Ronaldinho treats press to a display of world-class idleness

Ronaldinho, the player who seems to have had Roman Abramovich reaching for his biggest wallet recently yesterday showed his prospective buyer the kind of half-hearted approach to the game they can expect if they are stupid enough to pay him a vast fortune each week.

At the end of his training session with the Barcelona first team, Ronaldinho, perhaps looking forward to eating an apple through a letterbox, was walking off with Lionel Messi. Coach Frank Rijkaard, aware that his number one star hadn’t bothered doing his exercises called him back, yet the Brazilian had the brass neck to keep on walking.

When Ronaldinho finally turned round, Rijkaard made him repeat the exercises, which Ronaldinho did like a sulking child with minimum effort, at which point Rijkaard grabbed his arm and told him to try harder, which he did with as much bad grace as he could muster.

Mr Abramovich will no doubt be delighted to learn his prospective new player shows all the all the petulance, contempt for authority and sense of entitlement appropriate to a Chelsea player.