EPL Gossip Tuesday January 12th
Sunderland boss Steve Bruce has admitted an interest in signing South American hot-shot Salvador Cabanas with number one target Kevin Kuranyi now expected to stay at Schalke. Sunderland Echo
Bruce has always had an interest in Cabanas going back to his Wigan days. Surprised Bruce hasn’t made a move for the player yet.
Inter Milan manager Jose Mourinho is battling it out with former club Chelsea and Manchester United for £15m-rated Benfica winger Angel di Maria. Daily Mail
Tottenham have had a £5m bid for Benfica forward Javier Saviola turned down by the Portuguese club for “sporting reasons”. Daily Mirror
Portuguese clubs won’t sell first time players in the January transfer window. Besides if your Saviola who has to be enjoying life in Portugal are you really going to be exicted about moving to Tottenham? Saviola spent the last three plus years rotting away on the Barcelona/Real Madrid bench. At Benfica, Saviola plays every game at Tottenham he’d only be in the mix.
Manchester United could cash in on star striker Wayne Rooney to help ease the club’s debts. Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona are considering £70m bids for the England international. The Sun
What a backlash this would cause. Not that I think this will happen but with Ronaldo at the end of the day fans knew he wanted to leave, any sale of Rooney would simply be a business decision and that would set Manchester United fans off.
Manchester City have replaced city rivals Manchester United in a partnership agreement with Portuguese side Sporting Lisbon. The deal will give City first option should Sporting sell any of their players. (The Guardian)
Guess Manchester United had enough of Sporting once they sold them a bill of goods called Nani.
Sunderland manager Steve Bruce insists it will take a “mind-blowing” offer to prise striker Kenwyne Jones away from the Black Cats and doubts if the clubs who want to buy him would prove able – or willing – to meet the necessary price. The Guardian
In simple English, this means he’ll consider selling Jones.
Liverpool co-owner Tom Hicks has suggested in an email to a supporter that the summer transfer market will be a “big” one for the Premier League club. “Our debt is very managable (sic) [see Man U] and we never use player sales for debt service,” said Hicks. “Our interest on £200m is about £16m. The new stadium will be the game changer. Managing director Christian [Purslow] is working very hard on it. Jan is a poor-quality market. The summer window will be big.” Daily Mirror
Hicks is right about the January transfer market. We’ll see if he backs up the rest of his words in the summer.