Liverpool are eyeing up Newcastle's poodle-permed defensive tyrant Fabricio Coloccini and could make a new year move for the 29-year-old. And given the way their last January swoop for a Newcastle player worked out, who could blame them for attempting a repeat?
Manchester United have been scouting Benfica's Nicolás Gaitán, who signed a new five-year deal in Lisbon this week but retained his bargain £40m release clause. Internazionale and deep-pocketed Parisians Paris St-Germain are potential rivals for the 23-year-old but United are so intent on signing an Argentinian attacking midfielder that they are also monitoring Anderlecht's Lucas Biglia, by way of back-up.
Less popular at Old Trafford is fourth-choice shot-stopper and touch-typer's nightmare Tomasz Kuszczak, with the English champions finally accepting that they're never going to get the £4m they were asking for him in the summer and slashing his price.
Across Manchester, noisy neighbours City have targeted Gent's Yassine El Ghanassy as the man to solve their current crisis engulfing their terminally undermanned squad. The 21-year-old left-winger, also interesting Celtic and Lille, would immediately slot straight into the currently vacant name-you-completely-forget-until-it-appears-on-the-bench-in-a-Carling-Cup-tie-in-three-years role, vacant since Felipe Caicedo left the club in the summer.
Sunderland want Freiburg's Senegalese striker Papiss Demba Cissé, who was linked with Fulham, Newcastle and Schalke over the summer – when his asking price was a mere £13m – and with Liverpool, Arsenal and Blackburn earlier in the year, when he was valued at a mere £11m. The forward's prolific form this campaign – seven goals in 10 league games so far, since you ask – has pumped his value up to a dizzy £18m. "Liverpool is a dream club," the player said earlier this year. "Salif Diao and El Hadji Diouf have played there."
Think that's weird? Fiorentina's Riccardo Montolivo, the 26-year-old midfielder who is set to take his pick of Europe's top clubs when his contract expires in the summer, is rumoured to have his heart set on Arsenal.
Napoli want QPR's Adel Taarabt and Alejandro Faurlín. "I'm flattered by my name being linked with an enormous club like Napoli," said Taarabt. Napoli also want Palermo's Slovenian international Armin Bacinovic but the 21-year-old is attracting interest from England. Given that earlier this year he was being simultaneously linked with Manchester United, Chelsea, Tottenham, Liverpool and Everton it will no doubt come as a significant disappointment to everyone, except perhaps Napoli, that the name currently in the frame is Aston Villa.
Ipswich are ready to bid £1.5m for Doncaster's Billy Sharp. The eight-date "Live and Loud" tour planned by Andy Gray and Richard Keys, which was to have wowed the football-loving folk of Southend, Worthing, Poole and Clacton-on-Sea, among approximately four others, has been scrapped because of poor ticket sales.
Frank Lampard is selling various household nick-nacks for charity, including "two lamps with ornate silk shades", "one large gold/red mirror" and an "ornate chess set with matching stools". Are you thinking what we're thinking? Namely: what kind of stools match a chess set? And what do you do with them when you put the chess set away? As ever, sadly, the Rumour Mill leaves you more questions than answers.
