Text Box: Text Box: Text Box: Thursday 31st July 2008 Overblown Prices for Overrated Players So that’s £17m for Bentley and Villa won’t settle for less than £18m for Barry. And why should they? They shouldn’t but I tell you what, if someone from abroad was interested, Villa or Blackburn would have been looking at a figure closer to the £25m Sir Alex got for Beckham, and he was 28 at the time. Bentley is 23 and Barry is 27, both younger than Becks was. Now of course there’s the grand old argument everyone likes to aim at Beckham– that’s he’s only good for shirt sales and the media circus. Well now if Barry and Bentley had half as much talent as Becks had (I would still pick him ahead of these two wannabes), then maybe they would have photographers sitting outside their mansions. The simple fact is this– if Steven Gerrard, Frank Lampard, John Terry, hell even Micah Richards were put up for sale tomorrow, there would be far more interest than just a couple of also-rans like Spurs and Liverpool. No-one abroad cares about Bentley or Barry and they wouldn’t even get in Scolari or Ferguson’s first team, let alone the likes of Real or Barca. I’m surprised at Spurs to be honest who are head and shoulders above any Premier League team for their ins and outs this summer, but such is this obsessive ethos they have with young home-grown players. I can’t see why– Defoe was sold, Huddlestone, Routledge, Danny Murphy– all examples of poor homegrown signings. Not to mention injury-prone anonymous– Woodgate and King (though good players when fit) and calamity Robbo. Still we shall give them the benefit of the doubt and should they sign either of Russian duo– Roman Pavlyuchenko or Andrei Arshavin, fans will soon be wondering who Robbie Keane was. Text Box: Links and affiliates Contact Me Text Box: Football Blogs Archive 22/07/08 ‘Chelsea’s Only Brazilian’ 26/7/08 ‘Ruthless Ramos’ 29/7/08 ‘Can you be-Levy it?’ Text Box: And a word about that Joey Barton... After turning up on his own to train at Toon yesterday, it has been announced today that Joey will be charged for his despicable attack on Ousmane Dabo from his Man City days. In addition Nike have dropped their boot deal with him. Never have the FA’s timing been better, football needs to stand up to the scum that is Barton.