Sunderland were last night poised to smash the record fee
paid by a British club for a goalkeeper after tabling a £9million
offer for Hearts' Craig Gordon. Roy Keane raised his bid after an
£8.5m offer for the 24-year-old Scotland international was turned
down. The previous record for a goalkeeper was the £7.8m Manchester
United paid for Fabien Barthez in 2000.
Scottish goalkeepers Jim Leighton, Andy Goram and Alan Rough
among them have been the butt of jokes, even ridicule, over the
years. But Gordon is seen as a potential great in the Scottish
game. He impressed Arsenal's Arsene Wenger in Scotland's dramatic
victory over France in the European Championship qualifiers and has
been a regular at Tynecastle for five years.
At 6ft 4in, he has the presence to make a major impact in English
football, according to Keane, who has chased him all summer. But
his improved offer of £9m is still raising eyebrows, given that the
highest fee paid for a British goalkeeper is £6m the sum Arsenal
paid for Richard Wright and Liverpool for Chris Kirkland in
2001.
Coincidentally, the bid for Gordon was tabled on the day Blackburn
manager Mark Hughes criticised the inflated prices being paid by
his Premiership colleagues in the wake of the £2.2billion TV rights
bonanza. He said: 'There are a lot of players moving around at the
moment and the value that has been put on those players is totally
out of sync with what they are actually worth.
"I think it's just people looking around to see what's available,
and who they can get into their club, and they are having to pay
top dollar over and above top dollar on occasions. "There's a lot
of players going for five, six, seven and eight million, and I look
at some of the players that have moved and I then look at my squad
and think they wouldn't improve it."
Keane landed his fifth player of the summer yesterday with the
£1.5m capture of Norwich midfielder Dickson Etuhu, taking his
spending past £15m. Should he land Gordon and successfully complete
his long-running pursuit of Wigan full back Leighton Baines,
Sunderland will have spent £30m since gaining promotion to the
Premiership.
That is unprecedented in the club's history. They spent £4.25m in
2005 when Mick McCarthy prepared them for their last ill-fated
return to the top flight. Keane still believes he can tempt Baines
to the Stadium of Light, despite the resistance of Wigan manager
Chris Hutchings, who only wants to sell to a top-four Premiership
side. He said: "Just because a club says a player is not for sale
if that was the case, nobody would ever move club. "I am sure
Everton told Manchester United Wayne Rooney was not for sale but
they got him, so we will see."
