WOODGATE out for £8m - if it were to happen - will represent shrewd business. If selling a player from an area where the team is now very well endowed is used to secure the striker the team is crying out for then it is not just financially cute but it is also a strategic master-stroke.
Boro are not Chelsea of Manchester United. We can't spend money we don't have on the likes of Alves without being ready to make a few timely adjustments elsewhere. And unlike Chelsea we can't afford our top earner to spend more time on the treatment table than on the pitch.
The club have given Woody permission to talk to Spurs and Newcastle are loitering with intent - as revealed on this blog and in the Gazette a few days ago - and itis now a strong possibility he will soon be leaving.
Some will cry that it is madness to sell last term's Player of the Year, an instant hero who carried the terrace kudos of having seen the Boro play Port Vale at Hartlepool, the cultured splash of quality that steadied the ship and arguably saved us from relegation last term.
Personally I think if Boro can make a profit now on a player who has done the job and could not easily depreciate in value if his injuries and dip in form continue then they should do it. If it helps continue the on-going fine-tuning of a team that is not far from being a good one by bringing in the much needed hitman, better still. And if two teams are interested and it develops into an auction that pushes the price up - a situation we are only to well aware of but are usuallly on the other side of the counter - well *rubs hands gleefully* bring it on.
Woodgate on his day is the best defender in the country. He has the poise and positional instinct to snuff out danger and the balance and timing to make almost every tackle without breaking sweat. On his day he looks every inch the international defender that Real Madrid splashed out £13.4m on. But his day doesn't come around so often anymore.
Yes he missed pre-season and in fitness terms has never really caught up but his quality should shine through. It did last year. In fact, at times this season the little niggles that everyone predicted have left him well short of his best and h has looked fallible and vulnerable and against Birmingham and Aston Villa, for example, he looked, well, ordinary.
Meanwhile the steady emergence of Redcar Rock David Wheater and the return to full fitness of Robert Huth, the Berlin Wall, plus the drive and physicality of Emanuel Pogatetz has meant that with everyone fit there is no guarantee that he is even first choice. Last season he was the first name on every observer's team sheet. Can the same be said right now? That left boss Gareth Southgate with a fuse fizzing political hand grenade that needs scooping out of the dressing room quickly before it explodes.
Woodgate's slipping down the dressing room pecking order was underlined at Portsmouth when with George Boateng dropped the Boro boy was not handed the captain's armband. Having been the automatic and popular choice as stand-in skipper last term those Kremlinologists amongst us who read the Riverside smoke signals closely would have raised eyebrows at Julio Arca running out with the armband.
Of course, the deal is far from done - there are personal tersm to be thrashed out and the problematic issue of a stringent medical - but in the twilight world of the modern market a "bid" is usually the last part of the murky bargaining process where traditionally it was the first.
Woodgate being given permission by Boro to talk to Spurs is a surefire indication that Boro are ready to sell and now he will probably leave with indecent haste.
Some observations:
Johnny Woodgate Is A Mag? Spurs may have made the first move but there appears to be genuine interest from Newcastle too and they are in urgent need of plugging their leaky defence. Keegan is a confirmed fan of Woodgate and gave him his England debut. He remains popular at Sid James and is still mates with the likes of Shoal Ameobi plus he could comfortable commute from Teesside. Maybe Viduka could pick him up at the Bluebell.
The nightmare scenario is a Newcastle debut in the derby on Tyneside. Stand by for the muted sound of booing from high above the snowline while the gloating Keeganistas chant "Johnny Woodgate is a Mag, he hates Smoggies."
His alternative of course is Spurs, the Geordies of London. There a quick trip to Wembley beckons in the Carling Cup final - he was injured for Boro's games with Northampton and Spurs so isn't cup tied - and, who knows, maybe he could team up with Stewy Downing in a Men Behaving Badly flat-share scenario. *shudder*
New Challenge? Maybe a move would be good for Woody giving him a fresh challenge. When he arrived at Boro he was presented with a whole slate of motivational targets. He needed to prove to himself that he had put his injury nightmare behind him and he coudl still play at the top level. He was playing for a contract, either at Madrid, at Boro or at another Premier League club. And he was playing to get back in the England frame.
Now he has ticked all those boxes. What is his motivation this season? A cynic may say he arrived as a Real player but is now a Boro player. If he can not be galvanised by the challenges that such a mundane reality presents then maybe it is best for him to move.
"A Club Matching My Ambitions". Maybe Woody feels that the club he finds himself at now is not the one that was in the brochure. Since his arrival he has seen Viduka and Yakubu nip through the out door. He spent most of last season chanting a mantra of "you need to keep good players to sign good players" and most took that to mean that he would sign if he thought the Duke was staying and some big name players were coming in too.
It is possible that he is frustrated, disillusioned and feels let down at the club's new economic reality. The club could put a powerful argument to counter that but sometimes logic doesn't hold sway. He is after all a Teessider and so shares our historic burden of gloomy fatalism.
Move Over, Wheater Coming Through. Woodgate's exit opens the door for the new Mogga to take centre-stage. Wheater is out of contract in the summer and must be tied down. He is a dyed in the wool Teessider and is 'proper made up' just to be playing for Boro - for now. But if he finds himself on the bench behind a patchy glamour signing, if he gets frustrarted at not playing then maybe, just maybe, he might get his head turned and get itchy feet. Taking one senior centre-back out of the equation may persuade him to sign a long term deal.
Selling For Fun And Profit. A profit, even a small one, on Woody would show a refreshing new hard-nosed aspect of Boro. For the club to flourish they need to get the economics right, as we have discussed endlessly. In the past the club have been rightly criticised for failing to cash in on players when they reach their optimum value, that is the point when market price is higher than purchase cost and before length of contract and performance levels combine to force any future transfer income.
What has cost the club dearly in recent years has been the damaging trend to allow contracts to run down so that expensive players end up leaving for no return: Maccarone (£8.15m to buy), Viduka (£4.5m), Ehiogu (£8m), Nemeth (£2.5m), Job (£2m), Juninho (£4m) have all left in recent years for nothing. That means not only is there no income but also massive new investment is needed in those positions which leaves the team short in other areas.
But a club of Boro economic profile can't afford that. All of those players should have been sold 18 months previously, even for only a few million, and the money invested in a rolling programme of new capital investment.
Boro need to develop a model that is sustainable and inevitably that means accepting that if there is a major investment players must be sold before their contract is up, especially those who are big name players and who can represent a healthy profit. Yakubu is an example of an excellent aggressive intervention in the market.
Woodgate may not seem to be in the same vein but if Boro have had an excellent year out of him. If they now calculate his performances will tail off they must think about what his retail value will be this time next year. If they believe it will drop off significantly then that is a compelling reason to sell now. And that formula applies to every single one of them.
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