Yesterday Allesandro Diamanti was sold. Popularly known with us as Shopping Channel (Diamante = Cubit Zircon = Tacky Shopping Channel Jewelry), he was an intriguing player. Because he was Italian (with the complete repertoire of histrionic shrugs and hands-together-in prayer chopping motions), Pravda regularly invoked Paulo Di Canio whenever writing about him. Not that he was ever in the same league (except that, last season, he was, in fact, although at a different time).
He was a near-perfect example of what the former Chief Executive, Scott Duxbury, and Gianfranco Zola used to refer to as The Project. One aspect of that was to make a virtue of not having any money to spend, but developing young players instead. Another was to look to the Italian League for bargains. When there was some money, it was spent (£6m reportedly) on reinforcing the team where it least needed reinforcing.
Definitely need a striker? Buy a wide midfield player (Diamanti).
Definitely need a right back? Loan a midlfield player (Jimenez).
And, to have the money to do this, sell a commanding central defender and replace with a young player to develop. And then ship lots of goals.
That's a plan. Not a very good one, but a plan. Now we need to try to discern what Avram's plan is. At least he bought a striker, but Piquionne is apparently one of those curious non-scoring strikers. Heskey a la francais?
As to The Project, Jimenez went back after half a season of failure and Diamanti is sold at £4.5m loss after a season.
But he still took a better penalty than Carlton Cole.
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