The Self Fulfilling Revolving Door Policy™

Evening.

Eighty three percent of sixteen women who took part in a recent survey said a hard man was good to find. No it was sixteen percent of eighty three year old women found it good when… no, hang on.

83% of you said that provided Mr Sulkypants lives next door that you would take Dimitar Berbatov back.

I am not here to judge. I am but a humble vessel. And I voted the same way too. So I’m worse than complicit. I started it. Well I didn’t really. You know what I mean.

My point is what does this tell you? It tells me that your above average Yid in the street doesn’t harbour a grudge for too long and necessity is still down on Invention’s birth cert as ‘mother’.

What it also raises is the fenced- in nature of our thinking when it comes to solving the whole striker mystery puzzle. Do you think Kenny Dalglish at the very moment when he knew Torres was off was looking for Blistering Bob Keane’s number? Did he wonder if he could get Michael Owen back for one more blast? Not for a nanosecond.

But we seem to constantly be linked with yesterday’s bananas. Scotty Parker’s picture is in a locket Arry wears about his neck. This is a guy that turned us down at least twice before, flopped at Chelsea when they were winning like a cheating Major on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and now is the jewel in the crown of a club that has been nestled in the drop zone all season.  But he’s cheap to to feed!

There are exceptions of course. Van der Vaart and Modders to name but both of them. But otherwise we seen to collect these ‘not quite, but maybe’ characters like Pienaar.

It’s a little bit chicken and egg. No hot players, no silverware success and so no hot players. Our existing squad gets it in the ear every other week for not being good enough and nobody any good wants the aggravation of joining a side where they will be the one carrying the others. It’s a self fulfilling revolving door policy™

So what do we do? I see the stadium issue as a distraction quite frankly. The likelihood of the Olympic decision being overturned is ball park zero and the likelihood  of the NYPD Blue option amounting to anything this side of 3012 is better than zero, only marginally.

Much talk of Arry having taken us as far as he can, but perhaps some blame needs sprinkling a little higher up the THFC ladder. Have Levy & Co achieved as much as they can given the restraints of their own fiscal strategies?

I’m talking about pounds shillings and pence here. Wages. Because all other revenue streams are surely maxed out. What we sell puts Tom Wait’s Step Right Up to shame.

We’ve characters like Woodgate and King floating around… are they on full pay? Graham Roberts stands more chance of playing this season than Woody. Neither of these guys are getting any younger. Neither of them are making any headway worth anything. The physio room at The Lodge must resemble something out of M*A*S*H. King’s knees are elbows. Look closely – I’m not making it up.

And then there’s the nowhere men. Jen as. [Blimey H, that was a cunningly concealed attack, you waited half the page] Jenas has to go. What is he on weekly? He could be replaced by a life size cardboard cutout of David Hasselhoff and cause less angst.

There are others. Dos *hicsh* Santos, Begbie and I’m tempted to hurl Defoe & Crouchino into the mixer based upon the fact I still think Pav can actually play football.

The club needs to meet the future half way. Trim some of these chancers, up the salary offer to attract one or two players of worth and let’s move on. The first step to a profit is stopping a loss. If Sunderland will pay £5M for Begbie then take it and reinvest.

And if existing players want more – sure – let ’em earn it.But the bumbling about has to stop.