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Today’s blurb is feeling a little chilly

It’s a bumper edition of the Mill today, the nation’s papers oozing with rumour despite the rival editorial appeal of the latest Champions League semi-final, and Barcelona’s double-edged pursuit of perfection in both play and play-acting. But the biggest game yesterday wasn’t the one taking place at the Bernabéu, with football’s place on the tabloid front pages being secured by Prince William’s decision to hold a kickabout in an unnamed London park almost certainly owned by his grandma. On the eve of the eve of his wedding, Wills risked hamstrings and shinbones while starring in the five-a-side contest, before leaping aboard his 1,100cc Ducati to race home through London’s busy streets, past unsuspecting future subjects, head hidden behind his tinted visor, making light of the capital’s snarling traffic on his two whizzy wheels.

To action, then, and news that Barcelona’s decision to pull out of the chase for Anderlecht’s £18m Belgian wonderkid Romelu Lukaku has left the way clear for Chelsea to steal in, snap him up, stick him in their reserves for three years and then send him on loan to Bolton. But Chelsea’s No1 target remains Brazil’s Neymar, with “a source close to Roman Abramovich last night confirming Neymar was still on the radar,” according to the Star. Expect a busy summer at Stamford Bridge then, with the Mirror asserting that Carlo Ancelotti, or whoever it’s going to be, is planning a major summer clearout, with Nicolas Anelka and Florent Malouda among those heading for the exit. Paulo Ferreira, José Bosingwa and Yuri Zhirkov are also on their way out, as the Blues aim to tweak their tactics to leave themselves with a first XI in which Fernando Torres can actually play without ruining everything.

The Star also says that Manchester United could yet hijack Manuel Neuer’s move from Schalke to Bayern Munich with a £24m mega-bid. “The offer could be too much for Bayern to match, leaving United in pole position to sign the man regarded as one of the world’s best goalkeepers,” they guess. Across town to Manchester City, where Yaya Touré sellotaped Mario Balotelli’s trainers to the dressing-room ceiling in one of a number of hilarious japes involving Manchester City’s unbalanced Italian. According to the Sun, friends from the forward’s homeland have also been cheekily making large pizza orders in his name from his favourite local eaterie, San Carlo, and even phoning him up at night and barking down the phone, “winding him up about his beloved pet dog who’s still in quarantine”. Also of potential interest to City fans is news that Valencia want to splash £7m on their very own Pablo Zabaleta.

Also on the news pages, Jack Wilshere’s 22-year-old sister, Rosie Ann, has been convicted of assault after hitting someone with a half-pint glass. This will doubtless cause the young England midfielder enormous embarrassment – a half-pint glass? Talking of English midfielders and casual violence, Joey Barton has been linked with an unlikely £5m move to Liverpool, though the Reds may well prefer to spend twice as much on Standard Liège’s Axel Witsel. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is to return to the silver screen in the fifth Terminator movie, to be directed by Justin Lin. He’s the man behind Fast and Furious 5, which apparently is a hit film, even though it sounds a little bit like Stoke City’s five-a-side team.

Niko Kranjcar is desperate to end his Tottenham hell in the summer. “Is there a point of beginning next season as a bit-part player? None whatsoever,” he raged. “I would definitely be interested in moving to Italy. I think I would adapt well to Italian football.” His Spurs team-mate Wilson Palacios could be heading in a similar direction, with Napoli interested in securing his £10m-rated services, while Internazionale are eyeing another Tottenham star in the shape of the Croatian string-puller Luca Modric.

Newcastle have joined the chase of Leeds’ Robert Snodgrass, who is likely to leave Yorkshire if his current employers fail to win promotion, though Stoke and West Brom are also interested. Alan Pardew is also considering an offer for the Korean striker Ji Dong-won, with the Mail reporting the not-that-encouraging-really news that Newcastle’s chief scout watched the 19-year-old play for Chunnam Dragons at the weekend and “was reasonably impressed”. In nearby Sunderland, Steve Bruce is close to tying up a deal for Cardiff’s England striker Jay Bothroyd, whose contract is due to expire this summer, and also wants the equally-free Blackpool midfielder David Vaughan. And Blackburn have been left mildly surprised after Málaga slapped a £7m price tag on their midfield target José Recio.

Aston Villa are busy drawing up a managerial shortlist, just in case Gérard Houllier’s current health issues prevent him from returning to the dugout. Mark Hughes and David Moyes are said to feature prominently. Moyes, still wearing an Everton hat, is putting the possibility of a move Midlandswards to the back of his mind and concentrating on signing some exciting talent to really get his current side’s fans excited about next season. To that end, he’s ready to pounce for the relegated League One-bound free-transfer-seeking Preston ace Billy Jones, and is busy scouting Dale Stephens, currently on loan from Oldham to Southampton. And while stirring Football League-based rumour the Mill has one final story to tell: if Millwall go up and Swansea do not, expect the nation’s premier rhyming footballer, Angel Rangel, to move to London. “I have heard of Millwall’s interest,” said the player’s brother-in-law, Zavi Cruz. “In the summer we’ll listen to all the managers and then make a decision.”

