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Today’s blurb has eaten too much porridge

Ah, José. Every stop he makes, he makes a new friend. But he can’t stay for long, just turn around and he’s gone again. Maybe tomorrow, he’ll want to settle down. Until tomorrow, he’ll just keep moving on (Ba-da, ba-da, ba-da, ba-da).

Yes, football’s littlest hobo seems to be on the move again, although they won’t be accompanied by the lump in the throat that his TV equivalent never fails to bring. Real Madrid have drawn up a two-man shortlist of potential replacements. Smoothly coiffed, scarf-wearing, German man-plus Joachim Löw is one of the names scrawled in Crayola on the back of an old receipt, reckons the Daily Mail EXCLUSIVELY, while the other is wilting north London spendthrift Arsène Wenger.

Quite how the denizens of the Bernabéu would react to a manager whose transfer policy seems to contradict everything Madrid have stood for over the past 15 years or so, but if the transition from Galácticos to 19yearoldprospectfromMetz-icos fails then at least they’ve had plenty of practice of late with those whistles and hankies.

Manchester City want former Barcelona vice-president Ferran Soriano and former Camp Nou technical director Txiki Begiristain to be their new chief executive and director of football. On the pitch, City are close to wrapping up a £2m deal for Israel’s Nir Biton after the midfielder sorted out his national-service-knack.

Anton Ferdinand is set to snub John Terry’s handshake offer this weekend, say the Mirror, hopefully in the time-honoured fashion of lifting the hand at the last minute and pressing his thumb to his nose before waggling his fingers. The tongue-poke and “Ner, ner, ner, ner, ner” is, of course, an optional extra.

Mark Hughes can’t wait to start spending at Loftus Road. South Africa striker Katlego Mphela of Mamelodi Sundowns and Fulham’s Clint Dempsey and Bobby Zamora will all be turning him down in the near future.

Newcastle have been told they will have to fork out £2m for Watford’s Adrian Mariappa, having had a derisory offer rejected. “I couldn’t begin to tell you how far away it was,” said Watford manager Sean Dyche. “My son’s got more in his money box,” he added, raising the intriguing question of how exactly you fit £500,000 in a child’s piggy bank.

Bolton, Swansea, Barnsley, West Ham and Sheffield United all want to borrow Raheem Sterling. Liverpool say they can’t have him.

Sunderland are keen on Bolton’s solid-pine battering ram Kevin Davies. Aston Villa will release Emile Heskey, Carlos Cuéllar, Habib Beye and Brad Guzan this summer.

Nicky Maynard has turned down the chance of four months of Premier League football, rejecting Wigan’s offer despite the Latics agreeing a fee of £2.2m for the Bristol City striker.

West Ham, having tired of their £6m pursuit of Rangers’ Nikica Jelavic, want Salomon Kalou on loan until the end of the season. Also in the Championship: Leicester will beat Sheffield Wednesday and United in the race to sign Stoke’s Ben Marshall and Doncaster have taken Peru defender Jesús Rabanal.

Transfer windowArsenalReal MadridManchester CityLiverpoolJohn Ashdown
guardian.co.uk

• Anfield club coming to end of six-year, £12m–a–season deal
• ‘Gap between performance and what the number should be’

Herbert Hainer, the chief executive of Adidas, has claimed that Liverpool’s performances on the pitch – including their failure to qualify for European football for the first time in 12 seasons last year – and a difference of opinion over the club’s commercial worth have seen the German kit supplier withdraw from negotiations for a new deal.

Liverpool are coming to the end of a six-year, £12m-a-season arrangement with Adidas and had opened talks with a view to renewing it, but Hainer is insistent that the Merseyside club have priced themselves out of the market.

“The gap between their performance on the field and what the number should be is not in balance,” Hainer said. “Then we said: ‘OK we will not do it’. That’s the end of the story. It all depends on the success and the effort and the popularity, the exposure on TV, revenue you can generate by merchandising.

“This all has to be brought in line between what you offer and what you get. We thought that what Liverpool were asking and what they were delivering was not in the right balance.”

Liverpool have expressed dismay at the comments and are reported to have reached an agreement with the US brand, Warrior Sports, said to be worth £25m a year – trumping Manchester United’s contract with Nike, which ploughs around £23.5m into Old Trafford every season. They also claimed that Adidas were unable to grasp the global appeal of Liverpool, regardless of the club’s qualification for European competition or not.

Their partnership with Adidas started in the 1985‑86 season and after a 10-year hiatus with Reebok, was revived in 2006.

Sales of the Liverpool’s replica shirts are claimed to reach nearly 900,000 a year, making it the fourth-highest selling kit in the world behind Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Warrior Sports’ parent company, New Balance, won the contract to become the kit supplier to the Boston Red Sox in April 2011, the baseball club owned by Fenway Sports Group – the same organisation now in charge at Anfield.

Liverpool
guardian.co.uk

• Coach says report linking striker with transfer is ‘a lie’
• Liverpool and Aston Villa also linked with January bids

The Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has dismissed Spanish media reports linking David Villa with a move away from the club in the January transfer window.

The sports newspaper Marca reported that the striker is preparing to move on from Barca just 19 months into the four-year deal agreed following his €40m transfer from Valencia.

The speculation over the Spain international’s future appears to have arisen from Guardiola’s decision to omit the forward from his starting line-up for Saturday’s 3-1 victory in the Clasico against Real Madrid.

Marca said Villa has been made available for transfer and had already been touted to “the great English clubs, mainly Chelsea, Liverpool and Aston Villa”, but Guardiola insists the speculation is nonsense.

Speaking to reporters in Japan ahead of Barcelona’s Fifa Club World Cup game against Al-Sadd, Guardiola said: “Marca lie. I have not spoken to David after the last match in Madrid, but all of the players are in my plans.

“I am the one who comes up with 25 different line-ups during the season because I feel that is the best thing to do. Most of the players that are here now will continue for the rest of this season and the next.”

Villa has scored five times in 15 league appearances this season, following his 18 goals in 34 games as Barca won the Primera Division title last season. He has made 75 appearances for the club in all competitions, scoring 32 goals.

David VillaBarcelonaChelseaTransfer windowAston VillaLiverpoolguardian.co.uk