Gareth Bale’s impending move to Real Madrid means the Ronaldo to United rumours are back, James McClean could be bound for the Championship and Liverpool’s pursuit of a talented Brazilian opens itself up to a lazy pun which we were never going to turn down.
Putting two and two together and making five is a practise commonly observed during the transfer window and it has been employed yet again this morning by the Daily Star, who feel that Gareth Bale moving to Real Madrid (for £105million, bloody hell) means that Cristiano Ronaldo will probably not maybe almost certainly definitely return to Old Trafford.
In what the paper is claiming as a WORLD EXCLUSIVE, they say that United are ‘increasingly confident’ of getting their man and believe that a combination of Real’s pursuit of Bale, Ronaldo’s desire to return to Manchester and the fact that he has only a year left on his contract has opened up the possibility of a move that would probably trump Bale’s impending move to Madrid as the transfer story of the summer.
Before United fans get their hopes up, however, they should also look at the logic the Star are applying to Bale’s position at Spurs, claiming that the fact that he does not feature in a list of Spurs players posted on a wall at their training ground means that he is not in AVB’s plans for next season. Riiiight.
Staying with the Star – hell we could write this entire column based on what’s included in there this morning – they along with The Sun and The Express claim that Liverpool are prepared to splash out in excess of £20 million for Atletico Madrid striker Diego Costa. AS say Atletico haven’t received a bid and have no intention of selling Costa, but if Transfer Talk had a euro for every time somebody said that and it subsequently turned out that they didn’t really mean it then even we would be able to afford to buy Gareth Bale from Spurs.
Closer to home, it is perhaps a sign of how James McClean’s stock has fallen under Paolo Do Canio that he is being linked with a season-long loan move to Blackburn Rovers in the Daily Mail and The Sun, following on from recent reports that Neil Lennon was keen to bring him to Glasgow along with Kevin Doyle.
It being a Friday and with Bale and Ronaldo dominating the headlines as usual, there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of other rumours that haven’t been mentioned already in the last few days.
There are fresh reports on Fulham’s £5million pursuit of Darren Bent (The Guardian) and Luis Suarez’s determination to force a move away from Liverpool (The Mirror), while The Sun reckon that the manner of David Moyes’ departure from Everton (Manchester United recently wrote a letter of apology for poaching their new manager) has botched the possibility of Leighton Baines joining him at Old Trafford.
Speaking of Old Trafford, The Daily Mail say that Wayne Rooney’s desire to leave the club could change if he gets a good reception from the fans during friendly matches against AIK Stockholm in Sweden next Wednesday and against Sevilla in Rio Ferdinand’s testimonial tomorrow week. If the reaction to Rooney from United fans at the end of last season is anything to go by, we wouldn’t hold our breath.
