I can almost see the thought process behind this latest one.
- Linvoy Primus nearly joined Norwich last season, but changed his mind when he was offered a better contract here instead.
- We're meant to be interested in Robert Green, a player who is keen on a Premiership return.
- Damien Francis is a decent talent, wants to be in the Premiership AND showed us what he can do by scoring against us at Fratton.
I don't know about you, but with all those factors the inevitable outcome is a "Linvoy + £4m swap deal for Green and Francis". I mean it just jumps off the page doesn't it! Or, er, not.
The Green deal is certainly being spun out but there seems to be cat and mouse going on from both sides; we said we were interested so his agent said it was going to cost us more than we had, and then suddenly we weren't interested and wanted Ian Walker instead. So then his agent announces that actually he would quite like a move to Portsmouth after all, as obviously the prospect for Mr Agent of not receiving a slice of the signing-on fee was just not worth contemplating.
Meanwhile, "The News" reckon we're just going to launch straight in with a £1.5m deal for Francis, rather than try and muck about with any swap deals. That would certainly fit in more with what Milan said last week about not wanting to lose squad players, of which Linvoy would firmly be one.
Oh, and "The News" also said that Francis was a target in case we didn't get... go on, guess who! Alexei Smertin.