There's an interesting trend appearing in a number of the rumours associated with the club. That is of players been traded as part of potential deals. Such deals are not unheard of, Keith Gillespie's move from United to Newcastle in the Andy Cole transfer might be the most well known from the Premiership seeing that it represented the largest English transfer deal at the time and just last year Samuel Eto'o was added to a 46 million Euro deal that saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic move from Inter to Barcelona. However it certainly isn't the norm.

Cue Mario Balotelli coming to City as part of a Tevez deal, Stephen Ireland go to Liverpool as part of package to entice Steven Gerrard and Micah Richards, SWP and who knows else as part of a James Milner transfer.

I'm not sure what to make of these. Has the main stream press realized that the public has figured out the cynical and cyclical nature of most transfer stories? You can refresh your memories concerning the average transfer "news" by reading my January 22nd column concerning Sergio Billy Bob Costa-Rodriguez-Chevalier-Smyth and his brilliant performances for FC Athletico Sporting La Bayer VFL Wanderers SV. But essentially it boils down to Paper announces, exclusively, a player who City are never going to sign in a million years is the target of a "massive" bid. Various quotes are thrown around followed by yet another exclusive that City have been "snubbed" by said player.

So maybe this is an attempt to spice things up? There is, I'll admit, a certain logic to the idea given the Liverpool are looking for a new manager and Villa are known to covert young English players. That I suspect is in fact the genesis of the stories. No one goes on the record any more concerning transfer rumours so there's plausible deniability when nothing comes of the exclusive.

You also get the sense that Player Agents are sometimes involved in these silly rumours in attempt to move their clients. I've always found the way clubs do business with agents to be very strange. Essentially agents can charge fees for facilitating transfer deals. I much prefer the US model where the agent works for the player (and the player only) and receives a percentage of the player's salary when a contract is negotiated rather than having a direct financial relationship with a club.

Regardless, nine times out of ten any transfer rumour you read whether in a newspaper or online has virtually no chance of coming to fruition. It's one of the reasons I rarely comment on them, it is just adding fuel to the insatiable monster.