Troubadour

When someone (I forget who) said this PSG forum was pretty spot-on about N'Gog, what did they say, exactly? That he's: a) highly gifted at celebrating goals like he meant to score despite all available evidence suggesting the ball just ricocheted off his face? b) been given the face of a young Skeletor? c) the perfect example of a player who should have stayed in France until he was 26 before moving to Sunderland for around £2m, where he would have scored six goals over the course of four seasons? d) a French Haddaway? Because if they said he was really good, then that's a sad indictment of the state of French football. I should point out I quite like N'Gog. What I don't like is us signing starlets any more. We just don't do well with starlets. You would have thought someone would have pointed this out to them. "I want to go to Liverpool, Mr Agent." "Really? Why?" "The history, the fans, the high-quality stitching on the home shirts." "But you'll never play. Ever! You'll go on loan to Hereford at some point, barely play, and then you'll have to sign for Le Mans, or move to Turkey, and slowly rebuild your career, a shattered shell of a man, your mind awash with broken dreams." "Yeah, but it is really high-quality stitching."

Because Perez won't pay a lot of money for a player he doesn't see as glamorous. It's what happened with Makalele all over again, and you'd hope Xabi will see that. Perez's whole business plan is based on shirt sales and tour fees, and Alonso isn't the sort of player who'll add to that, except through his on-pitch excellence, which Perez isn't that bothered about. It looks more and more like it'll be Mascherano who goes and Alonso who stays - Valdano's admitted today they're miles away from our valuation - which doesn't exactly speak volumes about Masche's loyalty after Rafa rescued him from the scrapheap. Apparently Guardiola sees a lot of himself in Mascherano, which suggests he hasn't seen him pass recently.

Even if we did sign Aguero, which we won't, it'd get fucking crowded in there, with him and Stevie. Plus Rafa'd never go with just one holding midfielder, especially if Mascherano goes, because then it'd be Lucas. I reckon Mascherano's more likely to go than Xabi, to be honest, because he seems prepared to agitate for a move, whereas you get the impression Xabi'll just see what happens. They'll probably both end up going, so I've come up with a list of players who could replace them, who we could get. Here it is.

Whereas dozens of English players, of course, are famed raconteurs, the must-have guests at the dinner tables of the glitterati. Micah Richards, for example, is known for his turn of phrase while discussing the work of Voltaire, while Liam Rosenior is one of the world's foremost experts on Gaudi. Anton Ferdinand likes to talk about tits. And Reyes, like Jesus Navas, can't survive without a visit to Seville every 17 minutes. He would be an OK squad player, but we have loads of them. We don't need any more.

Makes you wonder, though, if either Alonso or Mascherano do go, who the fuck is going to replace them? Not Poulsen, obviously, because he's shit, but who? If they go for the tax breaks or the maternity facilities or whatever they're all upset about, that's one thing, but I literally cannot think of any midfielders we could sign who could adequately replace one, let alone both, of them.

Only ever seen De Federico getting on the end of Pastore's passes. He's brilliant, but not sure about De Federico. Isn't 5'6 official dwarfism? With Rafa's record of signing young South Americans, Insua apart, it's just not worth bothering with. He got me all excited about Sebastian Leto, and look how that went.

It sort of sums up Koptalk that he's just made up that Liverpool officials are going to meet Cerezo. It's a typical fucking ploy like you used to get on the teletext club call adverts - "Reds linked with wonderkid" - and it'd turn out to be Gregory Vignal. Why the fuck would they be meeting Cerezo about Forlan and Aguero, who'd cost at least £35m each? Dunc's a cunt and he thinks we're fucking simple. Young Rafa is, by all accounts, trying to find an extremely cheap back-up striker, who'll be happy to sit on the bench for large swathes of the season, meaning for less than £5 million, not players who'd want £100+ grand a week and make Glen Johnson look like a bargain. On another note, as well as Valdes renewing his Barca contract, apparently Yaya Toure's come to an agreement over an improvement too. That might mean an end to the Mascherano stuff, as if he stays, a club with 35m euros to spend this summer might decide they don't need to spend their whole budget on a defensive midfielder.

Unless somebody notices how shit Valdes is, but he's got away with it so far, so why would they? You've really got to admire his balls, though. He's easily their worst player but then he goes and asks for a massive pay hike. Who said that thing about hiding in open sight? Still, the most important thing is it should at least end the Pepe thing (which never really caught on) and they're the only club who I think could tempt him back to Spain. The thing about the Barca/Real rumours is that they worry us as fans more because you sort of know most players would like to play for them, especially Latin ones, as Ronaldo has proved. But there's just so much bollocks that it's hard to know how seriously to take it. Barca's economic adviser came out and said today they have between 30 and 35 million euros to spend this summer, plus whatever they raise from sales. So Sport immediately went and said that meant they were going for Ribery, Villa and Mascherano! On the same day, Villa says he's made a decision or whatever and it gets splashed all over the Spanish papers, which, because of the endless cycle of news repetition which goes on over the summer, gets broadcast over here (in some sort of yellow ticker format, Sky Sports understands). But the thing is that their agendas are so strong that they can't be taken seriously, hence Sport saying "Villa's decided - and it's Barca" and Marca saying "Villa admits he will play for Madrid". Basically, it's all bollocks. Sorry it took me such a long time to say that.

They seem to do well together for Spain but from the little I've seen of them, they do have a tendency to make similar runs and get into similar positions. I remember during the Euros the commentators made this big hullaballoo about how great a partnership they were, but there were times when they looked like two extremely good footballers playing near each other. That's totally understandable - most international partnerships look like that - and it could be worked out at club level, but it strikes me we don't really need to. We have a forward partnership and, as good a player as Villa is, there's not much point breaking it up to accommodate another world class player. Not that we can afford him, anyway. If Barca are going to bid £40m and Bojan and Caceres (that's what, £60m, all told?) we don't stand a chance. Rafa's said before that he doesn't think Villa can play with a partner, too, which would suggest he's not willing to take the risk. Shame, because he'd sell shitloads of Villa 7 shirts.

That's such a doomsday scenario. Philipp Degen will be waiting in the wings, ready to pounce. I can see Rafa spending £18.5m on a player who won't get a sniff as soon as his injury problems clear up. Imagine that, two world class right backs for an average cost of £9m.

Chelsea have definitely got an option on Dzagoev, but whether they'll exercise it or not is a different matter. He's only young, though, so I suppose they'll leave him be in Russia for a bit and see how he develops.

Now that Parry's not doing the negotiating, why would we pay £5 million for Saviola when his contract's up? Unless Rafa was trying to highlight to Madrid exactly how much Alonso will cost. I've always liked Saviola, despite all available evidence, and with his pedigree I suppose there's no such thing as a bad free transfer. Apart from Voronin. And Degen.

Liverpool haven't made a bid for Vincken, according to Feyenoord. Tobias Hysen? If he was as good as he apparently is now eight years ago, maybe. Jean-Claude Darcheville? Really? The former Forest hitman? At the age of 34? I wouldn't hold your breath.