Zamora - definitely on the plane to the yellow submarine - Photo Wonker CCA
Hands up if you watched Villarreal outplay Arsenal in the first leg of last night’s Champion’s League quarter final first leg and thought to yourself “They’re playing well, but what would really give them the edge is misfiring Fulham striker Bobby Zamora?”
Amazingly, The Daily Mirror’s ‘Football Spy’ (could it be Andriy Shevchenko?) believes that at somebody with influence over Villarreal’s transfer strategy thought just that, and has decided to run with it today:
Fulham striker Bobby Zamora is shock target for Spanish giants
This could be an almighty scoop were it to be true. It just seems so ridiculous that they must have some kind of inside line to print something so audacious? Some kind of Spanish source or Spanish newspaper story ripe for mistranslation? A vague quote that can at least be interpreted to suggest that it is a possibility? No?
Ok, let’s have a look at the ammunition that fuelled this particular bombshell:
Fulham striker Bobby Zamora is a shock target for Spanish side Villarreal.
Zamora, 28, is contracted to Fulham until 2012 after joining last summer from West Ham for £4.8million.
But he has only four goals this term and has even been jeered by some fans at Craven Cottage.
Zamora, whose family have Spanish connections, is also known to harbour ambitions of playing in La Liga.
Alright. What exactly is this based on? There is literally nothing more than a baseless claim supported by smaller but equally baseless claims. Let’s look at this sentence by sentence, which won’t take long as there are only four of them:
Fulham striker Bobby Zamora is a shock target for Spanish side Villarreal.
That is just the headline repeated but specifying that the Spanish giants are in fact Villarreal, just in case anybody thought it was Barcelona or Real Madrid (perhaps looking for somebody to keep Julien Faubert company?)
Zamora, 28, is contracted to Fulham until 2012 after joining last summer from West Ham for £4.8million.
Contracted for 3 more years - that just makes the potential transfer more expensive and less likely.
But he has only four goals this term and has even been jeered by some fans at Craven Cottage.
Fine, it has not been a successful move. He might be surplus to requirements next season, and might be interested in leaving, but why would this sentence make him attractive to Villarreal, currently in their second quarter final of the Champions League in the last 4 years and runners up in La Liga last season? They have free scoring Italian Guissepe Rossi, once seen as the future of Manchester United (now read Federico Macheda) and now following a successful loan spell at Parma with 23 goals and counting in his debut season in La Liga. Last night he partnered Joseba Llorente, who has definitely scored more Champions League hat tricks and scored more winning goals in Champions League last 16 matches than Bobby Zamora. Their current level of success and crop of strikers really does beg the question, why would they be interested in somebody previously offloaded by Tottenham and West Ham and now struggling at Fulham?
The Mirror has an idea:
Zamora, whose family have Spanish connections, is also known to harbour ambitions of playing in La Liga.
Tenuous! Does his family really have Spanish connections? Fine, the name Zamora derives form the ancient city of Zamora in North West Spain, but his wikipedia entry says pretty clearly that he “is a native born English footballer of Trinidadian background” and grew up playing in East London. He turned down the chance to represent Trinidad and Tobago at the last World Cup to concentrate on West Ham, his boyhood club, telling press “I am only thinking about the club at the moment and do not want to be distracted from that”.
This love for West Ham flies in the face of the claim that he is “known to harbour ambitions of playing in La Liga”, and a bit of research shows plenty of evidence of his commitment to the Premier League. In an interview with the Independent last December, Zamora outlines his long term ambition to play Premier League football, fuelled by watching former teammates from East London club Senrab making the grade - the likes of John Terry, Ledley King, Jlloyd Samuel, and Paul Konchesky: “I would think to myself, ‘I used to play with those guys, they weren’t head and shoulders above me, far from it. They are in the Premier League, so it is a matter of time before I get there. A door will open, my face will fit’.
Zamora also outlines his reasoning behind leaving his boyhood club for Fulham: “Zamora said he looked at the team Hodgson was putting together, including Johnson who was being pursued, and thought, “that’s a good Premier League side, one which will pass the ball, one I want to be involved with.”
Lots on his desire to play in the Premier League, something that was particularly evident when at boyhood club West Ham. What doesn’t come to light is his supposed ambitions of playing in La Liga - how is it known he harbours such desires?
You have to admire the Mirror’s audacity, but ultimately there is little else to admire in this brief, ridiculous transfer rumour. There are no sources and they have not even masked that by claiming there is. There are no dodgy misquotes from foreign papers and bizarre claims and bits of hearsay that simple research shows have absolutely no grounding in truth. It has simply been plucked out of the air.
Still, a quick search using Google translate for Spanish news of the story did turn up one Spanish report of the story, so maybe it is gaining credence. The source? The Daily Mirror of course. Let’s hope concerned Villarreal fans have enough knowledge of British tabloids track record on football rumours to give this report context:
Zamora, a new front in Villarreal
The striker Bobby Zamora came this summer to Fulham, who paid him to West Ham over five million euros for him. However, his season is not too bright, with only four goals to his credit and is likely to make the bags in the summer. Villarreal might be more feasible to his destiny as The Mirror, which says family ties with Spain in Zamora indicate that the ‘yellow submarine’ is more likely than other clubs to hire. The player, however, has a contract with Fulham until 2012.
