Gareth Barry is still working on his ‘Mr Popular’ reputation by getting himself banned from Aston Villa’s training ground. According to The Times, he is reluctant to put in an official transfer request as he will miss out on loyalty payments. And who is more deserving of loyalty payments than the man who has insisted that he wants to leave his current employers high and dry?
Elsewhere, Arsene Wenger is leading the race to see the spectacle of Andrei Arshavin sign a contract while looking in the opposite direction, and it will cost The Gunners around £15m for the privilege…
Emmanuel Adebayor to Barcelona
AC Milan conceded defeat in the pursuit of the Arsenal striker yesterday, but Barca have upped their bid.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: His head may have been turned
Andrei Arshavin to Arsenal
If Barca break the bank for Adebayor, then maybe they won’t need Arshavin, leaving Arsenal to replace the Togolese striker and have some money to spare.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Chelsea may also bid - Abramovich has allegedly demanded a Russian.
Samuel Eto’o/ Florent Malouda exchange
Malouda is officially a flop after one season, and at Chelsea you rarely get a second chance.
All the latest transfer rumours, gossip and damn lies
The mire of spurious summer transfers has thrown up an interesting player/ club combination today: according to the rumour vine, Andriy Shevchenko could be on his way to warming Barcelona’s bench in the near future. To compensate for selling approximately 57 attacking players this summer, Barca want to bring the Ukrainian in on a season-long loan, which means they pay no transfer fee but Chelsea get him off the wage bill. With the Milan option fading, he may just have to take this one.
Emmanuel Adebayor to Chelsea
New stories every day tell us the same stuff about Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Drogba, so it’s nice to see the press get more inventive. Chelsea want shot of Drogba and it seems they view Adebayor as the perfect replacement.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Surely he won’t do an Ashley Cole
Robbie Keane to Liverpool
Could a (reasonably) big club have finally realised Robbie Keane is one of the best strikers in the Premier League and that despite Berbatov’s moments of brilliance, Keane works harder and is more consistent?
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: May want to stick around at Spurs this season
Gareth Barry to Liverpool
One transfer saga that definitely looks
All of today’s transfer gossip, rumours and damn lies
Before Euro 2008, Manchester City and Everton were leading the chase for the fashion student/amazing footballer. Unfortunately he revealed himself to be world class and now looks like making a dream move to Barcelona, who have made a formal approach. His agent claims there have already been five offers for his signature, and the price being bandied around is currently £10m.
The Ronaldo saga latest
He may be acting like a spoilt brat, but Ronaldo is a man of principle. Accordingly, he has kindly agreed to pay Manchester Utd the courtesy of showing up for pre-season training in exchange for his £120,000-a-week wages.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Come on papers, try harder than this to find a story
Peter Crouch to Arsenal The Daily Mirror have been doing their homework and decided that Arsene Wenger, famous for his cautiousness with money, will match the eight-figure valuation for a benchwarmer at a club they finished above.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Unconvinced
Or…Crouch and Yossi Benayoun to Tottenham
Slightly more convincing than the Arsenal story,
The latest transfer news fresh from the rumour vine
Arsene Wenger recently rocked the footballing world by sending a fax to Milan, warning them to stop sniffing around Emmanuel Adebayor. The threat in itself wasn’t the shock, but rather his method of communication - Internazionale’s fax machine had probably been lying dormant since 1989 when the Frenchman’s choice words came through. If he runs out of fax paper, which surely can’t be bought in the 21st century, he’ll probably end up sending a telegram or a small messenger boy in a toga to Barcelona…
Emmanuel Adebayor to Barcelona
Arsene Wenger had just finished mopping his brow at the news Milan would accept Arsenal’s decision not to sell Adebayor when Barcelona rode in to declare the striker their number one target.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: A possibility considering Eto’o is leaving
Dani Guiza to Arsenal
But don’t fear Arsenal fans, what better way to recover from the loss of the Premier League’s joint-second goalscorer than by replacing him with La Liga’s number one?
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: Maybe, Champions League clubs are bound to chase
Claude Makelele, Lillian Thuram, Robert Pires and Ludovic Giuly to Paris Saint Germain
Some bright spark at PSG has decided it would be a stroke of genius to bring together a group of French veterans who would surely take the league by storm and guarantee instant success.
The Spoiler Truth-o-meter: It seems not everyone in France watched Euro 2008
Peter Crouch to Portsmouth
Harry Redknapp has told
Blue Square has been forced to close their book on Match of the Day’s Goal of the Month competition, as a disproportionate amount of people were voting for Emmanuel Adebayor’s wonder strike against Spurs in September (2:40 in the video above). Ruling out the possibilities that this was the best goal and that’s why people voted for it, the bookies have pulled the market last night amid whispers of a leak at the Big British Castle.
The BBC claim there is ‘no evidence to suggest a leak’ of the result, yet punters placed
While Steven Gerrard can be found whimpering on the streets of Liverpool, seriously disgruntled because his club won’t spend enough money on new friends for him, over in the AC quarter of Milan, rumour would suggest that money is swilling around like expensive sparkling wine in a Jermain Defoe bathtub.
Starting from the back, the Italian giants have been linked with Chelsea’s bemasked goal stopper Petr Cech - supposedly the planet’s most beguiling keeper. In front of him, they’re looking to poach France’s Willy Sagnol from Bayern Munich, as well as the Italian crowd pleaser Gianluca Zambrotta, who used to ply his wares so well at Juve before morphing into a less convincing wingback at Barcelona.
