Transfer Ka-Ka-Krazy U-Turns

It’s official: the laws of common sense have been repealed.

Our evidence for this admittedly rather sweeping statement? No, it’s not Manchester City’s latest £48 trillion bid for Kaka. Nor is it the fact that Jose Mourinho revealed his desire to bring Jermaine Jenas to Internazionale not by approaching club, agent or player, but by asking a journalist from a television sports news channel to put the word out. And it isn’t even the price tags running into tens of millions that West Ham seem to be attaching to everyone from the under-16s goalkeeper to the bloke who quarters the half-time oranges. Instead, it’s the news that Arsene Wenger – football’s Mister Logic, the beautiful game’s answer to C++ – has decided that he was wrong about Matthew Upson… and will pay £9 million to bring him back to the Gunners. And according to the Mirror he’ll even consider chucking in his current least-favourite player, Nicklas Bendtner, as a £5m makeweight for the man he sold for just £3m in 2003. Considering how hard Wenger has been trying to save a few quid on his bill for Andrei Arshavin, swallowing a £6m deficit is tough for the robotic Alsatian – and he’s even made a few inflammatory remarks to the media about City’s Kaka deal to draw attention away from it. Although Upson may have trebled in value, his price rise is positively dwarfed by the Zimbabwe-style inflation rate that has governed the price of Wigan midfielder Wilson Palacios. The Latics paid a reported £770k for the Honduran international just last year, but now they are about to prise an astonishing £14m from Spurs for his services, a deal that is apparently now all but done. And it’s not just Palacios who has persuaded Harry Redknapp’s overlords to open their cheque books: the same paper also reports that Harry is ready to offer up to £16m to Sunderland for striker Kenwyne Jones – who cost the Black Cats £6m under 18 months ago – and says if he can’t get his man, he’ll switch his attention to a £12m swoop for the Hammers’ in-form Craig Bellamy, who was worth £7.5m in July 2007 and now wants to leave despite the Hammers’ resolution to keep him. How will Spurs pay for all this? Apparently by getting rid of Darren Bent for £14m to Aston Villa, if the Mirror is to be believed. This rash of nonsensical business doesn’t stop there: West Ham are ready to fill the Bellamy-sized gap with Fiorentina’s Pablo Osvaldo, rated at £7m despite barely appearing for his current side. Equally baffling is Fulham and West Brom’s desire to pick up Greek striker Angelos Charisteas from Nuremberg, even though he’s scored just once this season in the German second tier. Staying in Europe, Lyon’s highly-rated Karim Benzema is clearly open to a big-money move to one of Europe’s fancy clubs – Manchester United and Barcelona are both reportedly keen – but the club’s owners have taken the opportunity to re-price their key asset following the Kaka saga, and now want a prohibitive £88m for him. Equally baffling is the Jermaine Pennant story: Real Madrid now face opposition from Portsmouth for the signature of Liverpool’s out-of-favour winger… and as if that wasn’t bizarre enough in itself, the talk is that Real see Pennant as a direct replacement for Cristiano Ronaldo while they wait until summer for the Portuguese player’s arrival. Curiouser and curiouser… One move that makes a bit more sense is Reading looking to cash in on the good form this season of Stephen Hunt, the winger attracting interest from clubs including Spurs – and Royals boss Steve Coppell willing to let him leave if they get more than £5m. And equally sensible is the decision by Leeds to hang on to teenage prodigy Fabian Delph, who has attracted the interest of Manchester United, Arsenal and Newcastle. It’s not so much that they’ll need him to help them up through the divisions – but more that he’ll be worth an awful lot more if Leeds manage to climb the ladder.