A mate was telling me last night that Alan Shearer was raving about Rickie on the box on Sunday. High praise indeed from one of the greatest strikers of modern times. It's good to know that new improved Rickie is getting noticed.But am I being paranoid in suspecting a Newcastle connection? When a Newcastle demi-god praises a player, might this not give a head of steam to the "Pardew-is-ready-to-make-a-bid" stories? Hopefully Pardew and the black and white hordes were all out shopping on Sunday and missed the game!
To be honest I think Pardew would love to have Ricky with him at Newcastle. Truth is though Rickies age is against him to tempt any one from really handing out big money for him. His contract with Saints will keep him here until he is 32, I think he may be lucky and get an extension of a couple on that but no more. If he was to go to Newcastle or anywhere else I doubt he would be so lucky!
Yes, you are getting paranoid. Shearer was talking as a Saints 'representative' during the Pompey/Saints match. He was bound to praise Lambert. You may have noticed that Newcastle are doing quite well, so are not desperate for a new striker. Lambert is happy and loved and has bought into the Saints 'dream'. He wants to get us up to the PL.
The amusing thing for me was that Claridge had clearly more knowledge of how well Saints can and do play, than Shearer, and said he's seen the Lads play on half a dozen occasions this season. Thankfully, that also shut Cocksure F1 Humphries up.
Even if Pardew did want Lambert at Newcastle, is Cortese (of all people) really likely to sell him to Pardew? Maybe an absoloutely stupid offer he'd accept (i.e. a large majority of their Andy Carroll money), but nothing else. Pardew is not his favourite person.
Relax, there's no chance we'd sell him. Rickie said, when he signed his new contract in the Summer, that he wants to spend the rest of his career with Saints, and I believe that.
That's because Claridge is just the lowly Championship, League One and League Two pundit for BBC while Shearer gets to be pundit for the mighty Premier League. Befitting their careers I suppose since Shearer was a successful Premier League and International Striker while Claridge was a journeyman of the lower leagues, but you'd think that the Premier League pundits might pay a little more attention to what's going on in the other national leagues than they do, unfortunately, much like the Premier League itself, those pundits are kind of stuck up and look down on the quality of the lower leagues.
Shearer is a lazy blighter and does very little by way of prearation for the shows where is meant to be a pundit.
