Today’s tittle-tattle is cruising for a bruising

The Mill was kept up all night by sirens. Not the mythological seductive scantily clad kind who try to tempt you into the nearest river for a bit of how’s-your-father, mind (The Mill’s not been that lucky since it tripped over a rabbit’s foot sticking out of a cracked paving stone and landed a £4,000 insurance claim). Nah, these were the very real, ear-splitting, somebody’s-in-trouble-Guv type that blare out at 3am WHEN THERE IS NO TRAFFIC ON THE ROAD SO WHY BOTHER? variety. But hey, you’re a Mill who came up in the wrong end of town, whaddya gonna’ do?

On the subject of sirens, Manchester City’s Italian beauty Roberto Mancini is doing a pretty good impression of one right now. The long-haired temptress is keeping cool in the heat by fanning himself with £20m outside Stamford Bridge and refusing to leave until Didier Drogba accompanies him on the Virgin Pendolino back home to Manchester.

If Drogba’s passion is stirred then expect Carlo Ancelotti to turn up at Anfield with a wheelbarrow (a very, very big one at that) of cash and start throwing it over the Shankly Gates until enough of it lands to secure the services of Liverpool’s beautiful-but-knacked Spain striker Fernando Torres. And if Drogba isn’t turned on, Mancini will increase the size of his cash fan to £35m and direct his attention towards Internazionale’s brooding striker Mario Balotelli.

And now he’s happily married, the free-agent Sol Campbell has just about plucked up the courage to tell the new Mrs Campbell that they’re going to be setting up home in Sunderland. The Mill doesn’t know how long you have to be wed before you can avoid an annulment, but expects the happy couple haven’t yet reached that mark.

Over at Old Trafford, Sir Alex Ferguson has been busy mixing messages in a huge bowl and sending them out to assorted confused tabloid hacks. The Sun simultaneously has him pushing “hard to get the cash” for the fleet-footed Werder Bremen and Germany midfielder Mezut Ozil as well as admitting that Manchester United are “comfortable with the squad we’ve got.”

West Ham are hoping to scupper Liverpool’s attempts to sign the Nice and France striker Loic Remy by upping their offer for the player from the club’s asking price of £12m to £15m. With the Merseyside club about as indebted as a randy stag would be to his best mate after finding out that he’s switched their weekend away from Amsterdam to Eastbourne, last year’s relegation-battlers could successfully gazump Liverpool and prove that football is, well, just silly these days, isn’t it?

If he finds enough grease to squeeze his avuncular frame through the Craven Cottage entrance, big Martin Jol will write David James, Robbie Keane and Stephen Ireland’s names on a piece of paper, neatly fold it and insert it into the top pocket of Mohamed Al-Fayed’s suit jacket, before patting the 77-year-old Fulham owner on the cheek passive-aggressively.

North of the border, financially-challenged Rangers want goal-shy free-agent Marlon Harewood to prove just how bad the SPL is by actually scoring real goals in the league so they can make a good case for the Old Firm joining the Premier League. While Celtic will let Aiden McGeady run all the way down the hard-shoulder of the M74 and M6 until he ends up in the arms of his former manager Martin O’Neill at Aston Villa. That is, of course, after he’s sent £10m worth of beans to Parkhead.

And finally, Joey Barton (now there’s a man who knows his sirens) reckons England is the team for him. After watching Fabio Capello’s crack selection make the Jabulani ball look like it was triangular in South Africa, the fast-food-shop bothering Newcastle United player reckons every midfielder in the country must fancy their chances of playing for England (yes, even that fat lad called Macca who plays in the Liverpool Zingari League). “Watching some of the performances at the World Cup over the summer I think that, on form, I’m as good as anybody in the country.” After looking as rusty as an oil-starved garden gate in his 15 Championship appearances last season and regularly wasting possession, the Mill would have to agree.

Transfer windowManchester CityChelseaGregg Roughleyguardian.co.uk

• Midfielder to head for the exit at Valencia
• Manchester City and Chelsea favourites for signature

David Silva, the Spain international midfielder, has had a change of mind about moving to England and is deliberating whether to choose Manchester City or Chelsea amid firm interest from both clubs.

Silva’s reluctance to leave Spain was described as unflinching when City opened formal talks with Valencia at the end of last season but the player has gradually come round to the idea of playing in the Premier League, not least because of the realisation that Real Madrid’s new manager, José Mourinho, is not keen on recruiting him.

Barcelona also have other targets, having already signed David Villa from Valencia, and Silva is now left with a choice of remaining at Valencia or moving to England. His representatives have informed Valencia in the last 48 hours that he would like to take the option of a transfer.

That now boils down to a straight choice between City or Chelsea depending on a financial arrangement being agreed with his current club. That, however, is proving far from straightforward, with Valencia asking around €40m (£33.2m), a fee that is considered exorbitant at Eastlands and Stamford Bridge.

City were the first club to register an official interest in the 24-year-old and have the financial power to offer more than Chelsea in terms of both the transfer fee and the player’s salary, which currently stands at £3m a year and could easily be doubled if he were to join Roberto Mancini’s team. Chelsea, however, have the lure of playing in the Champions League next season and of joining a club that has just deposed Manchester United as champions.

Silva is described as open-minded but it is understood he marginally favours Chelsea on the basis that City’s reputation in Spain is not yet of one of Europe’s more powerful clubs, at least not in football terms. The likelihood is that he will wait until after the World Cup in case a good tournament persuades Madrid or Barcelona to look into his availability.

City’s pursuit of Silva partly originates from their knowledge that two of their more creative players, Robinho and Stephen Ireland, both want to leave the club this summer. Robinho, one of Brazil’s more impressive players in the 2-1 defeat of North Korea, has made it clear he does not want to return to Manchester when his loan arrangement with Santos expires on 4 August and his representatives are due to meet the City chief executive, Garry Cook, to make that official. That meeting was due to take place today but will now be held next week.

Manchester CityChelseaSpainTransfer windowValenciaDaniel Taylorguardian.co.uk