally) bloody nose. Ok, not so much his nose, but how the operation he’s just had will help him onto better things and whether that will happen this summer or not.
Now, I’ve made my feelings on Scharner as a footballer quite clear over the last two and a half seasons and quite simply I don’t agree with his view that he’s bound for greatness. It’s smashing hat he’s confident enough to think he can carry on in improving but to be honest he needs to have a talk with himself if he’s got his eyes on silverware and champions league games.
When you consider the clubs that he’s been linked with, the likes of Everton, Fulham and Boro, then it’s clear what English football thinks of him. It might be that Everton would be more likely to sign him if he were on a free, but I hardly think it’s going to tip the balance in any of the top four having a look at him.
When it comes down to it, it’s not a 30% improvement in his physical ability that he needs; it’s an improvement in his positional sense, concentration and general football intelligence. If he wants to be the world’s best defender then he’ll need to stop making the errors that his speed and application so often get him out of.
In some ways he typifies the English “biggest/fastest in his year†attitude to footballers, but we expect a little less nonsense from our defenders. Maybe he’s better suited to a move abroad (although you can hardly see him sitting alongside the likes of Nesta or Cannavaro) and maybe he can get what he wants over there, who knows?
Either way, he wants to make his mind up. No matter your views on him, Scharner isn’t good enough to hold the club to ransom, or play any games with us. If by not signing a new contract he’s saying that he’ll be looking for a club come January then we should sell him now. If he’s trying to squeeze a better deal out of us, then we should sell him now.
Then again, maybe my views on him are too tainted because if Fulham came back with the same offer they made in January I’d, you guessed it, sell him now.
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