Watching Fox Soccer Report last night, I was interested to hear that Chelsea had signed CSKA Moscow’s Yuri Zhirkov. The financial details weren’t disclosed, but that was understandable as the deal was relatively new. I was interested because, frankly, Zhirkov is one of the best left-side players in the game; he has the ability to play everything along the left hand side of the pitch, from left back to left wing. Zhirkov was first noticed by many last summer when the Guus Hiddink led (and Roman Abramovich supported) Russian national team had their stellar Euro campaign. The deal, in that respect, “made sense”; a Russian guy going to Chelsea on the recommendation of two top Russian officials seemed like a reasonable situation.
So when I woke up this morning, I was relatively surprised to see that, put simply, the deal didn’t exist.
I’m not really sure how that happened, but here’s the Associated Foreign Press story confirming that, at some time yesterday, people really thought that Zhirkov was a Blue: Link
Today in the Mirror, though, it’s a very different story. For one thing, both Chelsea and CSKA Moscow are officially denying the transfer. For another, the only fact that the Mirror can seem to confirm on the whole issue is this:
However, it is a fact that 25-year-old Zhirkov is seen as a highly talented left winger with one goal in six starts so far this season.
The paper goes on to say that Zico, CSKA’s manager, wouldn’t stop him from moving to London. As of right now, though, it hasn’t happened, and it doesn’t really sound like either club was really close to finalizing anything.
And that concludes your “Confusing Weekend Transfer Rumor Roundup” for today.
Fuck Zhirkov, etc.
I would like to thank you all for including my question in the past mailbag. I just now caught it, and the answer was on-point, to the best I could tell.
Stay up.