Football transfer rumours: Pep Guardiola for the England job?
On the other hand ambition can be an ugly thing. You can appear single-minded to the extent that you look down on those who just like a simple life, knitting or pleasantly growing parsnips or similar. Plus, of course, there's the distinct possibility that you'll fail, landing flat on your face like a small child walking into a glass door while holding an ice cream. You thought you were trying to do something interesting with your time on the earth, and suddenly you're lying on the concrete, embarrassed with a hurt nose and Mr Whippy all down your top.
Which one of these two situations (and it will be one of the two - no half measures in the Mill's world) will the FA find themselves in, if the word on the street that they're sniffing around Pep Guardiola to be the new England head coach is true? Ol' Pepples is, as the shrewdly aware and keenly observant among you will surely know, currently the Bayern Munich manager, but the top bods at Wembley have their fingers crossed that he will tire of wearing leather shorts every October and winning the Bundesliga by about a million points when his contract is up next summer.
They will try and tempt him over to England with the promise of £10million-a-year, plus possibly those leather shorts if he's become really attached to them. But will he be tempted? Will he decide it's worth his while to cruise to every major tournament, stumble through the group stage then lose in the quarter-finals which is more or less exactly England's level, enduring pelters of the most stinging sort whatever he does along the way? Will he stay where he is in Germany, a perfectly understandable choice especially if they don't win the Champions League this year? Will he take one of the big club jobs that will surely be on offer at some point next summer? Would he even be a good international manager, his approach largely based on drilling a willing collection of acolytes over a long period of time to exactly his style of play, something that might not be possible when he only has players for about five days a year?
Maybe he'll take the Liverpool job (shut up, it could happen), but if he does he'll have to arm-wrestle his old foe Jürgen Klopp for it, apparently, as Dortmund's cap wearer of the year (2008-2015) is apparently ready to end his 'sabbatical' to whip po' Brendan Rodgers' job from under his nose. If he does the Mill guesses it will take around five weeks for everyone to grow bored of his grinning chops and zany comments and heavy metal music just decide he's wacky. And nobody likes wacky.
Perhaps Pep will rock up at Newcastle (shut up, it could happen), but again he's got competition on that score, as the Toon are supposedly keen to learn from their mistake of appointing a high-profile manager on a downswing who failed at a prominent job in England by replacing Steve McClaren with David Moyes. If only there was some sort of well-known quip by Albert Einstein that would be apposite in this situation.
Away from dugout musical chairs, there's word that Manchester United are still keen on Thomas Müller, having attempted to sign the German forward in the summer, but have been told exactly where to stick their keenness by the Bavarian behemoths. Neymar has also seemingly confirmed that United were keen on his scribble too, and according to Alexandre Pato, United also tried to sign him a couple of hours before the transfer deadline, but he "only found out about it afterwards." That fax machine playing up again, eh Ed?
Liverpool have only managed four goals in their six league games so far this season, but apparently they're so comfortable with their striking options that they're planning on loaning one of them out. Admittedly, Divock Origi has hardly been a key part of their setup thus far, so one imagines his temporary departure to Norwich or Stuttgart or Bordeaux won't cause their season to go downhill too much. It's their manager and the rest of their players that will do that.
Meanwhile, Watford have apparently turned down the chance to take a look atEmmanuel Adebayor, who was of course cut loose by Tottenham just after the transfer deadline. Watford aren't terribly keen on the perfectly reasonable basis that Adebayor won't actually be able to play until January, so they'll stick with what they've got for now.
Finally, apparently Manchester City are set to sign Brisbane Roar midfielder Luke Brattan, then immediately loan him out to some lucky punter. Nope, us neither, Kazinform refers to the Guardian.com.
