First published in The Pink on Saturday, May 8, 2010.

THE TRANSFER season is upon us – and so are the outlandish rumours we will be having to contend with.

Throughout the year, you read rumours that certain clubs have been scouting out players – and I tend to believe there is something in them.

Often they come to nothing, but I’m sure clubs have a decent look at far more players than they actually make offers for.

But once the transfer window opens, the mill goes into overdrive, spouting out some of the most bizarre, hysteria inducing links ever made.

I wonder where a lot of them come from, but they all follow a similar poster.

“My mate is a security guard at X club and says…”

“I was in this restaurant and saw Y in talks with a middle aged man…”

“Z was seen by my sister’s son’s girlfriend going into the stadium…” And so on.

I reckon you can normally put these sort of rumours down to delusions of grandeur, gullibility or poor eyesight.

We all love it though. We can’t help but start to imagine how some player who you’ve only ever seen on YouTube will transform the side with his Zidane-esque skills, despite the fact you only heard of him 15 minutes ago.

Carthorses can be transformed into world-beaters as you scour the Internet for all the information you can about him.

At the same time, anything linking decent players moving away is attacked with lashings of scorn and cast off as someone out to cause trouble by stirring scurrilous rumours to unsettle the squad and bring our glory crashing down around the manager’s ears.

It’s not just Saints fans, of course, it is the same with supporters all over the world. Man United fans constantly cried foul over the links made about Ronaldo and now Rooney, just as Liverpool fans don’t want to admit that players like Torres and Gerrard would perhaps be better off elsewhere – conveniently forgetting that Stevie wasn’t far off joining Chelsea a few years ago… As for Saints, I’m certain teams higher than League One will be looking at our top players and will try to test our resolve to hold on to them. You don’t play as well as Lambert and Lallana for example and not attract attention.

As I’ve droned on before, we should be flattered that we have players deemed good enough to be playing higher up the league system – it shows that Pardew has a team that is playing well and has the potential to do well in the Championship.

It’s kind of like having a great looking girlfriend – you can either get jealous and possessive, hiding her away from the world or you can walk around with a bit of a swagger, saying: “Yeah, I pulled her. She’s with me and that makes me awesome.

In your face, ugly people!”

Of course, if you’re paying your girlfriend football-esque wages to stay with you, then you should probably have a word with yourself.

So, bring on the transfer rumours. Let’s make the most of them and enjoy the ride.

● You can keep up with all the very latest rumours involving Saints during the summer on the transfer rumour round-up article.

A brief respite from Football

NORMALLY at this time of year, my better half expresses her delight at the football season drawing to a close.

Every second year, I have to break the news to her that all is not lost – as we have the World Cup/European Championships to look forward to.

I think if I had a vested interest in it, she wouldn’t mind much, but thanks to Thierry Henry’s hand (yes, I’m still upset about that) Ireland won’t be there.

This leads to me watching dozens of games (Honduras v Chile, anyone?) just for the sake of it being the World Cup.

What’s wrong with that, I hear you cry?

Well, nothing in my tiny mind suggests there could be a problem.

However, I think the missus may see things slightly differently. She doesn’t care how many passes Argentina strung together before taking that shot and she certainly doesn’t laugh at as many of Adrian Chiles’ jokes as I do.

So what do we do to try and bargain for as much TV time as possible during the celebration of football (which is actually an over-commercialised abomination of mediocrity dedicated to Sepp Blatter’s ego, but I digress) that is FIFA’s showpiece?

I’m all out of ideas, other than promising not to watch any football between the end of the Final and the start of Saints’ pre-season friendlies.

I’m sure those four days will be more than enough to keep her happy.

Pompey Watch

£138m in debt now, up £20m in a week and double what it was when they went into administration back in late February.

That sort of financial planning and management makes the Greek economy look well run.