How many hours do you spend reading the Rumour Mill before you get something out it? Dozens? Gosh, probably hundreds, right? Is that a good use of your time? Probably not. But you persist in the wind and the rain and the cold and the bad jokes and the obscure references and with such poor odds of success. Why? Because you, dear reader, are a person of faith. You believe in the Mill, in the same way an oil sheikh with far too much money would believe in a project to establish salmon fishing in Yemen. (What a rubbish movie that was.) And in the end, you will be rewarded for your faith. (Unlike the people who watched that movie who were rewarded with just emptiness). Some day. Definitely not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Promise. With that bluster out of the way, let’s get down to business.
The day’s rumours begin in Manchester, where every shop from the Northern Quarter to the Trafford Centre is stocking up on studded leather jackets, purple drop crotch pants, super longline T-shirts, brightly-coloured blazers and gold shoes in preparation for the impending arrival of Dani Alves. The Barcelona full-back is sick to the back teeth of having to win trophies for the biggest club in the world, play alongside the greatest footballer of all time and being paid a weekly wage bigger than Mount Everest and so he wants out. “I may have two feet in the team but I’ve also got one foot, my body and nearly my head out of the club,” he toys-out-of-the-prammed the other day, while simultaneously revealing the astonishing fact that he has one more foot than the rest of us. So out he goes and off to Manchester. But which badge will Alves be kissing when he puts in a barnstorming performance in August against WBA before not being seen again till April? The one with Manchester United written on it, of course. Should that deal somehow fall through, the shops will send back the leather jackets, the T-shirts, the blazers and gold shoes (but hold on to the drop crotch pants) and the club will instead opt for Southampton’s Nathaniel Clyne or Schalke’s Benedikt Höwedes.
Speaking of Manchester United. Paul Pogba has said that he would rather rewatch The Perfect Storm in Icelandic as well as look at the 239 stills plus conceptual art with commentary by Wolfgang Petersen followed by the audio commentaries from Petersen and Sebastian Junger than move to Old Trafford, or indeed anywhere in England this summer. In fact, he does not even want a move back home to France, which would explain why Paris Saint-Germain are standing in the corner with eyes redder than the centre of the sun and shoulders heaving hard. No, there is but one club for Pogba, one dream that he can cling to, one dream he prays comes true and that is Real Madrid. “Maybe we are talking about Pogba a bit too much, but if he can keep up his current development he can become one of the best players ever,” opined Zinedine Zidane with some useful, over-the-top filler quotes that are probably a couple of days old but do the job nonetheless. Should that deal somehow fall through, Pogba will instead opt for Barcelona.
Fans of Real will be happy about that but they won’t be happy by the latest words from the mouth of Eden Hazard. The Belgian has said that he would rather rewatch The Perfect Storm in Icelandic as well as look at the 239 stills plus conceptual art with commentary by Wolfgang Petersen followed by the audio commentaries from Petersen and Sebastian Junger twice than leave Chelsea for another club. Well, that is not exactly what he said. Here is exactly what he said. “Why change? If you’re happy and things are going really well at one place, there is no need to change.” Sorry to spoil your cereal like that Madridistas but there has to be some sort of karmic realignment after Carlo Ancelotti was so unceremoniously booted up the backside.
And finally to Arsenal. Arsène Wenger has been lounging around in his favourite leather chair musing about where the season went wrong for him and his side. ‘What separated us from top spot?’ he wondered. He thought about it long and hard and was still deep in thought when he was called for lunch (two toasted cheese sandwiches with caramelised onions and a glass of milk). Over lunch he talked about London landlords and a documentary he saw about the UK’s love of chocolate. The break did him good. He came back to the problem with a full stomach and a fresh mind and it hit him almost right away. We need more firepower! We need another man up front! We need Villarreal’s Gerard Moreno. Almost immediately, his body and mind relaxed. He sat down on the couch and picked up his book. Five minutes later, his eyes heavy, he fell asleep and dreamt about a long-forgotten John Wayne movie in which Wayne wore a moustache.
