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Today’s fluff felt it pop out

According to the Daily Mail, Chelsea have made a £20m bid for Benfica’s Brazilian World Cup midfielder Ramires. Bayern Munich and Barcelona are also sniffing about. Ramires’s full name is Ramires Santos do Nascimento, which makes him sound a bit like Pele. His nickname is “The Blue Kenyan“, which makes him sound a bit like a type of highly dangerous genetically modified skunk.

Arsenal are “keeping tabs on” Mikel Arteta, the technical term for shooting him with a poison dart from a jeep and then attaching a blue ringpull to his ankle. Sunderland Fulham and Celtic are “caught in a three-way battle” to sign David James, which makes it sound like a bad thing.

Wigan want to buy Mexico left-back Carlos Salcido for £2m from PSV Eindhoven. Tony Pulis has had a £2m offer for Middlesbrough captain Gary O’Neil rejected by Gordon Strachan. Strachan wants to buy Dundee United winger Craig Conway, who does at least sound a bit like he might have played for Celtic, or like a composite of the names of some players who have.

• Club captain gave ‘no indication’ he wants to leave
• First meeting with manager ‘went splendidly’

Steven Gerrard has given “no indication” that he intends to leave Liverpool, his new manager, Roy Hodgson, has confirmed after his first meeting with the club captain.

The former Fulham manager held talks with Gerrard, his deputy Jamie Carragher and the academy ambassador, Kenny Dalglish, at the club’s training ground, Melwood last week.

“I anticipate there might be a situation where other big clubs will try and sign Steven, but he gave no indication that he wanted to leave,” Hodgson told LFC Weekly. “Nobody at the club wants him to go so I will be doing my utmost to make sure he stays. I am confident he will.

“I think they [the talks] went splendidly. I was very happy to meet the players and, of course, Kenny who I already know so well. I was delighted to see how positive they are. Everybody is looking forward to the new season.”

He continued: “Obviously Steven and Jamie are the playing heartbeat of the club and it’s very important we keep people like that with us.” Hodgson also indicated that he will speak to Fernando Torres once his World Cup commitments with Spain are concluded after Sunday’s final.

“Fernando is a wonderful striker,” he said. “And I understand the fans’ concerns about his future.”

“Unfortunately with the World Cup still on, I won’t be able to meet him face to face for another few weeks. That’s just circumstance and you won’t hear me complaining about it. When I do meet him, I will be doing everything I possibly can to convince him that Liverpool is the place to be.

“If he sees progress, I am confident that he won’t want to go anywhere else. I think he understands the club and the city.”

LiverpoolSteven GerrardRoy HodgsonRob Bagchiguardian.co.uk

The Premier League is holding its breath as Roberto Mancini lines up Liverpool’s Fernando Torres in another summer spree

Fernando Torres to Manchester City? On first reflection, the idea seems just that little bit too far-fetched even in a sport where you learn never to be surprised. Torres is royalty at Anfield; he has an affinity with Liverpool, the city and its people, and if he were to leave surely it would be to one of those clubs with a love affair for the European Cup. But then, didn’t we think something similar about Carlos Tevez and Manchester United this time a year ago?

How long before football’s aristocracy, institutions such as Real Madrid and Milan, reluctantly accept that the club that old agent provocateur Sir Alex Ferguson derided as United’s “noisy neighbours” have enough power in the modern game to merit their place on the top table?

City have spent more than £200m on new players since Abu Dhabi’s ruling Al-Nahyan family took control 20 months ago (they are believed to have agreed an £11m deal for the Hamburg defender Jérôme Boateng, brother of Portsmouth midfielder Kevin-Prince), and there was something breathtakingly audacious about the way their manager, Roberto Mancini, was willing to pontificate yesterday about the prospects of extracting Torres from Liverpool, as if it should just be expected that, well, of course, City would be trying to sign him … what else would you expect?

Others will portray it as sticking a sledgehammer through the kind of managerial protocol that leads to all sorts of pettiness and paranoia when someone breaks ranks to talk publicly about a player he covets from another club and it’s undeniably true that Rafael Benítez is likely to be unimpressed in the extreme. But that is just a subplot when you consider the main thrust of what Mancini is saying and it is this: Manchester City, once again, are going to spend whatever they see fit this summer to establish themselves as serious title challengers – like it or lump it.

What we now know is that there is sufficient interest in Torres for the club already to have made their first moves behind the scenes, and that it does not particularly matter to the money men in Abu Dhabi whether it would need £50m, £60m or even more to persuade Liverpool to entertain the idea of negotiating the transfer of their most devastating player.

Tevez has done his best to fill the breach but Abu Dhabi United Group are still craving one of football’s genuine superstars, someone whose signing will grab the football world by its collar and let everyone know it would be foolish to underestimate the scale of their “project”. Kaká would not leave Milan. Robinho signed for a record £32.5m but did not like the north of England. Torres ticks every box: not too old at 26, instantly recognisable, poster-boy looks, clean-cut image (as opposed to John Terry, the one-time target from Chelsea), fiercely ambitious and spectacularly talented.

The problem for City, despite the incredible wealth of their owners, is that the club can still have an identity problem when it comes to the world’s more gifted exponents of scoring and creating goals.

This is why Mancini spoke at length about the importance of City catching and overhauling Tottenham Hotspur, one place above them, to finish the season as fourth in the Premier League, earning a place in the Champions League qualifiers. If they are successful a category-A player could make the move without it being seen as purely money related. If they fail, Mancini said it would be “difficult” to imagine Torres wanting to move 30 miles along the M62 – even if City can double his current £5.7m annual salary.

Mancini reckons City will need nine points from their remaining four games. “I don’t know if that means beating Arsenal this weekend,” he said, “but I know we must beat Tottenham here in Manchester [on 5 May].” In which case City would be in a reasonable position to market themselves to Torres or anyone else.

Even so, it would still represent one of the more astonishing transfers of the modern age. Would Liverpool want to acknowledge, in any form, that they no longer wield the same kind of power as City? Liverpool are a proud institution and no club wants to feel inferior when they have spent so long at the top.

“Do you remember that movie called I’ve Got Email [You've Got Mail] with Meg Ryan?” Sir Alex Ferguson asked when Real Madrid were trying everything they could to prise Ronaldo away from Manchester United in 2008. “The wee shop round the corner gets engulfed by the big one owned by Tom Hanks and she can’t do anything about it. That’s been happening in society for 30 or 40 years; the wee shop gets engulfed by the supermarkets. Well, we don’t want to be one of the small shops. I’d bloody hate to think Real Madrid can ride roughshod over us about a player.” Everyone knows what happened next.

Manchester CityPremier LeagueLiverpoolDaniel Taylorguardian.co.uk