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Today’s whispers don’t need no credit card to ride this train

Another day, another tedious mention of Pippa Middleton’s backside, England’s strangest obsession since everyone stopped moaning about Polish workers. What is this all about? It’s just a backside. Everyone’s got one, even posh people.

The Mill hasn’t seen Pippa Middleton’s backside yet, but we have heard plenty of rumour-mongers talking out of their backside in our time. None, however, have ever produced pucky to match today’s suggestion that the high priest of tiki-taka, Xavi, will join Manchester City in the summer.

Roberto Mancini’s plan to build a side comprised entirely of men whose surnames end in a vowel – what else did you think the point of Dedryck Boyata and Patrick Vieira was – will continue when he swoops for Internazionale’s Samuel Eto’o. Inter, however, will not do business for a biscuit less than £45m.

City’s monstrously absurd chief executive Garry Cook has also tabled a joint £200m bid to Barcelona for their midfield duo Tiki and Taka.

Pippa Middleton’s backside will ensure world peace by the year 2017.

If Xavi joins City, that will free up a space in the Barcelona squad for Cesc Fábregas. When Xavi doesn’t join City, Barcelona will make space in their squad for Cesc Fábregas anyway.

Pippa Middleton wouldn’t, even if you were the last etcetera on etcetera, so stop this silly little obsession. You’re a grown man.

Sir Alex Ferguson wants to continue the proud tradition of French centre-halves at Old Trafford – Prunier, Silvestre, Blanc – with the signing of Lens’ man-boy Raphaël Varane, who is a first-team regular at 18.

It’s not going to happen between you and Pippa Middleton.

Liverpool owner John Henry will fly to Anfield to celebrate the club’s 2011-12 title victory during Sunday’s match against Spurs. Kenny Dalglish will be confirmed as permanent manager before the match, and has already lined up two wigwam signings: the Reading forward Shane Long and the Aston Villa geriátrico Brad Friedel. Meanwhile, Robert Green will go to Villa and Juventus will pay £10m for Wigan’s Charles Insomnia.

Pippa Middleton is a man.

Neil Warnock will receive a bumper financial bonus for getting QPR promoted, namely the pay-off that comes with a fresh P45. Claudio Ranieri will replace him.

That Pippa Middleton’s a bit of all right, eh?

Manchester CityBarcelonaArsenalLiverpoolReadingQPRWigan AthleticManchester UnitedLensAston VillaInternazionaleRob Smythguardian.co.uk

• Manchester City drawn with Serie A club for group stage
• Liverpool in group with Napoli and Steaua Bucharest

Manchester City have been grouped with Juventus in the Europa League Group A while Liverpool will take on another Serie A team, Napoli, in Group K.

The draw will be of particular significance for City’s new signing Mario Balotelli, who suffered racist abuse when he played for Internazionale at Juventus last season. The Juventus fans even sang “se saltelli muore Balotelli” (”If you jump up and down Balotelli will die”) during other games than those against Inter that season.

Juventus have made efforts to stop the racist chanting but Balotelli is unlikely to be given an easy time by the Italian club’s fans when the two clubs meet.

Forty-eight teams were in today’s draw in Monaco with England’s two representatives given intriguing draws. Manchester City, seeded in pot 2, will also play Salzburg and Polish side Lech.

Liverpool, who were in pot 1, face Steaua Bucharest and Utrecht.

In a change to last season’s format, the teams will meet home and away in the group stage, which starts on 16 September.

