ROONEY TO REAL?

When there isn't a lot of gossip around in the English papers, it's always a reasonably safe bet to skip over the Spanish press for a bit of tittle tattle.

And praise be to Sport, the Barcelona-based rumour rag, who come up with a highly spurious belter for us this morning.

They report that, despite having seen 90 minutes worth of evidence on Wednesday night that throwing money at a problem doesn't necessarily work, Florentino Perez will launch a bid for Wayne Rooney in the summer.

No figures are mentioned, but such is Real Madrid's financial incontinence when they see something shiny they like, we're guessing it will be what is known in financial circles as a 'f**kload of cash'.

Obviously, with Sport being a Barca paper, we urge you to treat this with some degree of caution, but what the hey.