It's autumn. Days shrink, jaded leaves abandon the trees, Rafael Benítez insists Liverpool's season can still be saved. So it goes. It is also around about now that crafty retailers begin bewitching toddlers with jingly Christmas ads, driving them to pester their parents for toys that will transform their lives for six minutes. Agents do the same to managers, who in turn go pleading all angel-eyed to their chairman: can I have that player and that one and that one and, ooooh, that one too, oh can I, can I, can I? Pleeeeeeeeease? P-p-pleeeeeeeeeease?
And so Carsen Yeung will smile with paternal resignation as little Alex McLeish's face lights up in delight this January when he wakes up to find one Gareth Bale at the bottom of his bed. There will be no fnarr fnarring, no panicked thought for what the tabloids would make of the scene, just yelps of glee. And then the Scot will ask for more and more gifts, including Burnley's Chris Eagles, Newcastle's Kevin Nolan and Celtic's Aiden McGeady and then some concerned friend will tap Yeung on the shoulder and say "You do realise you can get a new manager too, don't you?" and lo, the festivities will come to an abrupt end for McLeish – especially, perhaps, when he learns that top of the list to replace him is old mucker Gordon Strachan.
Brummie fans may wonder if that is really much of an upgrade. Fulham fans will do ditto when they learn that Roy Hodgson's plan to introduce more goals into the team involves giving Bobby Zamora competition in the form of …. Emile Heskey. Sam Allardyce wants to bring the big man to Blackburn, however. Most mysteriously of all, of course, Fabio Capello is determined to bring him to South Africa. Which brings us to the interesting part of today's Mill ….
Word is Carlton Cole reckons he is ready for a move back to a Big Four club and that if he gets one in January he'll have the perfect platform to convince Capello he's better at the Heskey role than Heskey is. What's more, Benítez reckons he can rustle up enough cash to make that dream come true. Playing for a Big Four club may not make any difference to Capello, of course. And, some may say, Liverpool will no longer be a Big Four club by then, or Benítez may no longer be there …
Arsène Wenger will still be around, though. Arsenal may currently look the most likely Premier League champions but he reckons that there is still room for improvement so he'll return to the club on whom he has modelled the Gunners, Ajax, and snap up the 21-year-old full-back Gregory van der Wiel.
Chelsea will look on jealously. Unless they manage to get their transfer band overturned, in which case they'll celebrate by buying the Ghanaian striker Dominic Adiyiah, a deal that will coincide with the first ever mention of the Norwegian side Fredrikstad FK in the British media.
And if that isn't something to get excited about, then Portsmouth's imminent swoop for the former Millwall and Plymouth striker Cherno Samba surely is. What? Oh.
