Football transfer rumours: Owen Hargreaves to join Leicester City?
Football transfer rumours: Owen Hargreaves to join Leicester City? | Scott Murray | Football | guardian.co.uk
Newspapers and media companies confessing multiple sins seems to be the order of the day, so here's the Rumour Mill's mea culpa: we can't think of any tenuous angles, pathetic riffs, or barely functioning puns for the following stories: Blackburn striker Nikola Kalinic moving to Dnipro or Dynamo Kyiv in a £6m deal; Chelsea signing Genk keeper Thibaut Courtois for £9m and then loaning him back or sending him out to Atlético Madrid; Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle and Everton chasing Hajduk Split forward Ante Vukusic; Newcastle winger Wayne Routledge leaving for Nottingham Forest; and Korona Kielce defender Hernani da Rosa arriving at West Ham. Sorry, we just can't do it. Close the Rumour Mill down if you really must, but remember it'll be the end of a fine journalistic tradition of cutting and pasting other people's work that stretches back nearly 11 years.
Instead, let's draw a line under it and move on.
Manchester City striker Emmanuel Adebayor is a target for Real Madrid and Tottenham Hotspur, but the £14m price tag is putting these good folk off. As a direct result of this pricing policy, Adebayor is refusing to train, has instructed his lawyers to look into launching a constructive dismissal case, and is wearing a face just to hammer home the fact he's got a cob on.
Tottenham Hotspur are interested in £20m Espanyol striker Pablo Osvaldo. The first stage in an ambitious attempt to recreate the teamsheet from the 1981 FA Cup final? If they subsequently put in bids for Barcelona's David Villa, Leon Crooks of Gravesend & Northfleet, and Exeter City's Troy Archibald-Henville, Spurs fans of a certain vintage will be getting very excited indeed. Albeit with diminishing returns.
Arsenal have bid £6m for Southampton starlet Alex Chamberlain, whose additional monicker "Oxlade" is these days displaying with the regularity of a broken neon street sign in a low-quality film noir. What's it to be, newspaper folk? The Rumour Mill strongly suspects you neither know nor care, and that it's a quick and easy solution to space issues with headlines. This sort of thing is killing journalism, along with the American comma and the lack of prepositions of time in phrases such as "News of the World to close Sunday".
Leicester want Owen Hargreaves, Bristol City striker Nicky Maynard.
Liverpool are sick of waiting for Stewart Downing, and will offer Lyon £12m for Brazilian winger Michel Bastos instead. Other reports suggest they're going to up their offer for the thoroughly unremarkable Downing to a preposterous £18m, and maybe even £20m, so we'll let you take a guess as to which outcome is the most likely.
And following hot on the heels of yesterday's Retro Rumour involving John Arne Riise's possible move to Fulham, here's some more Maconie-esque tittle-tattle. Does anybody remember Jonathan Woodgate? He's due a revival at Stoke City or Leeds United, clubs you may remember enjoying their heyday in the 1970s along with spacedust, double prog-rock concept albums, and public information films featuring an insensible cartoon cat. Talking heads slot, please, BBC Three!