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Today’s tittle-tattle has been spun dry

Having had time to reflect, today’s Rumours feel a slight twinge of regret about their performance in the first televised leaders’ debate in British political history last night. A sense of an opportunity lost, if you will. Perhaps they shouldn’t have flown in the face of their handlers’ advice and decided to target the floating hipster doofus vote, by eschewing the sober suit and tie option and wearing flip-flops, fluorescent green and pink Bermuda shorts and a novelty T-shirt conveying the impression that Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street may have been more than just good friends.

We are prepared to concede that drinking several shots of tequila in the hours leading up to the debate in a bid to “take the edge off” may not have been a good idea, and that gripping the sides of the lectern behind which we were standing so tightly that we accidentally pulled it from the floor and repeatedly hit two of our fellow candidates over the head with the sticky-out end was ill-advised. We would also like to apologise to the third guy, the one in the yellow tie who nobody knew this time yesterday but may now elect prime minister, for vomiting on his shoes. We are genuinely sorry that what started as a bid to offer ourselves up as the fresh and honest alternative to three tired old parties in an electrifying, fast-moving, 90-minute primetime broadcast, ended in five deaths, 18 injuries and £680,000 worth of damage to ITV equipment.

Of course unlike today’s Rumours, Real Madrid will not make any apologies for trying to bring Wayne Rooney and Fabio Capello to the Bernabéu. According to the Sun, the “Spanish giants” will offer £150m for the England striker, along with a meagre personal stipend of just £250,000 per week. They are also determined to bring Capello, a strict disciplinarian who has already led them to two La Liga titles, back to oversee their next push to finish second in the table behind Barcelona, who will freshen up their own squad by surreptitiously poaching Arsenal full-back Gaël Clichy while everyone is expecting them to try and sign Cesc Fábregas.

Despite looking and sounding like a flat cap-wearing pigeon fancier from a mid-1960s Hovis advert, James Milner is still young enough to be nominated for this year’s PFA Young Player of the Year award and winning the gong would almost certainly drive up the price Sir Alex Ferguson will have to pay to lure the England midfielder to Old Trafford from Aston Villa.

If the prospect of getting regular first-team football at the Emirates is bleak, Arsenal tyro Jack Wilshere would like to extend his loan stay at Bolton Wanderers, having grown fond of the myriad delights the locale has to offer. Despite his best intentions, the young midfielder hasn’t yet got around to visiting the museum in the Great Hall of Smithills Hall (where George Marsh was tried for heresy during the Marian Persecutions and stamped his foot so hard to re-affirm his faith, that a footprint was left in the stone floor), but would really like to.

Juventus still want Rafael Benítez and will pay the Liverpool manager £4m-per-year for four years and provide him with a war-chest of £70m with which to load their squad with monuments to mediocrity such as Damien Plessis and Nabil El Zhar.

Arsenal target Moussa Dembélé has been bothering anyone within earshot with bravura talk that he’s ready to take “a step up” and can do so without the aid of a Stannah Stair Lift. The Belgium striker currently plays for AZ Alkmaar but looks set to be sold during the summer before his contract expires next year. “I think I can handle a higher level,” the 22-year-old told a little old lady who’d only asked him to reach up and grab some biscuits for her off the top shelf in the supermarket. “Barcelona is perhaps too high, but I am of Champions League level.”

Try to contain your disappointment, Liverpool fans.

Manchester UnitedReal MadridLiverpoolBarcelonaArsenalBolton WanderersAZ AlkmaarAston VillaBarry Glendenningguardian.co.uk

Today’s spillage leaves an indelible stain

Leading environmentalists have praised Arsène Wenger for vowing to contest tonight’s Champions League quarter-final with a side made up mainly of recycled or previously discarded players. Wenger has been a long-time advocate of clubs reducing their playing resources so as to minimise their impact on competitions and his salvaging of Sol Campbell and Mikaël Silvestre from football’s scrapheap has been cited by Friends of the Earth as a best practice akin to Rafael Benítez’s sagacious use of free transfers, Dimitar Berbatov’s highly advanced energy conservation technique and El-Hadji Diouf’s organic fertiliser spray.

Word is Wenger was tempted to enrich his injury-depleted squad upon his arrival at Barcelona airport yesterday after spotting an agile-looking baggage-handler but the ever-idealistic Frenchman instead decided to believe that Manuel Almunia can have a full game like the first 45 minutes he had last week. And that’s good news for Arsenal fans: because word is that Wenger has told his employers that if Arsenal win the Champions League or the Premier League this season he is going to retire.

Wenger would consider such a triumph his finest achievement and a supreme vindication of his methods, and would step down satisfied that he has left his successor a squad capable of dominating for years to come. Who will that lucky successor be? Wenger has reputedly put in a good word for Laurent Blanc, who, coincidentally, is also French and also set to be eliminated from the Champions League this week.

Blanc is going to be in high demand this summer. Not only will the France job be his if he wants it, but also three of the most prestigious posts in England are about to be vacated – well, two, in the event of Wenger staying on at Arsenal until he feels his mission has been accomplished. Manchester City will be hiring a new figurehead and they’ll go for Blanc if José Mourinho turns them down. But José Mourinho won’t turn them down, especially when he hears that City are already close to agreeing deals for Wolfsburg striker Edin Dzeko and Hamburg central defender Jerome Boateng, who’s also being courted by Chelsea and Real Madrid.

