FanPost

Don't Colback, Jack

Apologies already for the terrible headline, I couldn't think of anything better to call it.

I've never been the biggest fan of Jack Colback. He's had good games, and he's had some woeful ones. Granted, he had a long spell where you thought he never gave the ball away, but that's an easy task when you're looking for ten yard passes and knocks back to your centre backs.

However, he's the sort of player who you know could do you a job, a specific job of spoiler and ball retainer, if you had a requirement for such a player.

He was the only player, though, that I never ummed and ahhed over whether to keep when his contract ran out this summer. I made a case for Larsson (in the last few weeks anyway), Bardsley (good cover), Gardner (cover), even Dossena I thought would make a good last resort full back...kind of. With Jack, I never had a second thought. He's not any kind of impact player, and is just steady away, when its clear that this off-season we'd be looking for much more than that.

So I was quite happy that he went. Even to them lot. If a player would rather play for them than us, I won't lose any sleep over their poor life choice. You could even applaud the fact he's turned down silly money in London to move to his boyhood team. The only thing that grates me is the way he's done it.

If the club statement is true (and why would we have any reason to disbelieve it), Jack has done a proper number on us. Demands were met, and the club were seemingly keen to keep him. He had every chance to be honest and say "sorry, I've had an offer from X, I'm going to take it." Instead, he led us down the garden path. He told the club that he'd be open to talks after we confirmed safety, and promptly never opened talks again. He wasted the club's time, costing us valuable man hours in our pursuit of other targets.

Why I expect a shred of decency from a modern day footballer, I'm not quite sure. I suppose the way I was raised means that honesty is a big thing for me. I also reckon that the way we did business with Seb Larsson - some people's model of what a mercenary footballer is these days, resting on his laurels and earning a fortune in the process - comes into it too. We made him an offer, he (through his agent) openly admitted he had other offers that he wanted to listen to. Fair play, well within his rights to do that. He signed back for us. Bonus. If we'd had that kind of honesty from Colback, I might be a bit more thankful for his contributions and wish him well.

Not so. Bye Jack. Hope it's hell. Good luck explaining the hand gestures to them.

Are you making a FanPost? Well that's fantastic, just keep it tasteful.