The Bagel is an uncle. My sister, the Croissant, has just given birth to the bun in her oven, which turned out to be a little Brioche, after a week and a half more cooking time than the recipe had stated. Yes, there is a new world’s smallest Yiddo.

She’s clearly a fan of good football after waiting for a good, skillful-playing team to be crowned European Champions before deciding it was safe to enter the world. Unfortunately, it did mean missing the game last night but then the Brioche is obviously aware that The Bagel shall be taking her along to as many games at the Lane as she desires. Great result.

In what seems like the merest of blips now, I have the mildly irritating news that we’ve failed in a bid to capture Sevilla left winger and clear favourite of the Perfect Juan, Diego Capel, and the trouble is I can’t see it getting sorted either without it getting very expensive indeed.

Capel has become the first choice left sider at the Stadio Far Too Long and Uncatchy and even a hefty £12.5m cannot change the minds of President Del Nido and his personal vendetta. I imagine the price is right but the feelings are not.

On the one level, they don’t want Capel to go because he’s good but more to the point it’s because they’re still considerably dicked-off with both Juande and Spurs after we pinched the best manager they ever had. Fair enough really. I’d hold a grudge too. But beyond plain anger is the fact that they’re still seeking out £3m compensation against us along with a personal law suit against Ramos himself for breach of contract.

I’ve a feeling that Juande can handle himself and that he was smart enough to consult a lawyer before making his move but the bigger problem lies in the £3m, if not the bitterness of the affair as a whole.

The £12.5m offer was for Capel and the dropping of both of the actions and Sevilla are said to have rejected it in order to pursue both cases. Now that would mean that we’re valuing the winger at £9.5m minus maybe another 1 or 2 mill. So, at a guess, that means we’ve only offered £6m or £7m - probably not enough. I say probably because even if we offered £50m for the lot they may say no.

However, I imagine Del Nido is a “reasonable” man or if not his legal team will make a few descrete whispers behind napkins if we should offer something closer to £20m. It’s simple really. We want both cases dropped and we want the player. We want those three things very badly indeed. Nobody likes a court case hanging over them and as much as a company can handle it, I’m not sure how well an individual can. Christ, I get itchy when I’ve got 14 days to pay a parking ticket.

The point is that everyone wants Juande with a clear head just focusing on the game and Juande clearly wants Capel. He’s been his number one target since day one. I don’t care what anyone says. Fact.

Really hard to know if we’re going to pull this off. The question is, are we willing to make an offer which is more than Sevilla think they’ll get from the court cases?

While we’re on money, PSV are claimng that the undisclosed, but much touted, £7m transfer fee for the Octopus is in fact much lower than was agreed between us and themselves. As it goes, I’m sure they’re right but I’m sure the press isn’t wrong either. This is clearly a Tottenham deal. We’ve given them £7.4m up front rising to around £10m, I should think, based on appearances, haircut, the colour of boots he choses to wear and whether or not there’s an R in the month. They’ll get their £10m, but only if he’s good.

£10m seems a popular number today and if Goal.com are to be believed, or their sources at least, then Little Aaron isn’t one of the players on Juande’s culling spree, however, should Keegan still luv it if he had Lennon then the afore mentioned sum should do it.

As ever, time fights with The Bagel but hot off the press before I go is the news that we’ve signed a new young-un for the Academy of Younger Yiddos. Mirko Ranieri is a 16-year-old, goalkeeper from Perugia of no relation to Claudio unfortunately. He’s 6′2″ and apparently is an excellent shot stopper. Here’s his head…

…he’s the one on the right, but how good would it be if we signed a chap that happened to look like the good looking gentleman to the left?

Got to fix this multimedia issue.

Right, must skidaddle.

I’m a bagel!

Uncle Bagel.