Today’s fluff now knows the difference between a dentist and a sadist

They warned us. January 1st, they said. Just watch. Lift those work restrictions and you will see them flooding in. One hundred foot tidal waves of foreigners will come crashing down on your city; they will vaporise your village and eventually they will suffocate the long shadows on cricket grounds, the warm beer, the invincible green suburbs, the dog lovers and the pools fillers. Britain, the Empire, will be no more. Your Joe Soaps and your Jonny Everymen, like, say, an Old Etonian who just likes to chill out to a bit of Coldplay, “rubbish” TV and whose father built up legal offshore funds in Panama and Geneva and left millions to his family in his will, would barely have two brass pennies to feed their families. No, folks, those men would be gone. Forced off to Foreign while Britain was burned and fiddled.

Now the Mill knows about as much about politics as it does about the Theatre of the Absurd but if the current transfer window is any barometer to go by, they might have just have been up to some leg pulling. For we are now on the 22nd day of the transfer window and hardly one job-taking, welfare-seeking, drug-selling foreign footballer has arrived on these shores. That, though, hasn’t stopped the fear of God coursing through the veins of some of our youth who are fleeing the country in anticipation of what it might become. First up: Wayne Rooney.

Yes, the Mill is sorry to be the bearer of such bad news so early in the morning but come summertime, go Rooney. From then on, if you want to see a Liverpudlian with a lack of discipline on the pitch and a penchant for Hollywood passes that are the football equivalent of Daniel Cleaver, they look good but are often the wrong choice, then you are going to have to hand some money over at the Anfield turnstiles. However, if you prefer to peep Rooney’s version of all that jazz, then you are going to have hop on a flight to Madrid for that is exactly where the striker is heading. No, really. Real Madrid have looked at their squad, examined their shortcomings and decided that Rooney is their alternative rock band from London who first hit it big with the song Nancy Boy. (And, of course, Wayne is just dying to spend 90 minutes each week shading himself in his shadow.) If Madrid somehow fail to prize him away, they will then give Sergio Agüero and/or Radamel Falcao and/or Luis Suárez a buzz and see if are interested in joining instead.

Speaking of Manchester United, you thought that Juan Mata was going to Old Trafford, didn’t you? You thought that the Ts had been crossed, the Is had been dotted and the jerseys with the name and number and golden badges on the arms had been carefully printed and were ready to be rocked from Ramsbottom to Rezvanshahr. Well, set your faces to shocked as the Mill tells you that Mata is actually doing one to Atlético Madrid instead. After a tough time warming his tush on the Chelsea bench and being richly rewarded for doing so, Mata needs a little loving and Atlético are ready to be there for him. In fact, so desperate are Atlético to get their hands on Mata that they are prepared to offer David Moyes first dibs on Diego Costa and Filipe Luís if he calls off his pursuit of the Chelsea midfielder.

Elsewhere, Arsenal are ready to lock horn’s with Zenith St Petersburg and Valencia as they prepare to do battle for the honour of signing the Benfica forward, Rodrigo. Reports are reporting that the Russians have already had a £25m deal welcomed with open arms by the Benficans but the Spaniard is, for some reason or other, reluctant to up sticks and move that far north. He, however, would prefer a return to the Premier League – he once balled for Bolton – but Arsenal are only prepared to cough up enough for a loan deal and Benfica ain’t so open armed about that. Arsenal are also in for Sébastien Corchia of Sochaux who has hinted he wants to move to a bigger club by standing on the top of a tall mountain with a Rapmaster 2000 and telling all who will listen about it.

Finally, after hearing the bad news about Lucas Leiva yesterday, Brendan Rodgers took himself on a soul-searching walk around the town set to Dust in the Wind and came up with a Nigel De Jong shaped solution to cover the gaping hole in front of his defence. Wait, another foreigner? The flood has started.

• Transfer window
• Manchester United
• Arsenal
• Real Madrid
• Atlético Madrid
• Wayne Rooney

Ian McCourt

theguardian.com