The Rumour Mill has long been a fan of the beautiful and bewitching city of Naples and could recommend far worse places for an unloved and out-of-sorts Liverpool striker to head if he is tired of being scapegoated by an underperforming manager and bullied by various media outlets in the UK. So it was with interest this morning that we discovered Napoli are “ready to open talks”, with the club to sign Mario Balotelli, and could offer the Merseyside club £10m to bring the misfiring Italian striker back to Italy in January. Having paid £16m for Balotelli during the summer, Liverpool could probably afford to take the hit, although his absence may force Rodgers to choose one of his many other underperforming players to publicly blame for the fact that things aren’t going quite so swimmingly for him at the moment.

With his easy charm, winning smile, dark eyes, chiselled jaw-line and generally brooding movie-star looks, you’d think Mats Hummels is exactly the kind of footballer any father would be happy for his daughter to marry. He’s certainly the kind of footballer the Rumour Mill would buy if our Euromillions ship came in and we were blessed with the financial wherewithal to purchase one of our own.

Whether we tasked him with doing the weekly big shop, joining us for casual kickabouts in the park or merely scouring various media outlets for spurious speculation concerning his own future and that of his equally high-profile peers, we imagine the amiable and obliging Borussia Dortmund centre-half would go about his work with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of fuss.

All of which idle hypothesising makes us wonder why Manchester United have apparently cooled their interest in bringing Hummels to Old Trafford and lasered in on Argentinian defender Ezequiel Garay instead. A long-time target of Manchester United, Garay rejected their advances to join Zenit St Petersburg from Benfica during the summer for £12m. That, however, was before Louis van Gaal had taken over and the Dutchman is apparently anxious to make Garay his next big-money signing, despite him having four and a half years left to run on his contract, in a state of affairs that will motivate Arsenal to move for Hummels. With his Dortmund side struggling in the Bundesliga following six defeats already this season, the 25-year-old may decide to swap one dodgy defence for another by moving to the Emirates.

The Sun reports that Southampton manager Ronald Koeman is lining up a £10m bid for Tottenham striker Harry Kane, with the Dutch manager having apparently surveyed his current options up front and decided that what he really needs is somebody who isn’t quite as good as them. In other Spurs news, L’Equipe reports that Mauricio Pochettino has asked Daniel Levy to make free agent Lassana Diarra his latest acquisition and the Spurs chairman is in “advanced talks” to do exactly that. A former Arsenal defensive midfielder, Diarra could be an unpopular signing at White Hart Lane, unless of course he pitches up and starts playing well in which case nobody will give two hoots about the finer points of his curriculum vitae.

If you happened to be in Trabzonspor’s Hüseyin Avni Aker stadium for the Turkish club’s 2-0 win over Belgian side Lokeren last Thursday night and couldn’t quite place the familiar looking Welshman with grey temples sitting nearby, you might be interested to learn that it was probably Ryan Giggs … although we’re not ruling out the possibility that it could have been Rob Brydon or Tom Jones.

The Manchester United assistant manager was apparently dispatched to the Europa League match to scout 23-year-old Ghana striker Abdul Majeed Waris, who didn’t trouble the scoreboard operator but has played in England before … with Hartpury College in Gloucestershire, for whom he scored 36 in 21 games as a student.

Zakaria Bakkali is an 18-year-old Belgian winger who is refusing to commit to PSV Eindhoven by signing a new contract, which is good news for Chelsea, Arsenal, Manchester United and Liverpool, who are all reported to have been giving him the glad eye. Gerard Piqué continues to be linked with a move away from Barcelona and José Mourinho has £30m in readies that he’d gladly stump up to secure his services. And finally, having finally realised that an inability to get a striker’s berth in the current Sunderland team means he probably doesn’t have much of a future at the club, Danny Graham is on the verge of joining Championship side Brentford on loan.