No place like home

Pains me to see Sergio Aguero signing for Manchester City. At this rate they'll ruin any joy in managing Tottenham Hotspur in the next revision of Football Manager 2011 because all the top players will be unattainable meaning I'll have to raid West Ham as I plot to conquer the giddy heights of the top four and Champions League.

Reality has consumed the world of fantasy. Guess I'll have to invest in scouts and trail the world for rough diamonds and unknown talent.

Hey, at least I'll still have Luka Modric pulling the strings in midfield.

And Pav. And Defoe. And Crouch.

You can almost understand why it's such an impossible task for us to penetrate this sugar wall of prospective transfer targets. It's because we are limp. But we do try ever so hard. What with the chasing and the flirting. Sometimes, too much of it spent on visuals rather than the real thing. The best practice would be to focus on one tangible potential rather than risk a sensory overload going blind salivating at a dozen. Either we are aiming too high or not aiming at all. One thing is for certain, we haven't touched the sides for a while.

You have to be ambitious right? So you have to target 'top drawer' players. Except these players are only interested in signing for an elite group of clubs or preferring the 'better the devil you know' mantra and staying put. It seems the love everyone had for us in our swashbuckling debut in the Champions League has expired on the continent.

So what of the ambition? The targets? It's there, it must be there. By virtue of what we desire, what we need. How genuine these targets are is down to how much faith you have in our activity and the media coverage.

Rossi. Vucinic. Lukaku. Llorente. Mata. Osvaldo. Benzema. To name a few (won't bother adding the variety of midfielders we've been linked too).

Out of the above Vucinic is the likely one based on the fact that he probably wouldn't be considered top tier for those bloated big brands and the fact that after we allegedly bid for him Man Utd were supposedly interested (a blatant planted story to drive up his price by his club).

The rest?

Lukaku won't join. Elite only.
Rossi. Not sure we're willing to pay the asking price.
Llorente. Have we actually been linked with him again or is this a flashback to the last window?
Mata. Will want CL.
Osvaldo. Would rather not.
Benzema. If I can sign him in Football Manager then there's always a hope.

It's crazy I know but if you asked me what player I'd like us to sign this summer, I couldn't possibly tell you. Just a forward.

As for Adebayor on loan, I'm left scratching my head at the fact that this might be a possibility based on the fact that Levy doesn't have to over-extend with a hefty bid for anyone else until perhaps the summer of 2012 when we appoint a new manager that might have his own ideas (I read it on the internet Harry won't be with us after this season).

As pointed out many times, it's not the long term we need to be thinking about. Well actually, it is. But it's the short term that will define the long term. If chairman and manager are on a mission, behind closed doors, then I can live with the uncertainty all the way up to the closure of the window. But I'm not sure I could handle another blank shot.

We are left with a month or so to repackage the THFC forward line-up. Tick tock.

I'd promote Harry Kane and be done with it. 4th striker (I'm desperate, let's take the risk of ruining another kid). Then it's a case of signing that elusive 'big signing'.

Then perhaps move Crouch on to QPR.

Leaving us with: Big signing, JD, Pav and Kane.

I'd rather it be two big signings up front, but based on the previous two windows and the current landscape of modern football I think that's a step too far into the land of rainbows and floating pink unicorn hearts.

Where do we go? Where do I go?

Reality? Fantasy?

How about limbo? Better yet, purgatory.

No place like home.

Coming soon...

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