Barry Fry is no stranger to loudmouthery. The Peterborough supremo has a storied career in football, and is an expert at shouting off and getting his face in the paper.
He’s a bit of a guru at it.
And his comments on Rangers’ Emmanuel Fernandez reeked of classic Fry.
The chairman at Posh claimed Rangers are in line to sell the potential Nigerian international for £40M.
He certainly wasn’t hanging around with that valuation.
Why?
Manny’s agent has very cleverly been putting Borussia Dortmund in claims regarding his client, claiming they’re scouting him. Recently he added Arsenal to the list.
You know, Arsenal, with two defenders worth around £75M-£100M each? Yeah that Arsenal.
There is no sane planet in which European colossi like these surely want Manny Fernandez, but his former chairman and his agent are getting his name out there. And maybe they have watched him, who knows.
And that’s a big favour from Fry to Rangers, and his agent to his own pocket, of course. Fry would look very smug in the event of a big sale, while his agent would get a nice paycheque.
In fairness, Manny’s stats are respectable this season. Despite what a calamity he often looks when on the ball, his clearances and interceptions are among the best. He ranks 6th in the whole SPL for clearances and 11th for interceptions. Curiously Djiga is 6th for interceptions.
But in terms of Manny, his aerial prowess is why he’s become so prominent. The goals have dried up, but for a while the boy was finding the net off those set plays.
A goalscoring defender is a major fillip, there’s not many defenders who can go up for set pieces and likely nab a goal.
If the boy can work on his ball-on-deck play, there’s something that could be developed into a surprisingly good defender who can net Rangers a fair few quid.
We’re just not sure Arsenal will be spending £40M on him no matter what The Peterborough supremo said.
We still wouldn’t select him in our personal preference Rangers’ first choice defence, but as long as we’re winning…right?