Todays Paper Shite....

Eyepopper

Manchester City and Manchester United will go head-to-head for the £80m signature of Lyon striker Karim Benzema in January. (News of the World) 80M


Arsenal will see off Chelsea's interest in their teenage star Jack Wilshere by offering him a professional deal worth £15,000 a week - 200 times his current wage - when he turns 17, on New Year's Day. (News of the World)

Spurs have set their sights on luring Welsh midfielder Joe Ledley, 21, from Cardiff in the January transfer window. (News of the World)


But if Tottenham's sporting director Damien Comolli doesn't rejuvenate his transfer policy, he will lose his job, following a £100m spending spree which has left Spurs at the bottom of the Premier League. (Mail on Sunday)

Daniel Agger is refusing to commit to a new deal at Liverpool until manager Rafa Benitez confirms whether the Dane has a first-team future at the club. (News of the World)


Arsenal turned down the chance to sign Brazilian midfielder Mineiro, leaving the way clear for Chelsea to pick up the 33-year-old earlier in the week. (News of the World)

Brazil legend Ronaldo, now down to 15 stone, insists there is still a chance he will join Manchester City. (Observer)


Everton will make a £4m offer to Fulham for midfielder Jimmy Bullard, while Clint Dempsey is looking to leave Craven Cottage after being frozen out of the first team by Roy Hodgson. (News of the World)

Robbie Savage is in line for a return to his first club, Crewe, in a loan move after being told he can leave Derby. (News of the World)


A South African consortium have emerged as favourites to assume ownership of Newcastle United, with five men preparing to table a joint £350m bid for the club. (News of the World)

Alan Shearer has rubbished claims by Joe Kinnear that he will join up with Kevin Keegan once new owners take over. (Mail on Sunday)


Meanwhile, Kinnear will earn £50,000 per game during his spell in charge. (Sunday Express)

Kinnear admits owner Mike Ashley had no idea about his four-year-old touchline ban when appointing him. (Mail on Sunday)


Unlike Newcastle, Portsmouth are a snip for an initial payment of just £20m. Alexandre Gaydamak has put Pompey up for sale as the club struggle under the weight of massive debts. (News of the World)

Gaydamak wants Avram Grant back at Fratton Park in his old job as technical director. (Sunday Express)


Another top-flight club in takeover talks are Spurs, who may sell to an as-yet anonymous Asian billionaire. (Observer)

Manchester City winger Shaun Wright-Phillips will be recalled to the England team for their game against Kazakhstan on 11 October, at the expense of David Beckham. (Sunday Times)


Beckham insists he will not mind if he is dropped and would be "happy going home having not even got off the bench". (Various)

Beckham may instead keep himself occupied by buying himself a US Major League Soccer team. (Sunday Express)


Sir Alex Ferguson says his plan to lengthen bans for career-threatening tackles was ignored by the FA. (Sunday Express)

Ferguson and Manchester United will open talks with Ryan Giggs in the New Year, with a view to extending his contract a further season, until summer 2010. (News of the World)


Arsene Wenger believes the away goals rule in the Champions League should be modified to the rule used in the Carling Cup, where away goals only count twice before extra time. (Sunday Express)

Steve Bruce admits that he and Mark Hughes, former team-mates at Manchester United, are not friends and have not spoken for years. (Various)


Sheffield United have no intention of agreeing to West Ham's bid for an appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport regarding the Carlos Tevez affair. (Observer)

a_devil_inside

what 4 year ban did Kinnear get?

x42bn6

Kinnear was given a 4-match touchline ban with Forest which he never sat out as he resigned. He still has to take it, however, and it starts... With Newcastle.

Looks like they need a caretaker caretaker manager now. Graeme Souness would be good.

Handjob Bob

Sparky & Bruce not friends, wonder what thats all about?

Kelvin

80m

December_16

Do we even have 20m to spend on players now that we've signed Berbatov? Do we fuck.

x42bn6

We do, if we don't sign Tévez.

Richter

Manchester City and Manchester United will go head-to-head for the £80m signature of Lyon striker Karim Benzema in January. (News of the World)

Wow NOTW has hit a new low creating a story like that based on what Lyon said he will cost..

Drifter

80mil.That's us out of the picture then.

Raven_Blade

Benzema! For starters he would never go to Man City. We also have enough strikers for the near future.

afrocentricity

Apt thread title.

Name Changed

80m? Jesus Christ the News of the World writes some awful dung.

dev1l

Agreed. Still I can see the Benzema muppets getting multiple orgasms even if they know they re reading shite..

Sarni

He'd go to City if the money was right. With this sort of money involved in the club they would be a step up compared to Lyon. Playing for Lyon in a poor league is not a big challenge honestly, and they haven't been doing as well as they used to in CL either.

RedRover

They have been doing consideranly better than Manchester City in the CL though.

City will struggle to attract the worlds best whatever they pay because the worlds best already have more money than they know what to do with - while playing for the best clubs in the world (often in warm and very pleasent European Cities).

City may succeed in attracting a few money hungry primadonnas but that is hardly any guarantee of success. They'll need to spend £100 million to qualify for the Champions League and break teh top 4 monopoly.

Benzema - if and when he leaves Lyon will likely go to Spain (and probably Real madrid) before he'd every consider coming over here - whatever cash was on offer.

Sarni

But Lyon won't improve upon what we've seen, they will either remain at the same level or drop down a bit. Recently they've made a step back and are no longer considered among CL favourites as it used to be in 2005 or 2006 when they outplayed the likes of Milan and Real Madrid.

I'd say that pretty much any footballer is money hungry and will consider a big money move at any point in his career. Some of them will jump at it, some of them will reject it but everyone will give it a though.

Granted Chelsea were a little bit more attractive when Abramovich took over than City are now, but they still attracted players that seemed to have been well out of their reach.

As for players who have more money than they will ever be able to spend - bollocks, whenever you reach one point, you aim for another and you never have too much.

RedCanadian

80M....

Leg-End

I think we can honestly say Manchester United will never spend 80M on 1 player.

RedRover

Perhaps thats the case but do you really think that players who have dreamed since childhood of playing for Real madrid or Milan - clubs with great history - will sacrifice that for a few million a year more? I don't see it - especially when they will still earn millions at the respective clubs. Players want success so few young ambitious players will want to move to City if a move to a bigger club is available.

Chelsea has the advantage of being in London - important to many players, but they have largely signed players who while being very good have made their names at Chelsea rather than elsewhere.

Benzema is one of the brightest prospects in world football and it seems Real already have their claws into him. If they want him he'll go irrespective of what city offered him.

You are right that a few players will move simplly for money but signing players like that is a daagerous game to play.

Whelan_88

30 million would have seemed bizarre 20 years ago. Give it another 20 and it wouldn't suprise me if we do. But there's no way we'd pay that for Benzema particularly when we're rotating the 3 we've got anyway.

And Joe Kinnear

Alex

Yeah United will spend 80 million on a player in the next ten years, I will be shocked if it doesnt happen. City will probably spend 80 million on a player first though

radd

he called a ref 'Coco the Clown.' must have stopped taking those pills now