Why Do You Need Andrei Arshavin?

Mr. Ramos,

Hi, my name is Stowe and I think you have a problem. You've been doing a lot of signing and selling this summer and, well, some of us are worried about you. You've already signed Luka Modric, John Bostock, a keeper from Brazil who's not Dida, Geovanni dos Santos, David Bentley and some dude named Paul-Jose Mpoku. You've spent almost twice as much (46m) as Chelsea (24m).

You've got 11 midfielders. You've also got Dietmar Berbatov and Darren Bent. Here's a question--why do you need attacking midfielder Andrei Arshavin? Are you going to play him in place of a second striker? That could work but you'd probaby have to leave Luka Modric out. Maybe you could slide Arshavin out onto the wing? Nope, got Bentley and Lennon (who are both right-sided players, nice choice). Maybe slide him in the center? Jenas'll be mad.

Good luck, Mr. Ramos.

I'd Make That Deal (Edition 1 of Many)

Famously, Dan and I once decided that we would NOT have sold Benjani to City for 7.6m, thereby making us more qualified to run Portsmouth than their chief executive (we would've sold David Nugent and maybe Pedro Mendes to raise funds for Defoe--thereby creating a pretty impressive mid-table strike force of Benjani and Defoe supported by Utaka and Kranjcar). Ever since then, we've been asking ourselves, "Would we make that deal?" Welcome to the Frustrated Strikers first edition of I'd Make that Deal.

Spurs have decided that they absolutely gotta have Blackburn's bald-headed winger David Bentley. Their offers:

Offer 1: Bentley for Aaron Lennon + 7m
Offer 2: Bentley for Darren Bent and Paul Robinson
Offer 3: We've also got Anthony Gardner and you can have him if that makes any difference!!!!

Me, I'd take Offer 1 or Offer 2 or, hopefully, a combination of 1 and 2 that gives me Lennon and Bent and leaves Robbo as far away from my team as possible (I mean you just don't want that shit anywhere near your training ground). Lennon is younger and faster than Bentley and Bent is pretty unabashedly awesome and thrives when clubs rely on him (which Blackburn would no doubt have to do after they let Santa Cruz go). I think I speak for Paul Ince when I say, "Make it happen."