Manchester United have moved for the promising Manchester City-supporting youngster Charlie Jackson after coaches spotted him wowing crowds in a local community training programme. "His idols are Joe Hart and Mario Balotelli," said his father, Andy. "At first he was mortified at training with United. He didn't want to go. Eventually I had to tell him, 'Look, we'll let United train you up, then when you are really good you can go to City.'" And why is Charlie's father doing all the talking? Because Charlie is five. "Charlie's only five," factofthemattered a United source. "At this stage it's more about getting kids to enjoy sport."
It would be frankly bizarre if the Mill were to spend very long pondering big clubs signing young players without diverting our attention at some point to Arsenal, who are by all accounts ready to lavish £10m on the 23-year-old Toulouse defensive midfielder Etienne Capoue. Executives of the north London club have decided to push ahead with the deal despite the fact that the player's surname sounds like a posh woman sneezing. In a perfect world Arsène Wenger would have preferred to sign Yann M'Vila from Rennes, but he's too expensive. He also wants the Birmingham and England Under-21 goalkeeper Jack Butland, currently on loan at Cheltenham and yet to play for Blues, but surprisingly tall for a kid that age.
Other Arsenal-based news: Bordeaux want to bring back flop striker Marouane Chamakh, but their offer isn't going very well. "I've left four or five messages with him in two months," said their president Louis Triaud. "I've also tried Wenger. No response." And Tomas Rosicky is learning the guitar. "Once I saw Kirk Hammett from Metallica do a crazy solo," he explained. "I thought, 'I want to try this.' I can play some things but I am still learning." In other north London-based rock'n'pop news, Jermain Defoe met starlet Rihanna backstage at the O2 after one of her recent concerts. According to the Mirror, she accused him of playing for Arsenal and then decamped to a nightclub where, the newspaper reports, "the resident dwarves served Rihanna her drinks". Will this plague of dwarf-infested bars never end? We will stop banging on about Arsenal now.
Stoke, Newcastle and West Brom are in training for a £2m January scrap, with Birmingham's Liam Ridgewell their shared target. Sunderland, West Ham and Leicester all want Brighton's 17-year-old Shamir Goodwin. And in other three-way-transfer-battle news, Celtic, Fulham and Espanyol all want Sweden's about-to-be-available-for-free right-back Mikael Lustig. Blackpool and Doncaster – that's right, just the two of them – want QPR's Rob Hulse.
West Ham want Leeds' Andy O'Brien or free-agent former Real Madrid star Francisco Pavón to provide cover for their defence, after Arsenal (them again) blocked a loan move for Sébastien Squillaci. Sunderland want £3m-rated Spanish defender Jordi Figueras, currently on a season-long loan from Rubin Kazan to Rayo Vallecano. The patch of turf that Cristiano Ronaldo blamed for an embarrassing if in-the-end-irrelevant miss against Bosnia last week has fetched £4,000 at auction.
Over to Italy, where Milan's executive Adriano Galliani has admitted: "I've been in love with Didier Drogba in a football sense since he played for Marseille." Also in Italy, Liverpool are monitoring Internazionale's 19-year-old Brazilian Philippe Coutinho, although whether their interest has crossed over into romantic infatuation remains to be seen. In other continental news, Barcelona have admitted that they may or may not want Gareth Bale. "I wouldn't say even if it was true," vowed the president, Sandro Rosell. And Real Madrid have signed a deal with communications giant Cisco which will provide the Bernabéu with "a new high-density Wi-Fi network" that will see them "engage our fans in ways never seen before in Europe". The Spanish giants will also benefit from "a new neon blue facade" and "green areas". Green areas? Do they mean a pitch?
