Football transfer rumours: Mario Balotelli on his way to Newcastle?

Perhaps it’s fate that today, July the third, we will once again fight for our freedom. Not from tyranny, persecution or oppression. But from truth. We’re fighting for our right to lie. From this day on, the third day of July will no longer be remembered as an the festival of Saint Heliodorus of Altino but as the day that all of mankind declared we will not vanish without a lie. We will lie on. We will lie. Speaking of which. Here is today’s fresh, pile of transfer boo-do.
Over in Manchester United, Louis van Gaal has just put the phone down and is feeling a bit sheepish. He has been trying to get through to Seamus Coleman all week but he keeps getting his voicemail. At first, Louis was worried that he had written the number down wrong, then he worried that Seamus had blocked his calls, then he worried about whether or not the last voicemail he left was a bit too forward. “My name is Louis,” he said “usually I don’t do this but I see you and me Seamus. Louis will give you no worries, Louis got million stories about these players that Louis laughed at when they was boring. Louis gone fill your pockets, Louis gone move your mama out of Donegal inside the gigantic mansion like Louis promised, Louis just want your trust and loyalty. Avoiding Louis? It’s not so easy, Louis at these functions accordingly. Louis don’t slack a minute, Louis work harder, Louis gone call you, Louis don’t mind cause at the end of the day you’ll pursue me. Louis go get it, Louis not timid, Louis up front, Louis got paper work on top of paper work, I want you to know that Louis got you. All your life I watched you and now I want you to sign this contract if that’s possible.” With the worrying out of the way, Louis made himself a cup of green tea to go with the financier he bought earlier that day from his local bakery and wondered how he would break the news to Jonny Evans that he is moving to Everton.
Louis is the only one to be wondering these days, Steve McClaren has been too. Steve has mostly been musing about the fate of Greece and the knock-on effect on the Eurozone, as well as what impact the endorsing of the yes vote by the former conservative leader Costas Karamanlis will have, but he has been wondering about other things too. What was his favourite incarnation of the Sugarbabes, would he look good with an ice-cream cone on his face like Gucci’s and what is the best way to bring stability to Newcastle. In case you haven’t noticed it, dear Mill readers, over the last few years, Newcastle have been more all over the place than a teenager’s emotions. But sweat not, sweet fans of Newcastle, Steve is tapping the right side of his nose with his right index finger and is flashing his freshly pained grill. He knows how to solve this problem, he knows what needs to be done. He is going to bring in a superstar, the type of buy that will have the fans sleeping outside the club shop for days just to get his name printed on their jersey; the type of buy that will have those not sleeping outside the club shop, sleeping outside the local tattoo parlour to get his name emblazoned just above where they have the picture of their kids; the type of buy that will bring a professionalism to the side and make the rest of players up their game and work ten times harder. Who could that buy be? Well Mario Balotelli, of course.

Back to Everton for a moment. If you hear them laughing hysterically, it has nothing to do with them remembering their favourite Woody Allen joke, you know the one when he says he asked his mother where babies came from and she thought he said “rabies”. She said you get them from being bitten by a dog. The next week, a woman on his block gave birth to triplets and he thought she’d been bitten by a great dane. No, it has nothing to do with that at all and more to do with the call they have just got from Tottenham. The London lads were very polite and prim. They asked how Everton were doing and how the mother was and whether she had recovered from her fall and they did not forget to mention that they had enjoyed the sister’s ballet recital immensely. With the pleasantries out of the way, they soon got down to business. We’re interested in James McCarthy, they said. At this point, Everton knew this call was going nowhere but decided to reciprocate the politeness afforded to them and so they let Spurs natter on. We’re interested in James McCarthy, they repeated, and we are willing to offer you Aaron Lennon or Younes Kaboul in return. It was at this point, Everton could hold it in no more and the laughter burst forth like the morning.
Elsewhere, David de Gea ... Real ... zzz ...
Antonio Rüdiger has been up all night working, not on his ball control, or his positioning, or his heading, but on his art. You might not know this but Rüdiger is a big fan of the painted word. Not the old stuff like Johannes Vermeer, Frans Pourbus the Younger or Johann Michael Feuchtmayer the Elder – he can appreciate their work but it leaves him cold. No, he’s more into the new stuff – especially the lettering styles of Ben Eine, an artist he first came across during the three hour street art east London walking tour – and that’s what he has been up all night working on. This latest effort of Rüdiger’s contains just four letters. N. E. I. N. and he has told his Mr/Ms 10% to show it to Chelsea next time they come calling. (He has done a separate one with the letters J.A and he is going to show that to Stuttgart) Once he is done with it, he plans to lend it to Pep Guardiola and Bayern Munich, who wants to show it to Ángel Di María’s 10%er. Can’t think why, can you?