Don’t leave us Damien! Photograph: Lefteris Pitarakis/AP
Wah! The market is in turmoil, readers! There’s panic on the streets, red-braced, mobile phone-clutching men are vying for space on the window ledges. Fear, hysteria, slumps, slides and disaster loom. The market has crashed. We’re all doomed.
And how do we know the transfer market is in such trouble? [...]

The British transfer market, today.
Footballers and music, eh? It’s a match made in heaven. Hoddle, Waddle and Diamond Nights, Fog On The Tyne, Julio Iglesias and Real Madrid. Oh, and R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, R+B, [...]

This man would love it when a plan comes together. Photograph: Scott Heppell/AP
When the Mill rode into Transfer Tittle-Tattle town today, it was deadly quiet.
Too quiet. A one-horse town where even the horse had left.
Nothing but wafting tumbleweed, a hot and hazy shimmer and a scabby dog with a limp cowering to the sinister, [...]

Introducing Liverpool’s new manager. Photograph: Carl Recine/Action Images
You know it’s a slow news day on guardian.co.uk’s official story generator, Sky Sports News, when Alex Quinn’s Tip Of The Day is third on the running order, sandwiched between an exclusive preview of this weekend’s fanzone and a Mike Wedderburn joke about the Francis Bacon retrospective at [...]

Reports suggest that Lance Armstrong could return to the Tour de France next year. Photograph: Peter de Jong/ AP
Rumours that the American cyclist Lance Armstrong will come out of retirement next year to compete in five road races, enabling him to compete for an eighth Tour de France title, have sparked confusion.
Armstrong, 37 next week, [...]

The Ajax striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. Photograph: Bas Czerwinski/AP
The Mill is nothing if not patriotic, and after several dark decades wondering if it was in fact nothing, it was grateful to the Olympics to reawaken sentiments of graceless gloating in the face of victory and sanctimonious whinging in the face of def … brave moral victory.
Like [...]

Roque Santa Cruz: it’s a tough life. Photograph: P Noble/Reuters
Who would want to be Roque Santa Cruz? One minute you’re being whisked away from the Allianz Arena by one of Blighty’s most esteemed managers and shunted into the Blackburn Rovers attack, where you reap maximum benefit from the wing wizardry of Morten Gamst Pedersen and [...]

Des O’Connor waves goodbye to Countdown. Photograph: Dave Hogan/Getty Images
The Mill is more than happy to take any rumours going on a day when Salomon Kalou’s assertion that Chelsea will score some goals next season demands a double page spread in two of the tabloids. So, it is with joy in our heart that we [...]

No one’s told Roman he’s off to Spurs. Photograph: Misha Japaridze/AP
Big news: the drugs DO work.
She might be higher than her hair most of the time and she might not be much of a DJ, but Amy Winehouse has still, somehow, managed to complete an entire Euro 2008 sticker album for her imprisoned hubby Blake.
Which [...]

“Have you seen Mark Hughes’ hair?”. Photograph: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images)
Je m’appelle Le Mill, j’ai onze ans, j’habite a La Rochelle, j’ai deux soeurs et un chat, j’écoute les disques de Johnny Hallyday et j’aime le tennis, le foot et, bien sur, les rumours.
That, there, is some French for you. Pourquoi? Well, mes amis, it’s Bastille [...]