Rumour Mill: Veloso, Anelka, Defoe

Miguel Veloso, Nicolas Anelka and Jermain Defoe are the most prominent players we have been linked with.

Anelka's name might not be very popular among the Old Trafford faithful due to the fact he played for Arsenal, Liverpool and scored the winner against us as recently as Saturday.

Yet Fergie is not deterred by the fact that the Frenchman is not exactly a hero at Old Trafford, according to the reports he believes he could become one. The Scot revealed that he had bidded for Anelka before only to be turned down on every occasion. Papers reckon he will test Bolton's resolve in January.

But one thing is obvious: he wants to buy a striker who is playing for a team that's got white shirts and black (or dark blue) shorts. Another candidate would Tottenham's Jermain Defoe who is not exactly happy with being 4th striker at Spurs and would probably be only too happy to jump ship if United were prepared to pay the Ł10m price suggested by the press.

Why we would buy Spurs's 4th choice attacker for such a sum is beyond me but you never know, I did not understand why we would bu Kleberson and we did. Alas, perhaps we shouldn't have done.

And of course a rumours column is not the same without Miguel Veloso and Joao Moutinho: the Sporting pair are surely on their way to Old Trafford, despite several angry denials from the Sporting camp. Veloso's agent confirmed that United had made informal contact with the Lisbon club - well, that's not much. Anyway, both have a real good chance tonight to show that they are good enough for this team. They failed to prove it in September.