It's a Shay

Kristal yields to no man (or woman, beast, animal, mineral or vegetable) in it's admiration to the (regrettably) soon to be departed Newcastle United goalkeeper Shay Given. The finest 'keeper in the English Premiership who must surely have a chiropractor on speed dial from carrying the Magpies all these years.

It would be a profoundly churlish person that begrudged Given from exiting from the odious bedlam and intergalactic waste of time that currently resides over St James Park and this writer only wishes that he was starting his sterling work afresh at a more prestigious employer such as Arsenal, Celtic or Liverpool. Manchester City instead will be processing the Irishman's wages.

The main quirk of this transfer is why Citeh, for all their grandiose proclamations of immeasurable wealth, have all of a sudden, transmogrified into Dickensians guttersnipes and refusing to offer the Toon a respectful and accurate valuation of Mr Given's worth. 

Initially the fee put forward was £7m with NUFC responding, correctly, with a demand for £10m. This still seems short of the mark in this blog's esteem towards the 'keeper.

Yet Manchester City spending around £15m with abundant glee for the use of Craig 'would start a fight in an empty house and proceed to ask said house to step outside to continue said fight' Bellamy and also equally ecstatic to squander a further £19m on Nigel 'not even a household name in his own house' De Jong.

That Mark Hughes and Garry Cook are content and contemptuous to act tighter than a snare drum, to be so transparent in a fiscal fiasco of their own making in this transfer is baffling. 

Best to leave this post with wise words from Zlatan Ibramhimovic, the Inter Milan striker, who in a spot of Kaka-baiting, when asked whether he would be tempted by a move to the Middle Eastlands replied "I don't know, you would need to ask God first."

Manchester City might not be signing him, or Kaka or Jesus, but even if they did, they would probably haggle with the Son of God's agent for the minimum pieces of silver they could get away with.