United looking to French prospect to solve defensive crisis — reports

We're going a bit further afield for today's transfer rumour. To Spain, in fact, and to a website about which tBB knows absolutely nothing. Fichajes.net: they could be the most reliable source in the history of transfer rumourmongering; they could be talking total nonsense. We don't know.

But we bring you this rumour — that Manchester United are chasing Athletic Bilbao's 20-year-old central defender Aymeric Laporte — for two reasons. The first is that it's interesting: this is a new(ish) name and makes a refreshing change from reading another story about United's failed bids to tempt Mats Vlaaray away from Borussia Saint Villa. Laporte, though young, is apparently rated highly by people who know about these things, and was heavily linked to Barcelona over the summer.

The second and more important reason we bring you this story is that the first line of Fichages' story translates, via Google, as follows:

The Manchester United still combing the market for quality and future power plants

While the last line is rendered thus:

They need to sign or yes in the winter because the performance is not being expected by members behind.

Marvellous.