With the official announcement that Pascal Chimbonda ‘Football mercenary No1’ has left Tottenham to join Roy Keane at Sunderland, I have to ask did he get a fair hearing from the Spurs fans?
Chimbonda came to the English Premiership in July 2005 in a £500,000 move to Wigan claiming that he moved because he wanted to test himself against the best in the world.
He didn’t disappoint. In his first season he was superb, winning a place in the PFA team of the season and deservedly so. At this point all was sweetness and light until he dropped a bombshell transfer request on the final day of that season, the whole of football would never forgive him…
I have always tried to look at this from both sides. Wigan owner Dave Whelan was very vocal, claiming that the player was under contract and would rot in the reserves unless someone paid £6m for his services.
I have always found it strange that even Spurs fans chose the word of a reluctant selling chairman over a player about to join us. Chimbonda renegotiated his Wigan deal in January 2006 and claims that Wigan promised him he would be allowed to leave ‘if’ a bigger club came in and offered Wigan a suitable fee. Although this, if true would be considered nieve by both the player and particularly his agent for not putting a clause to this effect into the new deal, but whoever was right Chimbonda felt Wigan had broken a promise and Wigan felt betrayed..
I would guess at some time in our lives, our employers have broken a promise to increase our wages, give us a promotion or whatever, and we would be quite rightly entitled to vote with our feet, this was exactly what Chimbonda did, if we are to believe his side of things..
From the moment the story linking the player to Tottenham, the fans were divided. Half were ready to welcome the ‘best’ right back in the Prem to The Lane and the other half didn’t want to see such a mercenary set foot inside their beloved club.
Interestingly a similar situation happened in May 2003, when Jermain Defoe handed in a written transfer request 24 hours after West Ham were relegated from the Prem, because Championship football wasn’t good for his career. I don’t want to say Defoe was wrong in his actions, but he asked to leave because his club were relegated, Chimbonda claims he asked to leave over a breaking of a promise. Who committed the biggest crime?
Spurs fans have never warmed to Chimbonda (nor seemingly have his hands since joining the club). His mercenary tag has well and truly stuck and was compounded when he walked straight to the dressing room when substituted in the Carling Cup final this year the final nail in his coffin for Spurs fans, despite Juande Ramos already hammering every other nail in with the purchase of not one but two shiny new right backs in the January window..
Despite being effectively bombed out of the club by his new replacements and being forced to play in an unfamiliar left back role he didn’t complain. Lets be honest we all expected him to, ‘Big time’ but there was nothing. I would bet a very high percentage of other players would have caused a riot of this had happened to them..
Was this the sign of a maturing player who was in reality gutted to be cast aside by Ramos or as some would prefer to assume, a player who simply lacked the passion to be bothered as long as he got his wages at the end of the month?
The parting of the ways was inevitable, but in my opinion Pascal remains one of the Prems best right backs and with better organisation of the Tottenham team and defence we would have perhaps seen him play to his potential, instead of the error prone defender many will remember him by..
Though I cant say I will be shedding a tear at his departure, again there begs the question of why, yet another great player joins our club, then leave’s an average one…..
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