The Rumour Mill didn’t get where it is today closing in on a deal for Pedro, but various reports suggest that’s exactly how Manchester United have got to where they are today. Resigned to being fourth-choice striker behind Barcelona’s three amigos, the 27-year-old wants to go to Old Trafford, where bean-counters have not only met his £22m release clause, but exchanged awkward pleasantries with it, brought it out for a gluttonous and ribald lunch and then escorted it to a hotel room they’d cheekily booked for the afternoon.
Having more or less told his striker he’s welcome to do one by reducing the release clause in question, newly re-elected Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has stopped short of saying he would really, really like Pedro to stay at the Camp Nou, but was gracious enough to point out that it’s nice to have him around the place. “Pedro only recently renewed,” he said. “Sometimes he doesn’t play much, that’s true, but he’s a part of the history of this club. He was part of the first treble, and now the second.” In other Camp Nou housekeeping news, Bartomeu has promised to contest Uefa’s decision to fine them €30,000 because some of their fans waved Catalan flags at the Champions League final in June. If they’d only chanted racist slogans instead, they’d probably have got away with less than half that amount.
The courtship between Manchester City and Kevin de Bruyne continues in textbook fashion: with the player having coyly giggled that he doesn’t know where he’ll be playing next season and his manager Dieter Hecking having flatly denied that Wolfsburg have received any offers for their star man, it’s now being reported that Manchester City have submitted an initial bid of £40m which will be turned down because Wolfsburg are “not a selling club” … yet.
Following his impressive displays for Crystal Palace last season, Congolese winger Yannick Bolasie is reported to be up for a move to Tottenham Hotspur should the north London club firm up their interest with a concrete bid, the proceeds of which could go a long way towards tempting Swansea to part with their centre-half Ashley Williams, whose face features on “wanted” posters plastered all over Selhurst Park.
The Welsh stopper has been a Rumour Mill staple for several windows now without ever giving even the slightest indication that he wants to leave Swansea City, but we’re damned if we’re going to let a minor detail like that prevent us from hawking him around like a bag of stolen meat.
If QPR centre-half Steven Caulker is the answer, the Rumour Mill is guessing that the question must be: “Who do Southampton want to bring in as cover for Florin Gardos, who has been ruled out for up to nine months with a knee injury?” With Toby Alderweireld already gone to Spurs, Saints’ manager Ronald Koeman may have to dust off his boots and start hitting the gym. Southampton are also reported to have had a plea to take Calum Chambers back on loan from Arsenal rebuffed by the Gunners.
On the subject of players going to Spurs, Saido Berahino looks unlikely to be one of them after West Brom suits laughed Tottenham’s initial £15m bid out of The Hawthorns and back down to London, before intimating that they want at least £25m that would constitute quite a gamble on a 21-year-old who may or may not turn out to be as good as he currently thinks he is.
Fabio Borini has been told he has “no future at Anfield”, in a state of affairs that has almost certainly been painfully apparent to the Italian striker for at least two seasons. The Merseyside club have been hawking him around Aston Villa and Leicester for £7m, now that Sunderland finally seem to have decided they don’t want him after two years of dithering. Liverpool continue to monitor the ParisSaint-Germain left-back Lucas Digne, using a complex surveillance operation involving a shifty-looking man sitting on bench near the Eiffel Tower pretending to read a newspaper with holes cut out of it at eye level.
And finally, Aston Villa remain confident of taking Emmanuel Adebayor from Spurs on loan in a deal that almost certainly won’t be made permanent, despite what both clubs say, while Newcastle have no interest in signing Xherdan Shaqiri from Inter even though the Rumour Mill thinks the Swiss midfielder would be a great acquisition.
