Tales from the Tabs – Sunday 28th July

The Sunday Mirror

Starting with one of ‘The Big Four’, and some would say the biggest (because he’s fat) and that is Wayne Rooney. The paper reports that United will sell Rooney, just not to an English team. The technical snag here of course, is that the few teams who could afford the transfer fee have either already bought better strikers this summer or have better strikers already.

Will he stay within England? – Wayne Rooney

The paper does nothing further to challenge this scenario, merely pointing out that possible suitor, Real Madrid, prefer Gareth Bale. And prefer him they do, to the sum of £85m, which will be enough to take Mr Bale to Spain, or so we are told. For just half of that, Real could bid for Luis Suarez, as supposedly Arsenal are making a fresh bid of £42.5m this week – the saga continues.

Bafetimbi Gomis and Loic Remy again find themselves linked with Newcastle, which goes to prove that if you are struggling to fill space in the edition, just copy and paste a story from last week and hope that no-one will notice.

The Daily Star on Sunday

Going the other way from everyone else, the paper claim that Bale won’t be sold as it will destroy AVB’s master plan [insert cheap joke here]. It is an interesting stance from the paper, breaking away from the hyperbole of the other tabloids. I would say that either they’ve had the nod from the Spurs hierarchy to appeal to Bale and persuade him to stay, or they’re blindly guessing. I’d take my chances on the second option.

Assuming that Fabregas stays at Barcelona, we need another midfield target to keep readers interested into August. Luka Modric fits the bill perfectly, and has already been mentioned by the paper this summer. Still, he’s a glamorous signing that won’t happen, so fits the criteria.

Gervinho looks set to rejoin his old boss Rudi Garcia at AS Roma, but team mate Santi Cazorla has refuted claims that he could be off to Atletico Madrid for £15m. Returning to the Premier League could be Salomon Kalou, news which is sure to get pulses racing and satellite subscriptions bought across the country. West Ham and West Brom are jostling to be the lucky recipients of the great man’s ‘talent’.

Finally, Sunderland are trying to land young Internazionale star Alfred Duncan for £7m. This begs the question as to who was the last ‘Alfred’ to play in the English top flight? Answers on a postcard please to Born Offside Towers, winner gets a trip to Love Street!