Steven Caulker sold to Cardiff City for club record fee

Colour me red for 'blood-boilingly irate' over this one: Tottenham academy product and all-round top lad Steven Caulker has signed for Cardiff City after being deemed surplus to requirements at Spurs for reasons that are totally unbeknownst to myself or anyone with eyes which connect to their brain stem.

We have reached agreement with Cardiff City for the transfer of Steven Caulker. #THFC

— Tottenham Hotspur (@SpursOfficial) July 31, 2013

OK, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit. There is a reason: in selling on Caulker and possibly bringing in Steaua's Vlad Chiriches (a player who for my money is of comparable ability, but older) for a marginally lower amount, Spurs stand to turn a tiny profit on this bit of business.

Now here's loads of reasons why selling Caulker was the stupidest thing this club has done in a transfer window for years. Since graduating up to the reserve team after clearing Spurs' academy, Caulker has done nothing but amaze every manager he's worked under with his intelligence, composure, maturity and sheer athleticism. By the age of 20 he'd already developed into a Premier League mainstay starter on loan at Swansea (a club which went all-out to sign him back 12 months ago only to be turned down because we seemingly understood then that Caulker is really, really good), cracked the Tottenham first team, and gained his first England cap, during which he managed to shackle Zlatan Ibrahimovic for almost a whole match and also bag a debut goal. Though Caulker was prone to the odd blip in his maiden season with Tottenham, especially on clearances, he was still pretty goddamned competent for a 20 year-old starting for a Champions League-chasing side and only looked set to continue to improve next season.

Then there's the fact that he's a Academy product which, outside of just being something that we should all take pride in when he plays, is really helpful for squad list regulations both in the Premier League and Europe. Considering his aforementioned leaderly attributes and 'club man' status, Caulker looked destined to make a run at the Spurs captaincy and had the chance down the line to grow within the club into a Spurs icon.

In every sense, basically, we had the new Ledley King on our books and we let him go.

To Cardiff.

I need to go and sit down outside for a while.