Full draw

Group A

Juventus

Manchester City

Salzburg

Lech

Group B

Atlético Madrid

Bayer Leverkusen

Rosenborg

Aris

Group C

Sporting Lisbon

Lille

Levski Sofia

Gent

Group D

Villarreal

Club Brugge

Dinamo Zagreb

PAOK

Group E

AZ Alkmaar

Dynamo Kyiv

BATE Borisov

Sheriff

Group F

CSKA Moscow

Palermo

Sparta Prague

Lausanne

Group G

Zenit St Petersburg

Anderlecht

AEK Athens

Hajduk Split

Group H

Stuttgart

Getafe

OB

Young Boys

Group I

PSV Eindhoven

Sampdoria

Metalist

Debrecen

Group J

Sevilla

Paris St-Germain

Borussia Dortmund

Karpaty Lviv

Group K

Liverpool

Steaua Bucharest

Napoli

Utrecht

Group L

Porto

Besiktas

CSKA Sofia

Rapid Vienna

Manchester CityJuventusLiverpoolEuropa LeagueMarcus Christensonguardian.co.uk

Today’s blurb is back in business

Excuses, excuses, always excuses. Monday is never the Mill’s favourite day. Even when David Beckham hasn’t just suffered a career-threatening, World Cup ambition-destroying achilles injury the papers are full of nasty, irrelevant rubbish such as match reports, and sadly lacking in the true and genuine lifeblood of our nation’s favourite sport, namely baseless gossip and idle speculation.

And so it is that the first item on the Mill’s notepad this bright and sunny Monday morn reads: “Yogi, a Hungarian Vizsla, won the Best In Show title at Crufts.”

What’s a Vizsla, anyway? Could the Hungarian Vizsla be in any way related to a Polish Wisla? They sound extremely similar, come from the same part of the world and can both claim to be champions, but one is a brown-furred quadruped and the other is a football team from Krakow.

The Mill feels it has a special and unique bond with Yogi. No, not in that way, vile-minded reader. He, like us, is loyal, caring and highly affectionate, but we have both been bred to possess a keen thrill for the hunt and the nose to scent out its prey however well it tries to hide.

And so it was that we managed to scent out in today’s Times, of all places, news that Juventus would be willing to sell Gianluigi Buffon to Manchester City for around £32m. That’s £1m for every year of the not-exactly-one-for-the-future-is-he shot-stopper’s life so far.

Meanwhile Ramón Calderón, the only former Real Madrid president to sound a bit like the lyrics to Gary Glitter’s 1973 chart-topper I’m The Leader of the Gang (I Am), says the Spanish giants have “an obsession to go for Wayne Rooney“.

Over in Merseyside the Rhône Group, a New York-based private equity firm, is close to buying 40% of Liverpool. The money could be used a) to improve the team, Fernando Torres having called on the club to “make an effort and bring in important players and improve the quality of the squad”; b) sack Rafael Benítez, who, according to the Mail, has a clause in his contract guaranteeing that his £4m-a-year, four-years-to-run contract will be paid up, in full, within 24 hours of him getting the boot; or c) refinance a couple of loans and pay Liverpool’s owners a lip-smacking bonus. Time will tell.

World Cup news now, and the BBC is spending £1m on a bespoke studio located on the roof of Somerset Hospital in Cape Town so that Gary Lineker and the rest of their World Cup panel have a nice view to look at this summer. ITV, and everyone else, is to be based in Soccer City.

Work on the studio begins this week with an operation to remove seagull nests from the site. “The move,” reports the Sun, “is seen as a slap in the face for Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria.” Can Johannesburg be slapped in the face? Does it have a face to slap? The Mill, for one, doesn’t think so.

Let’s hope its glazing is fully bulletproof, though. You can never be too sure. Because in a not-at-all bizarrely alarmist report, the Star says that “thousands of football fans have recruited armed guards to protect them at the World Cup in troubled South Africa.” Apparently, even three months before the big kick-off, supporters petrified of the “poverty-stricken locals” are living in “fear for their lives”.

And finally, in today’s Gazzetta dello Sport José Mourinho gives a guide to his favourite places in London. These include Harrods, the Vue cinema on Fulham Broadway – “where I watched many musicals” – and a restaurant called San Lorenzo in Beauchamp Place, which serves an excellent fish soup. “When he wanted a trip outside the city,” the pink paper also reports, “he would choose Ipswich.”

Manchester CityJuventusWayne RooneyLiverpoolSimon Burntonguardian.co.uk