After weeks of dilly-dallying, Chelsea have made an official bid for Robinho. The bid amount is rumoured to be around £20m. As said earlier, we should not pay more than £20m for Robinho. In fact what we offered is the right price for Robinho and we should clinch the deal at this price. I’m 100% sure that Robinho will be a Chelsea player in a matter of days. The player and his agent are very clear. Chelsea wants him. Real Madrid do not really need him. His move is now inevitable.

Robinho’s situation with Real Madrid is something like what Joe Cole must be experiencing in the last few weeks. Real Madrid keeps strengthening their midfield which would mean they won’t mind weakened wings. As in, they may not need a player of Robinho’s quality as a winger, since they may not be using him as often as he wants to be used. All right, he will have a role to play until Sneijder is back, but once he returns, the formation at Real Madrid would change which might not have a place for Robinho.

Robinho is very unhappy that Madrid tried to involve him in the part exchange for Ronaldo. That’s quite insulting for a player of Robinho’s stature. Normally, these part exchanges will involves players who are set to transfer. You don’t just like that include a first team player, who even starts for Brazil, in a part exchange. That was all because of the desperation from Madrid’s side to ‘somehow’ sign Ronaldo. It got so stinky at times, it was quite clear that they did not need Ronaldo for footballing reasons. They just wanted to have the best players in their team, whether they need them or not.

I can’t believe Branislav Ivanovic can be a transfer topic now. To put it in perspective, I have not seen him action even once and I have my doubts if I’d be able to recognise him in the team photo of the Serbian national team. Juve and Milan seem to be interested. I just won’t let him leave. What’s the whole bloody point? He is said to be a very versatile defender who can play anywhere in defence. If the Italian clubs are after him, he must be rather good. Also Ivanovic seems to find the net every now and then, which is a very useful attribute. In terms of goal scoring, he has been more successful with Lokomotiv than Alex Hleb was with Arsenal. Then why lose him? In the squad we need to have 8 defenders, while we have 9 at the moment – Terry, Carvalho, Alex, Cole, Bridge, Belletti, Bosingwa, Ferreira and Ivanovic. One needs to go. I would let Ferreira leave whose graph has been going down.

Elsewhere, Bayern Munich’s General Manager Uli Hoeness is the lastest to spit venom on Roman Abramovich. Uli Hoeness showed his utter disrespect and was stupid enough to call Roman a ‘mafia’. He was saying that Roman is part of the petroleum mafia that controls the petrol prices around the world. Quite silly. Roman is no longer in the oil business. Even otherwise, this was one of the most stupid comment I have ever seen from a man of that kind of designation. I’ll update you when Roman thumps a multi-million libel case on Hoeness and leaves him with no money to tank up his car.

And, a couple of Chelsea managers have been on the news of late. It’s impossible to ignore that piece of news. Ranieri was making some tongue-in-cheek references to Jose here and there but he chose the wrong person to do that. Jose responded quite strongly to shut Ranieri and end the war of words. As the Italian press put it, a nudge from Ranieri got a punch from Mourinho. That Mourinho’s statement of Ranieri being ’70 years old and unsuccessful’ has not gone very well with the Italian press there. May be because I’m a fan of Jose, I don’t find anything wrong in what he said. He just shut Ranieri out of sight and that’s what he had to do. Ranieri was trying to do what Wenger was doing to Jose when he was in England. Making some small disturbances without really challenging for a fight. Mourinho wasted no time and landed a knockout punch. Jose being Jose, anything he says will find the headlines. Press always tries to get some interesting quotes from him and he does not disappoint them. This time, the rift between Ranieri and Jose, I think, had a Chelsea touch. Knowing that Lampard was not moving to Inter, Ranieri said that Roman would have sanctioned the Lampard move if Ranieri showed the desire. That started off everything and now let’s see who wins it on the pitch!

We’re just 10 days away from premier league action but it looks so far away. At least there is some football this weekend as Portsmouth take on Man Utd in the Community Shield. It helps us that Portsmouth have to play Man Utd for a trophy on the weekend before they play us. Oh yes, Olympics starts today. Now, it’s clear that Messi is bigger than Barcelona. The Catalan club did not want to rub Messi on the wrong side, despite getting a ruling in their favour. Let’s see how our own Kalou fares in Olympics.

This could be the weekend that sees us sign Robinho. Then I’ll move him from Madrid to Chelsea in my copy of FIFA08 on XBOX360. Over there, I think I’d play 4-1-4-1 and 4-3-2-1. I might choose two out of Essien, Robinho and Joe Cole every match depending on the formation I’d play. Have you figured out which formation you’d play and where would you play him if Robinho arrives at Stamford Bridge?