The Frenchman scored 11 goals in 22 games for Wanderers this season before making a £15million switch to Stamford Bridge - loose change for Roman Abramovich.

Everyone knows he can do it at the highest level, Chelsea needed a striker and at 28 years of age he should be in the prime of his career.

The same can be said of Tottenham's Dimitar Berbatov who will be 27 at the end of the month.

But asking in excess of £30 million for him is a joke.

There is no doubting his quality, but he has always struck me as a one week on, two weeks off kind of player.

It is an accusation levelled at Anelka in the past and that may still be the case.

But if he is valued at only half of what Spurs would want for Berbatov, he is worth the gamble.

Spurs, of course, have had trouble valuing strikers in recent months - after all, they paid £15.5 million for Darren Bent from Charlton last summer.

WE have all seen dads getting involved when their sons are playing football.

But it is usually when their offspring is playing junior football.

Not so for Micah Richards's father, if reports at the weekend are anything to go by.

Manchester City defender Richards, one of the country's rising stars, had been negotiating an improved contract at the City of Manchester Stadium.

And he was initially believed to have been happy at doubling his £25,000-a-week pay cheque.

He was until, according to the club, his dad got involved.

Now he is looking for £75,000-a-week and his future at Eastlands is in doubt.

While I am unlikely to ever be in the position of having to help my own son treble a five-figure income - although he made a promising first appearance as an under-eight keeper this week - I like to think I could show some restraint.

I would point to Shaun Wright-Phillips's experience on leaving Manchester City and joining Chelsea - a move that saw him warming the Stamford Bridge bench for many months and clearly cost him a place in England's World Cup squad in 2006.

Richards should think long and hard before doing anything similar.

ALL the pre-Australian Open tennis talk was about a breakthrough year for Britain's Andy Murray.

By the time most of us woke up yesterday morning at the end of the first day's play in Melbourne, he was already out of the tournament.

Hopes were high that the Scot - a wondrously talented player and tough character according to one of the Sunday papers I read - would be in the mix with the rest of the big boys at the end of week two.

Instead, he will be watching on as the likes of Federer, Nadal and Djokovic battle it out for the first of 2008's Grand Slams.

There will be much analysis of ninth seed Murray's defeat to Frenchman Jo-Wilfred Nsonga.

But no one should forget the unbelievable progress he has made in the last 18 months or so and we will all be hoping that his setback in Australia is merely a blip.