Ready for the floor

Strange use of the word "dramatic" in The Mail:

Carlo Ancelotti has made a dramatic attempt to win the race to sign Carlos Tevez by telephoning him personally.

The new Chelsea manager called Tevez after obtaining the number from the striker's Argentina colleague Hernan Crespo and stressed he sees him as an integral part of his plans.

Crespo, who worked with Ancelotti when loaned by Chelsea to Milan four years ago, helped the Italian make contact with Tevez and Sportsmail understands they spoke on Sunday.

Strange use of the word "analyze" by Benitez:

Benítez's side lost only twice and finished with 86 points – which was four behind their rivals and their best Premier League return.

"If you analyse the number of points you see it's a record for the club in the Premier League," said Benítez.

"We are going forward, we are progressing. For the future this is good news and hopefully this is the beginning of something important.

"In terms of the consistency of the team we've been really good. The squad is better, the mentality is very good and the players are competing for their positions."

I think he means "look at", calling looking at the past Premier League tables and comparing points totals for one club analysing, seems a touch "dramatic". Of course, Rafa's comments give the papers chance to prematurely drool over the prospect of Liverpool winning the league - a sight seen every summer since the Premier League started. The worst is this in The Times, combining the drooling with telling us just how great Benitez is ... for not winning anything for 3 years...
Worse is this - Torres dreaming about us being interested in him:

The Premier League champions have been linked with a big-money move for the Liverpool hitman as they line up summer targets following Cristiano Ronaldo’s world record £80m switch to Real Madrid. ...
Torres signed a new contract at the end of last month and said: “I don’t know anything about United, just that it has been in the newspapers.

“Listen, my team is Liverpool and this is very clear to me.

I can't remember if I read this story in the papers, maybe I did and then instantly forgot it as the type of stupid paper speculation popular at this time of year.
We're interested in Brazilian Douglas Costa according to ... his agent:

Manchester United are preparing a bid for Brazilian sensation Douglas Costa, according to his agent.

United have reportedly been tracking the 18-year-old Gremio player for the last two years, but are now ready to make a firm offer.

"They (Manchester United) have identified four or five possible replacements for Cristiano Ronaldo in the world, and Douglas is one of them," agent Cesar Bottega told Radio Gaucha.

"We have been contacted by several clubs some time ago, including Manchester (United), but by South American ones as well."

And Brazilian Dodo:

Manchester United are reportedly on the verge of signing Brazilian centre-back Dodo.

The Manchester Evening News claims the 17-year-old Corinthians star has said he expects to join Sir Alex Ferguson's side this summer.

Bayern confirm that several clubs have approached them over Franck Ribery, including us, but

‘These are big names, but Franck has a contract with us and will be
staying in Munich.’

And that's it for Man Utd news. One more thing though, Noticed this headline in The Telegraph "Stuart Pearce is not ready to be England manager" - which is nice, because we have an England manager until at least summer 2010, so he doesn't have to be ready... the usually reliable Henry Winter has an offday...