Ginge gone Potters?

Hi. My name's Pete, and I can't believe my first post on this blog is going to be me slagging off my own club. Everything was going so well. My positivity was verging on all-time highs. And then I read:

Stoke City have had a bid of about £3.5m accepted by Premier League rivals West Ham United for defender James Collins, reports BBC Radio Stoke.

£3.5 million for Ginge?

£3.5 million?

By my reckoning that price suggests Joleon Lescott at least 5 times better than our balding, ginger Welshman and I honestly don't think that's the case. I realise that the man has only managed 50-odd starts for us since he joined, but it's unfair to judge him on this. Thinking about it, with Bellamy, Ashton and Dyer all being made out of bone china, he's comparatively tank-like.

To be fair he has his faults - he's slow and could turned by a stiff breeze - but he's brave and solid in the air. Two fine qualities for a centre back. I guess I'm just taken aback that after we announce, repeatedly, we would not be selling any of our first team players that this happens. Ginge is afterall most certainly first team. The worst part of it is that we're going some way towards justifying the fiction printed in The Mirror!

So why are we selling him? Possibly to give our fantastic youth players a chance such as Bondz N'Gala and Jordan Spence, the latter is in Scunny for a month. The more obvious answer is to buy this Chamakh character we've all be reading so much about. The problem is that by no means have we got him in the bag and from what I'm reading Collins is almost gone. You know what could happen, right? None in one out. The other worrying thing I've been told is that Chamakh's YouTube "best bits" video isn't actually that great.

But what else could we do? I find myself thinking that although we know Upson is the nuts - would we not be better off getting £15 million for him while we can? Keep Ginge, bring up Tomkins and wrap Gabbidon in rubber and send him to the Boleyn Ground every other saturday. In an ideal world we wouldn't be selling anyone, or at least keeping Upson for another year before selling him for £15m then. But I suppose West Ham's world is anything but ideal.

It's a tough one. I'm glad I get to sit on the sidelines and snipe rather than stick my neck out like Dux. Still, I'm a bit sad. A moody Moroccan for a stout Welshman might not be all it's cut out to be.