Spurs are reportedly ready to offer a new contract to Harry Kane

Published: 11 February, 2016
by STEVE BARNETT

ONE of those random, and undoubtedly accurate, studies that seem to come out of nowhere and are carefully crafted by companies we’ve never heard of, exclusively revealed this week that Newcastle’s £12million purchase of Swansea midfielder Jonjo Shelvey was the best-value signing during the January transfer window. 

The data also claimed the Magpies overpaid by £5.4million when they spent another £12million signing England winger Andros Townsend from Tottenham – which is shocking. I’d have thought they would have got change from a quid for a player whose best skills have been picking splinters out of his backside for the last 12 months. 

The study, carried out by CIES Football Observatory, took into account the “inflationary trend” of transfer fees and calculated a player’s worth based on their statistics in six key areas – age, position, contract, international status, experience and performance. 

Now that my brain has gobbled up that kind of information I’m going to be viewing this weekend’s round of fixtures in the Premier League in a whole new light. We all should. We should all judge the players and their values in more of a Swap Shop kind of way (children ask your parents. Who am I kidding – ask your grandparents). 

Wouldn’t transfer deadline day be miles more exciting if our clubs were trading players for what they’re actually worth instead of oodles and oodles of money? 

Just think, in the summer your team could sign John Terry for a Happy Meal. What? He’s a 36-year-old, deceptively slow defender, who Chelsea and England don’t want any more. 

I think you’ll find I’m being generous, if you asked Wayne Bridge about Terry’s experience and performance my hunch is his former team-mate wouldn’t give you a gherkin for him. 

Under these more realistic rules Liverpool could have saved themselves £32million and just bought Christian Benteke for a banjo, a more fitting fee considering the striker couldn’t hit a cow’s Arsenal if his life depended on it. 

Tottenham are reportedly ready to offer new contracts to Jan Vertonghen, Christian Eriksen and Harry Kane; just imagine what my new Swap Shop strategy could save them. Instead of a pay rise Vertonghen would easily settle for a Barcelona shirt as he’s wanted one for ages, while Eriksen and Kane always have such a gormless, village idiot look about them they’d probably settle for a handful of magic beans. 

My new trading scheme could help encourage clubs not to be so focused on money-grabbing and then, who knows, maybe fans could even get match-day tickets for a reasonable price. OK, OK… now I’m just being silly.