Today’s gossip, rumours and damned lies

While Manchester City have saved themselves a tidy sum of money by avoiding Ronaldinho, Chelsea appear to have finally folded their hand in regards to costly bench warmer Andriy Shevchenko. The Ukrainian is on the verge of being adored at AC Milan once again, as the Blues plan to shift him out on loan. They are so desperate to free up his place on the team coach that they will continue to pay his £130,000 a week wages in full.

Roque Santa Cruz to Aston Villa
Manchester City have tried and failed to prize Santa Cruz from Paul Ince, and now it seems that it’s Aston Villa’s turn to try their luck. Villa have reportedly launched a £16m bid for the Paraguayan in the hope that Blackburn will suddenly decide that selling their best striker

Today’s gossip, rumours and damned lies…

The transfer market today may be quieter than the Joey Barton fan mail hot line, but that hasn’t stopped some of the UK’s finest print journalists doing their thang. Let’s kick off today’s speculation with news of everybody’s favourite badly-coiffed Frenchman…

Djibril Cisse to Manchester City or West Ham
Without even factoring wages into the equation, Liverpool made an £8 million loss on Cisse, for which they splashed out over £600,000 for every league goal he scored. Marseille have given the clubs ten days to bid for the player, time which would be better spent running as far away as possible.

The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Cisse has made no secret of the fact he would like to return

The Frank Lampard saga latest
Remember how we all applauded Chelsea for applying logic and refusing to cave in to Lampard’s demands for a five-year contract? Well it appears that whoever is making the decisions at Stamford Bridge has changed their mind and a five-year deal is now on the table.

The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Seems like he will stay now. Ronaldo and Barry could learn from Lampard’s handling of the issue

Andy Johnson to Fulham
The Everton striker and occasional England

The Spoiler considers the footballing talent you rather see warm someone else’s bench next season

Much like when a hot girl comes for an interview at your place of work, the feeling of knowing a quality player could be joining your club is pretty uplifting. However, unless you support Manchester Utd, Chelsea or Arsenal, occasionally a player who provokes a combined feeling of fear, disappointment and mild anger will crop up on the rumour radar. Even Liverpool suffer a little from ropeytransferitis, with names like Stewart Downing and James Milner not exactly living up to last summer’s star signing Fernando Torres.

With this in mind, we decided to compile a list of the ten names most likely to make you choke on your Corn Flakes when the back pages associate them with your side. Let’s get things started with a couple of Frenchmen…

Djibril Cisse
The French striker flopped during his spell at Liverpool but that doesn’t stop him believing that we all love him, judging by his determination to return to the Premier League. We don’t Djibril, we don’t.

Lillian Thuram
Even Lil realises that he’s not that popular after being dumped by Barcelona and failing with France. “I would like to continue to play but I don’t know if a club wants me,” he said last week. Celtic and Rangers have been linked but Scots can rest easy as he now appears to be PSG-bound.

Justin Hoyte
Perfect proof that playing with some really good players once or twice a season doesn’t make you a really good player. Maybe Martin O’Neill thinks he could do a Bentley and flourish away from the Emirates, but his loan spell at Sunderland suggested that simply won’t happen.

Harry Kewell
The Socceroo was one of the most exciting players in the Premier League…five years ago. After a few years rotting in hospital beds and in Liverpool’s reserve team he is damaged goods. Thankfully it’s looking like he will take WAG Sheree Murphy off to Italy.

Stephen Carr
Kevin Keegan is happy playing