But Blanc will be invited to take the Liverpool job once Rafael Benítez skedaddles. It is unsure whether he will accept it, however, since the whole point of leaving Ligue 1 is to go to a club with the money to buy the best players in the world and Blanc wants assurances that Liverpool belong in that category. Not to worry: Messers Hicks and Gillett have a cunning back-up plan, one sure to endear to the Kop at last – if Blanc turns them down, they will instead enthrone Liverpool legend Steve Nicol, currently masterminding untold success at New England Revoluton. And by ‘untold’ we mean ‘hardly worth mentioning’.

Major League Soccer will get over that loss by recruiting some marquee pensioners, namely Thierry Henry, Luís Figo and Patrick Vieira.

Harry Redknapp, meanwhile, will get over the disappointment of Tottenham’s capitulation in the stilted run for the Champions League spots by doing business with Aston Villa, whose collapse has been even sorrier and who want to buy Robbie Keane for £11m, if you don’t mind. Redknapp will then sell Gareth Bale to Juventus for £14m and take a long, hard laugh in the mirror.

Manchester United have not collapsed, but their empire is surely crumbling and they face another summer of modest investment. Sir Alex Ferguson’s grand plan for rejuvenating his midfield is to attempt to lure Mohamed Diamé from Wigan, from whom he may also attempt to prise Hugo Rodallega, though Everton and Arsenal are also on the Colombian’s case. So United will end up trying to cadge Karim Benzema on loan from Real Madrid.

David Moyes meanwhile is set to lure Kevin Prince-Boateng from Portsmouth for a knock-down fee, while canny Mick McCarthy will collect Nadir Belhadj and then rest him for daunting trips to Old Trafford.

ArsenalManchester CityLiverpoolMajor League SoccerAston VillaTottenham HotspurPaul Doyleguardian.co.uk

No one would put money on Manchester City, Liverpool or Aston Villa taking advantage of any slip-ups by Tottenham

Tottenham Hotspur were celebrating more than a place in the FA Cup semi-finals on Wednesday night. News of Manchester City’s defeat to Everton and Aston Villa’s draw at home to Sunderland had reached the players “as soon as we got in the dressing room”, according to Peter Crouch. Moments later, their rivals for fourth place in the Premier League were installing Spurs as the new frontrunners in a race that has started to resemble a crawl.

“Spurs are favourites now,” said Manchester City’s Micah Richards. “We thought we could capitalise on our game in hand but it didn’t work out that way and we were devastated in the dressing room. What we have to do now is make sure that we use the loss as a springboard. We have eight cup finals and we have to win them all, starting against Wigan on Monday night.”

The reality, however, is that City – whose manager Roberto Mancini was sent off along with his Everton counterpart David Moyes following a confrontation near the end of Wednesday’s defeat – are unlikely to need anything like 24 points to seize the final Champions League qualifying berth. Tottenham are playing with confidence after four successive Premier League wins but back-to-back fixtures against Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester United next month threaten to derail their progress. “We’ve got some big games coming up so it could be a defining month,” admitted Crouch.

Not that anyone would want to put money on City, Liverpool or Villa taking advantage of any slip-ups from Harry Redknapp’s team between now and the end of the season. City and Liverpool have won only two of their last six league matches, meaning they sit 10th and 13th in the top-flight form guide, while Villa have recorded just three victories from a run of 10 games unbeaten since the turn of the year.

“There are a few teams up and down at the minute,” reflected Villa’s Stewart Downing. “Man City were getting results and now they’ve lost. We were on a great run and we’ve drawn a few. There are a lot of twists and turns still to go and we’ve still got to play Everton and Man City, teams around us, so I think it is wide open. Whoever puts two or three wins together will be in a good position.”

Villa had hoped successive victories would arrive from two home matches in the space of five days, against Wolverhampton Wanderers and Sunderland, but instead there was only frustration. A lack of attacking options has been exposed in the absence of the injured Gabriel Agbonlahor, with Martin O’Neill forced to introduce two academy graduates, Marc Albrighton and Nathan Delfouneso, against Wolves and Sunderland.

The contrast with Tottenham is stark. Against Fulham, Redknapp brought on David Bentley, Tom Huddlestone and Roman Pavlyuchenko to turn the game in Spurs’ favour while on Saturday, at Stoke, Eidur Gudjohnsen scored one goal and set up another after stepping off the bench. That strength in depth not only allows Redknapp to freshen things up but also lets him rotate his players when Tottenham’s lengthy injury-list eases.

O’Neill has never felt able to do likewise and Villa are now paying the price. Downing admitted the players “were out on our feet” at the end against Sunderland. James Milner and Emile Heskey both departed with achilles problems and others were playing through the pain barrier. “Richard Dunne was struggling all week and James Collins is struggling – basically half the team is struggling but they all want to play,” said Downing.

O’Neill highlighted City’s strength and depth as a reason for his belief that they have the best chance to finish fourth but that was before Roberto Mancini’s side were vanquished by Everton, when shortcomings at both ends of the pitch were exposed in between a dust-up on the touchline with David Moyes. The next three fixtures offer a chance to get back on track but thereafter City take on Manchester United, Arsenal, Villa and Spurs before heading to Upton Park on the final day.

Whether Liverpool, who have been a model of inconsistency this season, will still be in the mix then remains to be seen. For the moment at least all eyes are on Tottenham after another night when two of the top-four contenders flattered to deceive. “Seeing that Manchester City lost is obviously a big boost for us,” added Crouch. “But it’s still down to us: we need to get the points on the board starting with Portsmouth on Saturday. But I still think it’ll go right down to the wire.”

Premier LeagueManchester CityTottenham HotspurAston VillaLiverpoolStuart Jamesguardian.co.uk