Chelsea are playing Porto on Tuesday in a vital Champions League match and, as if by magic, rumours have appeared linking the London club with an imminent transfer bid for Porto’s best player. Suspicious minds are suggesting the story has been deliberately planted in an effort to put Yacine Brahimi off his game, to which we may say that if a player starts mislaying passes and tripping over his bootlaces just because of a transfer rumour, then he lacks the mental fortitude to have risen to the point where, like Brahimi, he has a buy-out clause in his contract worth a reported £44m. Still, maybe the conspiracy theorists are right and the story was deliberately leaked as part of some sort of test to establish whether the player can focus amid widespread speculation about his future. By extension that would mean that the Mill has also become part of the test. So never let it be said again that the Mill is a useless waste of space.
As you know, chastened reader, Alexandre Lacazette passed many Mill-aided tests with flying colours last season, when he was continually linked with Arsenal, Paris Saint-Germain, Real Madrid and, like every striker, Liverpool. He ended up staying at Lyon, even signing a one-year contract extension. But now everything is going pear-shaped for the 24-year-old, except pears, presumably. Prolific last term, he’s scored only one goal in eight matches this season and recently explained that his dip in form is down not only to back trouble but also partially to the fact that his summer holidays were ruined by the Lyon chairman, Jean-Michel Aulas, claiming publicly during contract negotiations that Lacazette had been offered an annual salary of at least €4m. “I was disappointed and hurt,” said Lacazette of his chairman’s indiscretion.
The striker also professed to being pained earlier this season after Lyon’s manager, Hubert Fournier, attributed Lacazette’s loss of form to “lethargy”. Fournier now says he will have a “constructive” chat with the striker, but Lyon fans fear the soured relationship between player and club may open the door to a move. Especially as playing like a chump this season after a brilliant one last time makes him an obvious fit for Chelsea.
Chats, constructive or otherwise, are not something that Louis van Gaal seems to be engaging in with Victor Valdés at the moment. According to one report today, the Manchester United manager has still not forgiven the goalkeeper for eschewing training with the reserve team during the summer and has now banned the Spaniard from turning up to the club’s training ground at the same time as the first team. There is no mention in the report of Valdés being ordered to write “Louis van Gaal is lord” 10,000 times on a giant blackboard, but the Mill isn’t ruling it out.
Everton and Tottenham, meanwhile, are casting acquisitive eyes over the Internazionale defender Andrea Ranocchia.
Celtic are running the rule over the former West Ham marauder Carlton Cole, who is being courted by several Middle Eastern clubs who have nothing to offer but lots of money and the pleasure of being watched by a few hundred idling princes.
Which doesn’t really bring us on to Grimsby Town, but here we are anyway. Paul Hurst, admiral of the Mariners, is reputedly being lined up to be the new manager of Rotherham United, though Stuart Gray and Ian Holloway have also been linked.
