Manchester City are about to sign Roque Santa Cruz.

Well alright, they could be, particularly if you read between the lines, add two and two together, get five and then attribute heaps of significance to Blackburn Rovers' approach for Zenit St Petersburg striker Pavel Pogrebnyak.

On Wednesday evening Zenit revealed that Rovers' valuation of the 25-year-old is a gnat's whisker away from their own and said: "If they send us the offer officially in time, we will contact Pogrebnyak and will persuade him to go to England".

With Paraguayan Santa Cruz having made no secret of his wish to leave Ewood Park Pogrebnyak could be a readymade replacement. Add 28 goals in 51 games for Zenit and Daily Express quotes from the player stating that "I am a huge fan of the English Premier League, to play there is my dream," and Rovers could have themselves a motivated marksman.

News of one of the more bizarre loan deals this January also broke on Wednesday evening and involved another Rovers striker, Matt Derbyshire who looks set to join Greek champions Olympiakos on a six-month loan.

Derbyshire has featured 17 times for Rovers this season, but has only scored twice, all the same he is a decent player and offers much promise. A move to Greece seems a bit random, but good luck to him.

The Sun claim that Newcastle, Blackburn and Bolton are keeping tabs on Roma’s Christian Panucci and could offer the 35-year-old former Chelsea defender another Premier League payday.

Panucci spat his dummy out on Sunday when Roma coach Luciano Spalletti left him out of the starting XI to face Napoli. Rather than being a good little boy Panucci watched the game from the stand, not the bench.

On Wednesday he was left out of the Roma squad to face Palermo; a development which could lead one of the afore mentioned clubs to registering an official interest.

The January transfer window generally brings with it a spate of phantom injuries as players poised to move - or negotiating an exit - endeavour not scupper a move by picking up an injury.

On Wednesday night ahead of the clash with Man City the Newcastle United website confirmed that Shay Given and Charles N'Zogbia would miss the game "because of injury".

We, of course, wish them a speedy recovery from their imaginary ailments, though we're not expecting the physios at Man City and Aston Villa to be spending too much time on Given and N’Zogbia respectively.