Transfer Talk: You’re So Hot You Don’t Even Know It.

Seydou Doumbia, Seydou Doumbia, Seydou Doumbia. It’s the name on everyone’s lips, from Chelsea to Hamburg to Kazan and back to London again with Arsenal and Tottenham. The Young Boys striker – don’t Google that – has scored a Luis Suarez-esque 16 in 13 this year after only managing a paltry 20 goals last year…in eight starts (per wiki). This has put all of Europe on red hot alert, and it seems every club with visions of Europe dancing in their heads wants a piece. Chelsea were reported to have thoughts of Doumbia replacing Didier Drogba for the Cup of Nations, but that’s fraught with impossibilities. Namely because Carlo Ancelotti has firmly denied any January signing, as well as the fact that Seydou will likely be playing on the same forward line as Drogbacite.

Whatever the case, the next big thing is now searching for a home. Blank checks at the ready.

Speaking of Luis Suarez, he only wants Barcelona – who doesn’t? – and not til the summer at that. Good news for Ajax, not such good news for big-walleted winter shoppers.

A rumored swap of Ryan Babel & Roman Pavlyuchenko makes a great deal of sense. Liverpool need a striker and Pavlyuchenko needs a fresh start, while Babel could use the London underground to further promote his stellar rap career. The only problem is this rumor comes from the Daily Mail, which probably means it was born from the womb of untruthiness. Football will never make sense.

Eduardo Salvio has been Argentina’s next big thing for some time. Now it’s rumored he’ll be going to Atletico Madrid, along with Nicolas Otamendi, where he’ll possibly (probably….definitely) replace Argentina’s last next big thing, Kun Aguero, who is either going to Chelsea or will be killed by Maradona for breaking up with his daughter and Benji’s baby momma.

Mbark Boussoufa is reportedly done and dusted to Sevilla to continue fighting the good fight against diving (1:20).

Two curious things worth noting from the Real Madrid camp:

i. Roberto Carlos continues shouting toward Real with his desperate pleas to return to the Bernabeu, but the Madrid brass is still pretending not to hear him. In this edition, he proclaims he can replace the very injured Pepe, not realizing you need to be at least this high to play centerback.
ii. Rafa van der Vaart is apparently their new transfer guru.

Now that Rubin Kazan have proven they’re actually pretty good and not just your average Eastern European Cinderella (read: corrupt), which is great. But everyone wants to cherry pick their roster. Alejandro Dominguez has already signed with Valencia, while Man City are looking to send black gold up to Russia in return for Argentinian fullback Cristian Ansaldi. Hopefully they’ll take some of this money and buy a new photo for his Wikipedia page.

And finally, though he’s staying put for now, Romelu Lukaku is going to dominate the transfer rumors for years and years to come…despite what Roman Abramovich’s helicopter has to say. The boy’s a bit special. And sixteen.

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Category: Transfer Talk, World Football