Soccer: Wednesday's rumours

Today's rumours fear the combination of tuppeny rice and treacle

Paolo Bandini
Wednesday May 23, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

'It's all about me baby...' Photograph: Tom Hevezi/AP

The average Briton, according to Channel Four dweebs, has 14 friends, goes to the toilet six times a day, and, bizarrely, lives in Swindon. The average footballer, according to professional floozy Danielle Lloyd, is a cheating love rat. And the average rumour in today's column, according to the Mill, was entirely fabricated by a lazy journalist desperate to fill his remaining word count in time for last orders at the Dog & Duck.

Still, that's never stopped us before, so why not let's kick off with every slack hack's favourite fable - Andriy Shevchenko's imminent return Milan. Apparently this time it's really, really true, though (honest!) because Andriy's missus Kristen Pazik says so. "Milan is our city and where we want to be," wibbled Kristen yesterday. "It would be wonderful for [Shevchenko] to go back and play with Ronaldo."

What was that, did she say Ronaldo? Must be a typo, because the one Andriy's really excited about linking up with is Ronaldinho, whose on-again, off-again, never-was-on-in-the-first-place-but-we're-going-to-say-it-anyway-again transfer to the San Siro is really, really going ahead (honest!). And if that wasn't exciting enough, Silvio Berlusconi is now promising to add a little bit of Franck Ribéry to the Rossoneri mix too.

Internazionale will respond to their city rival's burst of activity by pinching Roma's favourite Romanian Cristian Chivu, while Juventus will complete the carve up of the Giallorossi's penetrable back line by having French centre-half Philippe Mexès too. The Old Lady will then holiday in Munich, where she plans to have her way with FC Bayern goal-getter Claudio Pizarro.

Bayern are after a new striker of their own, though the Mill suspects they're being a touch optimistic when they reckon £8m will tempt Arsène Wenger to part with Robin van Persie - given that he led the Gunners' scoring despite injuries restricting him to a paltry 22 games. They might be better off turning their attentions to Eidur Gudjohnsen - West Ham, Manchester United and Sunderland all reckon they can land the Icelandic Paul Bettany for that same sum.

The Hammers, meanwhile, are ready to flog Carlos Tevez to Chelsea for a mere £35m, a sum they will reinvest in mocking Chelsea by putting it towards a brand new 60,000-seater stadium - approximately 50% bigger than the ground Jose Mourinho's men can only fill by advertising in the Evening Standard.

Down in Portsmouth, 'Appy 'Arry Redknapp's 'ome for waifs and strays will soon be welcoming Charlton defender Herman Hreidarsson - available for free after relegation triggered a clause in his contract - and unloved Lyon midfielder Alou Diarra. Mark Viduka could soon be knocking on the door too, which might come as a blessed relief for Gareth Southgate, who for some reason insists he can't get on with his own transfer dealing until Mark makes his mind up on whether he's staying or going.

Elsewhere, Benfica have been sniffing around Bolton's El-Hadji Diouf, Antoine Sibierski will soon be calling Fulham home and Tottenham are going to nab France Under-21 captain Younes Kaboul from Auxerre.

Samuel Eto'o, on the other hand, going absolutely nowhere.

Guardian Unlimeted

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