Jype

Yep, he has his sources but he's also known to be a frustrating tease at times. If he says something regarding Rooney or anyone else for that matter I will believe him but I wouldn't be surprised if he was just posting some completely non-transfer related stuff no one really cares about. @Hamilton, I wouldn't be so sure about Cesc. United certainly seem confident and Moyes was just talking about Fabregas on their official website and he said he expects news in the next day or two. That or they're desperate to sell some more season tickets and all this talk about big money signings will get people to renew their ST's.

That's one hell of a team Manchester City are building there. Fernandinho, Navas and Jovetic are all quality additions to their side, although they could have done even better in the market. Replacing Tevez with Negredo wasn't the brightest of moves and letting go of Balotelli wasn't great either.

Comparing Rooney to Van Persie is harsh. Back in 2011/12 when Van Persie was still at Arsenal they were both equally good and they really wouldn't even have needed RvP last season because getting him had a negative effect on Rooney's game when he couldn't play as a striker anymore. Had they decided against buying Van Persie and stuck with Rooney as their main striker, I'd say they would still have won the title comfortably and it would have been Rooney scoring almost 25 league goals instead of Van Persie. Maybe Ferguson wanted something new in Van Persie just because he knew it was going to be his last season or maybe he knew about Rooney's plans to leave the club so he opted to buy another world class striker beforehand to make sure the club will still be in a good position once Rooney's gone. A lot of maybes there but one thing's for sure. Rooney is still one of the best strikers in the world and back in 2011/12 when he still got to play in his favoured position he was arguably Manchester United's most important player when they only lost the title to Manchester City by goal difference. Overall 34 goals in 44 matches that season with 12 of them scored against the Top6 teams in the Premier League is not something one does if he's shit.

Some hack journo writing for the Guardian just suggested Moyes should ask for both Mata AND Luiz in a straight swap deal for Rooney. Went on to say that it could be a good deal for everyone. And these people actually get paid to write this shit? If we really wanted to get rid of Mata and Luiz, we could easily sell them to Real Madrid, Barcelona or PSG in a blink of an eye for £60m combined and then use half of that money to buy Rooney without giving one of our main title rivals some of the best players in the league in exchange. But why the fuck would we do that either when we can keep both of them and still buy Rooney, it's not like the club are in a desperate need for money and the idea is not to buy a player just for the sake of buying but instead because Mourinho wants to improve the team.

Because Mourinho hates Spanish players, right? Not all Spaniards are primadonna cunts like Iker Casillas, you do know that?

Doubt it, Roma have just signed Maicon and I don't think we'd loan him to a club where he isn't a starter at.

Mourinho talking openly about a bid for Rooney on the club's official website is exactly like last year when Ferguson admitted they had made a bid for Van Persie but Arsenal wouldn't sell. Look how that turned out. To me, Mourinho's approach to this has been spot on. First he made a subtle hint of his interest by saying it's for the good of the national team that Rooney leaves and by doing that he also gained support from many neutrals who want what's best for England. Then he has gone on to unsettle the player even more by admitting a bid has been made and that it's now up to Rooney and Manchester United to react to this bid. The way I see it, the ball is now in Rooney's court and if he's serious about leaving he must hand in an official transfer request, thereby waiving any loyalty bonuses and such. That's the only way they're going to sell because clearly it's the player's decision and not the club's. This is happening, people. Things have been said and there's no turning back this time. Rooney is as good as gone and I can't see anyone else getting him than us.

Jamal Blackman, Branislav Ivanovic, Gary Cahill, Nathaniel Chalobah, Ryan Bertrand, Marco van Ginkel, Ramires, Kevin De Bruyne, Eden Hazard, Demba Ba, Victor Moses Team for the second half, confirmed by Mourinho. Islam Feruz is also on the bench so he could be coming in for De Bruyne at some point. Or he could replace Ramires if De Bruyne is tried in a deeper midfield role.

Wallace is looking good.

Yep, definitely this. De Bruyne can play very well on the right flank too so I'd play him ahead of Moses there if needed but if everyone were limited to just one position, I'd go with your selections.

Saw that too and to be fair there was quite a lot of them who rated Hazard in their top 10. Even so, most of them still agreed that Hazard is and all of the other hyped young stars are better. Also, the vast majority of them seemed to have Thiago in the top3 prospects when he still looked to be on his way to United. Interesting to see whether or not they'll turn on him as well now that he snubbed them for Bayern. A fickle bunch that lot.

Using the Golden Boy award in Isco's favour is kind of harsh, considering there's no way Oscar could have won it as he did not yet play in Europe at the time and the award is given to the best U21 player in the European leagues. Isco was class for Malaga in the two seasons he was there but he's got no international experience and there's no way to know for sure if he's got what it takes to succeed at the very highest level at Real Madrid. Oscar on the other hand has been a regular starter for Brazil for over a year now and he did great in his first season at a European club, not to mention the great season he had at Internacional before moving. At the moment we just have to agree on the fact they're both great players with bright futures but there really is no way to tell who's better right now and at the end of the day it's up to each of us to judge them. If someone rates Isco higher than Oscar or the other way around, it's their opinion and they're entitled to it. But yeah, that's enough of this in the Eden Hazard thread. Sorry Alex, don't swing the mighty hammer on us.

