As most of you know, Arsenal had a 23M bid turned down for Pepe Reina last week. My question is this: If we were going to put in a cheeky, opportunistic bid on a Merseyside-based keeper, why was it Reina and not Tim Howard?
Think about it – first off, Howard is used to playing behind shaky defenses…both with Everton and with the USA. Second, while Liverpool are on shaky ground financially, there is an impending takeover that looks good AND they were never going to sell Reina in a million years anyway. Since they’re so defensively-minded, if they were truly in dire straits, they would have flogged Fernando Torres off to someone. They could replace him with a cheaper version, try and keep clean sheets, and hope for the best.
Meanwhile, Everton have no money to strengthen their squad AND they just signed Jan Mucha (Slovakia’s # 1, one of the few keepers who had a solid World Cup) this off-season. A 23M bid would have seriously tested their resolve because they have Mucha and they would then be able to afford Landon Donovan and 2-3 other players besides.
I am starting to think that AW really doesn’t want to buy a keeper, and that the Reina bid is entirely in the “See, I tried and it didn’t come off” mold.
Maddening.
