With the pesky football out of the way, the rumour mill is in full swing less than a week before the sales begin
And just like that, normality returns. As the football community across the water catch their breath after yesterday's games and prepare to go into battle again tomorrow, they have also got to keep an eye on the transfer market, which reopens next Thursday. Today is Saturday, by the way, in case you have lost track.
And there is a wealth of rumours, of varying degrees of believability, to take in. Let's start at the very top, and the man who is odds on to retain the Ballon d'Or, Cristiano Ronaldo.
His lovable agent Jorge Mendes has been speaking to Brazilian newspaper
Globo Esporte and the good folks at
ESPN have translated his comments on his biggest client. And it is good news if you are a Real Madrid fan, not so good if you are a hopeful Manchester United fan.
"I believe that Cristiano will finish his career at Real Madrid. He's happy at the club and is still keen to achieve more success in Madrid." So far so good but the bold Jorge did lose the run of himself with his next comment.
"I respect great players like Raul and [Alfredo] Di Stefano, but none of them compare to Cristiano Ronaldo," he said. "Cristiano is the greatest ever. It will be impossible for anyone to emulate him in the future. There's just such a gulf between him and second best."
Behave Jorge...
Meanwhile, there appears to be more news about Liverpool's Mario Balotelli. La Gazzetta dello Sport report that the striker's agent has offered him to Inter Milan. The deal would be a loan with an option to buy at the end of the season but with Inter Ultras singing 'We don’t want Balotelli' at recent games, Roberto Mancini may not fancy hooking up with Super Mario for the third time.
And speaking of Inter, the Express say that Arsenal's Lukas Podolski could be taking his
Instagram football skills to the club in January.
PSG could also make use of a revolving door if today's press is to be believed. The
Mail say that the French club fancy taking Adnan Januzaj on loan in January. The youngster, who has rarely featured for Louis van Gaal, would surely benefit from a spell with the level-headed stylings of Zlatan Ibrahimovic and David Luiz.
Heading the other way, according to the
Metro, could be Edinson Cavani, who Arsenal are 'closing on'. With Olivier Giroud displaying new levels of stupidity yesterday, Wenger may fancy a punt on the Uruguayan striker.
Finally, Harry Redknapp had to make an appearance and the
Mirror report that he fancies the cut of Scott Sinclair's jib and would like to bring the rarely-seen winger from Manchester City to QPR.
