Spurs to reunite troubled striker with Tim Sherwood for Benteke

There's a category of transfer rumors that can only be classified as "It'd be nice but" stories. They come out of the woodwork this time of the year. Like this one from the Mirror, which claims that Tottenham will try and tempt Tim Sherwood to part with want-away striker Christian Benteke... by offering Emmanuel Adebayor as bait.

Sure, Adebayor and Tim Sherwood are besties. Sherwood rescued Ade from the brink of football oblivion and crammed him back in the starting lineup, and Ade responded by scoring 14 goals in 25 matches. Benteke, meanwhile, is rumored to be dissatisfied at Villa and wants an escape route.

Yes, absolutely! It'd be nice... but...

For one thing, Ade-plus-cash for Benteke is a pretty awful deal for Villa, even if you believe that Sherwood can pull his striker-whisperer trick on Ade again. That is, unless Benteke starts to throw his weight around and Villa sees no choice but to sell him. However, even if that were to happen I would suspect that Benteke wouldn't be sold until way, way farther down the road, not two days before the transfer window even opens. And there will be much, much better deals from clubs bigger than Tottenham if that does come to pass.

Moreover, Ade's wages are, as we've mentioned, stupid high. Spurs can barely afford them, and Villa almost certainly can't. The only way to make something like that work is for Spurs to subsidize part of Ade's wages just to get him out the door, much like Manchester City did when Spurs signed him. We know Daniel Levy at least considered that possibility in January during Ade's failed transfer to West Ham, but that's still a bitter pill to swallow.

So yes, I'm calling this story #batcountry. We'd all like it to happen, but I'm going to refuse to believe it until it actually does. Which it won't. Because it's #batcountry.