This summer has seen some of the biggest moves in football taking place, although so far these moves have all been on paper. Because while the press try to excite us every day with stories about how the top clubs plan to spend their millions, in reality, it’s all moving along about as swiftly as the World Chess Championships.

Take Chelsea and Robinho for example, we’ve been linked to a move for the Real Madrid winger all summer and publicly declared an interest following a series of meetings with the Spanish club. He’s even rumoured to have agreed personal terms with us although the amount we might be prepared to pay seems to vary from paper to paper. Initially, the papers started the bidding at £25million, increasing to £31.5million, before finally settling on the ‘British transfer record’ of £35million which would apparently be acceptable to Real if they get a decent replacement.

This is where the tactical manoeuvring comes in, because seemingly at the heart of any big move this summer is Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo. No-one could have failed to notice Real’s public courtship of the Portuguese winger, wholeheartedly backed by FIFA’s Sepp Blatter. The player himself has vaguely hinted he’d be open to the move although has never actually stated he wants to leave United, and with four years remaining on his current deal, the champions have quite rightly stated he is not for sale. However, this standoff between Real and United doesn’t do us any favours because despite being prepared to offload Robinho when it suits them, at the present time Real are refusing to let him go.

Real have even tried to use Robinho as part of a swap deal for Ronaldo but with the unreceptive outcome not favouring the Brazilian, his agent, Wagner Ribeiro expressed his displeasure by informing the Spanish Champions that his client wanted to leave.

Just days ago we heard how Robinho was so “desperate” to get away from real Madrid now, he was planning to publicly criticise the Spanish club should they carry out their threat to block his move to Stamford Bridge.  Yet Real coach, Bernd Schuster, is adamant he wants to keep Robinho, stating “I don’t see Robinho out of this team because it doesn’t make any sense. It’s normal that being in Brazil stories reach him from 10,000km away, but it’s rubbish. He has to be with us. He’s a player in our project. We’ve shown him his goals from last year and we all realised that he is one of the most important players in this squad and we need him for the next few years.”

Strange coincidence that Robinho’s been withdrawn from Brazil’s Olympic squad through injury while all this is going on, or maybe I’m just reading too much into it? I wouldn’t be the only one though, because the Brazilians are also said to believe the 24 year old is deliberately being withheld in case it jeopardises his move to Chelsea, and sources in the Real camp suggest he isn’t happy with the club. However, the source of his anger isn’t so much about missing the Olympics, as the thought of missing out on a deal at Chelsea which would see his current £1.7million a year earnings at Real rise to £6million a year at Stamford Bridge. On this subject though, Schuster says “The only problem is when a player can’t train with a group as he should, and more so in the case of Robinho, who needs to show his joy on the pitch and to be happy with his team-mates. He’s recovering from his injury and that is cheering him up. I’m very calm. The day he starts training with the team again he’ll soon pick up. It’s not a worry.”

Anyway, with the signing of Cristiano Ronaldo looking increasingly unlikely as the summer wears on, Real are under pressure to come up with someone else to appease the supporters and here’s another manoeuvre for us. Because while rumours of us offering ridiculous sums of money for Kaka have also been high on the agenda this summer, Real have also been doing a bit of sniffing around AC Milan expressing an interest – or so we’re told. But with Milan making it abundantly clear this is another young man not up for auction this summer that looks like another big money move dead in the water.

So what have we got left? Well, Real are now rumoured to be ready to push on with a £30million bid for David Villa, although Valencia – as hard up as they are – don’t fancy the idea of him playing for a rival club. And this is the most amusing part of the merry-go-round, because here’s where even Spurs come into the equation. With them losing Robbie Keane to Liverpool and Dimitar Berbatov almost certainly on his way to Manchester United, the North London club could go up against Real in a battle for David Villa themselves.

Wait for it though, because even amid all this tactical dancing around each other, Real Madrid continue to suggest ‘the sale of Robinho is not in any way linked to their attempts to sign Cristiano Ronaldo.’

Meanwhile, Robinho and Chelsea continue to sit and wait.

Filed under: Rants