Do me a favour, love

‘Charlie Adam is in a car, on the way to Liverpool. We understand a car has been sent from Liverpool, to Blackpool, to pick Charlie Adam up.’

‘Andy Carroll has just been picked up by a car, sent from Liverpool’.

‘Fernando Torres is currently being choppered to Chelsea FC’.

That’s right kids, welcome to TRANSFER DEADLINE DAY, on what has to be one of the most exciting days of the year for the sport-avid, Sky Sports News dependant generation. Football players travel updates, this is what is has come to. You have to assume SSN have missed a wee trick here, and ‘Transfer Deadline Day 2012’ will surely witness the introduction of car-cam, in HD + 3D with Brian Swanson (SSN’s big story go-to man) reporting live from a car in pursuit. Naturally the police force is currently running routine registration checks on these vehicles arriving from Liverpool.

It has been an eventful couple weeks in the world of football with some incredible headline-grabbing stories. We’ve had the situation at Sky with the main men offski, transfer requests galore, hat-trick mania and unsurprisingly the biggest transfer window spending on record. And that was achieved even before DEADLINE DAY. The grand total of spending equates to a cool £214 million.

The vast majority of the coverage is filler and tripe. The banter by the presenters, notably prime-time duo Simon Thomas and Georgie Thompson, verges on smug yet ultimately remains sharp and jovial. The transfer of Andy Carroll was broadcast with painstaking detail, and the accuracy of the reporting has to be commended. You knew what had been bid when the fax paper was still warm, the exact time of his transfers request and what he had for lunch. This intriguing transfer tells us that Liverpool’s owners are willing to splash the cash and I sense optimism amongst Liverpool fans following this show of intent. However £35 million for a player who has 1 international cap, 6 months of Premiership football, a dickie thigh muscle and a penchant for slapping women appears a major gamble. On the other hand he does look adept with both feet, he is built like a brick shit-house, is fast, has a rocket shot, leaps like a gazelle and all in all looks a special talent. Time will tell. However you can imagine football fans outside the British Isles thinking ‘who the hell is this guy?’.

That transfer is based on Fernando’s movements. El Nino has finally decided that playing alongside the likes of Lucas Leiva and Paul Konchesky is far too painful to even consider prolonging any further. I can empathise with Torres when you look at what he has had to endure in recent times at Anfield. Also the only team he can realistically go to in Spain is Barcelona, who remain rather skint. Real Madrid will always be out of the frame due to his emotional bond with first club Atletico Madrid and I could not see him going to Italy or Bayern. That leaves Chelsea and Man City as the two teams that could capture him. He has given Liverpool a huge amount and should be considered a Kop legend; however placing a transfer request is a sad and disappointing end to an era. At least it will give Liverpool fans something new to whinge about. They are currently burning his shirt right before my eyes live on SSN. They will be able to direct further fury in his direction next Sunday (February 6th) when Liverpool visit Chelsea. Wowser.

Minimal action at Manchester United, Arsenal and Spurs, although apparently Spurs had a bid for Charlie Adam accepted and in the words of ‘Arry, "the chairman couldn't get 'old of two fackin' shareholders who 'ad to sign the forms". That’s what you get for waiting until 10pm on DEADLINE DAY until deciding you want someone. Combine Sebastian Squilacci’s impending suspension with his ineptitude and you would expect Wenger to dip his toe. You have to admire his transfer policy and he could be forgiven for buckling in a time of lavish spending when abnormal transfer fees no longer shock. With only two centre backs available and a war-chest to spend his stubborn-ness of seeking out value has to be frustrating for the Arsenal faithful so desperate for success.

The other major story over the past fortnight is undoubtedly the demise of Sky Sports football linchpins Andy Gray and Richard Keys. What a classic example of how a story snowballs, and in our modern age in which so much is recorded, covered and distributed minor incidents can become headline news in a matter of hours. The two of them, to their credit, had built this empire of football analysis and broadcasting that was unrivalled. Ultimately this domination grew so large they deemed themselves untouchable. The only thing Key’s will be hanging out the back of is the Jobcentre.

The match in question was Wolves vs Liverpool in Sky’s 12:45 Saturday match. In a Ron Atkinson-esque ‘didn’t know the microphone was still on’ schoolboy error, Richard Keys, (in conversation with bezzie Andy Gray) said ‘somebody better get down there and explain the offside rule’. AG saw an opportunity to gain some ‘lad’ points and retorted ‘Can you believe that? A female linesman. Women don’t know the offside rule’. Ouchie.

Cue the only other woman in the country who does know the offside rule, Karen Brady. This woman has her head so far up her hypocritical, feminist and rather large arse. First of all, she writes a column in The Sun. This paper has more tits than Bill Oddie’s back garden. She has worked alongside David Gold and David Sullivan for the past 15 years, two magnates who made their money predominantly in porn, not really an industry that covers the female in glory. She now sits next to Alan Sugar, all porcelain doll, adding women power quips and reminders to us how she made it in a male-dominated industry. A single whiff of sexism and she assumes the role of saviour. Do me a favour love.

Returning to the incident, it was so bad that they had to go. The more you listen to it, the worst it gets, and a whole can of worms was opened. Keys, in an exclusive interview with Talk Sport, claimed it all to be laddy banter. You cannot help but get the impression that they believed in what they were saying, unless their humour has advanced to a level of dryness reaching desert proportions. If this is the case, I'm not mad, I'm impressed. At the end of the day they were ratted out, or as Keys described as ‘dark forces at work’. Just you wait until they flush that rat out, Gray will kill him. Despite my dislike for him, I am actually going to miss Gray. He is an easy target for banter, with his incessant over-blown descriptions of action, his first name reference to any football figure as if they are chums, and his constant fat-man chuckling at whatever his co-commentator says, or he says for that matter. I am not going to miss Key’s, that guy is pretty weird and definitely shit at football. A Lego man with a degree in broadcasting.

The games come thick and fast from now, with a full Premiership schedule midweek and at the weekend and Champions League returning, which promises to add further excitement to Tuesday's and Wednesday's. With the madness of Transfer Deadline Day 2011 done, I am looking forward to seeing what all the transfer fuss is all about, seeing these geezers play. Torres in a Chelsea shirt is going to take some adjusting. And I ain't no Liverpool fan.