Manchester United are going to bolster their defence by bringing Cristiano Ronaldo back to Old Trafford and paying him £300,000 a week. Is an 11-year-old boy, or perhaps Kevin Keegan, in charge of their transfer policy? Either way, this is going to be great fun.

Roma have said another target for United, Kevin Strootman, is not for sale. And they quite fancy pipping Arsenal and Chelsea in the race to sign the PSG midfielder Adrien Rabiot, too. Who do they think they are?

Everton have not given up on signing Tom Cleverley from United next summer, even though this month’s whipping boy of choice is currently on loan at Aston Villa.

Chelsea would like to sign the Aston Villa prodigy Jack Grealish, dump him in their reserves, forget about him and then loan him as an afterthought in two years’ time. Villa plan to counter this by offering Grealish a new contract.

On an unrelated note, Lucas Piazon would like to leave Chelsea after failing to break into their first team.

Celtic have ruled out selling Virgil van Dijk to Arsenal. Apparently the thought has never crossed the defender’s mind, the lure of the Scottish Premiership and regular Europa League football proving too strong.

Bayern Munich’s Mario Götze says he is open to the possibility of playing outside the Bundesliga in the future. Oh Mario, you tease.

And that’s your lot. It’s a quiet Friday morning, all told.