Wednesday's Football Rumours – Mauro Zarate to Liverpool?

On a day when double, triple and quadruple page spreads are given over to the world's "gr8est game", the humble Miller has to turn into a truffle pig, rooting about in the minuscule print that sends it boss-eyed to find anything of value.

Quick, over here, in a tiny remote corner of the Sun, is the luxury fungus we've been waiting for: Liverpool have been keeping one eye on Lazio's Mauro Zarate, the tricky Argentinian who was on loan at Birmingham City last year and are ready to swoop. You'd think the word "pounce" might get an occasional look-in but, no, it's always "swoop". Anyway, according to Tuttomercatoweb, they'll have to beat off Inter and Manchester City first. Oh, and forget all the gossip about Daniel Agger leaving the club for Juventus or Milan, he's off to Barcelona instead.

Liverpool's co-owner, Tom Hicks, is given a bit of a hosing in the Wall Street Journal, who report that creditors of his Hicks Sports Group "have declared the company in default". Forty financial institutions, who hold about £350m of debt in the company that owns the Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars, but not Liverpool, have taken the move.

As reported here more than once Kenwyne Jones is 'Arry Redknapp's principal summer target, seeing him as the ideal foil for Robbie Keane and Tiny Jermaine, and he plans to offer Darren Bent as a make weight in the deal if Sunderland stay up. Unfortunately for Aitch, Bent prefers Everton. Roman Pavlyuchenko is also on his bike, destination unknown, while David Bentley is on his way to Spain. And a quiet day at the Mill is never complete without an obligatory Stewart Downing-to-Spurs line buried somewhere in the dross, this time in the Mirror.

Martin O'Neill wants Standard Liege's Steven Defour. Standard say they will only let him go to a "big" club and Defour is busy trying to convince his employers that Villa fit that bill. O'Neill says he won't pay over the odds and the £15m fee quoted is a bit steep but after all this is the man who paid about £4m over the odds for Carlos Cuéllar and every single pound of the fee he paid for the England international Zat Knight was a quid too much so he'll probably just grin and sign the check.

In other news, as Sir Trevor McDonald says to preface the filler, Middlesbrough have taken a shine to Swansea's Trinidad & Tobago striker Jason Scotland and West Brom are getting ready to splurge £1m on Swindon's Simon Cox. Birmingham, meanwhile, want Pompey's reserve keeper Jamie Ashdown and Colin Kazim Richards will swap Istanbul for 'Ull.

Miller departs to apply Optrex.