When the Mill awakes at God-knows-what o’clock and is faced with the arduous task of having to convert sketchy transfer speculation stories into a snappy roundup article signposted by bolded-up bits and with the intention of delivering a smile or two, it often wishes it had a younger, more enthusiastic Mini-Mill who could step in now and then to help out. It is probably how Wayne Rooney feels at Manchester United. His near-30-year-old legs are in fact 43 years old in football years. It’s why Louis van Gaal has joined the hunt for Newcastle United’s sprightly forward Ayoze Pérez, a 22-year-old schemer with a keen eye who has matched Rooney for Premier League goals this season. OK, so that’s only two but they’ve been scored at Newcastle, so they count double. They will face stiff competition for the Spaniard from Spurs, though, who would quite like him to become this year’s Harry Kane, because last year’s Harry Kane is spending far too much time playing hide and seek this season.
Another player who has been hard to locate in the past few months is Eden Hazard. Last year’s Premier League player of the season has been an elusive presence at Stamford Bridge, finding shadows where once there was space. It has not deterred Real Madrid from trying to seek him out though. Apparently, Florentino Pérez would like him decked out in white and doing keepy-uppies for fans at the Bernabéu by the start of next season, when there will no doubt be a new manager in place and more tedious stories about Gareth Bale and Cristiano Ronaldo falling out over who has the biggest thigh muscles. Chelsea already have his replacement lined up, mind. José Mourinho will swoop in for Sevilla’s Yevhen Konoplyanka, a player with so much game-intelligence he could probably do what was once thought impossible and complete Jet Set Willy.
Attacking midfielders and forwards being linked with Liverpool today: Swansea’s André Ayew, Empoli’s Riccardo Saponara and Ajax’s Anwar El Ghazi. Although the Mill knows that top of Jürgen Klopp’s wishlist is a time machine so that he can go back 10 years and buy Dirk Kuyt to do an entire team’s gegenpressing while scoring a first-half hat-trick. Oh, maybe he doesn’t need a time machine after all. Much more of that from the 35-year-old Dutchman and those Kuyt-to-Barcelona rumours that were doing the rounds the other week could look at least 0.0923% less ludicrous.
David Ospina is living proof that there really is no such thing as bad publicity. Yes, his horror show against Olympiakos has earned him an admirer. Marseille fancy injecting a bit of excitement between the sticks at the Stade Vélodrome and will offer the Colombia goalkeeper an alternative to being miserable at Arsenal by throwing in a bid in January.
And while we’re on the subject of Arsenal, Antoine Griezmann, who scored a sumptuous goal for Atlético Madrid at the weekend, has been linked with a move to the Emirates again, probably because he scored a sumptuous goal at the weekend. But if they cannot tempt the France international to leave Madrid they will post a cheque for £14m to Dynamo Moscow for the services of the flighty 24-year-old attacking midfielder/forward Aleksandr Kokorin, because Arsenal really have not got enough of them have they?
Finally, it says here that the Real Sociedad manager David Moyes is being lined up to clean up the mess currently being presided over by Tim Sherwood at Aston Villa. Maybe Sherwood could be so kind as to tell him where he’s hidden all the defenders if and when they do cross over.