Manchester UnitedSchalkeChelseaAnderlechtNewcastle UnitedLiverpoolManchester CitySimon Burntonguardian.co.uk

Today’s flim-flam is wearing a smoking jacket …

Liverpool will battle Arsenal for 28-year-old Frenchman Philippe Mexes, likely to leave Roma on a free transfer when his contract ends at the close of the season, if they decide Gary Cahill is not worth the money, or indeed if Cahill decides Liverpool are not worth the hassle of moving house, and joins Manchester United instead. Also linked with moves to Anfield today, not for the first time, are Real Sociedad’s Antoine Griezmann, St Etienne’s Dimitri Payet and Yann M’Vila of Rennes. And joining Mexes on the free-transfer-funded flight from Italy is Andrea Pirlo, incredibly still just 31 and thus with a good 20 years of top-level football in him if he stays at San Siro, but apparently Manchester City-bound after Milan decided to slash the pass master from their astonishingly large wage bill.

Gareth Bale’s hamstring injury is Wales’s fault after all. “I wouldn’t have let him go if he had an injury,” sobs Harry Redknapp in the Mail, where he blames the Welsh and insists the crisis is their fault. “When he left here on Saturday he certainly wasn’t injured. He must’ve done it with Wales. I’m not blaming anyone. It’s no-one’s fault.”

Summer shopping frenzy latest: Tottenham are locked in a three-way battle with Ajax and Borussia Dortmund for VVV Venlo’s Nigerian prodigy Ahmed Musa; Sunderland have made Nicklas Bendtner their top close-season target, with Charles N’Zogbia also in their sightlines; chart-topping hitmaker Chipmunk wants to record a duet with heavily accented Children’s TV puppet Rastamouse.

Edwin van der Sar will continue working for Manchester United when he hangs up his boots this summer. “It may be that I’m going to give United clinics in Asia, or something in commerce. I have already held some talks.” Hang on, something in commerce?

Mario Balotelli had a furious row with pals of Rooney-bedding £1,200-a-night prostitute Jenny Thompson – who you may remember better by her nickname, Juicy Jenny – at Manchester restaurant San Carlo earlier this month. The Italian apparently chanted “Rooney! Rooney!” upon spotting the beauty, before squaring up to a friend, property developer Sam, 21. “Our foreheads were touching and I wasn’t going to back down,” said Sam. “He was acting crazy. I think he is unhinged.” The situation was rescued by the intervention of waiters, and Balotelli sped to safety in his white Maserati.

Talking of total kno … no, better not. Anyway, Liverpool prodigy Jonjo Shelvey’s Twitter account has been suspended after he posted a picture of his penis. “Apologies for the picture, one of my mates messing around with my phone! Sorry!” tweeted Shelvey, moments before his short social media-horrifying career was prematurely curtailed.

Qatar are hoping to provide fans and players at the 2022 World Cup with respite from the burning sun by inventing a giant remote-controlled cloud and flying it in the sky. They plan to make the cloud from “light carbon materials and indigenous sources” before lifting it into the air and moving it about using remote-controlled, solar-powered engines. “We are in discussion with the Qatar Science and Technology Park about the costs and to create an initial model on a trial basis,” says someone from a university.

If Wolves go down and QPR go up, Kevin Doyle will be top of Neil Warnock’s shopping list come the summertime. Also on a Championship side’s radar is Emile Heskey, who could end his career where he started it after he emerged as a £2m target for Sven-Goran Eriksson’s Leicester. Fulham, meanwhile, have spent all week courting 17-year-old Plymouth wonderkid Jack Stephens and his father, only for the versatile right-sided prodigy to spurn their four-day-long advances in favour of continued employment with the bankrupt League Two-bound Pilgrims.

If you win tonight’s EuroMillions jackpot, you will be wealthier than Phil Collins. And significantly more popular.

LiverpoolArsenalTottenham HotspurManchester CitySunderlandSimon Burntonguardian.co.uk

As Rafael Benítez’s relationship with Inter was going south the Spaniard was on Merseyside, and the number of Liverpool fans that would like him to stay is bad news for his successor

So much for the theory that Internazionale would hang on to Rafael Benítez at least until they went out of the Champions League. The former Liverpool manager has some expertise in engineering Champions League success from unpromising situations and, as becoming the first team to retain the trophy since the change of format from the European Cup is believed to be Inter’s main ambition this season, it had been thought he may have been able to achieve something of note with last season’s winners.

On the other hand, perhaps Benítez will be secretly relieved at not having to go through a repeat of last season’s final, when Inter take on Bayern Munich when the knockout stage commences in the new year. Anything less than perfection, which was pretty much what José Mourinho’s team achieved in Madrid last May – given that Italian fans tend to place a high value on defending securely and striking effectively on the break and would not necessarily expect to see their teams passing people to death like Barcelona – would serve only to underline the fact that Benítez had a hard, maybe impossible, act to follow in succeeding a coach who had delivered a stylish treble.