What was the final score? At 70 minutes Arsenal were like six goals up or something, did they get any more? If I'm not mistaken, Chelsea are playing against that same Indonesia side on July 25th. Could be fun.

Don't think I've ever been so excited about a pre-season friendly. So many interesting new players, loan returnees and youngsters like Schürrle, Van Ginkel, Lukaku, De Bruyne, Kalas, Chalobah, Feruz and Traore. And of course Mourinho.

They have Cavani coming in and they don't need both. Cavani is clearly the future for them and it's not like Zlatan is so loyal he's willing to stay and not be the main man. Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet were reporting today that Zlatan has decided to leave PSG and they're well informed when it comes to Swedish players so I think it's only a matter of where he goes rather than if he goes. Real Madrid and Manchester City will probably be in for him but I think we should be too. City wouldn't have anything over us but his latest manager Ancelotti could persuade him into joining Real Madrid, the club he wanted to join three years ago when he left Barca. Then again we have Mourinho who coached him at Inter. Would be an amazing short-term signing for us, could easily get at least three good years out of him because his game isn't based on pace as much as it is on his technical abilities and footballing brain. In his previous clubs he has shown he adapts very quickly and at 31 he's defo one of the best forwards in the world and despite high wages he could be available for a cut-price as far as the transfer fee is concerned. By the time he would be finished we would have a 23-year-old Lukaku ready to take over as the definite number one. Rather him than Rooney if it came to that.

By the time we paid £24m for Essien he was way more proven than Illaramendi is now. He had won back-to-back league titles as well as one cup title with Lyon and he was definitely one of their key players during those campaigns. In his last season at Lyon he was Player of the Year in Ligue 1. To me that's a player who's already among the best in the world. Maybe the price was a bit steep but there was more competition for his signature than there was for Illaramendi's. Real Madrid could have just played it cool and waited to see if Real Sociedad were serious about demanding the whole release clause because it's not like there was a chance someone could have beaten them to the player's signature. Or they could have just got Geoffrey Kondogbia for a third of the price who in my opinion is almost as good as Illarramendi is despite being three years younger. Real Madrid wanted the Spanish player and ended up paying the premium price, a situation similar to English clubs overpaying for British players when they could get a foreign player who's just as good for a fraction of the price.

Who pays €39m for a player who only has a season and a half of top flight football under his belt at the age of 23? And a defensive midfielder none the less. Sure, he was good last season and played a big part in Real Sociedad making it to the Champions League places but that price is still way too high. For almost 40m I'd expect to get the absolute best defensive midfielder in the world and not just someone who could potentially become one of the best if he succeeds.

This is starting to get ugly. If he really is available for free, it would be one of the best pieces of business so far this window for any club. Those who know him better than I do, what would you say his best position is? If he's a right winger, I think we could use him as early as next season if he's signed because I still believe Moses will be gone. Mourinho sure loves to have his fair share of Portuguese players at his teams so maybe Bruma could be his man this time around. @Slam Dunk, didn't someone at Chelsea supposedly 'kidnap' Mikel when he was about to join Manchester United?

Delighted with this transfer. Schwarzer is definitely an improvement on Turnbull and Hilario and very cheap backup too. Hopefully this will now put to bed those ridiculous rumours of us buying John Ruddy.

Probably not. Now there's that other picture too where he clearly wears the same clothes as he does in the first picture and surely no one would go through so much trouble just to post some bullshit? Some media outlets starting to pick this up too. The pictures seem to be real and basically they confirm that Schwarzer was at Cobham but at the moment it's unclear whether he signed or not.

Just posted this in the General transfer talk but I guess it deserves it's own thread. The picture looks real but these days one can never be sure. Brilliant signing if true, I've been calling for this ever since Fulham released him after signing Stekelenburg.

Just saw on Twitter that we have supposedly signed Mark Schwarzer. There was even a picture of him in the Chelsea press conference room as evidence and to me it looked legit. Best possible backup keeper signing if true, fingers crossed. edit: Here's the pic.

If there was still any doubt of De Bruyne staying, Dortmund have just now confirmed the signing of attacking midfielder Henrikh Mkhitaryan from Shakhtar Donetsk for €25m which pretty much means they've given up on De Bruyne. Two birds with one stone, Liverpool won't get their main target of the transfer window and we get to keep De Bruyne.

Barcelona have just sold David Villa to Atletico Madrid for less than five mil. We can only hope they're clearing room for the imminent arrival of the ladyboy.

De Rossi is the highest paid player in the Serie A and we would have to match his current wages in order to get him, maybe even give him a small pay rise to keep his net wage the same if tax percentages are higher in the UK than they are in Italy. Relatively low transfer fee makes up for this and the club would have no problem making this investment in De Rossi because he sure is good enough. If Roma are willing to sell for 10-15m and the player himself is open to a move, I see no problem in making the deal happen. Pre-season is starting tomorrow so if all parties want the transfer to go through we could be seeing more news sooner rather than later.