Tales from the Tabs – 30th June

The Sunday Mirror

A distinct lack of quantity is made up somewhat with the quality of rumour this week. Alvaro Negredo is rumoured to be a target for Man City, a story that was first broken by, wait for it, Alan Nixon in The People four weeks ago. All hail King Nicko!! Wayne Rooney is the subject of a £20m bid from Arsenal (that’s two Jordan Rhodes and the money our editor spends on deep-fried Tennents for those keeping up), although David Moyes wants to keep him at the club. Christian Beneteke and his potential whereabouts is a story that will run and run all summer.

For now, the paper hedges its bets and names Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, Liverpool and Atletico Madrid as possible destinations. Villa would then spend some of the fee on Nacer Chadli, who in turn interests Liverpool, Spurs, Fulham and West Brom as well. In conclusion, no-one knows what is going on, but by throwing in as many clubs as possible we will be able to unveil the “You heard it here first!!!” headline so loved by all tabloids.

The Daily Star

Rooney to stay?

The paper leads with the story that Wayne Rooney would love to stay at Old Trafford for longer, so long as he still gets paid £250,000 a week. In only 36 weeks time Rooney could actually buy Jordan Rhodes for himself. Normally when I mention Rooney, I normally make a less than subtle dig at his agent and his conduct relating to Mr.Rooney’s ‘situation’ at Old Trafford. This is then removed by the fine gentleman who edits this piece (Hi Dave!) on the grounds that we don’t want to besmirch this agent in print. So let me set the record straight and say that Mr. Stretford is a remarkably adept agent and does a wonderful job for his clients. (Dave – stop trying to get us sued, you absolute cretin. That’s my job.)

Carrying on with further statements of fact, Robert Lewandowski finds himself a target of both United and City despite everyone (bar Steve Millar it seems) knowing that he will eventually end up at Bayern Munich. Yohan Cabaye is a target for PSG at £25m, with Newcastle looking to spend the windfall on Aubameyang and Kurt Zouma, which shows us if anything, that Joe Kinnear has managed to download the most recent patch from Football Manager 2013. Continuing with the success of last week’s transfer pullout, we have the likes of Patrice Evra back to Monaco, Dirk Kuyt to Fulham, Matej Vydra to Sunderland, Antolin Alcaraz to Everton and Salih Ucan to Man United doing the rounds.

The paper even has the cheek to claim ‘First Again’ status for telling its readers that Isco would turn down City to join Real Madrid, strategically ignoring the three weeks worth of stories prior to that which consisted of “Isco is definitely joining City” ad nauseum.

Still, you can never fault the effort of The Star – although you are quite entitled to question its content…