EPL: Late-summer game of musical chairs quickens

SINGAPORE/ENGLAND - Wayne Rooney might start on Manchester United's side against Chelsea Monday evening, and for all we know be a Chelsea player by the end of the week.

The transfer window and the European club season are now so out of kilter that August is a month that becomes almost a write-off in terms of any real gauge to the season ahead, never mind to any loyalty the fans dream of.

The one thing I can say to any supporter out there is don't buy that shirt until the window shuts.

"Wayne has a good chance of starting against Chelsea," his new manager David Moyes said this weekend. "It's the same message."

Fine. United hold his contract and, despite Jose Mourinho's continuous hints that Chelsea will try to change that until the last hours of the window, the Scot is sticking to his "Wayne going nowhere" mantra.

Meanwhile, United have not signed any of their summer targets. That clock is ticking, and Moyes himself is accused of offering "a derisory" £28 million (S$55.3 million) to his old club to sign Leighton Baines and Marouane Fellaini.

"If the right players are available, then great," Moyes said on Friday. "If not, then we will encourage our young players."

What encouragement that must be. Moyes sounds no better than Mourinho when it comes to "encouraging" the emerging players they already have.

"We all lie," the Portuguese has said. He meant it in the context of the transfer market shopping.

But if I were "young" Victor Moses, for example, or even a more mature Juan Mata, I would take some of what the manager says with a pinch of salt.

While on tour in the United States a couple of weeks ago, Mourinho held Moses up as the example to follow. The first in, last out at every training session, on the score-sheet in consecutive games pre-season, surely Moses was playing for his place.

Then came last Thursday evening when Willian was seen moving across London for talks at Stamford Bridge.

The Brazilian was on the verge of joining Spurs. He had had a medical at Tottenham, agreed terms, and was put into a posh hotel while Spurs contacted the Home Office for discussions on a work permit.

Hey presto, Chelsea summoned his agent, upped the ante with more pay and a Champions League carrot, and the next time anyone saw Mourinho there was a smile the size of a Cheshire cat on Jose's face.

"I think he already made his decision," Mourinho said in answer to journalists' questions concerning Willian.

"I don't speak before time, because football can be crazy," he said, still smiling. "The best thing is to do the medical in secret. If a player is fine, you can sign him. If the player is not fine, you don't destroy his career by saying the player has problems."

So it is a done deal bar the medical? "We have to do the medical!" Mourinho said. He laughed, and he left the media conference.

All this was interpreted as Mourinho hijacking a player from his old pal and former employee, now the Tottenham coach Andres Villas-Boas.

I don't doubt that things would be that ruthless, but I wonder.

Is any hijacking Mourinho's doing, or does this come from up high?

Chelsea have been interested in Willian for two years. In that time, he moved from the Ukrainian club Shakhtar Donetsk to Russia's Anzhi Makhachkala, the team from Dagestan that the likes of Roberto Carlos, Samuel Eto'o and coach Guus Hiddink all joined.

The side in Russia's league were offering salaries that made Europe's wealth league feel puny.

But this summer, when the price of potash dived on the international markets, Anzhi slashed the budget from £115 million down to between £30 million and £45 million, and the exodus began.

The Dutchman Hiddink walked away. Cameroonian Eto'o is looking for a new club (and briefly hoped his former Inter boss Mourinho would take him). Willian was for sale at £30 million.

Liverpool were first in, but Willian was looking south of there. Tottenham, still haggling over the price they want from Real Madrid for Gareth Bale, thought they had Willian.

Chelsea played their hand. But who at Chelsea?

Roman Abramovich is an oligarch. Anzhi's owner Suleiman Kerimov is an oligarch. And when Kerimov's potash fortune nosedived, Roman could talk to Suleiman in language they both understand.

As one newspaper put it on Saturday, "it's not every day that the price of fertiliser (one use of potash) has a knock-on effect on the Premier League title race".

Nice line, and possibly even an indication of the underlying danger of global ownership of English Premier League clubs. When a team is a mere acquisition in the portfolio of the mega rich, what underpins the club's future?

Complicated? From Willian's perspective, it must look very simple.

He is an instinctive player whose skills on the field fall right into the category of the entertainment that Abramovich asked Mourinho to deliver before he fired the Portuguese in 2007.

But look now at the riches available to Chelsea on Mourinho's return. In midfield alone there are Eden Hazard, Oscar, Mata, the newly purchased Andre Schurrle, the previously loaned-out Kevin de Bruyne, and Moses.

Those are all attacking midfield players, not counting Frank Lampard or the defensive anchors Ramires, Michael Essien, and the new recruit Marco van Ginkel.

Mourinho insisted on Friday that talk of Mata going to United in part exchange for Rooney is speculation.

"He's a player we like," said the Chelsea manager, "a player we all want to keep."

He then expressed his preference for working with a squad of 22 players, not more.

The number (and the Uefa Financial Fair Play stipulation that kicks in this season) suggest that there will be some trimming by the closure of the window at midnight British time on Sept 2.

Moses could find himself loaned out to his former club Crystal Palace. Or, perhaps, to his former Wigan manager Roberto Martinez, who has taken over at Everton.

There is a huge match to be played at Old Trafford between title contenders United and Chelsea on Monday.

There is feverish debate on whose side Rooney really is on.

There is a World Cup coming in less than a year, and Moses is one of the dwindling number of English players still playing in the EPL.

Oh, and Gareth Bale should be gone by Monday (unless Real Madrid suddenly withdraw their world-record bid).

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