Now this is getting stupid. Would Joe Allen even be considered by Liverpool had his former manager Brendan Rodgers not moved to Anfield? I doubt whether he'd even be on the Reds' radar. But now, apparently, he is. For 15 million pounds. 

It just so happens that this amount is required to trigger a release clause in his contract. The clause was put in as a deterrent - because Swans Chairman Huw Jenkins is smart enough to know that nobody on the open market would pay that for young Joe. He devised that clause with the sole intention of keeping a reasonably promising young player at the Liberty Stadium - not to sell him.

Brendan Rodgers also signed a contract born out of Jenkinsian inspiration. He agreed not to sign any Swansea players for 12 months following his departure after Jenkins saw how a succession of managers have plundered their previous clubs. 

But that clause contained another clause: that Rodgers could sign Swans players if it were in Swansea's best interests. In other words: if some idiot wanted to pay a stupid price for them.

Such contracts, of course, arise from the knowledge that every manager has their favorites. Steve Bruce, Tony Pulis and Gary Johnson keep signing their sons, as all good dads do. Barry Fry had a remarkable knack of convincing football league Chairman that his conference-level favorites could do a job higher up - no matter how many times they failed!

Rodgers too looks set to be in that mould - "Joe did a job for me at the Liberty and I hope he can do likewise at Pool." And simply to secure the services of that one average player, he is prepared to pay four times more than any other manager on the market. How ludicrous indeed, it seems, for Liverpool to subordinate their transfer sanity to a manager's infatuation with a player that nobody else seems to even be bidding for!

I remember when Allen came on as a 16-year-old against my hometown club Bournemouth in 2007. While it was remarkable that he could turn professional at such a young age, there was nothing remarkable about his play. He was simply a promising youngster who desperately needed to bulk up. 

 
The physical development has come and he can hold his own in the Premier. But holding his own is as far as it goes. Even in today's inflation-mad transfer age, 15 million pounds should never be spent on someone who narrowly keeps his head above water. Least of all when the waters are as deep as those of the cauldron of expectation that is: Anfield.