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James Milner is being courted by Liverpool and Aston Villa according to www.football4u.eu

Newcastle United may be prepared to sell for the right price but Liverpool are offering a player plus cash deal. The player is a relatively unknown midfielder, Danny Guthrie, who spent last season on loan to Bolton Wanderers and is unlikely to be of interest to Keegan.

The offer of the player seems to indicated that Benitez is not receiving the full amount of cash that he needs to fund his desired transfers this summer. The long drawn-out Gareth Barry transfer is becoming an embarrassment to Liverpool who are being made to look like they haven’t got the cash to back their ambitions or that they are trying to be a bully in the transfer market.

Either way Benitez has lost his nice guy image and is becoming an irritation to other managers.

The competition to Benitez comes from Martin O’Neill, manager of Aston Villa the team for whom Milner played a full season under former Leeds United manager David O’Leary.

Whether the interest is genuine or an attempt to drive up the price Liverpool has to pay to spite them for their pursuit of Barry is unclear.

However, the mere pursuit of Barry may be enough to put off Milner from joining Liverpool. Why swop a starting place at St James’ Park for the bench at Anfield and a manager whose rotation policy would drive a saint to drink?

The Sunday Mirror is reporting that Canadian outfit Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment is in talks with Ken Bates with a view to buying him out. MLSE owns, amongst others, the world-famous Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors, and Major League Soccer club Toronto FC.

The Mirror reported that unconfirmed preliminary talks between Bates and MLSE have already taken place.

The legal embargo on Ken Bates selling club after buying it out of administration ends in July this year.

MLSE president Richard Peddie and CFO Ian Clarke visited England last month and definitely met other clubs known to be on the market, particularly Southampton and Reading. But in terms of world-branding neither can hold a candle to Leeds United, who are already well-known in North America and have North American supporters’ clubs in place.

The bad news for Leeds United fans is that Toronto FC play in a red strip – the colour of the maple leaf in the Canadian flag. Toronto Maple Leafs, however, play in a blue strip. So will Leeds be rebranded the Leeds Maple Leafs (Leaves?) and play in fake Liverpool or Chelsea kits?

And you thought having Ken Bates as Chairman was bad?

Harry Kewell‘s Liverpool career is over. His final game will be recorded as the FA Cup defeat to Barnsley. An ignominious end to the Anfield career for which the Aussie Kewell sacrificed so much.

Rafa has had enough of Sicknote Kewell and he will be available on a free transfer – we said Kewell’s Liverpool career was over last October.

How different from his arrival at Anfield when he was valued at £15m but Kewell and his “agent” engineered an infamous deal where Liverpool FC just paid £5m of which Leeds received just £3m.

He refused a move to Old Trafford because “he was a Liverpool fan” – coincidentally, Manchester United would have met the £15m valuation that Leeds wanted but the signing-on fee that Kewell received would have been dramatically less.  Kewell unsuccessfully sued Gary Lineker over comments Gary made about the propriety of the deal.

Kewell was one of the young stars of the O’Leary team that promised much but was broken up after the consequences of Peter Ridsdale‘s financial ineptitude became clear.

The way Leeds lost out on the value of Kewell at a time when the club was desperate made him a hate figure amongst many Leeds fans and there will be a few wry smiles at the news that the “bargain” Hairy Cruel actually cost the Scousers nearly £150,000 a game – and that generously includes the 30 games where he was named as a sub. In the 2006-07 season he played just three games – all in May and still managed to be sub in the European Cup Final defeat. But by the start of next season he was injured again and didn’t play until October!

He scored a pitiful 16 goals for Liverpool FC at a value of £1.3m per goal!

During his tenure as Liverpool’s number 7 he has played barely half the number of games that he played for Leeds United over a similar period. So few in fact, that he started in European games, in the white shirt of Leeds, in nearly twice as many games as he did in the red of Liverpool, despite Liverpool being in Europe every season. 

So there will be no tears shed in Leeds for the departure of one odious Australian from these shores to the sunnier and more lucrative environs of Juventus – or more accurately their physio’s bench!

But the Italians needn’t worry, if they get anywhere near a cup final Kewell will somehow manage to make a brief cameo appearance in the final itself before departing again, injured. 

If Kewell was a star at Aintree rather than Anfield they’d have shot him by now.