If Mourinho is a winner, pure and simple, then Benítez is an enigma, considerably more complicated. Over the course of his career he seems to have specialised in winning against the odds, doing the difficult and sometimes the unexpected, while not always making the best of situations that appear to be to his advantage. In his best league season at Liverpool he lost only two games and supervised home and away victories over both Chelsea and Manchester United, a considerable feat, yet had to be content with runners-up spot after drawing on too many occasions against teams such as Stoke, Hull, Fulham and Wigan. While he seemed to be on course for a fairly undistinguished league season at Inter, it is as well to remember that Liverpool were nothing to write home about in the league the season he won the European Cup with them at his first attempt. Everton actually finished above them in 2005, yet when it came to the individual battles in Europe Liverpool always found a way to win, whether it took a phantom goal against Chelsea or a ludicrously unlikely comeback from three goals down in the final.

With that sort of track record one would have thought Inter could have extended Benítez the benefit of the doubt for a little while longer, especially as he has been at odds with the owners of the club – heard that before, anywhere? – and not the fans. Yet Italian clubs generally and Inter in particular are not noted for overindulging coaches, especially foreign ones. Inter have had 13 managers in 13 years since Roy Hodgson’s first crack at the job and as soon as one heard Benítez effectively inviting the club to back him or sack him a few days ago it was possible to imagine a swift outcome. What works for a manager at Anfield does not necessarily transfer to San Siro.

From the sound of it Benítez must have known what was coming, otherwise he would not have received the news while on holiday in Liverpool. How depressed do you have to be, Manchester United fans have been queueing up to ask, to go on holiday to Liverpool? Especially when most of Europe’s airports are clogged with frustrated travellers who cannot get anywhere, and Crosby was the coldest place in England the other night with temperatures of -17C. Perhaps the guy just needs a rest from football, and thought watching Hodgson’s team a couple of times might do the trick. Sorry, I’ll give the Mancunian jokes a rest now.

What is even odder than Rafa’s choice of getaway location and stranger than some of his pronouncements about milk and sugar mountains in recent months is that a sizeable proportion of Liverpool fans would have him back in a flash. As there is also a sizeable proportion of Liverpool fans who wouldn’t, this is not a course of action likely to recommend itself to the club board, yet even so it is fascinating to hear Liverpool fans arguing between themselves over the respective merits and demerits of the present manager and his predecessor.

Broadly speaking, around a third of Liverpool fans (I have not taken a representative sample of Merseyside opinion, I am only reflecting stances taken by the vociferous element on the message boards I have seen) think Benítez still capable of delivering major silverware and never wanted him to leave in the first place. Another third, roughly, were happy to see him go but would have him back straight away because Hodgson is merely a limp imitation of the same thing. The rest do not want Benítez back at any price and, while they grudgingly accept that even he would be better than Hodgson, they want the club to sack the present manager and move on to someone else. Hodgson, it will be seen, has very few friends at the moment. Almost every Liverpool fan wants to see the back of him and ultimately in this situation, even if it is widely suspected that Liverpool fans have been spoiled in the past and have no right to expect success all the time, when the people speak as one the people usually get their own way.

Ladbrokes is offering 12-1 on Benítez to return to Liverpool in the next five years. “If a vacancy occurs at Anfield then Rafa’s name would be in the hat,” a spokesman said. Perhaps such a quick return would be a bad idea from Benítez’s point of view and could only be incredibly messy. The way things are going there will be a vacancy at Liverpool quite soon, though, and were I to have a flutter on who might fill it I would put my money on Owen Coyle. A rank outsider, it could be argued, but an ambitious young manager who is clearly going places. He lacks European experience but Liverpool want someone primarily to put a smile back on everyone’s face, not joust with Mourinho. Just a thought.

The obvious English destination for Benítez is Blackburn, since a) they have a vacancy and b) the owners have indicated they wish to finish fourth or fifth or even better, which is what Benítez is good at. His Champions League experience will prove invaluable once Blackburn force their way into the elite, too. So expect Venky’s to be on the phone to Merseyside almost immediately, and then Rafa to be straight on the phone to Sam Allardyce, for confirmation that he may not have been working for the worst owners in the world in Liverpool and Milan after all.

If Benítez fancies working in England again he should award himself a rest and wait for the Manchester City job to come up, which it is likely to do before long. Allardyce should be on the phone to Inter right away, stressing his defensive know-how and reiterating his line about being wasted in England. That’s not a joke, actually. Allardyce might find Italian football suits him, and were he to put any kind of overseas achievement on to his CV he would strengthen his case for managing England. Always assuming that vacancy does not arise in the next few weeks due to the FA practically pushing Fabio Capello into Inter’s arms. In that event, Benítez for England, anyone? He may not be English but he takes his holidays in Liverpool. Merry Christmas.

Rafael BenítezLiverpoolInternazionalePaul Wilsonguardian.co.uk