United "prepared to do business" with Chelsea for Rooney

Manchester United will allow Wayne Rooney to leave for Chelsea provided they can make some signings of their own, according to the Daily Mirror.

The paper states that Manchester United will allow Wayne Rooney to transfer to Chelsea should an acceptable price be met, but only on the condition that United can replace him.

By 'replacements', it's unlikely they mean a direct positional stand-in - United already have Robin van Persie, Danny Welbeck, and Javier Hernandez. Moyes' comments about liking strikers 'who score tap-ins in the six yard box' hopefully means that he's prepared to give Chicharito the game time he deserves.

So, we might be looking at the fabled 'marquee signing.' Things have gone worryingly quiet on that front, although intriguingly Cesc Fabregas was left out of the Barcelona lineup tonight, with several reliable reports backing up a story that United would wait and see if the player had missed any games. Other than that slim possibility, it's hard to see where else United are going to have any hope, unless any signing is going to come completely out of the blue.

The report also states that Rooney would need a new contract were he to say - which is obvious - and that United would decide whether it would be worth giving him a wage rise. They'd be insane to offer him another contract on the same wages, so that seems highly unlikely. And finally, it's bad news for Shinji Kagawa fans as the report claims we want another play to play just behind the striker. You'd think just behind the player that plays just behind the striker is the more obvious position we need, but the club is moving in very mysterious ways lately....