Football transfer rumours: Cristiano Ronaldo to Barcelona? Really?

Ambition has no room for sentiment. The Mill wouldn’t know much about this, having chugged along near the bottom of the transfer-gossip pyramid for the best part of 20 years, but we read it on a toilet wall once and it sounded profound. And if we had any lingering doubts about the incompatibility of ambition and sentiment, they’ve been obliterated by the burgeoning where-will-Cristiano-Ronaldo-pout-next saga!

Yesterday’s news that Ronaldo is making come-to-CR7 eyes at Chelsea was a knife to the memory bank for all connected with Manchester United. And today’s rags suggest he is now doing the same to Real Madrid!

According to reports, Ronaldo’s relationship facilitator Jorge Mendes has been talking to Barcelona about an unlikely extension of their geriatricos policy. Ronaldo, Robert Lewandowski and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang would be quite a strike force, with a combined career goal tally of 143 and a combined age of nearly 2,000.

Barcelona’s ongoing attempt to build a squad to win the 2014-15 Champions League has consequences: a mes-que-un-car-boot sale involving a number of players who are good enough to find a decent home around Europe. The latest to be linked with a move is Memphis Depay, who Tottenham are reportedly eyeing for a bargain £17m. Depay working with Antonio Conte sounds like a Channel 4 series, a social experiment involving a talented underachiever and the man with the lowest nonsense threshold on planet Earth.

Conte is also unsatisfied with his defensive options, despite the imminent signing of Clément Lenglet on loan from Barcelona. According to tomorrow’s chip paper, Conte has turned his slightly intimidating yet undeniably moreish attention to Villarreal’s Pau Torres.

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