The Mill’s blood pressure is running high again this morning readers, and not because we’ve spent the past 11 hours in a raging funk trying to make a cup of tea with a Wi-Fi kettle. No, it’s due to the fact that we’ve had to take our first item on the gossip menu with a pinch of salt large enough to preserve a full side of pork.
Because it says here that Matteo Darmian may well be leaving Manchester United for Barcelona, who are “weighing up” the Italian as an option to fill their “crisis position” due to Aleix Vidal being deemed not good enough and Sergi Roberto being deemed not defensive enough. But come on, who really defends in a Barcelona defence? Anyway, the upshot is that Darmian, who is peering out of the Manchester United wilderness at Antonio Valencia and Timothy Fosu-Mensah ahead of him, is being considered because the Bank of Barcelona is not a particularly healthy place these days. And although Darmian is most definitely not Hector Bellerín – Barça’s “if we won the lottery” target – he would at least be cheap.
Back at Old Trafford, Wayne Rooney’s exit strategy is being mapped out. It looks a little like this: 1) A load of money goes into the Manchester United and England substitute’s bank account; 2) He books himself on to a flight to either the USA or China; 3) A load of money goes into the MLS/Chinese Super League player’s bank account.
Another thirtysomething who may join Rooney for a pre-flight coffee at Manchester airport is Pablo Zabaleta. Pep Guardiola hasn’t liked the cut of the Argentinian’s jib and wouldn’t exactly put up a fight if the Internazionale manager Frank de Boer came knocking on Manchester City’s front door. And in any case, Guardiola is making frantic cooing sounds in the direction of Celtic’s Kieran Tierney although he may have to coo loudly because Arsène Wenger is also puffing his feathers up and doing a little dance in front of the full-back who Arsenal would very much like because they haven’t signed “one for the future” for a while.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a target for the Delhi Dynamoes. Well, of course he is.
Cesc Fábregas is an odd player isn’t he? He’s constantly written off at Chelsea before returning with a bravura passing performance that gets everyone saying nice things again and then in the very next game he looks like an aged and lost dog trying to cross a very busy road unsuccessfully. It looked like he was going to be allowed to put his slippers on and let it flow every week at a more leisurely pace in Milan but now Vincenzo Montella has said he’s not interested. So expect Fábregas to continue to flit in and out of Chelsea’s team like a glimpsed memory for the remainder of the season instead, unless Montella only catches clips of “good Cesc” in the lead-up to the January transfer window.
Werder Bremen have made a rotten start to their Bundesliga campaign and they need to shore things up in defence fast if they’re to avoid a relegation scrap. Anyway, they presumably haven’t seen much of Per Mertesacker since he was jumping up and down in Rio holding the World Cup, because they believe he is their defensive saviour. If the 32-year-old Arsenal centre-back turns his attention to the matter of signing for Bremen in the New Year, he may just turn up on time.
Elsewhere, it seems Bournemouth have finally got to grips with the Premier League. They’re going to waste money like the big boys do by allowing £7m signing Lewis Cook to go back to Leeds on loan. Yes, the very club they bought Cook from.
