Chelsea make another £50 million January bid for a star player…or do they? The Story So Far – Jan 3rd

What games should I watch this weekend?

It’s the post Christmas January Third Round FA Cup/National Cup competition weekend, so pickings are what they are. You were spoiled with Christmas pudding over the last week or so, now time to slim down.

On Saturday n France, well, it’s the Coupe de France. I don’t even know if these games are available anywhere but I would instantly recommend Cannes vs Saint-Étienne at 8:15 AM EST because you could tell all your friends that Cannes has a football team and you watched them play (despite my poor stab at irreverence, Cannes actually has a somewhat interesting history).

In England we have the FA Cup, including a whole host of matches. The biggie as it were is a mini North London derby, Arsenal vs Spurs at 12:15 PM EST. But there are many others so have a look.

Finally in Spain La Liga resumes, and Malaga plays Atletico Madrid at 10:00 AM EST.

On Sunday, more Coupe de France, and more FA Cup—the bigger games in fact. Not really. Man United playSwansea City at 11:30 AM EST. In Spain, Barcelona play Elche at 10:00 AM which would normally mean goals but now also means the (probable?) return of Lionel Messi after nearly two months out with an injury. Finally,Serie A shows up with humdinger in Juventus vs Roma at 2:45 PM.

What’s the big story?

It’s 2014! Which means we’re in a World Cup year! And it also means it’s January. Not 72 hours have passed and we already have a major Premier League transfer story which features the key hallmarks—big star, an audacious £50 million bid, and it’s almost certainly a load of hogwash. Here’s the Telegraph trying to convince you otherwise:

Chelsea have had a £50 million bid for Napoli striker Gonzalo Higuaín rejected as Jose Mourinho tries to add some much-needed firepower to his attack.

Napoli have not given any encouragement to Chelsea in their efforts to land Higuaín and insist the Argentine, who played under Mourinho at Real Madrid, is not for sale.

Higuaín has scored nine goals in 16 league games since moving from Spain to Italy in the summer.

And here’s the Daily Star (of all papers) providing Mourinho’s denials: “”He’s a player I know that we cannot get. Napoli want to win the Scudetto, they want to win the Europa League. I don’t believe they’re interested in selling Higuain.” Which interestingly also does not sound like Mourinho. So someone’s fibbing. Only 28 plus days to go of having your mind bent.

Any other stories?

The Football Association has gone the comic relief route and promptly reserved a space in a busy football news cycle by appointing a person who described homosexuality as “detestable” to a panel called the Inclusion Advisory Board.

Paris Saint-Germain could be keen on nabbing Juan Mata from Chelsea to the tune of £35 million. Apparently a tendency to switch off in defense doesn’t bother Laurent Blanc.

Daniele De Rossi’s quotes taken out of context and posted up as a news story for the CLIX. So click away, clickers.

Sepp Blatter wants a time penalty for diving, which…is probably a bad idea. But it’s also Blatter self-aggrandizing in Blatterian fashion.

And Arsenal may throw in for Dimitar Berbatov.

Any fun stuff?

Galatasaray make a video ahead of their CL tie against Chelsea:

Any good reads?

Daniel Altman writes on the misunderstood nature of luck in football analytics:

Of course, own goals and penalties are just two possible sources of luck. Injuries, weather, mascots mocking strikers with short tempers… these and many more might contribute as well. Indeed, to a given team, anything beyond its control that might affect the outcome of a game could look like luck. But to analysts, the majority of these factors are simply things we don’t measure. They may look random, but they are just variables omitted from our models.