Licking their wounds after the Kaka Katastrophe, Manchester City got back on the horse they fell off when they paid a rumoured £17m for Nigel De Jong. Not exactly cheap at the price for a defensive midfielder but then they do have money/oil to burn. Of course, that won't be that.

Mancunian boxer Ricky Hatton, licking his wounds after his megafight with Manny Pacquiao was called off, has his own wishlist for his beloved Blues. "After Kaka, there's [Lionel] Messi and [Fernando] Torres - although I don't think he'll leave Liverpool," Hatton told the Daily Mail. "But you can't attract the best players in the world if you're sixth-bottom of the Premier League."

After those brass tacks, Hatton, whose hero is Mancunian gagsmith Bernard Manning, cracked his own funny when he said of the club's Abu Dhabi owners: "At the minute, I feel like giving them the money back. Since the money came in, the fans have had these huge expectations and it's all gone a little bit t*** up."

Fellow comedian Garry Cook, City's executive chairman, is chasing Mark Hughes' other, far more realistic targets. Shay Given is heavily rumoured to be one of them as is Chelsea's former invisible man, Branislav Ivanovic.

Sayeth Cook: We had very clear plans going into this transfer window and we are ticking the boxes as we go. There are a couple of others that we are still working on. As yet, there is nothing more to report - but overall we have had a good transfer window." Er, Garry...

On he goes..."We choose not to get into the public space, which allows itself to be speculative, but we clearly know what we're doing - and I think that the fans are going to be excited." The Hitman may not agree.

Elsewhere, Lyon striker Fred threw potential suitors on to alert when he went back on his decision to head back to Brazil. One club supposedly looking for a loan deal for a striker is Stoke City. Maybe he'll go back to Brazil after all...

Andrei Arshavin: this one could run and run until, at a guess, 5pm on February 2nd. It seems price is the problem. Could Zenit St Petersburg be moved from their £21m pricetag? Maybe his buying out of his contract or the threat to do may see the move, er, move. The Sun joins many others, including us at Soccernet, in reporting that line.

Elsewhere in the same organ, Michel Salgado says he turned down QPR while Dirk Kuyt has been linked with Juventus by Italy's Corriere dello Sport. Just when he was having a good season too...