Football without Spin - Pennant - Madrid, Milan or Hull?

January 6 2009

Pennant – Madrid, Milan or Hull?

In what is rapidly becoming the best story of the January transfer window, Liverpool's fourth choice winger Jermaine Pennant is proving that beggars can be choosers after all.

The silly season began at Christmas when Real Madrid, the club with a licence to print rumours, were linked to Pennant in their search for a right-winger, reported here in the Telegraph:

New Real manager Juande Ramos is desperate for a right-sided player to strengthen his injury-ravaged squad and has turned to Pennant after being turned down by Tottenham's Aaron Lennon and CSKA Moscow's Milos Krasic.

This seems like the ideal reward for a player who has never proven himself definitively at a club bigger than Birmingham and has played four times in six months for Liverpool. The story is lent a supposed air of credibility by the Ramos factor – he must have seen some footballers play football in the Premiership, and naturally now he is at the self-styled biggest club in the world he will be signing them indiscriminately.

Good news; Pennant wants to go, too; we can be sure because it's reported by Sky Sports:

"I want to play on a regular basis and my dream is to do that in Spain," he said.

"My style of play would fit into the Spanish way.”

The match made in football heaven appeared a done deal, but was suddenly scuppered by two unforeseen factors. Firstly, Pennant wanted twice as much money as Real Madrid were prepared to pay him, according to the Guardian:

But the deal fell flat after Pennant demanded £60,000 a week, double what the Spanish giants were prepared to pay.

There is a certain logic to this from Pennant – Madrid is an expensive city, and he'll need more cash available to fritter away between appearances for the Real Madrid B team. So much for his dream.

However, Setanta carry a no-less-interesting explanation for why the deal fell through; Ramos doesn't rate him.

It is understood that Real Madrid have withdrawn their £3m offer to Liverpool for Jermaine Pennant, placing his future in relative limbo. [...] Sources in Spain suggest that new Madrid boss Juande Ramos is skeptical about Pennant's ability to flourish at the Bernabeu - which would tally with the fact that he is not deemed good enough to get into Liverpool's squad much of the time.

Calderon: Good news, Juande – I've sorted our problem on the right side of midfield.

Ramos: Brilliant, thanks Ramon. Wish you'd asked me though – what with me knowing about football and all that.

Calderon: Well, you wouldn't have known about this one – it's Jermaine Pennant – I've made an offer. It's his dream to come and play for us. He probably won't want double the wages we've offered, he needs this too much.

Ramos: I managed Tottenham for a year. Last year. I've seen him play. I signed an English midfielder last summer and I thought Bentley was better, even if I didn't really show him that. You could have asked me what I thought of him.

Calderon: The bid's in now, it's too late.

Ramos: Too late? Wouldn't it have been good to have this conversation before you made an offer? I've managed in the Premiership.

Calderon: Yeah, but you weren't very good. Didn't you get sacked?

Ramos: And then you hired me almost immediately.

Calderon: Only because you were really good at saying that we might not lose at Barcelona. Which we did anyway, of course. OK, fine, we'll drop the bid.

Now that the deal is off the table, Pennant's options had become the likes of Wigan on loan and Hull, befitting his current stock, and giving him the chance to be a big fish once more. And then, suddenly, the Times say that AC Milan come calling for him this summer. We'll see – I suspect Pennant may not have the measure of Silvio Berlusconi if it ever comes to discussing wages.