RENTBOYS ALL SET TO MOVE IN FOR RIO

No one else except Henry Winter in the Daily Telegraph had this, and he's believed to have a few good contacts down the Bridge:

Jose Mourinho admitted yesterday that Chelsea are chasing a new, high-class centre half to replace Marcel Desailly, who has called time on his six-year spell at Stamford Bridge.

This means the club will consider the merits of Rio Ferdinand, Sol Campbell, Alessandro Nesta and Ricardo Carvalho. Drawing up such a wish list is easily done; actually enticing one of these classy international stoppers to west London will be far trickier.

Ferdinand's attraction to Chelsea is obvious: good in possession, he has improved markedly as a defender under David O'Leary at Leeds United and now Sir Alex Ferguson at Manchester United.

Now 25, the former West Ham United player has London roots and is close to many of the English players at Chelsea such as Frank Lampard, Joe Cole and John Terry. He also has an agent, Pini Zahavi, who works closely with Chelsea.

The latest word from Deep Throat is that Rio is definitely out in January if he gives SAF any further cause to question his application upon his return. Other than that you can probably assume any Rooney-in deal will occur around the same time as a Rio-out, given the board's eternal habit of balancing the books.