Well after a few relaxy days over Christmas, the Toronto FC rumour machine spluttered back into life with reports that Peralta was coming to Toronto. Sadly not Mexican and Santos Laguna striker Oribe, but instead the much lower profile and oddly un-latino sounding Arnold.

Tweets appeared (as far as I know from mlsrumors first so the obligatory h/t to them I suppose) this afternoon based on reports from Honduran website diez.hn that suggest that a deal is already agreed to and now just needs to be officially signed, which will happen when Peralta and representatives from his club side CD Vida come up to sign them in January.

If the report is true then this will be a permanent deal not a loan, and another interesting tidbit for those who like to keep a mental track of these sort of things, this has apparently been something that's been at the negotiation stage for about 6 months now. That would suggest that Peralta can be filed away as a Cochrane/Mariner project, rather than a Kevin Payne inspired signing. That is of course unless they're referring to negotiations with MLS rather than specifically TFC, and this report from back in April linking him to DC United would suggest that that may be the case, and that he's someone that Payne has had his eye on for a while.

Is he any good? Well I'll admit that I know pretty much next to nothing about him, other than the easily found out details, such as the fact he was part of the Honduras squad that qualified for the Olympics, and also made the trip out to London. He played in all the games for Honduras, except when not suspended, including when they beat Spain and the quarter final defeat to Brazil.

He also broke through to the full Honduras squad in 2012 playing in 4 games in World Cup Qualifying, including that 8-1 game against Canada. I don't remember any specific contribution from him at all, and stats really don't paint much of a picture, though they do inform that he seems to be a bit of a yellow card machine, so it should be interesting to see how he adapts to MLS referees. This article from La Tribuna says he's a midfielder, though was played as a right back in the national team, and had already made his way to being the captain of his club team, which seems like a positive sign, and he's only 23, another good thing.

Obviously even if and when he signs terms won't be released until the players union puts it's numbers out, so it's difficult to tell how good of a deal this will be. Also, given what happened with our exotic foreign signings in the last off season we shouldn't get too excited until we actually see him play. It's all too easy to see the positives in the off season, but I'll give this a cautious thumbs up given what he's achieved at a still relatively young age. If he can make the transition to MLS successfully, this could be a very good signing.

Another rumour that came out today, this one very much a rumour, nothing but a tweet with no links to back it up from what I can see, is Colorado Rapids midfielder Jeff Larentowicz coming to Toronto. I think that would be a good signing if it happened, an experienced reliable MLS midfielder, without the future promise of Peralta, but with much more of a guarantee given how long he's been in the league already.