In today’s transfer window we take a look at the usual suspects of Manchester City, Tottenham and Liverpool and the return to the headlines of a certain agent.
By Conor Hogan
Guess who’s back in the headlines. Everyone’s favourite football slave-trader Kia Joorabchian (pictured). You might remember him as the man who owned Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano, and the cause of all that West Ham/Sheffield United bother a few years ago.
Well, another one of his clients/commodities Ramires is set to sign for Chelsea, and the Premier League is going to ‘seriously look into it’. But considering this is the same organisation who let Thai exile Thaksin Shinawatra buy a football club, I would be fairly optimistic of it going ahead.
Speaking of Mascherano
Inter Milan manager Rafa Benitez is planning a raid on former club Liverpool, and will make bids for Javier Mascherano and Dirk Kuyt. Will Liverpool have any of their top players left by the time the season starts? Steven Gerrard maybe, but does Stevie G count as a top player anymore?
He couldn’t even make it into JOE’s definitive Top 50 players in the world list. There is some good news for Liverpool, however, as they look likely to sign Mexican defender Carlos Salcido from Dutch club PSV Eindhoven.
Rafa Benitez is also taking a ‘long hard look’ at World Cup Golden Ball winner Diego Forlan. It’s making the Uruguayan Atletico Madrid man feel slightly uncomfortable.
It’s busy busy busy at Manchester City. Despite already forking out £83 million on players such as David Silva, Yaya Toure, Jerome Boateng and Aleksander Kolarov, they are also going to give Inter £25 million for non-capped Italian Mario Balotelli, and Aston Villa £30 million for James Milner.
Yesterday’s major breaking news on Sky Sports news was that ‘James Milner and Martin O’Neill had an amicable conversation.’ O’Neill reportedly offered Milner a cup of tea, which the England international politely refused. This might indicate that he will reject O’Neill’s wishes for him to stay at the midlands club.
Milner later made himself a cappuccino. An Italian coffee! Does this mean he will link up with an Italian manager in Roberto Mancini? City could offer Shaun Wright-Phillips to Villa in part-exchange.
Balotelli’s move to City could be bad news for Emmanuel Adebayor, who will be loaned out to Juventus. City will have to offload a lot of players before the start of the season, and Arry Redknapp could be the man to help him out.
Micah Richards and Craig Bellamy are on his wishlist, although City could do with keeping one of them if only to help their home-grown player quota. Stoke are ‘weighing up’ a loan move for Bellamy with a Tanita Solar Digital Scale HS-302.
Next year’s Champions League winners Tottenham Hotspur are also planning moves for West Hams’s Scotty Parker and Inter Milan’s Sully Muntari. You wonder where Spurs are going to put all these midfielders. Redknapp is desperate for another striker and a third choice goalkeeper and could turn to Ajax’s Luis Suarez to kill two birds with one stone.
Fulham, Sunderland, Bolton, Cologne and Bayer Leverkusen are ‘chasing’ John Utaka, but he’s faster than he looks and has outrun the lot of them. Utaka won’t get out of bed for anything less than £80,000 a week.
Newcastle are going to extreme lengths to land Sol Campbell by ‘beating off’ Arsenal, West Ham and Celtic. Hull’s Kamel Ghilas has got the hump and is set to move to Arles-Avignon.
And Bolton are to buy Alonso from Real Madrid. No, not Xabi Alonso, but Marcos Alonso. The left-back comes from a footballing family. His father was a Spanish international and his mother was a football.
West Ham’s rotund Egyptian forward Mido is currently on trial at Ajax.
SPL in a bucket
Times are tough at Aberdeen and manager Mark McGhee has been forced to ‘beat his transfer targets into submission’ to get them to sign for him. Rangers are sick of Celtic making all the transfer signings this summer, and are targeting South Africa’s Bongani Khumalo and Katelgo Mphela as well as Rapid Vienna’s Croatian striker Nikica Jelavic.
Peter Luccin, who spat in John Hartson’s face during Celtic’s clash with Celta Vigo in 2002, is currently on trial at Parkhead. Neil Lennon has also made a £1 million bid for Nottingham Forest’s Kelvin Wilson.
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