Not that the Mill ekes out its existence entirely through the careless whispers of others, but the last week has been spent praying fervently to the god of the mixed zone. That’s the oasis in the bowels of every international football stadium where loose-lipped stars, unencumbered by the grim-faced presence of a press offer from their club, spew out their deepest desires under the rather quaint impression that, because they’re miles from home, nobody back there will hear.

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Which means we’re more or less going hungry because the number of players casually telling a friendly local journalist of their gripes with manager A or profound admiration for club B has been thin to say the least. Toby Alderweireld has given a heart-rending interview confirming he wasn’t about to join Manchester United from Tottenham in the summer – we’ve all tried to give ourselves credit for excellent decisions after the fact, to be fair – and that’s about your lot.

So we shall take our tittle-tattle from quote-free but nonetheless unimpeachable sources. Barcelona would like to whisk Nacho Monreal to back to his homeland as a replacement for Everton’s Lucas Digne, who we’re not especially sure needed replacing, and if that’s not a goer the Catalan side would be perfectly happy with Filipe Luís from Atlético Madrid instead.

Real Madrid might not lose too much sleep about any of that. Instead they’ll busy themselves with snapping up a Barcelona target, the Ajax midfielder Frenkie de Jong, who apparently fancies the Bernabeu as his next destination. Spurs were sniffing around during the transfer window and may yet come back in for the 21-year-old, too, with Mauricio Pochettino a long-term admirer.

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That could mean more bad news for Barça, who would like to get hold of Manchester City’s Ilkay Gündoğan but are unlikely to see their advances encouraged by club or player. City have problems of their own with one of their targets, Charlton youngster Jeremy Sarmiento, set to join Benfica in a cut-price deal – continuing the trend of budding English players looking abroad in order to get a runout.

Will all this activity, such as it is, perk Manchester United into January action? They’re apparently keen on a striker and a centre-back, both from Internazionale. Mauro Icardi and Milan Skriniar could be rolling along to join José’s happy family, should the manager get his way this time.

Meanwhile Darren Bent, presently of “unattached”, has let slip that he would “100%” be interested in a move to Rangers. So would the Mill if – just imagine! – all we did during the day was loaf around in our string vest. Bent and Steven Gerrard were England team-mates but, unless we’ve time-travelled back to 2011, this come-and-get-me plea definitely did not emanate from a mixed zone.