Football transfer rumours: Arsenal to offer £80m for Paul Pogba?
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Version 0 of 1. The Rumour Mill has seen and heard plenty of funny things in its time. It has seen Daniel Kitson, Stewart Lee, Sarah Millican, Eddie Izzard and Sara Pascoe perform comedy sets that have made it ache with laughter. It has seen a man with a full drink in hand run into a glass door, believing it to be open, spilling said drink down a new white shirt*. It has seen a dog wearing a ruff. It has a friend who once bought their mother a theatre ticket as a birthday present. It has been told the tale of an injured player at Leyton Orient who, in the absence of a stretcher, was taken from the field on a hostess trolley which he then, rather inevitably, fell off. Still, there’s something to rival those tales of hilarity this morning, specifically the notion that Arsenal could make a whopping £80m offer for Paul Pogba. Even in this time of financial flexibility at the Emirates, when Arsène Wenger is no longer quite so petrified to open his club’s wallet, waft away the moths and count out the pound notes, first, the idea of Arsenal shelling out that sort of cheese is pretty funny, but equally amusing and implausible is the idea that a team with even more money muscle will just let them do it and not double whatever they’re offering the Frenchman. Still, it says here that’s exactly what they’ll do, but it also says they’re only looking at Pogba because Barcelona are in for Morgan Schneiderlin, so make of all that what you will. Also up there in the comedy stakes is the prospect of Manchester United signing Stefan Savic, a man presumably already close to their hearts after his hapless performances across town. However, he has seemingly got his act together enough to be a live target for Louis van Gaal’s boys, while Barcelona are keen, too. Imagine: two clubs of the history, prestige, support and trophy records of Manchester United and Barça duking it out for Stefan Savic. United are also scouting the Braga midfielder Rafa, but that’s not nearly as funny, so we’ll pretend we haven’t seen that one. One man who could well be handed a card marked “do one” from Old Trafford is Ángel di María, currently £60m-worth of flattering to deceive after an opening few games in which he looked like some form of transcendental being sent to teach us mortals about the ways of football. PSG are loading up a big truck with cash and heading for Calais as they plan to replace Ezequiel Lavezzi, although given that their back-up targets are Eden Hazard and Marco Reus, they perhaps won’t be crying themselves to sleep if Plan A doesn’t come off. Elsewhere in Manchester, City are makin’ plans. Specifically, they’re makin’ plans for Koke, the Atlético Madrid midfielder who decided to buck the trend when half their title-winning team were contemplating getting the hell out of Dodge last summer and stayed where he was. It’s possible he made this decision because Diego Simeone just stared at him and slowly shook his head –would you actively displease him? No, of course you wouldn’t. You value your skin and major organs. City will chuck Stevan Jovetic into the deal, which seems akin to offering a toaster as a “sweetener” when you’re haggling over the price of a Mercedes, while United (them again) have the more attractive part-exchange candidate in the shape of Juan Mata. In another part of what used to be Lancashire, Raheem Sterling is apparently not fazed by word that Liverpool are hanging their nose over the Juventus forward Álvaro Morata as if he were a particularly appetising-looking cheesecake in a shop window. Yer man Sterling is “close” to signing a new contract at Anfield apparently, which will ward off Real Madrid and their predatory ilk because that’s exactly how these things work. Finally, sometimes when a footballer or former footballer says a thing, we can give it a little more weight because of their standing in the game, their past experience, their understanding of the sport that lends them a little more gravitas. That is even more acute when it’s someone with perceived “insider” knowledge – a player discussing a former team-mate, for example. However, sometimes they’re just whistling in the wind like the rest of us, speculating and guessing at what might happen even though they have little idea themselves. Make your own mind up into which camp Eric Abidal’s assertion that Leo Messi could leave Barcelona for PSG falls, but y’know … just keep all that in mind. * Yes, dear reader, that man was of course the Rumour Mill. |